Political Wire

Tariffs Don’t Cover Costs of Trump’s Trade War

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“President Trump on Monday portrayed America as being on the winning end of his trade war, saying tariffs are punishing China’s economy while generating billions of dollars for the United States, an economic victory that will allow him to continue his fight without domestic harm,” the New York Times reports.

“But government figures show that the revenue the United States has collected from tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods is not enough to cover the cost of the president’s bailout for farmers, let alone compensate the many other industries hurt by trade tensions. The longer Mr. Trump’s dispute with China drags on, the more difficult it could be for him to ignore that gap.”

‘You Cannot Unring These Bells’

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Conservative commentator George Will told the New York Times that President Trump is causing lasting damage to the country.

Said Will: “I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse … you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream.”

He added: “I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon’s surreptitious burglaries did.”

We Have a Racist President

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George Conway: “No, I thought, President Trump was boorish, dim-witted, inarticulate, incoherent, narcissistic and insensitive. He’s a pathetic bully but an equal-opportunity bully — in his uniquely crass and crude manner, he’ll attack anyone he thinks is critical of him. No matter how much I found him ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist. No matter how much I came to dislike him, I didn’t want to think that the president of the United States is a racial bigot.”

“But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president. Trump could have used vile slurs, including the vilest of them all, and the intent and effect would have been no less clear. Telling four non-white members of Congress — American citizens all, three natural-born — to ‘go back’ to the ‘countries’ they ‘originally came from’? That’s racist to the core. It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against — and there’s plenty to criticize them for — it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president.”

Pelosi Torpedoes White House Debt Limit Plan

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“Speaker Nancy Pelosi late Monday said the House of Representatives would not raise the debt ceiling unless it is part of a broader budget deal, putting extreme pressure on the White House and congressional leaders to cut a deal within days,” the Washington Post reports.

“Pelosi said the idea of raising the debt ceiling on its own and not in conjunction with a budget agreement was not ‘acceptable to our caucus’ and therefore did not stand a chance of passage in the House of Representatives.”

How Trump Aides Rushed to Repackage Trump’s Tweets

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Politico: “The evolution from the Sunday tweets to the Monday talking points offers a glimpse of what the Trump campaign will likely have to deal with as it heads into the heart of the 2020 election. While Trump’s reelection officials have long insisted that the best strategy is to always follow the president’s political instincts, the last few days have shown they will also have to regularly find ways to map Trump’s outbursts onto the campaign themes they think will drive him to victory.”

“Several advisers and allies expressed concern that the president was undoing months of campaign work to frame the upcoming election as a choice between an America-loving, pro-capitalist president, and a Democratic Party beholden to fringe socialists who hate America and despise capitalism. The comments also had the ancillary effect of uniting a fractious Democratic caucus that had spent the week engaged in intraparty squabbling between party leaders and the progressive members that Trump was going after.”

Trudeau Rips Trump Over Attacks on Lawmakers

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on condemned President Trump for telling a group of female minority lawmakers to go back to the “crime infested places” they came from, The Hill reports.

Said Trudeau: “I think Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments. That is not how we do things in Canada. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. The diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths and a source of tremendous resilience and pride for Canadians and we will to continue to defend that.”

Jury Finds Branstad Discriminated Against Gay Employee

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“A jury has awarded a gay former state official $1.5 million in damages, finding that he was discriminated against based on his sexual orientation,” the Des Moines Register reports.

“The eight-person jury decided Monday that the state of Iowa and former Gov. Terry Branstad (R) retaliated against former Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey and discriminated against Godfrey based on his sexual orientation.”

‘I’ll Pay for Their Tickets Out of This Country’

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Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA) defended President Trump’s racist tweets attacking four Democratic House lawmakers.

Said Abraham: “There’s no question that the members of Congress that President Trump called out have absolutely said anti-American and anti-Semitic things. I’ll pay for their tickets out of this country if they just tell me where they’d rather be.”

Quote of the Day

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“I refer to him as ‘the occupant.’ He simply occupies the space. He embodies zero of the qualities and the principles, the responsibility, the grace, the integrity, the compassion, of someone who would truly embody that office.”

— Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), quoted by the Boston Globe, on President Trump.

Harris Surges In New Hampshire

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A new St. Anselm College poll in New Hampshire finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race with 21%, followed by Kamala Harris at 18%, Elizabeth Warren at 17%, Pete Buttigieg at 12% and Bernie Sanders at 10%.

Beto O’Rourke, who registered at 6% in the April poll, received zero percent support in the new poll.

The poll’s margin of error is 5.2%, which means that the top three candidates — Biden, Harris and Warren – are virtually tied.

Are You OK With a Racist President, Republicans?

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The Raleigh News & Observer slammed Republicans for not criticizing President Trump’s racist tweets over the weekend:

“Go back where you came from” is among the worst of racist tropes. It divides us by ethnicity and skin color. It says that even if someone is a citizen or legal immigrant, they are not part of the rest of us. That runs contrary to who we should be as Americans, and if Donald Trump didn’t know it when he typed the words, he surely did later when people responded with appropriate outrage. But the same president who referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” and said African visitors would never “go back to their huts” once again doubled down on his racism.

It’s dangerous, destructive behavior, and at the least every Republican lawmaker in Congress should declare as much about their president’s outburst.

For members: The Politics Behind Trump’s Racism.

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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