After resigning from the U.S. Senate at the beginning of 2018 due to sexual-harassment allegations, Al Franken is working with a Hollywood firm to make paid public speeches, Bloomberg reports.
The agency sent an email this week pitching Franken to potential bookers and promoters, touting his “unique voice,” Emmy awards, best-selling books and career in the Senate.
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just completed three weeks of radiation treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York,” NPR reports.
“The radiation therapy, conducted on an outpatient basis, began Aug. 5, shortly after a localized cancerous tumor was discovered on Ginsburg’s pancreas. The treatment included the insertion of a stent in Ginsburg’s bile duct, according to a statement issued by the court.”
“Lawyers for Deutsche Bank and Capital One repeatedly refused Friday to tell an appellate court in New York whether the banks are in possession of President Trump’s tax returns, citing ‘contractual obligations’ not to disclose the information and drawing the ire of a panel of judges,” CNN reports.
“The three-judge panel was so frustrated by the lawyers’ refusal to answer that at one point one of the judges suggested the appellate court might seek an order for the information.”
“After several minutes of argument on the subject, the panel directed the lawyers to file letters under seal within 48 hours saying whether the banks have Trump’s tax returns. But while the banks’ lawyers indicated they would respond in writing, it wasn’t clear that they agreed to provide that information.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) presidential campaign is calling on the DNC to revise its list of debate qualifying polls in an effort to help the congresswoman qualify for the third Democratic debate, ABC News reports.
“The Gabbard team is citing what they describe as several irregularities in the selection and timing of the DNC sponsored polls. The campaign points out Gabbard has exceeded 2% support in 26 polls, but only two of them are on the DNC’s ‘certified’ list.”
Politico: “Fresh off Thursday evening conversations with White House staffers and a recent call with the president himself, the Connecticut Democrat says it is still possible that Trump and Senate Republicans will act in the wake of several recent mass shootings. While Murphy deems the chances of movement less than 50 percent and recognizes some may deem him naive, he said it’s his ‘obligation’ to keep pushing.”
Jonathan Chait: “President Trump is in the midst of a public meltdown that is humiliating, scary, and banana republic–y even by Trumpy standards. The reason is that Trump started a trade war and China refuses to back down, having announced this morning that it is imposing retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods.”
“Trump has picked fights with lots of countries. Usually they either placate him or try to give him a face-saving way of de-escalating (e.g., Mexico, which is never going to pay for the wall but doesn’t talk about the fact that it’s never going to pay for the wall anymore). Sometimes they get Trump to fold by stroking his ego (the North Koreans have carried out the most over-the-top version of this tactic).”
“China is playing it differently.”
In a fundraising email sent to supporters, Joe Biden’s campaign pointed out that if someone types “donate Joe Biden” into a Google search, the first link to appear is one that directs them to donate to Donald J. Trump for President, CBS News reports.
The email continues: “Trump’s campaign is paying money to run ads online so that their donation link is the first thing you see when you search ‘donate Joe Biden.’ But, listen, here’s the thing: We can’t stop them because we’re out of money to run online ads for the rest of the month.”
Playbook: “Sure, a few of the more centrist candidates — Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar — will sort of verbally subtweet her, but their criticisms of lefty policy ideas like ‘Medicare for All’ are aimed just as often at Bernie Sanders as they are at Warren.”
“This phenomenon has allowed Warren to effectively use Sanders as a human shield. Or maybe she’s more like a cyclist, drafting off Bernie’s leg work until it’s time to blow past him for the finish. Her patient approach, along with her message discipline and lack of errors, has allowed her to rise steadily in the polls. Is Biden going to wake up one day to find her right on his six?”
Anthony Scaramucci compared President Trump to the Rev. Jim Jones, the cult leader who led hundreds to their death Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978.
Said Scarmucci: “It’s like a hostage crisis inside the White House and the hostages have Stockholm Syndrome. Donald Trump as Rev. Jim Jones. When will it break?”
He added in a subsequent tweet: “We are now living in an American Nightmare scenario where we elected a MAD NIGHT KING. The last two weeks have been full blown TRUMPNOBYL and it will continue to get worse. Please call your public servants and ask them to act.”
Elizabeth Mika, writing the week after President Trump’s inauguration:
“It’s not only that he will never get better, but it is certain that he will get worse. There has never been a case of a malignant narcissist in power whose pathology improved, or even remained stable: They always deteriorate, and often rapidly, as they become drunk on (what they see as) now unlimited power and adulation.”
Andrew Sullivan: “‘Absurd,’ it turns out, is a trigger word for Trump, as it well should be. When the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, was asked to respond to the idea that Donald Trump wanted to ‘buy’ Greenland, she found the mot juste. The proposal was ‘absurd.’ Perhaps at one point at the beginning of the Cold War, some kind of strategic presence in Greenland would have been worth considering briefly. Now? Yes, absurd. The only thing more absurd is canceling a planned state visit to Denmark at the last moment in response to the prime minister pointing out the bleeding obvious, and adding the insult ‘nasty’ to yet another independent woman for good measure. But this too is predictable: ‘We know that a humiliated narcissist must release his narcissistic rage somehow, best on those who caused his psychic injury.’ Bad luck for Denmark.”
“President Donald Trump is absurd. His presidency is absurd. His party is absurd. We have known this ever since that absurd journey down an escalator, and the surrealism has only intensified since. Perhaps it takes a sane foreigner, not subject to years of almost hourly Trump abuse, to point out the obvious.”
“Like an annual holiday gathering where the main goal is to get through the day without a family explosion, one of France’s main objectives as host of this weekend’s Group of Seven summit is to minimize the chances that President Trump will blow it up,” the Washington Post reports.
“Subjects on which to tread lightly include some of the biggest problems the world’s major economies are facing — trade, the system of international rules that has ordered the democratic world for decades and climate change, according to U.S. and other G-7 officials.”
“Already, Trump has shaken up the schedule, calling at the last minute for a special meeting Sunday morning to discuss the global economy. Senior administration officials said he will contrast U.S. growth with Europe’s economic doldrums and press his pro-jobs and ‘fair’ trade messages.”
Greg Sargent: “Trump is set to blow up the G-7. In so doing, he’ll reveal the worst.”
A must-read: Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow.
“This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability, and silence victims of abuse. And it’s the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.”
President Trump issued an order to American companies on Twitter:
“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon.”
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that the trade war is a “complex, turbulent” situation and vowed the central bank will “act as appropriate to sustain the expansion,” suggesting another interest rate cut may be coming but not the large decline President Trump has demanded, the Washington Post reports.
Trump responded on Twitter: “As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can ‘speak’ without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly… My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”
Charlie Cook: “Last year, Democrats won the national congressional vote by 8.6 percentage points, with Democratic candidates on average running 6 points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance in their respective districts. Today, the RealClearPolitics average of national polls shows Democrats ahead on the generic congressional ballot by 8 points. It’s reasonable to conclude that the playing field remains tilted in favor of Democrats.”
“Based on the level of interest in the upcoming election, turnout is likely to be very high, perhaps the highest presidential-year turnout in modern history. In 2016, turnout was 60%, roughly comparable to the last few election cycles. But last year’s midterms had the highest turnout since 1914. When turnout is very high, the electorate is more likely to resemble the universe of all registered voters. Indeed, last year’s midterm polling was dead on; with the exception of the Florida governor race, general-election upsets in statewide races were hard to come by, and the national popular vote for the House was only six-tenths of a percentage point off of the RCP average of major national polls.”
“Of course, a lot can and will happen over the next 15 months, and things can certainly change. But at this point, this looks to be an uphill climb for the president’s reelection.”
Related for members: It’s really hard to see how Trump wins re-election.
Just out: Monopoly Socialism, the board game.
Rutger professor Nick Kapur offers a devastating critique, noting the player tokens include a typewriter, an old-timey phone, a pocket watch, a phonograph, and a CRT television set, presumably because “socialism” is so incredibly outdated?
“There are also tons of references to health food and veganism, despite the lack of any clear connection to socialism, apparently because what they share in common is that they are odious things that are fun to mock.”
“Sources close to President Trump tell Axios that the White House is in a China bind: A trade deal with China is ‘tough to improbable’ in this deteriorating environment, with escalating security tensions between Washington and Beijing.”
“The biggest tool Trump has to pump the economy and the markets is a trade deal with China. But if anything, senior administration officials have turned harder against China in recent weeks.”
Taegan 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.