“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”
— Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), to CNN.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) privately admitted that he was going after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) because the House Ethics Committee was investigating Gaetz for sex trafficking, the Daily Beast reports.
While debating legislation that would introduce a 14-week abortion ban referendum if passed, Wisconsin state Rep. Joel Kitchens (R) said he knows that abortion is not health care because he was a veterinarian, the Heartland Signal reports.
Said Kitchens: “I did thousands of ultrasounds on animals, determining pregnancy and that sort of thing… I think I know mammalian fetal development better than probably anyone here. And in my mind, there’s absolutely no question that’s a life.”
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Donald Trump declined the offer to make him the “presumptive nominee” of the Republican party and said he preferred to “do it the old fashioned way, and finish the process off at the ballot box.”
“The longest-serving district judge on the federal bench in Washington, D.C., warned Thursday that false rhetoric about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — including the sorts of lies hurled by former President Donald Trump and some of his congressional allies — poses an ongoing danger to the nation,” Politico reports.
Said Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee: “In my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream.”
He added: “I have been shocked to watch some public figures try to rewrite history, claiming rioters behaved ‘in an orderly fashion’ like ordinary tourists, or martyrizing convicted January 6 defendants as ‘political prisoners’ or even, incredibly, ‘hostages.’ That is all preposterous. But the Court fears that such destructive, misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) “has a new slogan for how he wants to run Pennsylvania — and it’s not fit for kids’ ears,” the AP reports.
Said Shapiro: “We’ve got a GSD attitude in the Shapiro administration that means we focus on getting, you know, stuff done. There’s children here, so we’ll just say ‘stuff.’”
Former Rep. Liz Cheney urged Nikki Haley to stay in the Republican primary race through Super Tuesday, the New York Times reports.
Said Cheney: “We need to make sure that we’re challenging him and working to defeat him at every step of the way. And right now, Nikki Haley is in this fight, and I think she ought to stay in it.”
New York Times: “His shadow has always loomed large over the Republican-controlled House, which has opened congressional investigations to defend him, launched an impeachment inquiry into his chief rival and approved legislation to reinstate the hard-line immigration policies he imposed. But as Mr. Trump barrels toward the party’s 2024 nomination, his influence on the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill is expanding.”
Bloomberg: “Trump the candidate remains a freewheeling frontman, attacking other candidates in off-the-cuff rants and lashing out at judges and prosecutors in court.”
“Yet the machine built to return him to the White House has learned from past missteps and missed opportunities, and is seizing every advantage while pressing allies to fall in line. If 2016 was Trump’s breakout moment, and 2020 offered the advantages of incumbency, 2024 marks the rise of a professionalized Trump campaign.”
President Biden traveled to Wisconsin to promote a $1 billion infrastructure project, contrasting his performance with the chaotic “Infrastructure Week” plans of former President Donald Trump, the New York Times reports.
“Nikki Haley returned to the campaign trail in her home state and swiftly unfurled an arsenal of attacks against Donald Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“She accused him of throwing a ‘temper tantrum’ in his victory speech, attacked his acuity and reprised her challenge to debate him.”
She added: “Bring it Donald, show me what you got.”
New York Times: “How Mr. Trump swept the first two states — smoothing his path to the nomination at this early stage — is certainly a tale of cutthroat politics. But that’s only part of the story.”
“The former president and his allies had luck and a cunning strategy on their side. They put Mr. Trump’s unerring instincts for revving up the Republican base and belittling his opponents to effective use. He benefited from criminal indictments that rallied Republicans around him and a fractured opposition that spent millions of dollars savaging each other instead of him — a replay of the 2016 Republican primaries. Along the way, Mr. Trump consistently evaded ideological labels, along with misguided and mistimed efforts to diminish him.”
“During a meeting between President Joe Biden and congressional leaders focused on Ukraine aid and border security last week, a Democratic lawmaker raised the issue of how to ‘protect’ Republican Speaker Mike Johnson if conservative hardliners try to oust him from power,” NBC News reports.
Said Rep. Jim Himes (C-CT): “Johnson is in a precarious position and we should figure out how to protect the guy.”
“Each of them has sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, signed bills into law, appointed judges, bartered with foreign leaders and ordered the armed forces into combat. They both know what it is like to be the most powerful person on the planet,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet the general election matchup that seems likely after this week’s New Hampshire primary represents more than the first-in-a-century contest between two men who have both lived in the White House. It represents the clash of two presidents of profoundly different countries, the president of Blue America versus the president of Red America.”
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a private party meeting on Thursday that he still supports pursuing a border security deal linked to Ukraine funding,” Politico reports.
“Lawyers defending former president Donald Trump in the Georgia election interference case on Thursday accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) of making racially charged accusations against the defendants that could prejudice a future jury and asked a judge to disqualify her and dismiss the case,” the Washington Post reports.
John Ellis: “Ask a suburban woman in any major or secondary media market this question: which candidate do you feel best understands what your life is like? I would guess that at least two-thirds of them would say… Nikki Haley. That doesn’t mean they would vote for her for president, necessarily. It does mean that, politically speaking, she deserves respect.”
“Trump’s graceless and weirdly angry ‘victory speech’ in New Hampshire was incredibly stupid, politically speaking. He won. There was no need to use the occasion to demand that Haley drop out, to say that she would ‘be under investigation’ if she won — and to suggest there are skeletons in Haley’s closet that ‘she doesn’t want to talk about.'”
“Trump’s ‘victory speech’ will be long forgotten in a week or two. But it’s part of a pattern of behavior that has come to be part of his ‘brand.’ That’s fine in the GOP primary electorate universe. He has more than enough support across all the demographic sub-groups to win the nomination, quickly and decisively. It’s not fine in the general election universe. If 37% or 38% or 40% of suburban women think you’re a jerk and a bully, you’ll lose.”
Pew Research: “Americans’ views of the nation’s economy – while mostly stagnant for the past few years – are showing signs of improvement. Slightly more than a quarter (28%) rate economic conditions as excellent or good, a 9 percentage point increase from last April.”
“Virtually all the change since then has come among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Currently, 44% of Democrats have positive views of the economy – the highest share of Joe Biden’s presidency.”
However: “Biden’s own job rating remains highly negative: Just 33% of Americans approve of his job performance, unchanged from last month.”
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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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