Donald Trump says that he’d “love” to have Sarah Palin join his administration should he be elected president, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “She really is somebody who knows what’s happening, and she’s a special person. Everybody loves her.”
Archives for July 28, 2015 at 9:35 pm EDT
Why Is There a Two-Month Gap in Clinton’s Emails?
Daily Beast: “Among the approximately 2,000 emails that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has released from her private account, there is a conspicuous two-month gap. There are no emails between Clinton and her State Department staff during May and June 2012, a period of escalating violence in Libya leading up to the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.”
“That two-month period also coincides with a senior Clinton aide obtaining a special exemption that allowed her to work both as a staff member to the secretary and in a private capacity for Clinton and her husband’s foundation. The Associated Press has sued to obtain emails from Clinton’s account about the aide, Huma Abedin.”
The Wilderness
Here’s a must-read: The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House by McKay Coppins.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“You guys should know by now that the Monmouth University poll was created just to aggravate me. There couldn’t be a less objective pollster about Chris Christie in America.”
— Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by the Washington Post, complaining about a national poll that showed him with just 4% support in the GOP presidential primary.
Mark Cuban Says Donald Trump is Best Thing for Politics
Billionaire Mark Cuban told Business Insider that Donald Trump is “probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long, long time.”
Said Cuban: “I don’t care what his actual positions are. I don’t care if he says the wrong thing. He says what’s on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years.”
Walker Says GOP Primary Could Drag on for Months
Gov. Scott Walker “suggested that Republican primary could drag on for months, driving up the importance of states that vote later in the spring — states like Pennsylvania, which doesn’t vote until the end of April,” Politico reports.
Said Walker: “We’re not just running an early-state campaign. We think with the quality of the field it’s very likely that even states like [Pennsylvania] later in April will play a role. It may go as far as — it could be close to the convention before we know who the ultimate nominee is.”
Inside Rand Paul’s Floundering Campaign
Sen. Rand Paul, “once seen as a top-tier contender, finds his presidential hopes fading fast as he grapples with deep fundraising and organizational problems that have left his campaign badly hobbled,” Politico reports.
“Interviews with more than a dozen sources close to the Kentucky senator, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of an underfunded and understaffed campaign beaten down by low morale.”
Inside Donald Trump’s Inner Circle
McKay Coppins: “Trump’s key lieutenants tend to fit the same consumer profile that his discount luxury brand targets: They are men with middle- and working-class roots; lacking in elite credentials; mesmerized by made-for-TV displays of lavish wealth. They are impressed with brashness and bored by subtlety. They are amused by dirty jokes and averse to irony. They are likely to buy a Trump-branded necktie sometime this year, and if they feel like splurging they’ll get the matching cufflinks, too.”
5 White House Hopefuls Have Pennsylvania Ties
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that five of the presidential candidates have ties to the Pittsburgh area: Rick Santorum, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Martin O’Malley and Carly Fiorina.
“President James Buchanan is the only Pennsylvanian to hold the office, but with five hopefuls among 21 announced or likely candidates tracing roots to the state, that could change.”
Trump Aide Apologizes for Rape Comment
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has taken a “no apologies” approach to inflammatory remarks and controversies, but one of his personal aides had some regrets, the New York Times reports.
“Michael Cohen, who is special counsel to Mr. Trump, said that it was a moment of ‘shock and anger’ that led him to suggest that rape could not occur between spouses. Mr. Cohen… was defending his boss after a Daily Beast report about the businessman’s relationship with his first wife, Ivana. The report described a previously reported episode between the two in 1989 that Mrs. Trump once described as rape.”
Obama Says He Could Win Again If He Ran
President Obama asserted that “he could win a third term if allowed by the Constitution, but said he was looking forward to life after the presidency, when he will be able to take a walk and spend more time with his family,” the New York Times reports.
Said Obama: “I actually think I’m a pretty good president. I think if I ran, I could win.”
Will Trump Be Ratings Gold for Fox News?
“Donald Trump’s celebrity — and intrigue as to how the other Republican candidates will deal with his presence — could deliver a ratings boost for the first GOP debate, set for Fox News on Aug. 6,” The Hill reports.
“The audience will not be as big as the first season finale of Trump’s NBC series The Apprentice, when 28 million viewers tuned in, but the interest around him, together with the rebukes he has drawn from other Republican contenders, could at least spike viewership beyond what would otherwise be expected.”
The Latest on Wonk Wire
Here’s what’s trending on Wonk Wire today:
Who Will Make the Debate Cut?
Only the top 10 GOP candidates in an average of the last five national polls will get a podium on the debate state on August 6. First Read crunched the numbers as they look today:
- Trump: 18%
- Bush 14%
- Walker 10.6%
- Rubio 6.2%
- Paul 6%
- Cruz 6%
- Huckabee 5.6%
- Carson 5.2%
- Christie 3%
- Perry 2.2%
Not making the cut:
- Kasich 2%
- Santorum 1.6%
- Jindal 1.4%
- Fiorina 0.8%
- Graham 0.2%
Jeb Bush Positions Himself as the Grown Up
Rick Klein: “This hectic week-plus before the first Republican debate may be remembered for Mike Huckabee’s Auschwitz memoires, Lindsey Graham’s new cell phone, and maybe even Donald Trump’s trip across the pond to catch some golf. It might also be remembered as the period in time that Jeb Bush found the campaign groove he’s long promised – the one where he shows, in his words, a willingness to ‘lose the primary to win the general.'”
“Bush gave a Spanish-language interview denouncing Trump, jabbed at a certain former candidate famous for ‘self-deportation,’ and embraced a centrist’s vision of bipartisanship, as the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin documents. More interestingly, perhaps, he chose to engage and respond to Huckabee’s comments on the Iran deal – a deal, of course, that he harshly opposes: ‘The use of that kind of language, it’s just wrong,’ Bush said. Attacking fellow Republicans isn’t by itself a path to a nomination, as Bush and his team know. But it’s a calculation that there’s room for a grown-up in the chaos that is the nomination fight right now.”
Quote of the Day
“Imagine a NASCAR driver mentally preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. That’s what prepping for this debate is like.”
— GOP strategist John Weaver, on Twitter.
Trump Holds Big Lead in New Hampshire
A new Monmouth poll in New Hampshire finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 24%, followed by Jeb Bush at 12%, John Kasich at 7%, Scott Walker at 7%, Marco Rubio at 6%, Ben Carson at 5% and Rand Paul at 5%.
Clinton Lays Out Climate Change Plan
“Setting ambitious goals for producing energy from the sun, wind and other renewable sources, Hillary Clinton seized on an issue Monday that increasingly resonates with Democratic voters and sets up a stark contrast with the Republican presidential field,” the New York Times reports.
“With many Republican candidates saying they do not believe that climate change is a threat or requires government intervention, Mrs. Clinton assailed their logic, saying, ‘The reality of climate change is unforgiving no matter what the deniers say.’ She set a goal to produce 33 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2027, up from 7 percent today — a higher goal than the 20 percent that President Obama has called for by 2030.”
Wonk Wire: A close examination of Clinton’s plan
