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June 20, 2017

28 posts · Tuesday

Handel Wins Special Election In Georgia

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The New York Times projection points to a narrow win for Karen Handel over Jon Ossoff (D).

CNN also projects Handel will win.

David Wasserman: “Among the questions I can already hear Democrats asking tomorrow: Why didn’t Ossoff take the fight to Trump in his ads? And why didn’t he take a sledgehammer to the AHCA? Why did he run such a bland campaign? But I think a better explanation might be: After over $30 million in pro-Ossoff/anti-Handel ads, there is such a thing as Ossoff fatigue.”

For members: How to Read Tonight’s Special Election Results

Flynn Had CIA Briefings Despite Blackmail Concerns

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“Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail,” the New York Times reports.

“At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.”

“Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening.”

Trump Hits the Road for More Campaign-Style Rallies

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“Battered by his first five months in the White House, President Trump is in many ways returning to campaign mode — concentrating his official travel on swing states that he won, bringing old political hands back into his orbit and continuing to relive his 2016 victory over and over again,” the Washington Post reports.

“The latest example comes on Wednesday, when Trump’s campaign committee plans to stage an old-fashioned political rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where the president is likely to get the kind of public adulation that he isn’t experiencing much of the time back in Washington.”

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How to Read Tonight’s Special Election Results

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This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

The special election today in Georgia’s 6th congressional district matters a lot to both parties. That’s why more than $40 million — an insane amount — has been deployed in the race so far.

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Senate Plans July Debt Ceiling Vote

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Politico: “Senate Republicans are planning for a July vote to raise the debt ceiling, according to senators and aides. Though the Treasury Department has said that Congress can likely wait until September to avoid default, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants are increasingly disposed to clearing the Senate’s plate as much as possible before heading home for August recess. That would also likely mean decoupling the debt ceiling from a potential government shutdown fight in September.”

“It’s not clear what exactly such a bill would look like, but members of both parties are interested in a broad spending deal that would avoid the blunt budget cuts of sequestration. A clean debt ceiling increase may be a problem for a GOP majority filled with fiscal conservatives.”

Republicans Are Increasingly Governing In Secret

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Brian Stelter: “Inch by inch by inch, the Trump administration is rolling back press access, which means less information for the public. And lack of accessibility is only half the problem. Lack of accuracy in official statements is a big issue too.”

“The president’s anti-media defenders may support the administration’s approach, but it’s hard to justify the rollback in accountability. It’s not just the White House, either: the State Department and the Pentagon have all but stopped holding on-camera briefings, too.”

“This isn’t exclusive to the executive branch. There are heightened concerns about legislative branch secrecy as well.”

Flashback Quote of the Day

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“This is a very important issue. You know, we shouldn’t try to do it in the dark. And whatever final bill is produced should be available to the American public and to the members of the Senate, certainly, for enough time to come to grips with it… And we are going to insist — and the American people are going to insist — that it be done in a transparent, a fair and open way.”

— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by NBC News on October 2, 2009, nearly three months before passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Eric Holder Mulls Presidential Bid

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“More than two years after leaving the Obama administration, former Attorney General Eric Holder is reentering the political fray,” Yahoo News reports.

“His goal: to lead the legal resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda — and perhaps even run against the president in 2020.”

“Seized by a sense of urgency to oppose Trump and restore what he regards as America’s best self, Holder is mulling a White House bid of his own, according to three sources who have spoken to him and are familiar with his thinking.”

It’s ‘Health Care or Bust’ for Republicans

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First Read: “Republicans are preparing for a marathon of votes on their Obamacare repeal starting next week. There’s no written bill yet, and there isn’t even an agreement that has leadership comfortable they have 50 votes to pass a bill. But the new expectation on Capitol Hill is there will be an outline of a proposal as soon as Wednesday. Why? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell knows that if the Senate doesn’t deal with health care, there’s little chance of any other GOP priority ever seeing the light of day.”

“It’s an incredibly tough issue that’s been a bad political storyline for both Congress and the White House, and he’s essentially betting that when faced with voting yes or no on Obamacare repeal, he’ll have the votes he needs. And if those votes aren’t there — well — they’ll at least have moved on to other things. Keep in mind there’s pressure to lift the debt ceiling in July and then there will be a government funding crisis in September. (And they’re gone in August.)”

Dead Heat In Georgia

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The final WSB-TV poll in Georgia’s 6th congressional district finds Jon Ossoff (D) and Karen Handel (R) deadlocked at 49% each.

Key finding: “The poll is the first taken since last week’s ambush of Republican lawmakers at a baseball practice and the threatening letters sent to Handel and several of her neighbors. The poll showed a majority of voters who had yet to cast their ballots said the recent shootings had no effect on their decision. About one-third of election-day voters said the attack would make them ‘more likely’ to cast their ballots, and most of those were Republican.”

The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Handel leading by just .2%.

Mueller Adds Witness-Flipping Expertise

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“A veteran federal prosecutor recruited onto special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is known for a skill that may come in handy in the investigation of potential ties between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign team: persuading witnesses to turn on friends, colleagues and superiors,” Reuters reports.

“Andrew Weissmann, who headed the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal fraud section before joining Mueller’s team last month, is best known for two assignments — the investigation of now-defunct energy company Enron and organized crime cases in Brooklyn, New York — that depended heavily on gaining witness cooperation.”

Jonathan Swan: “Trumpworld has been worried about Weissmann since they first got wind that Mueller added him to his team. I started getting phone calls from Trump associates about two weeks ago suggesting I look into his background.”

Is North Carolina the Future of American Politics?

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Jason Zengerle: “Welcome to North Carolina circa 2017, where all the passions and pathologies of American politics writ large are played out writ small — and with even more intensity. Ever since 2010, when Republicans seized control of the General Assembly for the first time in a century, and especially since 2012, when they took the governor’s mansion, the state’s politics have been haywire.”

“In just a few years, North Carolina Republicans have not just run quickly through the conservative policy checklist; they’ve tried to permanently skew the balance of power in the state in their favor, passing some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country and drawing some of the most egregiously gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts in modern American politics (though their moves have repeatedly failed to pass muster with the courts).”

White House Considers Rotating Press Briefers

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Washington Post: “At one point, the White House considered deploying a rotating cast of briefers, in part to prevent the president, who has a short attention span, from growing bored or angry with his press secretary. And if Spicer ultimately steps away from the podium, it remains unclear whether the West Wing would fill the press secretary role with just one person.”

Playbook: “The White House has been whispering about staff shake ups for months. We’ll believe it when we see it.”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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