Political Wire

Archives for August 2017

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Trump ‘Furious’ with Cohn After Public Rebuke

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President Trump was “furious” about Gary Cohn’s criticism of him in a Financial Times interview, a White House official tells the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, Cohn’s critics celebrated the interview, hoping that it would undercut his stature with the president. Said one Trump ally outside the White House, who has been strategizing to undermine Cohn: “Cohn looks like he blew himself up, so we’re not going to have to blow him up.”

Meanwhile, Cohn was overheard complaining loudly about Trump while dining with friends at a Long Island restaurant.

“Cohn explained to his companions — in a loud voice overheard by others — that he had to be careful not to give Trump too much lead time about some new ideas because the president could disclose the information prematurely and upend the planning process, according to a person familiar with the dinner.”

Gorka Forced Out of the White House

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“Sebastian Gorka, an outspoken adviser to President Trump and lightning rod for controversy, has been forced out of his position at the White House,” the New York Times reports.

“One of the officials said that the president’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had telegraphed his lack of interest in keeping Mr. Gorka during internal discussions over the last week.”

Politico: “The latest high-profile resignation from the populist faction of Trump’s ideologically divided West Wing erupted over a major policy disagreement about Afghanistan.”

Washington Post: “Although Trump enjoyed watching his cable television appearances, in which he performed like a pit bull and taunted many news anchors for peddling what he and the president deemed ‘fake news,’ Gorka had run afoul of many of his colleagues, including some on the National Security Council who considered him a fringe figure.”

Trump Pardons Joe Arpaio

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“President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff whose aggressive efforts to hunt down and detain undocumented immigrants made him a national symbol of the divisive politics of immigration and earned him a criminal contempt conviction,” the New York Times reports.

In a two-paragraph statement, the White House said that Mr. Arpaio gave “years of admirable service to our nation” and called him a “worthy candidate for a presidential pardon.”

Washington Post: “Trump’s pardon came late on a Friday night, at a time when much of the country is focused on a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on Texas. Hurricane Harvey is the most powerful such storm to hit the nation in 12 years.”

Politico: “Civil liberties and immigrant rights groups reacted with disgust after the White House released news of the pardon Friday night.”


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Mueller Seeks First Grand Jury Testimony

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Special counsel Robert Mueller “issued grand jury subpoenas in recent days seeking testimony from public relations executives who worked on an international campaign organized by Paul Manafort,” NBC News reports.

“This is the first public indication that Mueller’s investigation is beginning to compel witness testimony before the grand jury — a significant milestone in an inquiry that is examining the conduct of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, among others.”

“It is also further indication that Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, could be in serious legal jeopardy.”

Mueller Looking at Flynn Role In Pursuit of Clinton Emails

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Special counsel Robert Mueller “is examining what role, if any, former national security adviser Mike Flynn may have played in a private effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The effort to seek out hackers who were believed to have stolen Mrs. Clinton’s emails… was led by a longtime Republican activist, Peter W. Smith. In correspondence and conversations with his colleagues, Mr. Smith portrayed Mr. Flynn as an ally in those efforts and implied that other senior Trump campaign officials were coordinating with him… He also named Mr. Flynn’s consulting firm and his son in the correspondence and conversations.”

Bannon Insists He Won’t Turn on Trump

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Stephen Bannon spoke to The Economist about his post-White House agenda: “In the White House I had influence. At Breitbart, I had power.”

Among the particular opponents he has in his sights are congressional Republicans — “Mitch McConnell, I’m going to light him up” — and “the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street—they’re a bunch of globalists who have forgotten their fellow Americans.”

Yet Bannon insists he will never attack his former boss, President Trump: “We will never turn on him. But we are never going to let him take a decision that hurts him.”

GOP Lawmaker Echoes Trump ‘Both Sides’ Argument

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Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) was pressed by a constituent at a town hall event to denounce President Trump’s claim that the violence at a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville was owed to “both sides.” But instead of distancing himself from Trump, Mast chose to echo him, the Daily Beast reports.

Said Mast: “There were multiple people, from multiple sides that came out there with the intent of clashing with one another. That’s just the fact.”

The Economy Is Probably Boosting Trump’s Approval

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This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Economic indicators play a fairly significant role in most election forecasting models. Simply put: The better the economy, the better the incumbent party is likely to perform in the next election.

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Trump Abandons ‘I Alone Can Fix It’

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At the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump made some pretty big claims:

I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.

Jonathan Chait: “None of those claims have turned out to be true. First, helping the powerful beat up on the defenseless has turned out to be the overriding thematic goal of his agenda. Second (and mitigating the first), everybody knows the system better than Trump — at least everybody in politics. And he has proven so unable to fix it he is already shifting his message toward assigning the blame elsewhere.”

“Trump is encountering the classic populist dilemma. Populists define political problems as very simple, denying the existence of complex tradeoffs. They envision the political system as pitting a unified people (or, in certain herrenvolk varieties of populism, as a unified racial subset of the people) against a nefarious elite. The dilemma is that the promise of easy solutions can help win an election, but it does not translate into governing. Populists generally either radically depart from their platform, resort to authoritarianism to consolidate their power, or fail. Trump is heading for door no. 3.”

Trump Attacks Corker Again

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President Trump “escalated his attacks on congressional Republicans on Friday, targeting Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), a frequent ally who was also among the most vocal critics of the president’s remarks in response to the violence two weeks ago in Charlottesville,” the New York Times reports.

“The president’s early-morning tweet appeared to suggest that Mr. Corker was in political trouble in his home state.”

“It was not immediately clear what conversation Mr. Trump was referring to, or what provoked him to attack Mr. Corker more than a week after the senator said the president ‘has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.'”

For members: Trump Has Now Personally Attacked 20% of GOP Senators

Court Says Texas Map Must Be Redrawn

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Federal judges ruled that “parts of the Texas House map must be redrawn ahead of the 2018 elections because lawmakers intentionally discriminated against minorities in crafting several legislative districts,” the Texas Tribune reports.

“So far, state leaders have signaled they have no appetite to call lawmakers back to Austin over mapmaking. Instead, Texas is looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep its political boundaries intact.”

The Once and Future Liberal

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Just out: The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla.

“Although there have been Democrats in the White House, and some notable policy achievements, for nearly 40 years the vision that Ronald Reagan offered—small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism—has remained the country’s dominant political ideology. And the Democratic Party has offered no convincing competing vision in response.”

How Trump Shaped the 2016 Campaign Agenda

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This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

A fascinating new report from the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for the Internet and Society looks at how Donald Trump succeeded in shaping the agenda during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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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.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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