Political Wire

Archives for November 29, 2017 at 8:36 pm EST

Trump Veers Past Guardrails

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“President Trump this week disseminated on social media three inflammatory and unverified anti-Muslim videos, took glee in the firing of a news anchor for sexual harassment allegations despite facing more than a dozen of his own accusers and used a ceremony honoring Navajo war heroes to malign a senator with a derogatory nickname, ‘Pocahontas,'” the Washington Post reports.

“Again and again, Trump veered far past the guardrails of presidential behavior. But despite the now-routine condemnations, the president is acting emboldened, as if he were impervious to the uproar he causes.”

“If there are consequences for his actions, Trump does not seem to feel their burden personally.”

Kushner Met with Special Counsel About Flynn

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“Jared Kushner met earlier this month with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team as part of the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election,” CNN reports.

“Mueller’s team specifically asked Kushner about former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who is under investigation by the special counsel… Flynn was the dominant topic of the conversation.”

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Trump Says He’ll Be Fine No Matter Who Wins In Alabama

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President Trump “has told associates he feels good about the way he has navigated the Alabama Senate race that has riven the Republican Party and is confident he will come out fine no matter what happens in the contest,” the Washington Post reports.

“Trump has said privately that if Republican nominee Roy Moore wins, he would reject any move by Republican leadership to expel him from the Senate and would welcome his support on legislation… And if Moore loses, Trump will simply distance himself and remind people that he backed the current senator, Luther Strange, in the primary.”

Moore’s Course Said Women Shouldn’t Run for Office

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Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore (R) “co-authored a study course, published in 2011 and recently obtained by ThinkProgress, that instructs students that women should not be permitted to run for elected office.”

“If women do run for office, the course argues, people have a moral obligation not to vote for them. The course is also critical of the women’s suffrage movement, which in 1920 secured some American women the right to vote.”

Conway Is Now Trump’s Opioids Czar

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that pollster Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to President Trump, would oversee White House efforts to combat the opioid overdose epidemic, BuzzFeed News reports.

However: The White House has not yet released a strategy on how to approach the crisis, nor has a head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy been appointed.

Senate Votes to Advance GOP Tax Bill

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The U.S. Senate voted to proceed with debate on the Republican tax bill, 52 to 48, in a party line vote, the New York Times reports.

Axios: “Republican leadership wants to pass the bill by the end of the week. There will be up to 20 hours of debate and votes on a series of amendments prior to the final vote. The House has already passed a different tax bill and, should the Senate pass its bill, they will have to agree on a compromise package.”

For members: How the GOP Tax Bill Might Still Be Derailed

Rendering Reality Irrelevant

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Greg Sargent: “But such incredulity misses the deeper significance of this stuff. The brazenness of it is the whole point — his utter shamelessness itself is meant to achieve his goal. In any given case, Trump is not trying to persuade anyone of anything as much as he is trying to render reality irrelevant, and reduce the pursuit of agreement on it to just another part of the circus. He’s asserting a species of power — the power to evade constraints normally imposed by empirically verifiable facts, by expectations of consistency, and even by what reasoned inquiry deems merely credible. The more brazen or shameless, the more potent is the assertion of power.”

Ryan Nixes Fundraiser to Punish Congressman

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Speaker Paul Ryan “scratched plans for a fund-raiser on Wednesday that was to benefit the re-election campaign of Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), after Mr. Zeldin voted against the sweeping tax overhaul that cleared the House earlier this month,” the New York Times reports.

“Several people familiar with the planning for the fund-raiser said the cancellation was designed to punish Mr. Zeldin, who not only voted against the bill but was outspoken about one aspect: the elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which particularly impacts high-tax states like New York.”

Gutierrez Weighs Possible Presidential Bid

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who announced this week that he will not run for re-election, told Politico that he is not retiring and is thinking about running for president in 2020.

Said Gutierrez: “I will be reaching out to people across the country. I am going to take the steps to guarantee FEC regulations and rules about campaign financing, first and foremost, make sure I’m following the law…  I want to build something national.”

Gutiérrez said he and his wife plan to tour the country over the next six months.

‘Donald Trump Is a Madman’

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A New York Daily News editorial:

After his latest spasm of deranged tweets, only those completely under his spell can deny what growing numbers of Americans have long suspected: The President of the United States is profoundly unstable. He is mad. He is, by any honest layman’s definition, mentally unwell and viciously lashing out.

Some might say we are just suffering through the umpteenth canny, calculated presidential eruption designed to distract the nation from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, or perhaps from unpopular legislation working its way through Congress.

Quite possible. But Occam’s razor, and the sheer strangeness of Trump’s behavior, leads us to conclude that we are witnessing signs of mania.

Brooks Says Moore Accuser Is a Liar

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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said that a woman who accused Roy Moore (R) of sexually assaulting her when she was 16 is “clearly a liar,” CNN reports.

Said Brooks: “What you have is the mainstream leftwing socialist Democrat news media trying to distort the evidence to cause people to reach the conclusion that Roy Moore engaged in unlawful conduct with a minor and my analysis of the evidence is that is not the case.”

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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