“The developers behind a Trump Towers project near the Indian capital, Delhi, are offering to fly the first 100 investors in the property to the U.S. to meet Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son,” the Guardian reports.
“The promotional materials for the project – the fifth in India to take the Trump name – claim the address is ‘so powerful, a letter would reach you from any part of the world.'”
“After Lindsey and I left the room and got in the car together to come back to Capitol Hill, it was silence in the car. We had just witnessed something that neither one of us ever expected.”
— Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), quoted by the New York Times, on the Oval Office meeting where President Trump referred to “shithole” countries.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) “said GOP leaders will send the House home this weekend, virtually guaranteeing a shutdown unless some last-minute deal is struck,” Politico reports.
“Former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman may have taped confidential West Wing conversations and fears being caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe,” the New York Daily News reports.
“The former reality TV star’s official last day in the Trump administration is Saturday — despite the abrupt announcement of her departure last month — and her next step seems to be lawyering up.”
“With a government shutdown looming, President Trump is planning to delay his weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago until Congress passes a stopgap spending measure,” Politico reports.
“The official said the president will now likely leave for his private Florida club on Saturday. The president is expected to attend a celebration at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.”
Axios: “It shows that the Trump administration is acutely aware of what’s at stake should a government shutdown start tonight — as well as the optics of Trump at a glitzy 2020 fundraiser in the midst of it all.”
First Read says there are two big questions that could determine how this looming shutdown plays politically:
Which party has more bipartisan cover? Do a handful of GOP senators (including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) side with Democrats in rejecting the House stopgap measure? If so, that will make it MUCH harder for Republicans to argue Democrats are shutting down the government. Conversely, do more red-state Dems (Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) Claire McCaskill (D-MO) vote for the House CR?
How are the players conducting themselves? As the 1995-1996 shutdown proved, behavior (we’re looking at you, Newt Gingrich) can influence public opinion). So we ask again: Is Trump really going to Mar-A-Lago if the government shuts down?
“Obama administration officials who spoke to the Daily Beast said they were shocked at the apparent lack of seriousness with which lawmakers, and the Trump White House, appeared to be approaching the potential funding lapse. When they went through a shutdown in 2013—and when they prepped for one in 2011—the contingency planning took weeks.”
“As of late Thursday afternoon, however, numerous federal agencies appeared to have not submitted updated plans to the Office of Management and Budget. Of the nearly 130 agencies and offices that submit contingency plans, 66 of them had not publicly updated their proposals since 2015.”
NPR: “If President Trump’s first year in office seemed chaotic from a staffing perspective, there’s a reason. Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report.”
“Turnover in Trump’s first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama’s first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan’s White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency.”
InTouch has posted the full interview with porn star Stormy Daniels on her affair with Donald Trump.
An excerpt:
IT: Going to the bathroom, did you think you were going to come out and encounter that?
Stormy: That he was going to be in bed? No, I just had to pee. So anyway, the sex was nothing crazy. He wasn’t like, chain me to the bed or anything. It was one position. I can definitely describe his junk perfectly, if I ever have to. He definitely seemed smitten after that. He was like, “I wanna see you again, when can I see you again?”
IT: Did he initiate or did you?
Stormy: Here’s the weird thing. He had one of my DVDs and he asked me to sign it for him and I did.
If you had trouble keeping up, The Hill has a day-by-day review of President Trump’s first year in office.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) told Fox News that the Islamic State terror group was behind the Las Vegas massacre of 58 people in October.
Said Perry: “I smell a rat, like a lot of Americans. Nothing’s adding up.”
Claiming to have what he “believes” is “credible evidence,” Perry suggested a “terrorist nexus” was involved and claimed to personally have information about “terrorist infiltration through the southern border.”
When pressed to provide more details on what “evidence” he has to support this theory, Perry said he was “not able” to reveal anything.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 39% of Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance — “the lowest mark in the poll’s history for any modern president ending his first year.”
“Fifty-seven percent disapprove of Trump’s job, including a majority of respondents — 51% — who now say they strongly disapprove, which is a record high for Trump in the survey.”
A new USC-Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll finds just 32%, approved of Trump’s job performance, compared with 55% who disapproved and 12% who were neutral.
President Trump “will mark the first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday with a celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with tickets starting at $100,000 a pair,” Bloomberg reports.
“That amount, according to the invitation, will pay for dinner and a photograph with the president. For $250,000, a couple can also take part in a roundtable.”
Playbook: “The president of the United States is expected to take off for Mar-a-Lago at 4:30 p.m. — seven and a half hours ahead of a government shutdown. The political optics of this are absolutely terrible, according to Republicans and Democrats alike. The president is taking Air Force One to his glitzy resort in Palm Beach with the government slated to shut down?”
Washington Post: “For Democrats, there is hope in surveys showing that more Americans would blame Trump and the GOP. For Republicans, the numbers offer this glimmer: In conservative states, the blame would shift to Democrats if the public perceives the immigration issue as the reason for the impasse.”
For members: Why Trump Might Avoid Blame
Politico: “For a few minutes late Thursday, it looked like the chamber couldn’t even agree to adjourn for the night after Sen. Angus King (I-ME) objected to going to bed. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) ducked onto the Senate floor, checking on whether he would vote to have to adjourn the chamber — a rare procedural step invoked only at moments of the most severe gridlock. Past 10 p.m., McConnell finally secured an agreement to send senators home for the night and regroup. The episode did not foreshadow positive momentum for a deal to break the impasse.”
Playbook: “Top GOP minds involved in these talks on the Hill tell us that they will not, under any circumstance, consider DACA or a budget deal if the government is closed. They say a deal must be reached to fund the government, then they can talk about immigration and budget caps.”
“Senior Republicans say they will force Democrats to vote against reopening the government over and over until they relent. Of course, the Senate oftentimes backs away from the brink. But remember: Senate Democrats have re-elections in Trump states like West Virginia, Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana. So Senate Republicans have the political imperative to press a bit here.”
“Democrats, meanwhile, have more resolve than we’ve seen in a while. For many of them, the DACA issue is a core value — not a political position. They say they are tired of not being consulted on legislation where Republicans need their support. Dems hope that today — after Republicans fail to move forward on the bill — cooler heads will prevail, and they’ll come to the table to negotiate.”
National Journal: “In a break from the anti-Trump messaging that defined last cycle, Democratic strategists predict that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could in some races prove a more potent villain than the president, particularly in places where Trump easily defeated Hillary Clinton.”
“The reasoning cited for McConnell’s sudden usefulness in campaigns beyond a Republican primary: Trump’s approval rating is better than average in several GOP-leaning states, while Congress—and, by extension, McConnell—is far more disliked.”
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.