Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 191
Blue Wave Update
“In a recent email exchange with a wealthy prospective donor, a top fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg made an offer that was unusually blunt — even by modern pay-to-play standards,” Axios reports.
Wrote fundraiser H.K. Park: “If you want to get on the campaign’s radar now before he is flooded with donations after winning Iowa and New Hampshire, you can use the link below for donations.”
“President Trump lashed out again at wind farms on Saturday, claiming that the production of wind turbines causes a large carbon footprint, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?”
He went on: “So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air.”
“It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype,” the New York Times reports.
“But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones.”
“Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), who won a stunning special election victory in 2017 and faces a difficult reelection campaign next year, said Sunday that he remains undecided on whether President Trump should be removed from office,” the Washington Post reports.
“Jones — a former prosecutor and moderate Democrat representing a deeply conservative state that overwhelming backed Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 — said he is keeping his mind open ahead of the pending Senate trial, following the House’s vote to impeach the president last week.”
Ramesh Ponnuru writing in National Review:
“The Constitution provides for impeachment and removal to protect us from officials, including presidents, who are unable or unwilling to distinguish between the common good that government is supposed to serve and their own narrow interests. Though he has done some good things in office, Trump is just such a president. Congress should act accordingly.”
“Andrew Yang said he does not think Trump should be facing criminal charges and would consider pardoning Trump if he were in fact prosecuted,” NBC News reports.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told CNN that he would not be intimidated after the Trump campaign claimed that the lawmaker called for the president to be hanged.
Said Clyburn: “They’re bullies. They’re trying to intimidate.”
He added: “My goodness. What I’ve been through in this country, what I go through every day, you aren’t going to intimidate me. I am not going to be intimidated by anybody in this White House or by anybody out in the blogosphere. I’ve lived too long to be intimidated by anybody.”
“With the Democratic presidential nomination still very much up for grabs, candidates sprinted from the year’s final presidential debate in Los Angeles to Iowa this weekend, hoping to get a jump on a frenetic month of campaigning ahead of the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Iowa’s pull, always powerful because it hosts the first contest of the nominating season, is stronger than ever because the race is one of the most volatile in years. Many Iowa Democrats say they are still making up their minds.”
A new Morning Consult poll finds a majority of voters approve of impeaching President Trump, 52% to 43%.
Using stark “us vs. them” language, President Trump and his reelection campaign have begun framing his impeachment not as a judgment on his conduct but as a referendum on how Democrats regard him and his supporters, the AP reports.
“His campaign believes that anger at impeachment may be the motivation needed to bring out voters who stayed home in the 2016 election but approve of the president and are fed up with the Washington establishment.”
After criticism following news of her Senate election fundraising practices, Sen. Elizabeth Warren told reporters that she “saw how this system works” and decided to quit high dollar fundraising for her 2020 presidential campaign, CNN reports.
Said Warren: “I saw how this system works. And I decided when I got in the presidential race that I wanted to do better than that. And that’s why I just quit doing it. I don’t sell access to my time. I don’t call high dollar fundraisers. I’m out there raising money grassroots all across this country, because I want to move this in the right direction, we can’t be a country that just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“President Trump on Saturday largely ignored that he had become the third impeached president in history as he rallied young conservative activists with campaign-style attacks on the ‘far-left ruling class’ at the start of a two-week vacation,” the New York Times reports.
“Instead, the president made it clear that he intended to seek re-election with the messages he has been delivering for years: a relentless attack on liberalism, promises of abortion restrictions and gun rights, denunciations of environmentalism, and a vow to secure the southwestern border against what he calls ‘criminal aliens.'”
Washington Post: “After three years in office, President Trump has remade the federal judiciary, ensuring a conservative tilt for decades and cementing his legacy no matter the outcome of November’s election.”
“Trump nominees make up 1 in 4 U.S. circuit court judges. Two of his picks sit on the Supreme Court. And this past week, as the House voted to impeach the president, the Republican-led Senate confirmed an additional 13 district court judges.”
“In total, Trump has installed 187 judges to the federal bench.”
New York Times: “Just under four years after he began his takeover of a party to which he had little connection, Mr. Trump enters 2020 burdened with the ignominy of being the first sitting president to seek re-election after being impeached.”
“But he does so wearing a political coat of armor built on total loyalty from G.O.P. activists and their representatives in Congress. If he does not enjoy the broad admiration Republicans afforded Ronald Reagan, he is more feared by his party’s lawmakers than any occupant of the Oval Office since at least Lyndon Johnson.”
“His iron grip was never firmer than over the last two months, during the House inquiry that concluded Wednesday with Mr. Trump’s impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress. No House Republican supported either article, or even authorized the investigation in September, and in hearing after hearing into the president’s dealings with Ukraine, they defended him as a victim of partisan fervor. One Republican even said that Jesus had received fairer treatment before his crucifixion than Mr. Trump did during his impeachment.”
Roughly 6.2 million people watched the Democratic debate this week, CNN reports.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that makes Thursday’s debate the least-watched of this election cycle.
The RNC goes into the presidential election year with more than seven times as much cash on hand as the DNC: $63 million vs. $8.3 million, according to FEC filings.
Mike Allen: “This is a stark new sign of what we’ve been reporting all year — that President Trump’s digitally driven campaign is giving him a massive fundraising and organizing advantage over whoever emerges from the Democratic race.”
“Late Friday night, minutes before deplaning in Florida for the holidays, President Trump retweeted a link to an article in which Russian President Vladimir Putin defended him against impeachment,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s boasting of Putin’s support comes a day after The Washington Post reported that White House advisers feared Trump’s belief that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for interfering with 2016 election was spurred by conversations Trump had had with Putin.”
Less than two hours after President Trump had his infamous July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a White House budget sent an email to the Pentagon, noting military aid to Ukraine was on hold, according to emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.
Daily Beast: “Some senior administration officials worried that by defying a law ordering that the funds be spent within a defined period, Trump was asking the officials involved to take an action that was not merely unwise but flatly illegal.”
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.
More about Taegan Goddard →