President Trump met with Chris Christie on Thursday evening and considers him a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, Axios reports.
“Trump has met with a couple of others, but the way he’s discussed Christie to confidants make them think he’s serious. His legal background may come in handy next year.”
“North Carolina congressional candidate Mark Harris (R) directed the hiring of a campaign aide now at the center of an election-fraud investigation, according to three individuals familiar with the campaign, despite warnings that the operative may have used questionable tactics to deliver votes,” the Washington Post reports.
“Harris sought out the operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, after losing a 2016 election in which Dowless had helped one of Harris’s opponents win an overwhelming share of the mail-in vote in a key county.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is encouraging incoming Democratic lawmakers to embrace bipartisanship, arguing such an approach benefits constituents more than a “partisan food fight” and investigations, The Hill reports.
Said McCarthy: “If the next Congress devolves into a partisan food fight of accusations and investigations, it will come at the expense of real Americans. A minority of loud voices seem to prefer that outcome, but I think our country is too great for a vision so small.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) “has lost enthusiasm for appointing fellow Republican Rep. Martha McSally to the Senate in recent weeks even as Republican leaders in Washington have championed her,” the Washington Post reports.
“Ducey has made no firm decision and McSally, who narrowly lost this year’s Senate race, remains a finalist to fill the seat that John McCain held for decades, should it soon open up as expected. But her stock has fallen in the eyes of the governor, according to two people familiar with his thinking, as Ducey approaches one of the most significant decisions of his political career.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “met Wednesday night at her condominium in Washington to discuss their political intentions but did not reach any accord about coordinating their dueling presidential ambitions,” the New York Times reports.
“Only the two senators were present and they stated what has become abundantly clear: that they are both seriously considering seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020. But neither Ms. Warren nor Mr. Sanders sought support from the other or tried to dissuade the other from running.”
“Having run through his first choices for his chief of staff vacancy without any luck, President Trump is considering his own son-in-law for the job,” the HuffPost reports.
“Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and already an official White House adviser, met with Trump Wednesday about the job.”
“Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, says the investigation arose in part from the slew of materials seized in April raids on Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, by federal prosecutors.
The criminal probe is also looking into whether some of the committee’s top spenders traded money for access to the incoming Trump administration, as well as “policy concessions or to influence official administration positions.”
Jonathan Chait: “Trump’s inauguration looked fishy from before it even took place.”
Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump’s relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed.
Trump was first identified as attending the meeting by the Wall Street Journal.
“The U.S. posted the widest November budget deficit on record as spending doubled revenue,” Bloomberg reports.
“The U.S. ran the largest deficit in six years in fiscal 2018, the first full year of Donald Trump’s presidency when his Republican party enacted a tax-cut package and raised federal spending for the military and other priorities. The measures have added to the growing federal deficit, which is forecast to push past $1 trillion by 2020 when the U.S. next holds presidential elections.”
“No family is complete without an embarrassing uncle. We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate. Lots of embarrassing stuff.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by The Hill, in her farewell speech on the Senate floor.
The U.S. Senate rebuked Saudi Arabia and President Trump over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with a vote to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen, the Washington Post reports.
Thursday’s action is largely symbolic, as the resolution is dead on arrival in the House, where lawmakers blocked such a measure from being voted on this year.
President Trump has narrowed the search for his third White House chief of staff to five “mostly well known” people, Roll Call reports.
Trump said his five candidates are “really good ones” and “terrific people.”
President Trump was asked in a interview about the possibility of Gov. John Kasich or retiring Sen. Jeff Flake running against him in 2020, and he responded, “I hope so,” CNBC reports.
John Weaver, Kasich’s chief political strategist responded: “Be careful what you wish for.”
President Trump doubled down on the claim that he’s not responsible for campaign finance violations by Michael Cohen on Fox News, saying that investigators should be looking at Congress’ “slush fund” for campaign violations instead.
Said Trump: “Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to something that’s not even a crime. Nobody except for me would be looked at like this. Nobody. What about Congress? The slush fund. Millions and millions of dollars paid out each year. They have a slush fund. Millions. They don’t talk about campaign finance anything.”
“Gun deaths in America have reached a record high,” CNN reports.
“Nearly 40,000 people in the United States died by guns last year, marking the highest number of gun deaths in decades, according to a new analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control.”
“President Trump on Thursday tacitly admitted, for the first time, that he directed Michael Cohen to facilitate hush-money payments to two women who had alleged affairs with Trump, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels,” the Washington Post reports.
“Whether Trump’s actions violated the law is an open question. His tweets were meant to argue that he didn’t specifically direct his former longtime personal attorney Cohen to do anything illegal, even if he did direct the payments.”
“But that valid legal question aside, it’s worth emphasizing just how horrendous of a coverup this whole episode has proved to be. Regardless of legal culpability, Trump and his team have spent the last 11 months engaging in a very public and irreconcilable effort to obscure all of this. And as the days pass, their statements look worse and worse.”
“A Russian gun rights activist pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate the conservative movement in the United States as an agent for the Kremlin from 2015 until her arrest in July,” the Washington Post reports.
“Maria Butina, 30, became the first Russian national convicted of seeking to influence U.S. policy in the run-up and through the 2016 election as a foreign agent, agreeing to cooperate in a plea deal with U.S. investigators in exchange for less prison time.”
President Trump is expected to spend 16 days at Mar-a-Lago over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, according to an alert issued by the Federal Aviation Administration this morning, the Palm Beach Post reports.
“If you just want to keep track of how much the president has lied about that, he said he didn’t know about the payment. I know it’s hard to keep track of all this stuff, the disclosures come bit by bit, but I mean come on, he lied so extravagantly about this story from beginning to end.”
— Jeffrey Toobin, quoted by The Hill, about President Trump consistently denying he knew anything about hush payments made to a porn star and Playboy model.
CNN updated its rankings of the 10 Democrats most likely to win their party’s nomination to run against President Trump in 2020.
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt 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.
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