In a closed-door meeting with Iranian-American community leaders last Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is “not going to do a military exercise inside Iran” to expedite a regime change, Axios reports.
“Pompeo also sought to distance the Trump administration from a controversial Iranian resistance group that has welcomed John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani as speakers in a private capacity.”
The Atlantic: “Trump’s reelection seems implausible to many people, as implausible as his election did before November 2016. But despite the scandals and chaos of his presidency, and despite his party’s midterm losses, he approaches 2020 with two factors in his favor. One is incumbency: Since 1980, voters have only once denied an incumbent a second term. The other is a relatively strong economy (at least as of now). Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who weights both of those factors heavily in his election-forecasting model, gives Trump close to an even chance of reelection, based on a projected 2 percent GDP growth rate for the first half of 2020.”
“So far, much of the concern about the long-term effects of Trump’s presidency has centered on his antidemocratic tendencies. But even if we take those off the table—even if we assume that Trump continues to be hemmed in by other parts of the government and by outside institutions, and that he governs no more effectively than he has until now—the impact of a second term would be more lasting than that of the first.”
Boston Globe: “Democrats may also try to amplify some of Mueller’s most damning findings by calling former Trump staffers to testify about the president’s persistent orders to interfere with the investigation.”
“Mueller’s report suggests the president is hyper-attuned to the power of televised hearings to dominate the news and shape narratives about his presidency — and that he won’t hesitate to try to influence or shame witnesses. And his penchant for trying to derail investigations into his conduct is already evident in how his administration is handling the new Democratic majority in the House”
The Guardian: “If the tone of these secret conversations, revealed in Mueller’s long-awaited report this week, remind you of Tony Soprano – the amoral, brooding, charismatic, philandering, thuggish crime boss in the eponymous TV drama – ordering a hit on one his enemies, you are not alone.”
“Over 448 pages, Mueller does not present Trump as a traitor but does portray him as a serial liar willing to abuse power, shred norms and bend the rule of law in a White House rotten to the core. Amid this culture of malfeasance and mendacity, trusted lieutenants are expected to demonstrate absolute loyalty, up to and including obstructing justice to save the president’s skin.”
Washington state Rep. Matt Shea (R) “took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, ‘psyops’ and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies,” according to chat records obtained by the Guardian.
Shea “did not demur from any of these suggestions. He also appeared willing to participate directly in surveillance of activists.”
“The men talked about the broad outlines of what they appeared to consider to be a looming civil war. They also discussed using symbols from what they understood to be Russian anti-communist groups as a way of spreading paranoia among their adversaries.”
President Trump on Sunday continued to wage an attack against special counsel Robert Mueller, calling his investigation’s report a “hit job” and claiming it was written by “The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats who wrote the Mueller Report were devastated by the No Collusion finding. Nothing but a total ‘hit job’ which should never have been allowed to start in the first place!”
As Michael Cohen “prepares to head to prison in two weeks, dozens of previously unreported emails, text messages and other confidential documents reviewed by the New York Times suggest that his falling out with Mr. Trump may have been avoidable.”
“Missed cues, clashing egos, veiled threats and unaddressed money worries all contributed to Mr. Cohen’s halting decision to turn on a man he had long idolized and even once vowed to take a bullet for… Mr. Cohen’s anxiety, on display in the documents, played a role in the undoing of his relationship with Mr. Trump… But also looming large were Mr. Giuliani’s and Mr. Trump’s failures to understand the threat that Mr. Cohen posed, and their inability — or unwillingness — to put his financial and emotional insecurities to rest.”
New York Times: Why it matters that Trump and Cohen had a falling out.
“The Supreme Court this week takes up the most consequential Trump administration initiative since last term’s travel ban, with the justices considering whether a question about citizenship can be added to the 2020 Census,” the Washington Post reports.
“The time frame for a decision will be tight, as the Census Bureau must know by the end of June whether the question may be included on the 2020 form. Arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.”
New York Times: “After sidestepping the explosive issue of impeachment for months by citing the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, most of the other 17 Democratic presidential candidates have responded to the special counsel’s report with tentative remarks about impeaching Mr. Trump, demands for the unredacted Mueller findings, calls for further hearings or attempts to simply change the subject.”
“Anything, that is, to avoid clearly answering the question of whether lawmakers should remove the president from office.”
“Underpinning the candidates’ calculations are complex sets of short- and long-term incentives. Democratic hopefuls could receive a fund-raising boost by embracing impeachment and energizing liberal donors. But some strategists and lawmakers say that a failed effort would only strengthen Mr. Trump’s re-election chances, allowing him to claim further vindication.”
Washington Post: “Most strategists planning for the general election campaign against Trump expect to focus far less on Trump’s behavior and personal qualities than Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 election.”
Washington Post: “For decades, Democrats and Republicans have hailed America’s business elite, especially in Silicon Valley, as the country’s salvation. The government might be gridlocked, the electorate angry and divided, but America’s innovators seemed to promise a relatively pain-free way out of the mess. Their companies produced an endless series of products that kept the U.S. economy churning and its gross domestic product climbing. Their philanthropic efforts were aimed at fixing some of the country’s most vexing problems. Government’s role was to stay out of the way.”
“Now that consensus is shattering. For the first time in decades, capitalism’s future is a subject of debate among presidential hopefuls and a source of growing angst for America’s business elite. In places such as Silicon Valley, the slopes of Davos, Switzerland, and the halls of Harvard Business School, there is a sense that the kind of capitalism that once made America an economic envy is responsible for the growing inequality and anger that is tearing the country apart.”
“The FBI arrested a 69-year-old New Mexico man who allegedly illegally detained immigrants crossing the border under the guise of working for the United States Border Patrol,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Larry Mitchell Hopkins, who runs The United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), an armed border militia group that spreads far-right conspiracies and rounds up asylum seekers on the border, was arrested by FBI in New Mexico Saturday on charges of possessing firearms and ammunition as a convicted felon.”
“A top adviser to Beto O’Rourke, Becky Bond, has split with his campaign,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“Bond, a longtime progressive activist and organizer known for her work on O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate bid against Republican Ted Cruz, left the campaign along with her deputy Zack Malitz.”
“The departures come as O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman, has sought to professionalize a campaign operation that was, in its earliest days, small and freewheeling. O’Rourke announced his run for the presidency less than a month ago.”
“Donald Trump’s behavior described in the Mueller Report is more than disappointing. It’s unacceptable and not behavior we should expect from our president. It’s worse than I’ve seen in my career observing and working with presidents or public officials. America deserves better.”
— Former Gov. John Kasich, on Twitter.
Evangelist Franklin Graham wrote a Facebook post which denounced people heckling Pete Buttigieg at a campaign event, but also managed to work in a verse from the Bible that condemns gay people to death.
Graham suggested Buttigieg cannot be both gay and Christian, citing Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination…”
But, as Hemant Mehta points out, Graham left off the last part of the verse in his post: “… they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told CBS News he could “foresee” impeachment proceedings “possibly coming” against President Trump, given the information presented in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
However, he said that he was “not there yet” with impeachment, and he added that Congress has to be “careful.”
A CNN poll that finds that 12 percent of Americans have “never heard” of Vice President Mike Pence.
“As Newsweek notes, that equates to over 30 million adults who don’t recognize Pence’s name… The poll seems to affirm just how many Americans have fully opted out of political life, and it’s possible that the number could still fall short of determining just how many Americans don’t know their veep.”
“President Trump and his lawyers decided from the start to fully cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation, gambling in 2017 that they could hasten its end if they gave prosecutors unfettered access to White House aides and other Trump associates,” the New York Times reports.
“Now some of the witnesses named in the report, who have departed the White House but rely on access to Mr. Trump for their livelihoods, fear his ire. Some have begun calling current and former administration officials and others in the president’s orbit to seek clues about Mr. Trump’s state of mind, according to four special counsel witnesses who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
“One called friends and colleagues in the days before the report was released to see whether he could have the Justice Department redact his name from Mr. Mueller’s report… The idea went nowhere.”
“He encouraged people to lie for him. He lied. I think he obstructed justice. I think there’s a compelling case that he has, in fact, engaged in conduct that would be better for him to leave office than to stay in office.”
— Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on C-SPAN in 1999, on President Bill Clinton.
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.
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