“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is threatening telecommunications and social media companies that comply with a request by the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, declaring that Republicans ‘will not forget’ their actions,” the Washington Post reports.
“McCarthy spoke with then-President Donald Trump on the day of the attack and is a potential witness in the select committee’s probe.”
David Perdue (R) said he “misunderstood” the Donald Trump supporters who chanted about imprisoning Gov. Brian Kemp (R) when he smiled and flashed them a thumbs-up sign at the former president’s rally, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) accused a top Republican state lawmaker of “covering” for state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (R) after a committee recommended against impeaching him for his involvement in a fatal car crash, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Noem: “Jason Ravnsborg killed a man, lied to investigators about the events of that night, and attempted to cover it up. Joseph Boever’s family deserves justice.”
St. Louis beer heiress Trudy Busch Valentine (D) joined the heated race for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat Monday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The move triggered former state Sen. Scott Sifton (D) to exit the Democratic primary race and throw his support to Valentine.
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton told CBS News that he recalls Donald Trump using the term “burner phones” in several discussions and that Trump was aware of its meaning.
Bolton also said he and Trump have spoken about how people have used “burner phones” to avoid having their calls scrutinized.
After reporting this morning that Trump might have used a “burner phone” during the January 6 Capitol riots, Trump issued a statement denying knowing the term.
Washington Post: “Over the last two weeks, the coronavirus has crept ever closer to Biden, disrupting White House operations just as the country and the administration have been relaxing strict safeguards against covid-19. The cluster of cases highlights the continued threat posed by the virus, complicating White House efforts to signal that the country has turned the corner on the pandemic.”
“After years of modeling strict precautions, including campaigning for months from his basement in Wilmington, Del., before vaccines were available, Biden is now at a higher risk of being infected, experts say, with all the personal and political consequences that would entail — though as with other vaccinated people, an infection could be less severe.”
The Atlantic: “The U.S. population grew at the slowest pace in history in 2021, according to census data released last week. That news sounds extreme, but it’s on trend. First came 2020, which saw one of the lowest U.S. population-growth rates ever. And now we have 2021 officially setting the all-time record.”
“U.S. growth didn’t slowly fade away: It slipped, and slipped, and then fell off a cliff.”
Jonathan Chait: “As DeSantis spoke, he looked like a man who had been mimicking Donald Trump’s speeches in front of the mirror. He performed a series of hand thrusts, in which he drew his thumbs together until they were almost touching, then jerked them apart in quick horizontal motions, as if he were playing an invisible accordion. After five such accordion pulls, he swung his right hand, thumb pointing up, in a semi-circular motion back inward to the center. DeSantis tweeted out the clip, and any MAGA fan watching, even without the sound on, would have grasped the gist just through the eerie physical impersonation.”
“Republicans have collectively recognized that however much Trump may exasperate them, their president-in-exile will not be purged, nor will the changes he brought to their party be rolled back. He might, however, be co-opted. And if this is to happen, they have settled with remarkable unanimity on DeSantis as the person to do it.”
Ian Smith (R), who is challenging Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), was arrested on charges that he was driving under the influence early Sunday morning after refusing to take a breathalyzer test, the New Jersey Globe reports.
“With the midterm election cycle fast approaching, Republicans in the key states of Florida and Ohio have made critical progress in their push to add to their dominance on congressional maps by carving new districts that would be easier for G.O.P. candidates to win,” the New York Times reports.
“The Republican pressure comes as Democrats have fared better than expected in this year’s redistricting cycle. Democrats have drawn aggressive gerrymanders in states like New York, Oregon, Illinois and Maryland, while Republicans have sought to make their current seats safer in states like Texas and Georgia.”
David Wasserman: Maryland and Ohio rulings brighten GOP’s redistricting outlook.
“The U.S. Army would fall below 1 million soldiers for the first time in two decades under a new budget proposal as leaders struggle with recruitment in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic,” Bloomberg reports.
“The active-duty Army would drop from the 485,000 soldiers Congress authorized for this year to 473,000, a reduction of 12,000 people, as part of the service’s fiscal 2023 budget proposal. When combined with flat National Guard and Reserve forces, the service would have a total of 998,500 soldiers.”
“The Justice Department wants to hire 131 additional lawyers to help with the hundreds of prosecutions stemming from the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol,” Insider reports.
Politico: “Many GOP lawmakers privately expressed disbelief at Cawthorn’s claims, particularly of orgies. Some wondered if he made the comments consciously in a bid to portray himself above such acts — past media reports have addressed sexual misconduct allegations against him before his election.”
“There’s a desire among fellow Republicans for Cawthorn to identify the colleagues involved to prove the truth of his comments, but that desire to name names could also cause new headaches for a conference that’s already faced an array of controversies this Congress.”
Jonathan Last: “Here is a secret no one in Washington is willing to say out loud: Ginni Thomas is an idiot. The only reason she was texting the president’s chief of staff instead of being the angry cat lady on Facebook is because she married a man who got himself appointed to the Supreme Court.”
“The Thomases were never a duo of intellectual equals, or a power couple where each member had their own thing going on, and where the merger of the two was like Voltron coming together.”
“This isn’t James Carville and Mary Matalin. Or Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Or Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. Or any number of other famous couples. Heck, this isn’t even Sonny and Cher.”
“No. The Thomases are more like Ivanka and Jared: The senior partner in the arrangement held a position of such high importance that their society scrabbled around to find something for the dimmer partner to do in order to make them feel important. In Jared’s case, that has been destroying newspapers, losing money on real estate, and being tasked with brokering peace in the Middle East.”
President Biden is weighing another $500 million in aid to Ukraine, and has asked allies to pony up the same, Bloomberg reports.
A new Gallup poll finds Americans are more worried about inflation than at any point since 1985, and that concern is quickly escalating.
New York Times: “Inflation stress divided slightly among income groups — 63% of adults earning $40,000 or more were very concerned, compared with 58% of those earning $100,000 or more — and starkly along political lines. About 79% of Republicans were seriously worried about inflation, versus 35% of Democrats.”
“The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan continue to chip away at the freedoms the country knew for two decades, dragging Afghans back under their draconian version of Islamic sharia law and defiantly distancing their regime from the international community in the process,” CBS News reports.
“The latest moves — both official and unofficial — include restrictions on women traveling, men’s grooming, and access to international media and even public parks.”
“Signs are emerging that the resilience of American consumers is rapidly waning, potentially undermining one of the few remaining pillars supporting the bull market in equities,” Bloomberg reports.
“U.S. households have until recently mostly absorbed higher prices on everything from coffee to chicken to clothes, helping companies maintain fat profit margins despite higher input. But that doesn’t mean consumers were happy about paying more for the same goods, which is why the University of Michigan’s sentiment index has steadily deteriorated to the lowest since 2011.”
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.