Washington Post: “The ongoing negotiations over whether to use massive military hardware, such as Abrams tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles, as a prop for Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ is just one of many unfinished details when it comes to the celebration planned for Thursday.”
Tucker Carlson Says Leadership Involves ‘Killing People’
Fox News host Tucker Carlson defended President Trump’s praise of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying part of leading a country “means killing people,” The Hill reports.
Carlson said there “is no defending the North Korean regime, which is a monstrous regime. It is the last really Stalinist regime in the whole world. It is a disgusting place, obviously.”
He added: “On the other hand, you’ve got to be honest about what it means to lead a country. It means killing people. Not on the scale the North Koreans do, but a lot of countries commit atrocities, including a number that we are closely allied with.”
Forecast Model Predicts Democratic Win In 2020
Rachel Bitecofer’s Negative Partisanship Model — which nailed the 2018 midterm elections — predicts Democrats will win the presidency in 2020.
“The leaking of the Trump campaign’s internal polling has somewhat softened the blow of this forecast, as that polling reaffirms what my model already knew: Trump’s 2016 path to the White House, which was the political equivalent of getting dealt a Royal Flush in poker, is probably not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate. And that is really bad news for Donald Trump because the Blue Wall of the Midwest was then, and is now, the ONLY viable path for Trump to win the White House.”
“Start with the numerical fact that Trump ‘won’ Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan with 47.22%, 48.18%, and 47.5% of the vote, respectively, after five times the normal number in those states cast their ballots for an option other than Trump or Clinton. This, combined with the depressed turnout of African Americans (targeted with suppression materials by the Russians) and left-leaning Independents turned off by Clinton (targeted with defection materials by the Russians) allowed Trump to pull off an improbable victory, one that will be hard to replicate in today’s less nitpicky atmosphere.”
The consensus Electoral Vote Map has been updated.
The Longest Economic Expansion In History
“This month marks the longest period of time the U.S. economy has gone without a recession, just edging past the economic cycle that ended when the dot com bubble burst,” Axios reports.
“This milestone comes at one of the more pessimistic moments in the last decade as economists are warning that a significant slowdown in growth, and maybe a recession,is coming thanks to the impact of trade tensions and slumping growth in other economies across the globe.”
Soros and Koch Team Up to End ‘Forever War’ Policy
Boston Globe: “Besides being billionaires and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common… Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its ‘forever war’ and adopt an entirely new foreign policy. In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington.”
“It will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. This is a radical notion in Washington, where every major think tank promotes some variant of neocon militarism or liberal interventionism.”
“The street cred they bring from both ends of the political spectrum — along with the money they are providing — will make this new think tank an off-pitch voice for statesmanship amid a Washington chorus that promotes brinksmanship.”
Hunter Biden Opens Up
New Yorker: “Hunter speaks in the warm, circuitous style of his father. Through weeks of conversations, he became increasingly open about his setbacks, aware that many of the stories that he told me would otherwise emerge, likely in a distorted form, in Breitbart or on ‘Hannity.’
“He wanted to protect his father from a trickle of disclosures, and to share a personal narrative that he sees no reason to hide. ‘Look, everybody faces pain,’ he said. ‘Everybody has trauma. There’s addiction in every family. I was in that darkness. I was in that tunnel—it’s a never-ending tunnel. You don’t get rid of it. You figure out how to deal with it.’”
Quote of the Day
“He’s done some irreparable damage to some things and he’s got to answer for them. It reinforced the anal opening that I believe Mueller to be.”
— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), quoted by Politico, anticipating former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony for Congress.
The Inevitability of Biden Is Over
Politico: “For months, the Democratic presidential primary has been dictated by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That primary is now over.”
“After an eventful month and the conclusion of the first round of Democratic debates, there is a new top tier — and a sense among many campaigns and Democratic operatives that Biden and Sanders are suddenly within reach in a race that has broken wide open.”
Buttigieg Raised Nearly $25 Million
Playbook: “The Buttigieg campaign announced this morning that it raised more than $24.8 million from more than 294,000 donors in the second quarter. The campaign has more than $22.6 million cash on hand.”
U.S. May Settle for Nuclear Freeze By North Korea
New York Times: “From a seemingly fanciful tweet to a historic step into North Korean territory, President Trump’s largely improvised third meeting on Sunday with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was a masterpiece of drama, the kind of made-for-TV spectacle that Mr. Trump treasures.”
“But for weeks before the meeting … a real idea ha[d] been taking shape inside the Trump administration that officials hope might create a foundation for a new round of negotiations.”
“The concept would amount to a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for.”
Associated Press: “Afterward, it was unclear whether the meeting was more show than substance. Other than the headline-grabbing moment and the unprecedented images, Trump’s only accomplishment appeared to be securing an agreement to restart nuclear talks that he himself had walked out on in February during his last summit with Kim in Vietnam.”
How Trump Plans to Mobilize Evangelicals
“President Trump’s re-election campaign is developing an aggressive, state-by-state plan to mobilize even more evangelical voters than supported him last time,” campaign officials tell Axios.
“Trump captured 81% of the evangelical vote in 2016, a huge accomplishment considering they make up roughly a quarter of the electorate and play a prominent role in swing states like Florida.”
“The goal: Paint Trump as a champion of socially conservative issues and warn evangelical voters that his defeat could destroy the progress he’s made.”
Two New Justices Shift Court In Different Ways
Washington Post: “According to data compiled by Adam Feldman, who runs the website Empirical SCOTUS, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have disagreed more than any pair of new justices chosen by the same president in decades.”
“Kavanaugh was about as likely to be in sync with his liberal seatmate Elena Kagan as his fellow conservative Gorsuch, Feldman’s research shows.”
White House Sees Kamala Harris as Formidable
New York Times: “Privately, people close to the White House said they viewed Ms. Harris as ‘very dangerous’ and the hands-down winner of the debate on Thursday. Others said they hoped the debate would serve as a warning for Republicans — including those in the president’s inner circle — who have been too dismissive of Mr. Biden’s less seasoned rivals.”
What Trump’s North Korea Stunt Means
Playbook: “It’s hard to imagine any other president taking a bold step like this, let alone warmly embrace a third-generation tyrant who starves and imprisons his own people. But Trump has silenced the doubters within his own party, while Democrats have largely embraced his diplomatic efforts with Kim because they’d rather he try that than threaten ye olde fire and fury.”
“It remains to be seen, of course, whether Kim is simply using Trump to advance his own agenda, or whether he genuinely believes, as he said today, ‘we want to bring an end to the unpleasant past and try to create a new future.’ Even Trump sometimes seems aware of this; as he put it, ‘It’s just a step. It might be an important step, it might not.'”
Liberal Voices Crowd Out the Moderates
“The Democratic debates this past week provided the clearest evidence yet that many of the leading presidential candidates are breaking with the incremental politics of the Clinton and Obama eras, and are embracing sweeping liberal policy changes on some of the most charged public issues in American life, even at the risk of political backlash,” the New York Times reports.
“Vowing to eliminate private health insurance, decriminalize illegal immigration and provide government health care benefits to undocumented migrants, high-profile contenders like Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are wagering that they can energize voters eager to dismantle President Trump’s hard-line policies.”
“But with moderate Democrats repeatedly drowned out or on the defensive in the debates, the sprint to the left has deeply unnerved establishment Democrats, who have largely picked the party nominees in recent decades.”
Booker Questions Biden on Race
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) questioned whether Joe Biden could be a uniter on race if he wins the Democratic presidential nomination, accusing him of having an “inability to talk candidly about the mistakes he made,” NBC News reports.
Said Booker: “Whoever our nominee is going to be, whoever our next president is going to be, really needs to be someone who can talk openly and honestly about race. I’m not sure if Joe Biden is up to that task given the way the last three weeks have played out.”
Kamala Harris Moves Into Third Place
A new Morning Consult poll finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race with 33%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 19% and Kamala Harris at 12%.
Graham Says Harris Would Be a Tough Candidate
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Face the Nation that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) will be “a force to be reckoned with” following her strong performance in the first Democratic debate this week.
Said Graham: “One thing I’ll say about Kamala Harris, and I said this before, she’s got game. She is very talented, she’s very smart, and she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”