“Like I said: A puppet.”
— Hillary Clinton, on Twitter.
“Like I said: A puppet.”
— Hillary Clinton, on Twitter.
Out next week: Camelot’s End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party by Jon Ward.
“President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is overseeing the internal search for a nominee to lead the World Bank — but is not herself a candidate for the job, according to the White House,” Politico reports.
“The World Bank’s current president, Jim Yong Kim, announced last week that he will step down next month, touching off speculation about his replacement.”
The Financial Times reported that Ivanka Trump’s name was “floating around Washington” as one possibility.
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“A bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators are planning to hold discussions on how to end the weeks-long government shutdown, with talks between congressional leaders and the White House at a standstill,” the Washington Post reports.
“Prospects for achieving any results are uncertain as the group begins meeting this week or even fully launch. But the group’s creation is a sign senators of both parties are eager to end the shutdown, even if it means taking matters into their own hands amid an impasse between top Democrats and President Trump.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds American voters support a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for a border wall, 63% to 30%.
Every party, gender, education, age and racial group supports this idea except Republicans, who are opposed 52% to 38%.
The GOP is losing the battle as 56% of American voters say President Trump and Republicans in Congress are responsible for the shutdown, while just 36% say Democrats are responsible.
New York Times: “After a 2018 midterm election that energized the left, perhaps the most consequential political question facing the Democratic Party is whether liberals will insist on imposing policy litmus tests on 2020 presidential hopefuls, or whether voters will rally behind the candidate most capable of defeating the president even if that Democrat is imperfect on some issues.”
Bloomberg : “Satellite-imagery analysis and leaked American intelligence suggest North Korea has churned out rockets and warheads as quickly as ever in the year since Kim halted weapons tests, a move that led to his June summit with Trump. The regime probably added several intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear proliferation analysts say, with one arms control group estimating that Kim gained enough fissile material for about six more nuclear bombs, bringing North Korea’s total to more than 20.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), “one of the fiercest political critics of socialized medicine, will travel to Canada later this month to get hernia surgery,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
“Paul, an ophthalmologist, said the operation is related to an injury in 2017 when his neighbor, Rene Boucher, attacked him while Paul was mowing his lawn. The incident left Kentucky’s junior senator with six broken ribs and a bruised lung.”
Washington Post: “He mocked Biden’s two unsuccessful attempts for the White House and said former president Barack Obama ‘took him off the trash heap’ when he tapped Biden to be his vice president.”
Said Trump: “He’s weak. So we’ll see what happens with him… Whoever it is, I think we’re going to do just fine.”
Washington Post: “Parliament is scheduled for a historic vote Tuesday evening on Prime Minister Theresa May’s unloved, half-in, half-out compromise exit plan.”
“Without May’s two, maybe three years of negotiated transition, Britain would immediately be treated by the E.U. as a ‘third country,’ subject to potentially onerous immigration controls, trade tariffs and border inspections. … In the placid farming and market town of Boston, which holds the prize as the most Brexit-loving city in Britain, the campaigners to leave say they are ready to roll the dice with no deal.”
President Trump’s nominee for attorney general will tell senators at his confirmation hearing “it is vitally important” that special counsel Robert Mueller be allowed to complete his Russia investigation, the AP reports.
Barr will say: “I believe it is in the best interest of everyone — the President, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people – that this matter be resolved by allowing the Special Counsel to complete his work.”
According to CNN, Barr will also say that Congress and the public should be “be informed of the results of the special counsel’s work.”
President Trump appeared to rule out declaring a national emergency to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying he “shouldn’t have to” do so to end a partial government that is now in its 24th day, Politico reports.
Said Trump” “Now I have the absolute legal right to call it, but I’m not looking to do that.”
For members: GOP Resistance to ‘Emergency’ Is Danger Sign for Trump
Sources tell ABC News that special counsel Robert Mueller’s anticipated report on the Russia investigation is “almost certain to be anti-climactic.”
Said White House correspondent Jonathan Karl: “There have been expectations that have been building, of course, for over a year. But people who are closest to what Mueller has been doing, interacting with the special counsel caution me that this report is almost certain to be anti-climactic.”
Wall Street Journal: “Many new Democratic lawmakers who beat Republicans in the 2018 midterm want their leadership to be more aggressive in at least trying to strike a compromise. Many of them will be among the most vulnerable in the 2020 elections, as Republicans fight to win their majority back. Their new offices, some still crowded with boxes and not yet fully staffed, have been flooded with phone calls from angry federal employees and others affected by the shutdown, asking when it will end. While few support the border wall, some are concerned the tone of the negotiations hasn’t conveyed their willingness to reach an agreement to tighten border security.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) warned in a USA Today op-ed that the GOP “seems stuck in the 1950s.”
Kasich writes that Republicans are “threatened by the new diversity of voices that have joined the public chorus, by the long-ignored problems that a new generation wants to solve, by an unsettled world that no longer follows America’s lead.”
He added: “But they’ve learned absolutely nothing from their skunking in the midterm elections. They didn’t watch, or chose to ignore, the new Congress being sworn in the other day. It was a more energetic, diverse and self-assured group than those chambers have seen before.”
“I never worked for Russia.”
— President Trump, quoted by The Hill, in his most direct response yet to a bombshell report that the FBI began investigating whether the president was working on behalf Moscow.
“In a sign that Republicans are increasingly concerned that the standoff over President Trump’s long-promised border wall is hurting their party politically, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) suggested temporarily reopening the government while continuing negotiations,” the Washington Post reports.
“If talks don’t bear fruit, Graham said Sunday, the president could consider following through on his threat to bypass Congress and build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border by declaring a national emergency. … The maneuvering by a key Trump ally highlights the difficult balancing act Senate Republicans will probably face over the next two years, trapped between a mercurial GOP president and an emboldened new House Democratic majority.
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.
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