Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York and taken into custody, Axios reports.
Bannon, along with three others, allegedly defrauded donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own profit with a crowdfunding campaign called “We Build the Wall” that raked in over $25 million.
First Read: “It was extraordinary to hear former President Barack Obama slam his successor and warn that America’s democracy is on the line in November. It was also extraordinary that it was hard finding observers – including Trump defenders – denying Obama’s accusations.”
“In fact, Trump’s own tweets responding to Obama only seemed to prove the 44th president’s point.”
He has shown no interest in putting in the work. No interest in finding common ground. No interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends. No interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
“Obama’s remarks served to other-ize Trump – similar to what Trump does to his opponents.”
“There was one Democratic convention speech that everyone remembered from 2012, and that was Bill Clinton’s defense of Obama and his attacks on Mitt Romney’s fiscal plans. And eight years later, the smart money is that there will be one Democratic convention speech from a previous president that everyone will remember from 2020.”
Michael Beschloss: “No former President has ever attacked his incumbent successor at a convention like Barack Obama tonight, or even come close.”
Kyle Kondik: “Several national pollsters conducted surveys on the eve of the convention season in both 2016 and 2020. We compared them to see how the race was different from four years ago.”
“Compared to four years ago, the parties are more unified; Biden is leading with independents after Clinton and Trump were tied with them at this point; and more poll respondents support the major party candidates overall.”
“In other words, there are fewer undecideds and fewer voters saying they will vote third party.”
“Kanye West shouldn’t be on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin this November,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“That is the recommendation of the Wisconsin Elections Commission staff after reviewing his nomination petition and two challenges to them.”
“A Republican-backed effort to qualify Montana Green Party candidates for the general election has been rejected by the Montana Supreme Court,” the AP reports.
“The Montana Republican Party had bankrolled the $100,000 signature-gathering effort and violated campaign finance laws by not properly reporting the expenditure.”
Brian Stelter offers an excerpt of his new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, to Vanity Fair:
“Being the president’s ‘shadow chief of staff,’ as he was known around the White House, could be a thrill, but it was also a serious burden. Hannity counseled Trump at all hours of the day; one of his confidants said the president treated Hannity like Melania, a wife in a sexless marriage. Arguably, he treated Hannity better than Melania. Hannity’s producers marveled at his influence and access… Hannity chose this life, so no one felt sorry for him, but the stress took its toll.”
Said one associate: “Hannity would tell you, off-off-off the record, that Trump is a batshit crazy person.” Another friend concurred: “Hannity has said to me more than once, ‘he’s crazy.’”
“But Hannity’s commitment to GOP priorities and to his own business model meant he could never say any of this publicly. If one of his friends went on the record quoting Hannity questioning Trump’s mental fitness, that would be the end of the friendship.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “It wasn’t just President Barack Obama, who gave a stirring speech. The party also has four women in the Senate who ran for president in this cycle, and two of them — Senator Elizabeth Warren and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris — both gave fine performances on Wednesday. So did former nominee Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And then there was former Representative Gabby Giffords, her career tragically disrupted, who gave perhaps the most gripping and courageous speech of the night. There simply aren’t Republican women of similar stature.”
“As for male luminaries, the Democrats have the benefit of three former presidents while Republicans have only one — and that one appears to be neither interested in attending nor welcome at his party’s convention. The same goes for the 2012 Republican nominee. Their 2008 nominee received a tribute narrated by his widow at the Democrats’ event because his memory wouldn’t be honored by his own party.”
Historian Jon Meacham will endorse Joe Biden on the final night of the Democratic convention, Axios reports.
Said Meacham: “This president poses such a clear and present danger to the things we should value most that I think it’s incumbent on all of us who believe that to say something.”
Nikkei Asian Review: “Has China’s annual summer ritual, the unofficial meetings between incumbent leaders and party elders at the seaside resort of Beidaihe, taken place this year?”
“The extended absence of the top leadership from state media — the whereabouts of President Xi Jinping was unknown for more than half a month — suggested that something was happening. Yet there were none of the usual hints that the government drops to informally announce that the leaders were gathered in the Hebei Province beach town.”
Wall Street Journal: “In the Senate, some Republicans are hoping to vote on a cheaper, pared-down version of the aid bill they unveiled last month, although some GOP aides said they saw early signs that it wouldn’t be able to muster a Senate majority. The new proposal, referred to as the skinny bill, is expected to cost about half of the earlier $1 trillion legislation, in an effort to appease GOP senators worried about the price tag of the federal government’s efforts in response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
“But Republican leaders are first assessing whether there will be enough GOP support to vote on the legislation, which is intended to demonstrate more GOP unity than the previous proposal and strengthen their hand in any coming negotiations.”
Stephen Collinson: “The latest installment of the long duel between Barack Obama and Donald Trump perfectly exemplified the jarring contrasts in personal and political temperaments of the two defining White House residents of this age. And it took their rivalry to a level unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency.”
“Obama — serious and intellectual — delivered a complex constitutional lecture on primetime television during the virtual Democratic National Convention. He summoned historic sweep, encompassing the Founders, the Civil Rights Movement, America’s immigrant heritage and young Americans he called to action today to save their freedoms just as their ancestors had done every time the country’s promise was imperiled.”
“Trump meanwhile, back at the White House, was rage-tweeting in real time in all-caps, flinging wild accusations and lies that, if anything, provided contemporaneous evidence of his predecessor’s somber warnings.”
Axios: “It was an extraordinary moment in American history — an ex-president saying the sitting president would tear down our democracy to hold power.”
Associated Press: “Trump, in what can only be described as piece of campaign trolling, on Thursday afternoon was staging an event just outside the former vice president’s birthplace in Scranton, Pennsylvania, mere hours before Biden formally accepts the Democratic nomination for president.”
“The political tradition of a presidential candidate lying low during the other party’s convention has eroded over the decades but — to the private delight of Trump’s advisers — the president’s trip looked to be a particularly in-your-face piece of counter-programming designed to rattle an opponent.”
“Kamala Harris is tapping into a new tranche of campaign cash for Joe Biden: money from both big and small donors who were reluctant to give to the white, male and over-70 nominee-in-waiting before she arrived,” Politico reports.
“Biden has turned things around since struggling to raise money in 2019, but Harris’ addition is exciting contributors anew. She has a deep familiarity with Democratic mega-donors from Silicon Valley to New York, and her history-making candidacy is now drawing interest from more casual givers as well as big donors who got a shot of excitement from Harris’ elevation.”
“Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is in a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital intensive care unit in Siberia after falling ill from suspected poisoning during a flight,” the AP reports.
“The 44-year-old foe of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin felt unwell on a flight back to Moscow from Tomsk, a city in Siberia, and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.”
Ryan Lizza: “The former president delivered a memorable speech that balanced torching the sitting president with assuring voters of the possibility of something better. All the while, he pulled back the historical view to 30,000 feet where it was possible to show voters the sweep of American history and remind them that the country, despite what he called ‘these dark times,’ has faced bigger challenges than Trump.”
“Obama accused Trump of failing to ‘discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.’ He essentially accused him of corruption and abuse of power, saying Trump had ‘no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends.’ And he accused his successor of a dangerous form of narcissism when he said that Trump had ‘no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.’”
“In his early months on the job, Mike Pompeo sought an unusual perk for a secretary of State: permission to rent a Washington, D.C.-area house that was controlled by the U.S. military. Pompeo and his aides initially tried to arrange for the chief U.S. diplomat and his family to live close to the State Department in the Potomac Hill campus, where the Navy maintained some homes,” Politico reports.
“But ultimately the Pompeos moved into U.S. Army housing at the Fort Myer base in Virginia, according to people familiar with the issue. Along the way, the request set off legal and logistical alarms, raising questions about whether Pompeo is eligible for any sort of military housing.”
“I know a predator when I see one.”
— Sen. Kamala Harris, accepting the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States.
The third night of the Democratic convention will be televised and livestreamed from 9 p.m to 11 p.m. ET.
Speakers include: Democratic vice presidential nominee and Sen. Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Gov. Tony Evers, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Barack Obama. Actress Kerry Washington will emcee.
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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, 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.