Bonus Quote of the Day
“Believe it or not, even when I’m in Washington or New York, I do not watch much television. I know they like to say that. People that don’t know me, they like to say I watch television — people with fake sources. You know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don’t get to watch much television. Primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents. A lot. And different things. I actually read much more — I read you people much more than I watch television.”
— President Trump, quoted by Axios.
Republicans Work to Block Moore’s Path
“Senate Republicans scrambled on Friday to find a way to block Roy Moore’s path to the Senate, exploring extraordinary measures to rid themselves of their own nominee in Alabama after accusations emerged that he had made sexual advances on four teenage girls when he was in his 30s,” the New York Times reports.
“Republican senators and their advisers, in a flurry of phone calls, emails and text messages, discussed fielding a write-in candidate, pushing Alabama’s governor to delay the Dec. 12 special election or even not seating Mr. Moore at all should he be elected. In an interview, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, declined to say whether he would agree to seat Mr. Moore should he win.”
For members: Republicans Lose Either Way In Alabama
McConnell Admits Some May Get Tax Increases
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) acknowledged “that the Republican tax plan might result in a tax hike for some working Americans, saying he ‘misspoke’ days earlier when he said that ‘nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase’ under the Senate bill,” the New York Times reports.
Said McConnell: “I misspoke on that. You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase.”
“The Senate bill unveiled on Thursday would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families, according to a preliminary New York Times analysis. The plan would also disproportionately benefit high earners and corporations. Still, middle-class earners would fare better under the Senate proposal than its counterpart in the House.”
Republicans Have a Big Retirement Problem
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Trump’s Channels to Russia
Jonathan Chait: “There are several channels through which Donald Trump’s campaign apparently cooperated with Russian efforts to help him win the presidency. The first, and best known, is a Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 to pursue Russian promises of providing dirt on Hillary Clinton. A second is Roger Stone, a frequent Trump adviser who had clear advance notice of the publication of stolen emails. A third is Trump himself openly asking Russia to obtain Clinton’s State Department emails. The final channel is the efforts by Cambridge Analytica, the campaign’s data firm. This channel is less well known to the public, in part because reporting about it has been dominated by The Wall Street Journal, and its stories hidden behind a paywall. But Cambridge Analytica’s role has come into much clearer focus.”
“Two weeks ago, the Journal reported that Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to help him better organize the stolen Democratic emails his site was publishing. On Friday, the Journal found that this contact came as Cambridge Analytica was joining the Trump campaign.”
Quote of the Day
“This artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way and that’s a shame because people will die because of it. And it’s a pure hit job.”
— President Trump, quoted by Politico, suggesting people will die because of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Trump Says He Believes Putin Didn’t Interfere In Election
President Trump suggested “he’s done confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin over his country’s election meddling since it’s insulting to the Russian leader,” CNN reports.
“Trump said he took Putin at his word that Russia did not seek to interfere in the U.S. presidential election last year, despite a finding from US intelligence agencies that it did. The fraught relations between the two leaders was underscored anew when Putin’s spokesman said election meddling did not come up when they spoke, even though Trump said it did.”
Said Trump: “He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it. I think he is very insulted by it.”
Murdoch Has Offered to Buy CNN
Rupert Murdoch telephoned AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson twice in the last six months and offered to buy cable network CNN, Reuters reports.
CNN has become the focal point in antitrust approval of AT&T’s $85.4 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc, hatched in October 2016.
Brother Says Moore Being Persecuted Like Jesus
Roy Moore’s brother compared the U.S. Senate candidate to Jesus Christ in an interview, saying that the Alabama Republican is being persecuted “like Jesus” in the wake of accusations of sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl, the Huffington Post reports.
Jerry Moore said that allegations about his brother’s history with teenagers when Roy Moore was in his 30s are “not true at all.”
He added: “These women are going to… have to answer to God for these false allegations.”
How Michael Flynn Landed In the West Wing
Politico: “When Christie was fired from his transition perch on Nov. 11 — replaced by soon-to-be Vice President Mike Pence — Flynn and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon celebrated by tossing binders full of potential personnel picks, carefully culled by Christie’s team, into trash bins with a sense of ceremonial glee.”
“They did this before an audience of other transition officials, according to the two people close to the transition and a campaign official — though another former transition official disputed the idea that the binders and picks were not considered by the Pence-led transition team.”
“Ultimately it was Trump himself who made the decision to ditch Christie’s recommendation against hiring Flynn for national security adviser… That fateful decision brought the simmering Russia scandal into the West Wing and set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether the president’s team had any involvement in Russian election meddling.”
U.S. Journalists Locked Out of Trump Appearance
“Nearly all U.S. journalists covering Presiden Trump’s appearance at a major economic summit in Vietnam were barred from attending key events Friday and Saturday, including photo-ops featuring interactions between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Politico reports.
“A Fox News video crew and an official White House photographer were granted access to the meetings. Fox was the news organization that was tasked with providing pool video to other news outlets. But the rest of the pool reporters, including independent photographers from U.S. news organizations, were blocked from covering the event.”
Moore Denies Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore told Sean Hannity that a story about alleged sexual misconduct was “completely manufactured.”
Moore also claimed that his campaign has evidence of “collusion” related to the allegations, but isn’t ready to release details to the public. He suggested that, “I’m sure in the next four weeks they’re gonna come out with another article.”
Moore further explained that he “dated a lot of young ladies” but he doesn’t “remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother.”
Roy Moore Response Shows GOP Deserves to Die
Max Boot: “This episode is the sorry culmination of two trends that have disfigured the conservative movement beyond all recognition: contempt for the facts and desire to win at all costs. Republicans are increasingly reliant on ‘alternative facts’ manufactured by the likes of Fox News and Breitbart, which claim that global warming isn’t real and neither is the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee. The real scandal, they tell us, is the Steele dossier paid for by the Democrats in an attempt to uncover Trump’s Russian connections. Or is it the evidence-free claim that Obama supposedly wiretapped Trump?”
“In the final analysis, no indictment of their candidate will convince the faithful. As Trump once said, ‘I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters’ Or, more to the point, Roy Moore could molest a 14-year-old girl and not lose votes. Because for Republican partisans, their opponents are ‘the forces of evil,’ and anything is preferable to that. Even Donald Trump. Even Roy Moore. So in ostensibly fighting evil, Republicans have become complicit in it.”
“This is a party that does not deserve to survive.”
Not Much of a Tax Cut for Ordinary Americans
John Cassidy: “The business tax cuts and A.M.T. abolition don’t leave any room for ordinary American households to receive substantial tax cuts. Both Republican bills do expand family tax credits and reduce the marginal tax rates that most households would face; but they also claw back a lot of revenue in other ways, some of which are targeted at families.”
“The upshot of all this is that the Republican tax proposals, which Trump has promoted by promising the biggest tax cuts in history, isn’t much of a tax cut at all in the sense that most Americans understand the term. It’s really designed to reduce the tax burden on businesses and wealthy individuals, and it could only be justified if, defying history, it delivered the economy-wide upsurge in G.D.P. growth, capital investment, and wages that the White House has promised, and which Cohn talked about in his interview. The supposed middle-class tax cuts are a fig leaf.”
Young Voters Propelled Northam to Victory
Andrew Sullivan: “The under-30s turnout in the Virginia governor’s race in 2009 was 17 percent; in 2013, it was 24 percent; this week it was 34 percent. And as young turnout surged, it became progressively more Democratic. In 2013, the under-30s split 45–40 percent for the Democrats; in 2016, in the presidential race, it was 54–36; last week it was 69–30. The third-party vote among the young also collapsed: from 15 percent in 2013 to one percent last Tuesday.”
“I draw a couple of inferences from this: Trump’s extraordinary success among older voters in 2016 has produced a backlash among younger voters in 2017, who are far less complacent than they were last year and ever-more repulsed by Trump’s racist reactionism. And the younger generation has learned one thing from 2016: Voting for your ideal candidate is less important than voting for the candidate that can effectively halt the advance of the far right. Better late than never, I suppose — and Charlottesville may have helped concentrate their minds.”
For members: Young Voters Will Decide the Future for Democrats
Deadlocked In Alabama
A new Opinion-Savvy/DDHQ poll in Alabama finds Roy Moore (R) and Doug Jones (D) in a dead heat for U.S. Senate, 46% to 46%.
“Beyond the horse race between the two declared candidates, voters were also asked about the allegations that broke in the Washington Post yesterday, and if Moore should withdraw from the race over them. An overwhelming share of those surveyed- 82.2%- were aware of the allegations. A majority of voters — 54% — do not think Moore should withdraw at this time. Among Republicans, that percentage soars to 72.9%.”
Senate Republicans Sever Fundraising Ties to Moore
“A day after explosive allegations of sexual assault surfaced against Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, the Republican Party’s senate campaign arm has severed financial ties with the embattled former state supreme court justice,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The NRSC’s removal from the account is the most concrete step taken to date to create distance between the national Republican Party and the Moore campaign. Other lawmakers have called on Moore to leave the race. But most have said he should do so only if the accusations are proven true.”
