A defense official told the Washington Post that the Trump administration plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria immediately.
“The decision would remove the entire force of more than 2,000 U.S. service members and end the extended ground mission against the Islamic State.”
After dropping demands for border wall funding, President Trump tweeted that Republicans will win on the divisive issue “one way or the other.”
Said Trump: “In our Country, so much money has been poured down the drain, for so many years, but when it comes to Border Security and the Military, the Democrats fight to the death. We won on the Military, which is being completely rebuilt. One way or the other, we will win on the Wall!”
“The South Carolina Republican Party could cancel its marquee presidential nominating contest in 2020 in a move to protect President Trump from any primary challengers,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina GOP, said he doesn’t anticipate Trump would face a primary challenge and emphasized that the state party executive committee hasn’t held any formal discussions about the contest, dubbed ‘first in the South’ and usually third on the presidential nominating calendar. But McKissick would pointedly not rule out canceling the primary, indicating that that would be his preference.”
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Rudy Giuliani dismissed as “bullshit” a new report that President Trump signed a letter of intent in 2015 that preceded negotiations for a Trump property in Moscow, the New York Daily News reports.
Said Giuliani: “That was the end of it. It means nothing but an expression of interest that means very little unless it goes to a contract, and it never did.”
With appointments to fill two vacant seats, Nevada became the first state in the country with a majority-female legislature, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.
Washington Post: “In ways quiet and loud, the Iowa presidential contest is already underway, 14 months before the caucuses mark the official start of the 2020 race. Candidates are lining up state directors, planning a flurry of trips in January and jump-starting the fight for an extraordinarily small slice of voters who play one of the most outsize roles in American politics.”
“The state Democratic Party is also on the verge of making a dramatic change to the caucus process by allowing absentee voters to participate for the first time, a move that could dramatically increase the number of voters involved and bring more moderates into a process that for decades has been dominated by the most dedicated liberal activists.”
Senior White House officials have told Playbook the following things:
“A shutdown is inevitable because the president will hold strong; he wants a seven-bill omnibus with $1.6 billion in border security and he’ll declare that a victory; he wants a short-term spending bill to interrupt the beginnings of the Democratic House; he will not accept a short-term spending bill; he’ll see what the Senate produces. All of these answers have come from the same institution: the Trump White House.”
“As Friday draws closer and closer, a stopgap spending bill is becoming more and more likely. The Senate is likely to decide on this today… The House is basically just watching at this point. There is some concern that attendance will stink this week but the GOP whip operation is somewhat confident that they will have people in town through Friday. The real problem will be if Trump continues to sit on his hands, some House Republicans will decide they aren’t going to walk a plank for a president who can’t say what he supports, senior Republicans tell us.”
The Federal Reserve Board will announce whether it will continue to hike interest rates at 2:30 p.m.
Axios: “There’s never been a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision quite like this, with the central bank facing public criticism from the president and a whipsawing stock market.”
Financial Times: “Fed officials have signaled they will boost rates by a quarter point at the meeting, and holding fire would look skittish, according to analysts and strategists. It would send a markedly downbeat signal about the economic outlook; it might indicate the Fed is overly influenced by market turbulence; and it would trigger claims that the president is influencing policy.”
“Hackers infiltrated the European Union’s diplomatic communications network for years, downloading thousands of cables that reveal concerns about an unpredictable Trump administration and struggles to deal with Russia and China and the risk that Iran would revive its nuclear program,” the New York Times reports.
CNN obtained a letter of intent to move forward with a Trump Tower in Moscow signed by Donald Trump on October 28, 2015, Axios reports.
“The signed letter doesn’t have direct legal implications or suggest obvious wrongdoing. But it does raise questions about why Trump has repeatedly denied having anything to do with Russia, especially as new details about the timeline of the Moscow project have emerged.”
When asked about the letter, Rudy Giuliani incorrectly told CNN that it had not been signed.
“The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a sweeping overhaul of the criminal justice system, after a remarkable political shift from Republicans who voted in large numbers to save money by reducing prison sentences, handing a rare bipartisan victory to President Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“The First Step Act passed on a vote of 87 to 12, with dozens of Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joining all 49 members of the Democratic caucus to approve legislation that even some GOP supporters fear could leave them vulnerable to charges of being soft on crime.”
New York Times: “House leaders have pledged to pass the measure this week, and President Trump, whose support resuscitated a yearslong overhaul effort last month, was expected to sign the bill.”
“The Fox News host Tucker Carlson has lost advertisers after saying on the air last week that allowing certain immigrants into the United States ‘makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided,'” the New York Times reports.
“By Tuesday, 11 companies said they would stop advertising on his prime-time show, Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Speaker Paul Ryan “is using his final weeks in Congress to leave a lasting image of a brainy conservative warrior for lower taxes, free markets and a more muscular America abroad — in public appearances, a taxpayer-funded online video series and a farewell address set for Wednesday,” the Washington Post reports.
“But after two decades in the House and three years as speaker, the Wisconsin Republican’s long-term legacy is already a matter of fierce debate, including within his own party.”
“Four days after attorneys secretly argued over a grand jury subpoena suspected to be related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, a federal appeals court is forcing an unnamed company to comply with the subpoena,” CNN reports.
“The appeals court did not identify the company, nor did the appellate judges say the subpoena was related to the Mueller investigation. The company that sought to quash the subpoena is owned by a foreign country.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Bloomberg the Trump administration “is setting aside a middle-class tax cut and planning to focus its tax efforts next year on fixing mistakes in the 2017 overhaul.”
“Mnuchin said he’s hoping to work with Congress on ‘some minor technical corrections’ to the law, such as a drafting error that denies retailers and restaurants a tax break when they make renovations. He downplayed the prospect of the middle-class tax cut that Trump campaigned on in the days leading up to the midterm elections.”
Jonathan Chait: “Two more mysteries remain. The first is just what crimes by Flynn Mueller’s prosecutors found. The second, even larger, is what Flynn gave them on Trump. If his offenses were as serious as Sullivan indicated, and Mueller still suggested he skip prison, it stands to reason that the evidence he turned over concerning other figures is devastating.”
“Flynn was not set up. He was charged for committing serious crimes. And he is probably going to escape prison because the crimes committed by the people he worked with and for are even more serious.”
“President Trump retreated from his demand for $5 billion to build a border wall, as congressional Republicans maneuvered to avoid a partial government shutdown before funding expires at the end of Friday.” the Washington Post reports.
“But Democrats immediately rejected Republicans’ follow-up offer, leaving the two sides still at impasse as hundreds of thousands of federal workers await word on whether they will be sent home without pay just before Christmas. The new border funding offer from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calls on Congress to pass a $1.6 billion homeland security spending bill that was crafted earlier this year in a bipartisan Senate compromise.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds American voters oppose building a wall on the Mexican border by 54% to 43%.
However, this is the highest level of support for the wall since the poll first asked the question in November 2016.
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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