Adam Entous: “As Trump stepped up his public and private attacks on Obama, some of the new president’s advisers thought that he should take the extraordinary step of denying Obama himself access to intelligence briefings that were made available to all of his living predecessors. Trump was told about the importance of keeping former Presidents, who frequently met with foreign leaders, informed.”
“In the end, Trump decided not to exclude Obama at the urging of H.R. McMaster.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told CNN that he would consider a 2020 presidential run after the midterm elections in November.
Said Swalwell: “I’m going to do all I can first to win my way back to Congress. And then after the midterms I’m going to consider it.”
President Trump “said he expected Jerome Powell to be a cheap-money Fed chairman and lamented to wealthy Republican donors at a Hamptons fundraiser that his nominee instead raised interest rates,” Bloomberg reports.
“The Federal Reserve has raised rates five times since Trump took office, including twice this year under Powell. The president nominates the Fed’s chairman and other governors in Washington, but the agency is independent and historically frustrated presidents by raising interest rates without regard for politics.”
A memo just released by the National Archives reveals that Brett Kavanaugh laid out in explicit language the questions President Clinton should have been asked about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, the Washington Post reports.
Among the questions: “If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?”
The memo to independent counsel Kenneth Starr also included this: “After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any ‘break’ in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship unless he resigns or confesses perjury. He has required the urgent attention of the courts and the Supreme Court for frivolous privilege claims — all to cover up his oral sex from an intern. He has lied to his aides. He has lied to the American people. He has tried to disgrace you and the Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.”
Chelsea Clinton has said she has not ruled out running for office one day, describing a move into politics as a “definite no now” but a “definite maybe” in the future, The Guardian reports.
Said Clinton: “While I disagree with the president … I think my family … is being really well represented. But if that were to change, if my city Councillor were to retire, if my congresswoman were to retire, my senators, and I thought that I could make a positive impact, then I think I would really have to ask my answer to that question of whether to run for office.”
Jonathan Chait: “Throughout the Russia scandal, President Trump has acted flamboyantly guilty, most recently by comparing himself implicitly with Richard Nixon during Watergate, and dismissing informants as “rats.” And yet a weekend report in Axios confidently asserted that the president maintains a fully innocent state of mind: ‘Trump himself thought then and thinks now that he personally has nothing to lose because he personally did nothing wrong.'”
“How could reporters know what Trump ‘believes’ deep in his heart? They couldn’t. (Indeed, Axios since corrected the statement to report that it reflects what Trump ‘tells associates,’ rather than claiming definitive insight into his mind.) Yet this practice is extremely common within the news media. While they have dug up an extraordinary amount of incriminating facts about Trump, reporters have also repeatedly leaned into the most exculpatory interpretations of those same facts.”
“There is no question that something is tragically wrong with the president of the United States in his mind.”
— Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), quoted by the Orlando Sun-Sentinel.
David Wasserman: “It’s hard to believe, but true: If every state’s and district’s election results on Nov. 6 were a uniform eight-point swing in the Democrats’ direction from the 2016 presidential result, Democrats would gain 44 House seats — almost twice the 23 they need to control the chamber. But with that same eight-point swing, the party would lose four Senate seats, leaving them six seats short of a majority.”
Michael Avenatti said that President Trump does not want to debate him because Trump is not “intelligent” enough, The Hill reports.
Said Avenatti: “He’s a bully and I think he doesn’t like people that punch back, and I think I would be incredibly effective against him. I don’t think he’s very quick on his feet, I don’t think he’s that intelligent and I think he’d be completely outclassed.”
CBS News: Avenatti visits New Hampshire.
First Read: “For all the attention to Rudy Giuliani’s ‘Truth isn’t truth’ comment… President Trump’s personal lawyer made an even more startling statement on the program. Giuliani declared that the Trump campaign representatives who met with Russians in that June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting (Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner) didn’t know they were representatives of the Russian government.”
“Let’s unpack Giuliani’s comments: One, he admits the purpose of that 2016 meeting was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton (when their original explanation was Russian adoptions). Two, he says any campaign would have taken such a meeting (when past Democratic and Republican campaigns have said they never did). And three, Giuliani declares they didn’t know Natalia Veselnitskaya was connected with the Russian government. But we know that isn’t true.”
“For Giuliani to claim that Donald Trump Jr. — or anyone else associated with the Trump campaign — didn’t know Veselnitskaya and others were connected to the Russian government doesn’t pass the smell test. The facts don’t back it up.”
President Trump stepped up his twitter attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Said Trump: “Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel [sic], only with my approval, for purposes of transparency.”
He added: “Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone … looking for trouble. They are enjoying ruining people’s lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side – the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more! Mueller’s Angry Dems are looking to impact the election. They are a National Disgrace!”
A New Hampshire Journal poll finds that 56% of all voters — and 40% of Republicans — believe a Republican primary challenge to President Trump in 2020 “would be a good thing.”
“President Trump’s overall approval in New Hampshire, 41% approving to 54% disapproving, mirrors findings from the national average of polls… But Trump’s approval among New Hampshire Republicans, 72%, was 10 points below his standing with the GOP nationwide.”
Rolling Stone: “As of this writing, Trump has put 26 new judges onto the appellate courts, more than any other chief executive at this point in the presidency. He has also nominated over 100 district-court judges and gotten 26 of those picks confirmed. These judges are overwhelmingly young, ideological and now set to serve lifetime appointments. And then, of course, there’s Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first pick for the Supreme Court, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s second Supreme Court nominee, who stands a strong chance of confirmation.”
”What unites these judges is the radical legal doctrine of originalism — that the text of the Constitution should be understood only as it was intended when written more than 230 years ago. Originalism was long seen as a fringe philosophy; taken to its logical extreme, an originalist reading of the Constitution could mean a country without same-sex marriage, federal child-labor laws or the Americans With Disabilities Act. Today, however, originalism is the dominant legal philosophy on the right and the litmus test for any judge appointed by President Trump.”
Former CIA director John Brennan said “that he is willing to take President Trump to court to prevent other current and former officials from having their security clearances revoked, escalating a battle over whether the president is misusing the power of his office to retaliate against opponents,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Brennan: “I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future, and if it means going to court, I will do that.”0
CNN: “In his tweet, Trump again called the Times ‘failing,’ but the newspaper actually reported a healthy second-quarter profit. Two years ago today, he also called the Times ‘failing’ and ‘dying.’ The Times‘ stock is up nearly 77% since that tweet.”
Steve Bannon told the Associated Press that “he believes the GOP would lose 35 to 40 seats in the House if the election were held today, thereby ceding their majority to Democrats he’s convinced will pursue impeachment.”
Said Bannon: “You can’t look at this as a midterm and you can’t run it out of the traditional Republican playbook. If you do that, you’re going to get smoked.”
He added: “This is not about persuasion. It’s too late to persuade anybody. We’re 90 days away from this election. This is all about turnout and what I call base-plus.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt 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.
"There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them."
-- Chuck Todd, host of "Meet the Press"
"Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all."
-- Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
"Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
-- Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
"The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom -- nicely packaged, constantly updated... What political junkie could ask for more?"
-- Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.