“The Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government.”
— White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, on Meet the Press.
“The Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government.”
— White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, on Meet the Press.
It took only 17 days for the number of coronavirus cases in the United States to rise from 4 million to 5 million, the Washington Post reports.
“The previous million cases were also reported in about a two-week span. The United States leads the world with a quarter of all global infections. Brazil and India follow, with 3 million and 2.1 million reported infections, respectively.”
A new Georgetown University Battleground poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally in the presidential race, 53% to 40%.
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Bill Gates slammed the U.S.’s coronavirus “testing insanity” on CNN, which he said had caused the country to fall behind the rest of the world.
Said Gates: “It’s mind-blowing that you can’t get the government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is.”
He added: “No other country has the testing insanity because they won’t talk about fixing it, because they think they need to just keep acting like they’ve done a competent job.”
“President Trump is increasingly trying to run against a Joe Biden of his own making,” the Washington Post reports.
“Rather than look for campaign ammunition in the former vice president’s long track record of politically vulnerable votes and policy proposals, Trump has instead chosen to describe Biden as a godless Marxist bent on destroying the country with a radical agenda that would make Che Guevara blanch.”
“The caricature is one that neither Biden’s critics nor supporters recognize — but it’s one Trump continues to promote.”
Rebecca O’Donnell has pleaded guilty to killing her boss, former Arkansas State Senator Linda Collins (R), KATV reports.
O’Donnell admitted she was stealing money from the senator and “snapped” when confronted about it.
“House Republicans’ chief super PAC is booking another $45 million in fall advertising — a massive sum that will further define the congressional battleground as the GOP fights national headwinds to narrow Democrats’ majority,” Politico reports.
“The new buys, which are spread across 40 media markets, bring Congressional Leadership Fund’s total investment for the cycle to nearly $90 million.”
Chicago Tribune: “Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers.”
New York Times: “In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC.”
“That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming.”
Attorney General William Barr told Fox News that Democrats and the left are trying to tear down U.S. institutions in a pursuit for “total victory.”
Said Barr: “I think the left has essentially withdrawn from this model, and really represents a Rousseauian revolutionary party that believes in tearing down the system. They’re interested in complete political victory, they’re not interested in compromise, they’re not interested in dialectic exchange of views.”
He added that Democrats’ push for victory is their “substitute for a religion.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide “all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” — the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
“It’s an unusual move, given that President Trump appointed Wray to his post helming the FBI. In the two years since Wray took that role, he has positioned himself as a low-profile defender of the institution — often drawing ire from the president’s allies in conservative media and on Capitol Hill.”
President Trump on Twitter:
“So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal. Amazing how it all works, isn’t it. Where have they been for the last 4 weeks when they were ‘hardliners’, and only wanted BAILOUT MONEY for Democrat run states and cities that are failing badly? They know my phone number!”
Sen. Chuck Schumer told MSNBC this morning that neither he nor Speaker Nancy Pelosi have called Trump.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told CNBC the White House is open to more coronavirus stimulus talks: “We’re prepared to put more money on the table.”
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (D) advises Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in the San Francisco Chronicle to “politely decline” any offer to be Joe Biden’s running mate.
“Basically, no one takes the vice president seriously after election day. Just ask Mike Pence…”
“On the other hand, the attorney general has legitimate power. From atop the Justice Department, the boss can make a real mark on everything from police reform to racial justice to prosecuting corporate misdeeds.”
Slate offers “a blow-by-blow account of how the president killed thousands of Americans.”
“The story the president now tells—that he ‘built the greatest economy in history,’ that China blindsided him by unleashing the virus, and that Trump saved millions of lives by mobilizing America to defeat it—is a lie. Trump collaborated with Xi, concealed the threat, impeded the U.S. government’s response, silenced those who sought to warn the public, and pushed states to take risks that escalated the tragedy. He’s personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.”
Axios: “President Trump is trying to lure Joe Biden into a Walter Mondale trap — attempting to force the Democratic nominee to embrace middle-class tax increases as part of his election strategy.”
“With his Saturday evening executive action to unilaterally rewrite the tax code, Trump again is demonstrating the lengths to which he’ll go to change the conversation — and try to make the election a choice between him and Biden, and not a referendum on him.”
“In Biden’s response, he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he used the White House effort to suspend payroll taxes as a way to double down on his appeal to seniors and cast himself as the defender of Social Security.”
Nicolle Wallace was proposed as a replacement for her colleague Chuck Todd as moderator of the Sunday morning news show Meet the Press, the New York Times reports.
An NBC executive said in a statement that Todd “has led the Sunday news-making and ratings battles for five years at the helm of Meet the Press and will continue to do so.”
“President Trump on Sunday denied reports that the White House contacted the governor of South Dakota about carving his face into Mount Rushmore,” the New York Post reports.
Said Trump: “This is Fake News by the failing New York Times & bad ratings CNN. Never suggested it although, based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency, sounds like a good idea to me!”
Stat: “The good news: The United States has a window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 before things get much, much worse.”
“The bad news: That window is rapidly closing. And the country seems unwilling or unable to seize the moment.”
“Winter is coming. Winter means cold and flu season, which is all but sure to complicate the task of figuring out who is sick with Covid-19 and who is suffering from a less threatening respiratory tract infection. It also means that cherished outdoor freedoms that link us to pre-Covid life — pop-up restaurant patios, picnics in parks, trips to the beach — will soon be out of reach, at least in northern parts of the country.”
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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