Jim VandeHei: “Other than conservative courts, toughness on immigration and hostility toward modern liberalism, it’s been impossible to specify the core and connective ideology of Republicans under Trump.”
“Now, Republicans are rallying around a plan to break up with corporate America and oppose Big Business, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Education — and big government.”
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that people who spread misinformation on Covid-19 vaccines are “criminals” and have cost “millions of lives,” CNBC reports.
“Former President Donald Trump ripped 13 congressional Republicans who backed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill during a lengthy speech Monday – while one of them, New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, listened from the audience,” the New York Post reports.
“Malliotakis appeared visibly shaken as Trump railed against her and other Republican House members during the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner.”
NBC News: Vote against Trump, face punishment from House GOP.
“The Justice Department is asking for the so-called QAnon Shaman, who wore a headdress and posed shirtless on the Senate floor during the siege of the US Capitol, to be sentenced to a prison term of more than four years, the longest incarceration prosecutors have asked for any guilty January 6 defendant so far,” CNN reports.
A new CNN poll finds Americans say, by 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better.
“That broadly negative appraisal holds across gender, age and racial lines. Even frequent Facebook users — those who report using the site at least several times a week — say 70% to 14% that the social network harms, rather than helps, US society.”
Washington Post: “After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, scores of donors and companies made public or private statements… vowing to withhold or rethink their funding for the GOP. But a review of attendees at elite donor retreats, financial filings and interviews with party officials, donors and fundraisers indicates the GOP has had a booming financial year, retaining significant support from many Fortune 500 companies and the city’s most influential lobbying shops, including some contributors who initially balked in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack.”
Matthew McConaughey, who continues to hint at running for Texas Governor, told the New York Times that “he believes that politics can be art — and he happens to be an artist.”
Said one GOP operative to Politico: “The takeaway was this was handled so poorly. He publicly flirted with it. He hyped it up as this big announcement to the national press, and then bailed in a way that hurts the party’s momentum after a big week in Virginia last week.”
“The White House announced a new ‘action plan’ Tuesday aimed at expanding the capacity of U.S. ports and inland waterways, as persistent supply chain congestion slows goods deliveries and fuels rising prices,” the Washington Post reports.
Punchbowl News: “There’s no question that the 117th Congress may be the most bizarre, the most troubled, in American history. There’s the pandemic. The Jan. 6 insurrection and the aftermath of that. Thousands of National Guard troops stationed for months in a fenced-off Capitol. Metal detectors outside the House floor and mask mandates when on it. Trillions of dollars worth of legislation being approved on party line votes. Ugly partisan exchanges everywhere. The House is a tense, deeply unhappy place right now.”
Playbook: “The Pew Research Center’s latest political typology report doesn’t answer all the questions about what underlies this ugliness. But it does reveal why Democratic leaders have had so much trouble uniting to pass the reconciliation bill and why Republican leaders can’t quit Trump.”
Washington Post: “The legal battle over the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccination or testing requirements for private businesses is falling along the country’s sharp political fault lines, with Republican-led states, conservative legal groups and sympathetic employers lining up most forcefully to try to block the rules.”
San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed is backing the effort to recall three school board members, saying she is supporting “the parents’ call for change,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“Senate candidate Sean Parnell’s contentious custody case ended Tuesday after three days of grueling testimony and sharp questions that seem certain to follow one of Pennsylvania’s top Republican contenders for the rest of his campaign,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“The trial ended without an immediate ruling and with two conflicting narratives about alleged abuse — both delivered under oath.”
“It’s now up to Senior Judge James Arner to evaluate the competing claims and decide on custody of Parnell’s three children, aged 8 to 12, in a decision that might, in part, be viewed as a signal of how he views the accusations of violence and abuse leveled against Parnell by his estranged wife, Laurie Snell.”
“A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s attempt to block a bipartisan House select committee from obtaining White House records as part of its investigation of the deadly Capitol invasion,” CNBC reports.
Former President Trump announced his endorsement of Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R) in the state’s gubernatorial race against current Gov. Brad Little (R), The Hill reports.
Both politicians have exchanged personal shots in the past months regarding the state government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Little refraining to order bans on mask and vaccine mandates.
Former President Donald Trump put out with a statement ripping Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for supporting the bipartisan infrastructure bill while claiming he could have gotten a $2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill if not for McConnell’s opposition.
“The White House is planning a signing ceremony for the bipartisan infrastructure deal next week when Congress returns to town from recess,” Punchbowl News reports.
“We do wonder if any of the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill will stand next to Biden as he signs it. Somehow, since some in the House Republican Conference are threatening to try to strip them of committee assignments, we doubt they’ll find their way to 1600 Pennsylvania for this one.”
“But what about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell? We doubt that one too.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that former President Donald Trump is at war “with the rule of law and the Constitution” and that GOP lawmakers who sit by silently are aiding his efforts, the AP reports.
Said Cheney: “We are also confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before: A former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders, who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”
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.