“In a stunning move with less than two weeks before the primary, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry (D) is dropping out of the Democratic U.S. Senate race after having spent more than $12.3 million on the contest,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“Lasry’s withdrawal puts Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) in the driver’s seat to win the Aug. 9 primary and face Sen. Ron Johnson (R) in the fall… Lasry is expected to endorse Barnes.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) told NBC News that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has invited a small group of lawmakers on her official trip to Taiwan, including the top Democrat and Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Texas Republican said he declined the invitation “due to a personal obligation that conflicts with the visit.”
“Major gun manufacturers have made over $1 billion in the last decade selling military-style assault weapons, according to an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform,” CNBC reports.
Andrew Weissmann, the lead prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia interference in the 2016 election, was interviewed by Charlie Sykes on the Bulwark Podcast:
SYKES: If they don’t go forward with charges, if they decide that it’s just too heavy a lift, and Trump is returned to the presidency, what would Trump 2.0 look like, do you think?
WEISSMANN: I don’t know that I have enough alcohol at home to even fathom that.
The abuse of the pardon power, I think would, which we already saw, I think would create a completely lawless society. He could essentially engage in crime and have other people engage in crime, and then pardon them.
I think he has learned to make sure he’s surrounded by lackeys. The article recently in Axios about essentially getting rid of civil service, which is to put in only political appointees, and various agencies, I think would be incredibly harmful, so that you don’t have a sense of people being loyal to the law and the Constitution as opposed to a person. It would be truly frightening.
David Weigel: “We are drowning in evidence that Democratic voters don’t want the president to seek another term.”
“Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, has recently cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the events of Jan. 6,” ABC News reports.
“The Justice Department reached out to her following her testimony a month ago before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.”
For members: The Justice Department Finally Turns Its Focus to Trump
The Kansas City Star has a must-read article about how Eric Greitens (R) “went dark” before announcing his U.S. Senate bid.
“For the next year, eight months and 13 days, Greitens would not post on social media. He isolated himself from long-time friends and Missouri politicos. He separated from his wife. He appeared aimless, bumping from one former occupation to another, talking of writing a book, of being shipped to the Middle East with the Navy, of doing something in the media. He surrounded himself with people who, like him, believed he’d been the victim of a dirty political trick, one that had torn everything out from under him because he was fighting for the people of Missouri.”
“For the longest time, Greitens had the veneer of a man incapable of failure. People told stories about his perfectionism and his high expectations. But underneath the success was a powerful man with a seeming unwillingness to respect boundaries — the boundaries of campaign law, the boundaries of the woman with whom he had an affair. The veneer had slipped off.”
President Joe Biden has tested negative for Covid after a five-day isolation and will discontinue his isolation on Wednesday, CNN reports.
Jonathan Chait: “Whether the news media treats the Republican Party more or less harshly than the Democratic Party is a question that can’t be measured, and which most people settle by resorting to anecdotes. Partisans cling to examples of the media treating their side unfairly, with especially noxious examples hauled out of storage to be gazed at repeatedly, like cherished family heirlooms.”
“For the purposes of my argument here, I’d like to bracket it. The only point I need to make is that the mainstream media does routinely report critically on the Democratic Party. If you are watching CNN or reading the New York Times, you have encountered a steady stream of articles questioning whether Joe Biden is too old for the job, noting high inflation, pummeling the Afghanistan withdrawal, and so on. Whether you believe this level of criticism is excessive or insufficient is a matter of perspective, but the clear fact is that it exists.”
“Nothing like this exists within the conservative media. The communications apparatus of the conservative movement was established with the goal of advancing the right’s political interests. Its organs often borrow superficial conventions, like bylines and the inverted-pyramid structure, to create the simulacrum of a traditional news medium. But the people working in these institutions understand they are working for the conservative movement, not on behalf of the public’s right to know. Their approach to malfeasance by their side is to ignore, distort, or change the subject to some agreed-upon sin by the enemy (a practice called ‘whataboutism’).”
Norman Lear, on his 100th birthday, writes in the New York Times about his most famous television character, Archie Bunker:
“For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him. I hope that the resolve shown by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and their commitment to exposing the truth, would have won his respect.”
Disney confirmed to Axios that it “would allow political issue ads — in addition to candidate ads — on Hulu’s streaming service, effective immediately, bringing Hulu’s ad policies to parity with Disney’s cable networks.”
“The change comes amid a controversy over Hulu’s decision to reject political issue ads around guns and abortions from Democratic groups.”
“A growing number of House Democrats are seething at their own campaign arm for meddling in a GOP primary to promote a pro-Trump election conspiracy theorist — after months of warning that such candidates were a threat to democracy,” Politico reports.
“In public statements, private chats and complaints taken directly to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic members are aghast that the committee is spending nearly half a million dollars to air ads boosting Donald Trump-endorsed John Gibbs over Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who voted to impeach Trump last year.”
The FiveThirtyEight forecast shows Democrats for the first time with a 51% chance to win control of the U.S. Senate, while the Decision Desk forecast shows Republicans with a 51% chance to win control.
“If you want to know what the Mike Pence vice-presidency was like, Mike Pence is a guy with an erect posture and flaccid conscience. He stood up tall but he did not stand up to Donald Trump.”
— Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, quoted by The Guardian.
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution/University of Georgia poll finds Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) just ahead of challenger Herschel Walker (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 43%.
In the race for governor, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) leads challenger Stacey Abrams (D), 48% to 43%.
“Seized by genuine panic about the prospect of Republicans winning control of Congress and governors’ mansions across the country, multiple Democratic leaders and candidates in some of the tightest races are calling on party leaders – including President Joe Biden – to focus on calling out Republicans as ‘extremists,’” CNN reports.
“They don’t think Biden’s poll numbers are going to go up much or inflation is going to go down much. But in the continuing wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and with hundreds of election deniers on the ballot across the country, many Democratic leaders are looking to reframe the stakes of the midterms around a GOP they say has become a threat to America – arguing that Republican control in states and in Congress would lead to a federal abortion ban, major rights restrictions, and attacks on democracy which could endanger the 2024 presidential election.”
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.