A new Trafalgar Group poll in Missouri finds Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R) and former Gov. Eric Greitens (R) tied in the Republican U.S. Senate race at 24%, followed by Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) at 23% and 17% undecided.
Meanwhile, Schmitt launched a new ad saying that if elected he’ll take a “blowtorch” to the Biden agenda while literally holding a blowtorch.
A Georgia grand jury has issued subpoenas to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and the attorney Rudy Giuliani as part of an investigation of possible criminal interference in that state’s 2020 election by former President Donald Trump, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Others Trump confidants being summoned include John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis, all of whom advised Trump on strategies for overturning Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia and other swing states.
“I’ve had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once. I’ve said no every time. I don’t want to help him. I’m not interested in helping him.”
— Podcaster Joe Rogan, quoted by The Week, on declining interviews with Donald Trump.
“In 2018 just after he announced his retirement, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sat at the ideological center of the court for much of his 30-year tenure, met with a groups of reporters. Was he worried that some of the precedents he helped establish–the right to abortion and LGBT rights, for instance–might now be in jeopardy? No, he replied. He was confident that constitutional rights, once established would remain in place,” NPR reports.
“It took just four years, and the addition of one more Trump appointee to the Supreme Court, to prove him wrong.”
FiveThirtyEight: “The data emphasizes that the court is deeply polarized along partisan lines — perhaps more than it’s ever been. There have always been ideological disagreements among the justices, and those have often pitted liberals against conservatives, but those divides weren’t consistently linked to the justice’s appointing party.”
Wholesale gasoline prices are down nearly 30 cents so far today, Bloomberg reports.
Matt Labash: “For as long as he’s been a public self-servant, the towel boy who served as Donald Trump’s fourth and last chief of staff has been a professional sleazebag.”
“He’s no cartoon villain, mind you. If Meadows were a color, he’d be beige. Blessed with the pleasantly dishonest face of a swampland timeshare hustler, the former congressman, who once described himself as being a ‘fat nerd’ as a kid, rarely says anything funny or compelling, unlike his Lord & Savior Donald H. Christ. Yet he forever manages to be controversial without actually being interesting, the sinisterness equivalent of a white noise machine.”
CNN: “More than a week after the abortion decision, top Biden aides are still wrangling over releasing new actions in response, despite the draft decision leaking six weeks earlier.”
Washington Post: “Hutchinson’s account of cleaning Trump-strewn ketchup off White House walls and pleading with her onetime boss, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, to get off his phone and help quell the Capitol riot was watched by more viewers than all but one of the NBA Finals games this year.”
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney writes in the Charlotte Observer that Republicans should be paying attention to the January 6 Committee.
“That is because, despite all of the flaws in the structure of the heavily Democrat committee, almost all of the evidence presented so far is coming from eminently credible sources: Republicans.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) shared a compilation of around a dozen vulgar and threatening phone calls to his congressional office.
An intercepted phone call reveals that Russians believe their own commanders are selling troop location information in Ukraine for money, the Daily Beast reports.
New York Times: “More than four months into the war, Ukrainians remain angry and defiant. But among civilians — millions of them displaced, out of work and living in fear, some lacking adequate food, water and electricity — the mood is increasingly somber. As the Russians gain ground and losses mount, with no end in sight, some Ukrainians accuse their government of minimizing the challenges ahead in a bid to raise morale.”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) told CBS Philadelphia that he’s so fed up with having to worry about guns and “bad” things happening that he’ll be “happy” to not be mayor anymore.
Said Kenney: “This is a gun country, it’s crazy, we’re the most armed country in world history and we’re one of the least safest. Until Americans decide that they want to give up the guns, and give up the opportunity to get guns, we’re gonna have this problem.”
He added: “I’ll be happy when I’m not… mayor.”
A new Monmouth poll finds President Biden’s overall job rating continues to trend downward. Currently, just 36% approve of the job he is doing while 58% disapprove.
Just 10% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction while 88% say it is on the wrong track. This marks an all-time low for this question.
A new Gallup poll finds that only 38% of Americans are “extremely proud” of being an American, while another 27% say they are “very” proud.
“This record-low level of extreme national pride comes at a challenging time in the U.S. as a pandemic-weary public is struggling with the highest U.S. inflation rate in more than four decades.”
David Ignatius: Nearly every American has a foreboding the country they love is losing its way.
“Six decades after the historic trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief engineers of the Holocaust, a new Israeli documentary series has delivered a dramatic coda: the boastful confessions of the Nazi war criminal, in his own voice,” the New York Times reports.
“The hours of old tape recordings, which had been denied to Israeli prosecutors at the time of Eichmann’s trial.”
“Eichmann went to the gallows insisting that he was a mere functionary following orders, denying responsibility for the crimes of which he had been found guilty.”
The wife of Brittney Griner told CBS News that President Joe Biden still has not responded to the handwritten letter that the basketball star sent to him from a Russian prison.
Said Cherelle Griner: “I still have not heard from him. And honestly, it’s very disheartening.”
She added that U.S. officials “are not doing anything.”
“I’m confident that the bill we passed a week and a half ago is going to save lives. It will make a difference. But it is only the beginning. Today is a reminder of how much more work that we have to do. We have now broken the back of the gun lobby. We now have made possible changes in our gun laws that can keep our communities safer. Today is a reminder that we still have a long road to travel.”
— Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), quoted by Politico, in response to the July 4th mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois that left six dead and dozens injured.
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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