Former President Donald Trump told Punchbowl News that there’s “not even a question” that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) should have put Republicans on the January 6 Committee.
Said Trump: “The Republicans don’t have a voice. They don’t even have anything to say.”
“Gavin Newsom keeps picking exactly the kinds of fights that presidential candidates like to pick,” the New York Times reports.
“And though Newsom has declared that he has ‘subzero interest’ in running for president — and aides insist that he is deadly earnest about that — he appears to be not only positioning himself as a point man for blue states but also laying the groundwork for a future White House run.”
Said David Axelrod: “If the president were not to run, it’s hard to imagine that Newsom would not be sorely tempted to enter the race. … Newsom is young and politically muscular, which may be just what the market will be seeking post-Biden.”
“In a pointed back and forth, the head of Chevron complained Tuesday that President Joe Biden has vilified energy firms at a time when gasoline prices are at near record levels,” the AP reports.
Wrote Chevron CEO Michael Wirth: “Your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry. These actions are not beneficial to meeting the challenges we face and are not what the American people deserve.”
Responded Biden: “I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly.”
“When the United States and European Union moved to curtail purchases of Russian fossil fuels this year, they hoped it would help make the Russian invasion of Ukraine so economically painful for Moscow that President Vladimir Putin would be forced to abandon it,” the New York Times reports.
“That prospect now seems remote at best.”
“China and India, the world’s most populous countries, have swooped in to buy roughly the same volume of Russian oil that would have gone to the West. Oil prices are so high that Russia is making even more money now from sales than it did before the war began four months ago. And its once-flailing currency has surged in value against the dollar.”
“President Biden on Wednesday will call on Congress to suspend the federal gas and diesel taxes for the next three months, the latest effort by the White House to provide relief to Americans struggling with record-high gasoline prices,” The Hill reports.
Wall Street Journal: “A suspension of the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gasoline tax would require congressional approval, so a move by Mr. Biden to throw his support behind the effort would be largely symbolic. Lawmakers of both parties have expressed resistance to suspending the tax, a move that would likely need bipartisan support to become law.“
New York Times: “Even if all of the benefits were passed on to consumers, the owner of a Ford-150 that gets 20 miles to the gallon driving a thousand miles per month would save about $9 if the federal gas tax were suspended — the cost, these days, of a decent ham sandwich.”
Jason Furman: “Whatever you thought of the merits of a gas tax holiday in February it is a worse idea now. Refineries are even more constrained now so supply is nearly fully inelastic. Most of the 18.4 cent reduction would be pocketed by industry–with maybe a few cents passed on to consumers.”
“The Senate on Tuesday cleared the first hurdle to passing a bipartisan measure aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people, agreeing to take up a compromise bill whose enactment would break a yearslong stalemate over federal legislation to address gun violence,” the New York Times reports.
“While the bill falls short of the sweeping gun control measures Democrats have long demanded, its approval would amount to the most significant action in decades to overhaul the nation’s gun laws. The 64-to-34 vote came just hours after Republicans and Democrats released the text of the legislation, and after days of feverish negotiations to hammer out its details.”
Punchbowl News: “This is the first significant gun control bill to have a real chance of becoming law in nearly three decades. And it signals the extraordinary pressure Congress is under to respond to the horrific wave of gun violence plaguing the nation.”
“Katie Britt, a former chief of staff to the retiring Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, won the Republican nomination to replace her onetime boss on Tuesday, comfortably defeating a right-wing rival in a race that puts the 40-year-old on track to become the youngest woman in the United States Senate,” the New York Times reports.
“The Senate race in Alabama took a number of twisting turns involving former President Donald Trump, who has made the 2022 primary season into a rolling referendum on his influence.“
“But in Georgia, where Mr. Trump last month suffered his most serious political setbacks of 2022, the former president continued to rack up losses, as two congressional candidates he supported lost their runoffs on Tuesday.”
“Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, is quietly shifting his campaign messaging away from former President Trump as he transitions into what’s likely to be one of the most hotly contested Senate elections of the midterms,” Axios reports.
Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) explained in an old interview why he didn’t think his Multiple Personality Disorder is a mental illness.
Said Walker: “Do our Lord Jesus Christ have a mental illness because he said he’s the father, the son and the Holy Spirit? To me, those are 3 different personalities.”
“All the action is on the Republican side in this week’s primary battles,” National Journal reports.
Leave your reactions in the comments as results of key races come in.
“The South Dakota Senate has voted to remove Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (R) from office during his impeachment trial Tuesday,” the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
Associated Press: “Ravnsborg, a first-term Republican who only recently announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, showed little emotion as senators convicted him first of committing a crime that caused someone’s death. They then delivered another guilty verdict on a malfeasance charge that alleged he misled investigators and misused his office.
“A bipartisan group of senators overcame some last-minute hurdles and released legislative text Tuesday on a narrow set of provisions to combat gun violence, including state funding to implement ‘red flag’ laws and enhanced background checks,” NBC News reports.
“A top Alaska elections official said Tuesday that the fifth-place finisher in the special primary for Alaska’s U.S. House seat will not advance to an August special election following the withdrawal of independent Al Gross, who was in third place,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Ivanka Trump, the elder daughter of former President Donald Trump, told a documentary film crew in the middle of December 2020 that her father should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” because people were questioning “the sanctity of our elections,” the New York Times reports.
The video “was striking for how it shows Ms. Trump using a different tone in describing her father’s efforts to overturn the outcome than she did in the portion of her deposition to the House committee that has been made public so far.”
Billionaire Peter Thiel “has told people he is unsure whether he will support Trump in 2024,” the Washington Post reports.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed two abortion bills into law Tuesday that ban most abortions in the state and criminalize providers who perform the procedure, ABC News reports.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), “the embattled nine-term congressman from South Texas in the political fight of his career, won his Democratic primary runoff against a young progressive opponent, overcoming fierce attacks on his record and an F.B.I. investigation with a last-minute push from top national Democrats,” the New York Times reports.
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) “hit the conservative talk radio circuit Tuesday, arguing that a campaign video showing him storming a house with soldiers in search of ‘Republicans in name only’ was intended to be a humorous metaphor,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Said Greitens: “I don’t think there is a real person in Missouri who thinks about it literally. Not one. What you’re seeing is a tremendous amount of faux outrage from leftists and RINOs.”
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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