“Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the NRSC chair, has a new ad up on the air – yes, he’s running TV ads – to boost his 11-point plan ‘to rescue America,’” Punchbowl News reports.
“Remember that the Senate GOP leadership cringes every time Scott mentions this.”
“This Scott spot is up in New York, LA, Philadelphia and D.C. Just one of these markets – Philadelphia – has a competitive Senate race, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Even as an increasing share of Americans report familiarity with and tolerance for transgender people, most oppose allowing transgender female athletes to compete against other women at the professional, college and high school level,” according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
“It’s Tuesday morning, which means it’s primary day! South Carolina, Maine, Nevada and North Dakota are on the clock. Plus, there’s a special election to fill an open House seat in Texas,” Punchbowl News reports.
Playbook: “It’s a Tuesday in 2022, which means it’s time for yet another stop in Donald Trump’s post-presidency revenge tour against incumbent Republicans he thinks have wronged him.”
“Today will see two high-profile GOP primaries in South Carolina, where Reps. Tom Rice and Nancy Mace face Trump-backed opponents.”
Washington Post: Trump shunned Nancy Mace. Can she survive a GOP primary anyway?
Punchbowl News: “We caught up with all of the key players in the gun-control debate yesterday, and there was one constant – they recognize the need to move quickly to pass this legislation. Almost everyone we spoke to wants to have the Senate vote on this legislation before the July 4 recess.”
“Sen. John Cornyn, the lead Republican in this process, said he thinks negotiators can wrap up the text this week and have it ready for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to put on the floor next week.”
“One way Schumer can speed up the process is to file cloture on a House shell bill later this week, which would start the clock on the legislative process in the Senate. In other words, Schumer can take a House-passed bill, gut it and insert the gun-control proposal whenever the text is ready. This would help avoid one cloture vote – cloture on the motion to proceed – since it would be a House vehicle. Schumer has done this before on previous deals before the text was finalized. So if he does it this week again, we wouldn’t be surprised.”
Politico: House Democrats ready to accept Senate Gun deal — if it can stay intact.
Sen. Bernie Sanders said he would not challenge President Joe Biden in a 2024 primary and would back him if he runs — a comment that comes as Democrats are uncertain whether the 79-year-old President should run again, CNN reports.
“The Federal Reserve’s bid to contain the hottest inflation in decades will end in a recession. That’s the message the bond market is telegraphing,” Bloomberg reports.
“Key sections of the Treasury curve have inverted after Friday’s US inflation shock drove traders to boost bets on the pace of Fed tightening. Two-year yields exceeded 10-year rates for the first time since April on Monday, while five-year yields soared as much as 17 basis points above 30-year rates in the widest inversion in over two decades.”
“Three days before Congress was slated to certify the 2020 presidential election, a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark rushed to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a last-ditch attempt to reverse the results,” the Washington Post reports.
“Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade, had outlined a plan in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states Joe Biden won. It said that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending ‘a separate slate of electors supporting Donald Trump’ for Congress to approve.”
“In fact, Clark’s bosses had warned there was not evidence to overturn the election and had rejected his letter days earlier. Now they learned Clark was about to meet with Trump.”
Washington Post: “About a third of the way through the 2022 primaries, voters have nominated scores of Republican candidates for state and federal office who say the 2020 election was rigged.”
“District by district, state by state, voters in places that cast ballots through the end of May have chosen at least 108 candidates for statewide office or Congress who have repeated Trump’s lies. The number jumps to at least 149 winning candidates — out of more than 170 races — when it includes those who have campaigned on a platform of tightening voting rules or more stringently enforcing those already on the books, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud.”
“President Biden, in an Oval Office meeting last week with key members of his Cabinet, indicated he’s leaning toward removing some products from the Trump administration’s China tariffs list,” Axios reports.
“With inflation at a 40-year high of 8.6%, Biden and his top officials are desperate to show action on bringing down prices, even if it makes them appear weak on China.”
“The chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol told reporters Monday that the panel will not make any criminal referral of former President Donald Trump or anyone else to the Justice Department — a claim that met swift pushback from members of the panel.,” CNN reports.
Said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): “No, you know, we’re going to tell the facts. If the Department of Justice looks at it, and assume that there’s something that needs further review, I’m sure they’ll do it.”
But Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) released a statement contradicting the chairman’s comments: “The January 6th Select Committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time.”
“Former President Trump on Monday issued a 12-page rebuttal to testimony and evidence presented by a House committee investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, accusing Democrats of seeking to distract from a series of domestic issues facing the country,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Seventeen months after the events of January 6th, Democrats are unable to offer solutions. They are desperate to change the narrative of a failing nation, without even making mention of the havoc and death caused by the Radical Left just months earlier. Make no mistake, they control the government. They own this disaster. They are hoping that these hearings will somehow alter their failing prospects.”
President Biden’s average approval has hovered for months in the low 40s, but hit a new low of 39.7% on Monday — worse than former President Trump’s was at this point in 2018.
Axios: “Presidential job approval — particularly at this stage of an election — can serve as a proxy for understanding how the public feels about the party in power in Washington. Biden’s window of opportunity for boosting his standing ahead of the midterms is quickly closing.”
“The 2022 stock sell-off intensified on Monday with the S&P 500 tumbling to a fresh low for the year and closing in bear market territory as recession fears grew ahead of this week’s key Federal Reserve meeting,” CNBC reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Meanwhile, a rout in cryptocurrencies highlighted investors’ increasing unwillingness to hang on to their most speculative holdings.”
“Jenna Ellis, who was among the most high-profile attorneys involved in the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, has joined Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial campaign as a senior legal adviser,” Reuters reports.
“The Texas Department of Public Safety has asked the state’s Office of the Attorney General to prevent the public release of police body camera footage from the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in part because, it argues, the footage could be used by other shooters to determine ‘weaknesses’ in police response to crimes,” Vice News reports.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told CNN that Donald Trump and his family were paid from donations to help overturn the election, including $60,000 that Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid to introduce Donald Trump Jr. at the January 6 rally.
Said Lofgren: “It’s a grift… $60,000 for two-and-a-half minutes.”
Rudy Giuliani denied he was drunk when he advised the former president to prematurely declare a 2020 re-election victory before results were final, USA Today reports.
Said Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello: “Mayor Giuliani denies the allegation. Talk to other people that were there that night and they will corroborate the Mayor. You might be interested to know that the Select Committee staff counsel never inquired about this subject. I wonder why? They never asked whether he had a single drink. No discussion whatsoever.”
Giuliani also appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast: “It’s the same cast of characters, in Bennie Thompson, shifty Schiff, and you see Swalwell – not on the committee, but in the background; now, the completely hysterical Mary [sic] Cheney, who’s gone off her deep end.”
NBC News: “A half dozen current and former government officials briefed on the issue, and several outside experts, told NBC News there was no playbook and little agreement about how the U.S. would respond to a norm-shattering act of destruction that could obliterate a Ukrainian city, kill tens of thousands and send a cloud of nuclear fallout drifting over NATO countries in Western Europe.”
“This isn’t new to the Biden administration. In fact, when the Obama administration conducted a war game simulating Russian use of nuclear weapons in the Baltics, there were fundamental disagreements about how to react.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.