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“If the first 16 months of Joe Biden’s presidency demonstrated anything, it was the limitations of Democrats’ razor-thin majority,” Politico reports.
“Gun legislation has stalled, and Republicans heading into the midterms have every incentive to court the NRA.”
New York Times: “Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans support some restrictions on firearms, but G.O.P. lawmakers fear they would pay a steep political price for embracing them.”
Texas Tribune: “Just 30 minutes before morning mass began at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where dozens of residents gathered Wednesday morning to pray, Fatima Abraham, a community leader in the church, sat next to a woman weeping in the first pew and consoled her in her arms. The woman, Abraham said, was the mother of the shooter who opened fire at Robb Elementary, killing 19 children and two adults on Tuesday.”
Firearms were the leading cause of death for kids one and older for the first time in 2020, the most recent year for which CDC data is available, Axios reports.
Washington Post: “High inflation is expected to persist for the rest of the year, saddling Americans with higher costs as price hikes continue, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.”
“The nonpartisan budget office estimated that key measures of inflation will show signs of easing this year relative to last year, but will remain uncomfortably high as demand continues to outstrip supply, putting upward pressure on prices.”
Politico: “When Janet Yellen was tapped to join the Biden administration as Treasury secretary, she came with celebrity status — one of the world’s preeminent economists and the first woman to have led the Federal Reserve.”
“More than a year later, as Democrats are grappling with decades-high inflation, stock market turmoil and rising recession fears, Yellen is rarely on center stage. She has surprised supporters by wielding less influence in the West Wing than her recent predecessors did in the job, which is often considered an administration’s chief economic policymaking post.”
Jeff Greenfield: “If the question is whether Trump maintains all but total power over his party’s choices of candidates, the answer is ‘no.’ In some cases, at least, his endorsements have not and will not carry the day.”
“But if the question is whether the Republican Party has succumbed almost wholly to Trump’s canard that he was robbed of his presidency, and whether they are determined to ensure a different outcome to the next presidential election, the answer is a clear and compelling ‘yes.’”
Politico: “The White House argues that it not only bears little responsibility for creating the confluence of crises but that it doesn’t necessarily have the tools to resolve them either.”
“But the job of president means shouldering the burden. And the pressure on Biden to act has grown more acute as the nation barrels towards the midterm election and the potential 2024 return of the former president who sparked the insurrection.”
“Though each president is tested in unique ways, few have seen a set of concurrent challenges materialize so early in a presidency.”
The two Arizona senators had very different responses on doing something legislatively after the Texas school massacre:
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), when asked about reforming the filibuster: “You know, I don’t think that D.C. solutions are realistic here.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): “It’s fucking nuts to do nothing about this.”
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation, giving the country a preview of a possible post-Roe future, the Oklahoman reports.
The law prohibits most abortions beginning at fertilization, with no exceptions for rape or incest unless they were reported to law enforcement.
The law also encourages private citizens to sue anyone suspected of helping a person get an abortion.
“Gov. Greg Abbott said he was not sure whether he would attend the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston this week, which will take place days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Uvalde elementary school on Tuesday,” the Texas Tribune reports.
New York Times: “As both parties have navigated their respective primary seasons, Republicans have been far more likely to use messaging around guns to galvanize their base in the midterms than Democrats — who are largely in agreement on the issue of combating gun violence, but have seen one legislative effort after another collapse.”
“More than 100 television ads from Republican candidates and supportive groups have used guns as talking points or visual motifs this year. Guns are shown being fired or brandished, or are discussed but not displayed as candidates tout the Second Amendment, vow to block gun-control legislation or simply identify themselves as ‘pro-gun.’”
“Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is pushing back on a subpoena issued to him by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, contesting the constitutionality of the request and outlining a list of demands the committee must meet in order for him to even consider moving forward,” CNN reports.
“Donald Trump hasn’t said if he will run for president again, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him from privately musing about his potential running mate if he does,” CNN reports.
“The latest person to catch his eye: Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the moderate-turned-MAGA star who has developed a strong relationship with the former President.”
“While talk about a 2024 vice presidential pick is of course premature, conversations about adding Stefanik to a future Trump ticket have gained steam in recent weeks at Mar-a-Lago and in other Republican circles.”
Politico: “Raffensperger capitalized on that chance Tuesday night, dispatching his Trump-backed challenger, GOP Rep. Jody Hice, with a comeback that took him from being ostracized by the state Republican Party to cleaning up in nearly every corner of the state. Trump has endorsed a slate of candidates for election offices who parrot his falsehoods about the 2020 election being stolen — and Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s entreaties to “find” more votes in 2020, just defeated the first one.”
“He did it by meeting skeptical voters head-on, appearing regularly on conservative media and touting his support for conservative election policies. Raffensperger spent long hours on the road to talk to basically any group that would have him — even when they wanted to relitigate the 2020 vote that Raffensperger has consistently defended as clean and fair.”
Philip Bump: Did Georgia Democrats save Brad Raffensperger?
“Shortly after the nation’s latest mass shooting, which killed at least 18 children at an elementary school in Texas, the California Senate passed a bill Tuesday to allow private citizens to file suit for at least $10,000 — a bounty-hunter provision modeled on a Texas abortion law — against makers or sellers of untraceable ghost guns or illegal assault weapons,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
David Frum: “Every other democracy makes some considerable effort to keep guns away from dangerous people, and dangerous people away from guns. For many years—and especially since the massacre at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School almost a decade ago—the United States has put more and more guns into more and more hands: 120 guns per 100 people in this country.”
“The years of the pandemic have been the years of the greatest gun sales in U.S. history: almost 20 million guns sold in 2020; another 18.5 million sold in 2021. No surprise, those two years also witnessed a surge in gun violence: the spectacular human butchery of our recurring mass slaughters; the surge of one-on-one lethal criminality; the unceasing tragic toll of carelessness as American gun owners hurt and kill their loved ones and themselves.”
“Most of us are appalled. But not enough of us are sufficiently appalled to cast our votes to halt it.”
The National Rifle Association said its “deepest sympathies” are with the families and victims of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre, CNBC reports.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says voters’ repudiation of two Trump-backed candidates in Georgia is proof that talking about the 2020 election is a loser for voters at the ballot box, Politico reports.
Said McConnell: “The resounding message from the Republican voters in Georgia is: Quit talking about 2020. And make the fall election about the future and about the Biden administration.”
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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