“French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is almost level with incumbent Emmanuel Macron in the opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential election, has said she would form a government of national unity if elected and would draw support from voters of left and right, just as the UK’s Boris Johnson has done,” the Financial Times reports.
Delta CEO Condemns Georgia Voting Law
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, who is one of the largest employers in Georgia, condemned the state’s new election law as “unacceptable” in a memo circulated to staff, claiming that the “entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie” about widespread voter fraud in 2020, Axios reports.
Biden Faces Few Constraints on Spending
Los Angeles Times: “Biden’s shift, from backing a key part of Reagan’s agenda to embracing an expansion of government more in tune with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, parallels a change in the electorate. Voters’ concerns about the scope of government and the size of the national debt haven’t disappeared. But for now, that’s not driving how people vote.”
“As a result, though President Trump handed Biden a federal debt that had reached the largest level since the end of World War II, the new president is operating with fewer political constraints related to the federal deficit than any of his three Democratic predecessors.”
Republicans Not Unhappy to See Matt Gaetz in Trouble
Former Trump aides aren’t necessarily happy to see Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in trouble, but they “feel a little vindicated,” Insider reports.
Said one: “He’s the meanest person in politics.”
Said another: “Republican leadership will likely watch him completely implode in a matter of days without having to do a thing.”
Member Briefing: A Conversation with Tammy Duckworth
An invite for members: A Conversation with Tammy Duckworth.
Join Chris Riback and former Rep. Steve Israel for a discussion with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) about her new book, Every Day Is a Gift.
This event is hosted by Cornell’s Institute of Politics and Global Affairs and will be held on April 12 at 7 p.m.
Register today and you’ll be sent a link to join.
Every Day Is a Gift: A Memoir
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Duckworth, Tammy (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 289 Pages - 03/30/2021 (Publication Date) - Twelve (Publisher)
QAnon Scrambles to Cover for Matt Gaetz
Vice News: “On Tuesday, it sure seemed like the Storm had arrived, when the New York Times broke a bombshell story that Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz was being investigated by the Department of Justice for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him.”
“But in the hours after the news broke, QAnon followers didn’t celebrate. Instead, they frantically scrambled to explain why he couldn’t possibly have done what he’s accused of doing.”
A Tax Cut for the Wealthy That Democrats Like
The Week: “The SALT deduction is a good window into the politics of Democratic moderates in blue states. The SALT cap stipulates that tax filers can now only deduct $10,000 in state and local tax payments from their income for the purposes of federal tax liability.”
“The deduction is effectively a roundabout subsidy of high-tax blue states (because it lessens the burden of paying their often higher taxes), and capping it was a gleeful Republican finger into the eye of places like Maryland, New York, and California. But the benefits of removing the cap would be extraordinarily regressive.”
Biden Will Let Trump’s B-1 Visa Ban Expire
Bloomberg: “President Joe Biden plans to allow a pandemic-related ban on visas for certain temporary workers, enacted by former President Donald Trump, to expire Wednesday.”
“The moratorium, which affected H-1B visas used by technology companies to hire foreign coders and engineers, was imposed last June.”
G. Gordon Liddy’s Playbook for Surviving Scandal
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
G. Gordon Liddy, the undercover operative who bungled the Watergate break-in, died yesterday.
Liddy was one of the White House “plumbers” in the early 1970s charged with harassing President Richard Nixon’s political enemies.
For instance, Liddy and Howard Hunt broke into the offices of a psychiatrist to get the file of Daniel Ellsberg, the analyst who had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the media.
Liddy later developed the plan that included breaking in to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington. The resulting White House cover up triggered a constitutional crisis and ultimately led Nixon’s resignation.
But Liddy’s greatest legacy might be showing Republicans how to survive political scandal.
Liddy went to prison for conspiracy, burglary and illegally wiretapping, but he never turned on Nixon. And, as Jonathan Bernstein notes, “soon enough, after leaving prison, Liddy was welcomed back to the party — or at least to its media wing, which was in the process of becoming the dominant part.”
He never had to do much to rehabilitate himself. He just showed unfailing loyalty to the boss.
Despite spending more than four years in prison for his Watergate crimes, including more than 100 days in solitary confinement, Liddy later said, “I’d do it again for my president.”
Liddy was a pioneer in conservative talk radio and had a show that lasted for more than 20 years. His reemergence from a massive scandal blazed the trail for other once-disgraced conservatives such as Chuck Colson, Oliver North, Dinesh D’Souza, Roger Stone and many more.
While there are certainly Democrats who have survived scandal, it’s hard to come up with one who resumed a career in politics after a prison sentence.
That’s a very big difference between the two parties.
Trump Ignored Adviser on Virus Supply Shortage
Peter Navarro privately urged former President Donald Trump “to acquire critical medical supplies in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak — and after the warning was ignored, pursued his own ad hoc strategy that committed more than $1 billion in federal funds and has since prompted multiple probes,” the Washington Post reports.
Biden Bets Government Can Drive Growth
Wall Street Journal: “President Biden envisions long-term federal spending claiming its biggest share of the American economy in decades. He wants to pay for that program in part by charging the highest-earning Americans the biggest tax rates they’ve faced in years…”
“It all marks a major turning point for economic policy. The gamble underlying the agenda is a belief that government can be a primary driver for growth. It’s an attempt to recalibrate assumptions that have shaped economic policy of both parties since the 1980s: that the public sector is inherently less efficient than the private, and bureaucrats should generally defer to markets.”
The Immigration Debate In One Chart
This piece for members is by David T.S. Jonas.
Alex Samuels of FiveThirtyEight wrote an article on the changing attitudes on immigration within the Democratic Party and how they have influenced the greater policy debate on immigration reform.
This chart from the article tells the story especially well.
This dynamic of Democratic voters evolving on immigration and Republican voters largely staying in place maps well onto the recent legislative history for immigration reform.
George W. Bush really was to the “left” of his party when he pushed for immigration reform in 2005 and 2006. It helps explain why the backlash was swift and enduring.
By the time we reached 2013-2014 and the last big push on border security and immigration, it was a firmly Republican House led by Speaker John Boehner that had no interest in finding compromise.
So while Democrats have become increasingly comfortable legislating on immigrant-friendly policy, Republicans are basically in the same spot they have been for two generations–not really interested.
This also explains the very odd practice of Congressional Republicans like Lindsey Graham preferring to make hay of the daily flaws in our immigration system rather than try to pass their own bipartisan bills that would address their nominal concerns.
Attitudes can change, but if the hope is finding a bipartisan path on immigration reform, there’s not much evidence half of the equation is truly interested in playing ball.
Biden Seeks to Bring Diversity to the Bench
Vox: “Nine of Biden’s 11 nominees are women, and a majority are people of color. So Biden is clearly signaling that he intends to name judges who will add racial and gender diversity to the bench. His list would also add a different kind of diversity to a bench populated with former law firm partners and prosecutors, as almost half of the nominees worked as criminal defense lawyers for indigent clients.”
“If this list is any sign of how Biden plans to pick judges in the future, an ambitious young lawyer with judicial aspirations is better off taking a job representing poor Americans during the most vulnerable moment of their lives than they are taking a job trying to lock up those Americans.”
Quote of the Day
“That was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.”
— Tucker Carlson, quoted by the Washington Post, trying to distance himself from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Biden Takes His Time Filling Diplomatic Posts
“More than two months into his term, President Joe Biden has yet to name a single ambassador to send overseas, putting him behind the pace set by his most recent predecessors and leading to early frustrations among some career State Department officials and big-time Democratic donors,” CNN reports.
GOP Leader Says Embracing Trump Is Only Option
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who leads the Republican Study Committee, argues in a memo that Republican party’s future demands an “embrace” of “our new coalition,” Axios reports.
Banks says that “both parties are undergoing coalitional transformations” and that Republicans shouldn’t fight the trend of corporate donors pulling back from the GOP.
Writes Banks: “Our electoral success in the 2022 midterm election will be determined by our willingness to embrace our new coalition. House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the Party of the Working Class… There is an embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful, but President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt.”
Democrats Look to Overhaul 2024 Primary Calendar
“Democratic Party leaders are considering overhauling the 2024 presidential primary calendar, a transformation that would include ousting Iowa and New Hampshire from their cherished perches as the first states to vote,” Politico reports.
“Senior party leaders and Democratic National Committee members are privately exploring the idea of pushing South Carolina and Nevada to the front of the primary election schedule, as well as the possibility of multiple states holding the first nominating contest on the same day.”
Two Capitol Police Sue Trump for Sparking Riot
“Two Capitol Police officers injured in hand-to-hand combat during the Jan. 6 insurrection are suing former President Donald Trump for inciting his supporters, many of whom later stormed Congress and formed a mob that assaulted more than 100 officers protecting lawmakers,” Politico reports.
