“Former Trump White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, known for his hard-line immigration policies and conservative culture war postures, is launching a new legal group. And he’s looking to use it to make Joe Biden’s life miserable,” Politico reports.
“The group, which will be known as America First Legal, will help organize Republican attorneys general against perceived executive branch abuses in addition to filing lawsuits of its own.”
Andrew Sullivan: “One of my deepest concerns about Trump as president was that he was fundamentally distorting our field of political vision. By creating a caricature of some of the worst elements of the right, he intensified a stark polarization that actually empowered the extreme left in America, and helped its takeover of all our cultural institutions.”
“The most successful politicians in my lifetime — Reagan and Thatcher — shifted their opposition toward their own agenda, bestowing us with Clinton and Blair. In contrast, Trump actually helped radicalize the Democrats — as they swung, for understandable reasons, to the equal and opposite positions to his.”
After not one reporter asked President Joe Biden about the pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans in his first news conference as president, Zeynap Tufecki lists the 10 questions she would have asked.
Axios: “The post-Trump Republican Party cares most about issues in seven key categories, with most prioritizing economic issues like job creation and limited government, according to a new survey conducted by former President Trump’s chief 2016 and 2020 pollster.”
The top three include:
Aaron Rosenthal: “I analyzed answers to a few key questions in the nationally representative 2016 American National Election Study. When asked if they ‘trusted government to do the right thing,’ White respondents’ answers were related to their attitudes about welfare. Those who trusted the government the least also held the most negative views of welfare. In other words, the belief that the federal government’s primary task is to channel tax dollars to poor Black Americans is linked to Whites Americans’ historically low levels of trust in government.”
“Where do White Americans get this idea? From the way the U.S. federal government has shifted its effort to shore up Americans’ economic security — creating a social safety net that benefits the middle class and wealthy while being invisible to the average citizen.”
The Daily Beast identified five companies that appear to have gone back on their suspension of donations to Republican lawmakers who objected to the 2020 election results: AT&T, Cigna Health, Ford Motors, Pfizer, and Wells Fargo.
NPR: “One measure that’s been proposed would make distributing ballot applications to voters who didn’t ask for one a felony. Others would outlaw drive thru-voting, and not allow polling locations to be open for more than 12 hours — specifically beyond 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Another would require that election administrators put the same amount of voting machines in every one of their polling sites, no matter what.”
“The White House recently ordered that a 50-person, Southwest-themed indoor party the Interior Department was planning to celebrate Secretary Deb Haaland’s confirmation be canceled after senior administration officials raised concerns that it could become a superspreader event,” Politico reports.
“Oh, come on. I don’t even think about — I don’t — I have no idea. I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party, do you?”
— President Biden, quoted by the Washington Post, when asked if he was going to run against Donald Trump in 2024.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “The arrest of state Rep. Park Cannon — who faces two felony charges — far overshadowed the victory lap that Kemp and other Republicans hoped to take with the signing Thursday of Senate Bill 202, legislation that imposed new ID requirements, limited drop boxes and instituted other restrictions.”
“The image of Cannon, an Atlanta Democrat, being forcibly dragged from the statehouse lobby was hard to watch and the arrest could be legally questionable, since state law protects sitting lawmakers from arrest during a session except for charges of treason, felonies or breach of the peace.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “The only real argument against D.C. statehood is partisanship: Why should Republicans vote to create a state that would put two new Democrats in the Senate? And let’s not pretend that Republicans could simply shift toward the center to try to compete there; the Democratic advantage is far too lopsided for that. It’s a Democratic city and would be a Democratic state, and I can’t blame Republicans for voting their party’s self-interest.”
“But the flip side of that is that Democrats can vote their own party’s self-interest — and, in this case, they would be on the side of democracy and justice. They should have done it in 2009 when they could defeat Senate filibusters; they should at least consider doing it now even if it forces them to limit the filibuster to get it done. And while they’re at it, they should do the same for Puerto Rico, where the partisan divisions are much less rigid. Assuming that citizens there want it.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is the recipient of this year’s John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his vote to convict former President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial “and his consistent and courageous defense of democracy,” NBC News reports.
“Former President Trump defended some of his supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol, saying Thursday that they posed ‘zero threat’ to the lawmakers who had assembled to confirm President Biden’s victory in the November election,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Trump also complained that law enforcement was now “persecuting” the Capitol rioters, hundreds of whom have been arrested, while “nothing happens” to left-wing protesters.
Said Trump: “Some of them went in and they’re — they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.”
“Dominion Voting Systems on Friday filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election,” the AP reports.
“Senate Republicans are warning companies that cut off donations to the GOP after the U.S. Capitol attack that their standing on the Hill may suffer if they don’t now speak out about Democrats’ efforts to overturn a Republican House victory in Iowa,” Axios reports.
Said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): “If the businesses who condemned Republicans in January don’t condemn Democrats for doing the same, everyone will question whether these companies are truly committed to free elections.”
“President Biden revealed in vivid display this week the thinking animating his 100-day plan: Do not allow outside events to take his eye off the make-or-break imperatives of virus eradication and economic growth,” Axios reports.
Said Biden: “Successful presidents — better than me — have been successful, in large part, because they know how to time what they’re doing — order it, decide and prioritize what needs to be done.”
Playbook: “Over and over in the East Room, the president made it clear Thursday that he’s in control of the timing of his legislative priorities and that he would not allow events to overtake his plans. Guns, immigration, voting rights, filibuster reform — the big issues that have intervened recently and that dominated questioning by reporters — would have to wait.”
Gary Abernathy: “The most impressive revelation on Thursday from President Biden’s first news conference was that he has a plan and he intends to stick with it.”
Politico: “In letters to 16 agencies across the Executive Branch and Congress, the panels asked for all communications sent between agency officials regarding Congress’ Jan. 6 session, when lawmakers certified Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. The requests demand all relevant documents and messages from Dec. 1, 2020, to Jan. 20, 2021.”
“The unusually broad committee review comes as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been unable to secure bipartisan cooperation to launch an independent commission to review the federal government’s handling of the attack, which left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.”
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.