“Republican Party megadonors are racing to bail out President Donald Trump’s cash-strapped reelection campaign, with a newly formed super PAC pouring a further $25 million into battleground states,” Politico reports.
“Trump — who went dark for part of August and has since cancelled advertising in key states — is being outspent more than 2-to-1 by Biden this week.”
“It’s so unworthy of a president. It’s beyond despicable. It’s soulless. It’s almost unspeakable in the middle of the pandemic to try to divide the country on a political basis when Covid-19 is really bipartisan.”
— Former Gov. Tom Ridge (R), quoted by the New York Times, on President Trump saying the coronavirus death toll from the coronavirus was actually not so bad “if you take out the blue states.”
“Eric Trump, the president’s son, said that he is willing to be questioned by New York state investigators examining the Trump Organization’s financial practices — but not until after Election Day,” the Washington Post reports.
“Investigators from the New York Attorney General’s office have been seeking to interview Eric Trump since May, as part of an 18-month-long investigation into allegations that the Trump Organization improperly manipulated the value of its properties to obtain loans and tax benefits. Eric Trump worked on some of the key properties.”
FEC Chairman James “Trey” Trainor chastised Catholic bishops this week, accusing church hierarchy of “hiding behind” their nonprofit status and declaring that this year’s U.S. election amounts to a “spiritual war” that threatens the country’s “Christian moral principles,” Religion News Service reports.
Police in Maine are looking for a woman who they say put dog poop in mailboxes of houses with Trump re-election signs, the Bangor Daily News reports.
H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s former national security adviser, writes in his new book that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and partnering with the Taliban has made the United States less safe, he tells 60 Minutes.
Said McMaster: “Terrorist organizations who pose a threat to us are stronger now than they were on September 10, 2001.”
The book is out next week.
“A heavily criticized recommendation from the CDC last month about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by CDC scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections,” the New York Times reports.
“The guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus. It came at a time when public health experts were pushing for more testing rather than less.”
“One week after Reuters published an explosive report on an alleged sexual and financial relationship between Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife and a Miami man named Giancarlo Granda, responders were called to the Falwells’ house in Bedford County, Virginia,” the HuffPost reports.
“According to records and 911 audio… on the night of Aug. 30, Jerry Falwell Jr. was intoxicated and apparently injured; his wife, Becki Falwell, described ‘a lot of blood right now.'”
“President Trump pressed his case that U.S. schools are indoctrinating children with a left-wing agenda hostile to the nation’s Founding Fathers, describing efforts to educate students about racism and slavery as an insult to the nation’s lofty founding principles,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump, speaking before original copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the National Archives, characterized demonstrations against racial injustice as ‘left-wing rioting and mayhem’ that ‘are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long.'”
Trump also said he would create a national commission to promote “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.”
“Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who teamed up with Rudy Giuliani to collect damaging information on President Trump’s political rivals, faced new federal charges Thursday that he duped investors in a company he founded that ostensibly protected consumers against fraud,” the New York Times reports.
First-person accounts of a tense meeting at the White House in late March suggest that Jared Kushner resisted taking federal action to alleviate shortages and help Democratic-led New York, Vanity Fair reports.
Kushner, seated at the head of the conference table, in a chair taller than all the others, was quick to strike a confrontational tone: “The federal government is not going to lead this response. It’s up to the states to figure out what they want to do.”
He added: “Free markets will solve this. That is not the role of government.”
“Democrats and Republicans appeared even further away from a coronavirus relief deal on Thursday, despite mounting calls from rank-and-file lawmakers — and even President Donald Trump — for action,” Politico reports.
“With no mood for deal-making in either party, the House and Senate are leaving for the weekend with no progress on an agreement, casting further doubt that Congress can muster the political will to adopt another massive economic stimulus measure before the November election.”
A federal judge in Washington state granted a request from 14 states to temporarily block operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service that have been blamed for a slowdown in mail delivery, saying that President Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy are “involved in a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service” that could disrupt the 2020 election, the Washington Post reports.
Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, said President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic showed a “flat out disregard for human life” because his “main concern was the economy and his reelection,” the Washington Post reports.
Troye said that the administration’s response cost lives and that she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this fall because of her experience in the Trump White House.
“In the months before his death, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) wrote that he endured ‘pure pain’ from repeated Twitter attacks by President Trump — whom he once wanted to trust — but resolved not to be baited into responding in anger, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Wrote Cummings, in a new book to be released next week: “You can imagine it and try to dismiss it, saying he’s just a blowhard and schoolyard tough guy, using his thumbs on Twitter like fists. But the reality, the harsh cold onslaught, is just pure pain.”
Los Angeles Times: “Trump has long sought to divert attention from own misjudgments and mistakes by blaming his enemies. Now, as he struggles to overcome Biden’s lead in the polls, the president has turned familiar schoolyard taunts like ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ into a campaign strategy.”
“Deflecting criticism is a normal part of politics, but Trump stands out for how frequently and reflexively he redirects his opponent’s attacks. In psychology, the tactic is known as projection — a defense mechanism to deny one’s faults and attribute them to someone else.”
Said GOP strategist Rick Tyler: “I suspect he’s been doing it since the third grade, and I suspect it’s always worked for him. It’s a difficult technique for grown adults to counter.”
“A mixup with the first absentee ballots sent in North Carolina caused some voters to receive two identical ballots for the November general election,” the AP reports.
“The official added that it was unlikely that voters could have cast two ballots, a felony, because each mailing label includes an individual code making it impossible to vote twice.”
The DSCC announced they’re going in with a seven-figure investment to help Jaime Harrison (D) in the South Carolina U.S. Senate race, according to the Cook Political Report.
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.