President Trump’s spokeswoman refused to say whether Trump still has faith in Attorney General William Barr, a day after Barr said there was no significant evidence to support the president’s claim that widespread ballot fraud led to his defeat by President-elect Joe Biden, CNBC reports.
Said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany: “If we have any personnel announcements, I’ll let you know.”
“Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said that President Trump is prepared to accept language regarding a plan to remove Confederate names, monuments and symbols from U.S. military installations, adding that a mammoth bill does not include a repeal of a tech liability shield, referred to as Section 230, despite a veto threat,” The Hill reports.
Bloomberg: “Including TV, radio, and digital ad space already purchased over the past month or reserved through Jan. 5, Republicans are set to spend more than $177 million, compared to about $130 million for Democrats… The numbers are likely to increase.”
President-elect Joe Biden has no plans to remove FBI director Christopher Wray if he is still in the job when the new administration comes in, the New York Times reports.
Helaine Olen: “Whenever someone expressed concerns about the quality of remote education back in the early days of covid-19, they were all but shamed into silence. No, the spring did not go well, but that was done on the fly, with next to no preparation. No, it’s not an ideal solution, but staying with in-person instruction is out of the question. There is a learning curve, we were told. We’ll get this thing right with time.”
“Here’s how that worked out: In Houston, the number of students with failing grades is exploding. In St. Paul, Minn., a high school student is almost as likely to be on track to fail a class as pass it. In the junior high and high schools of Fairfax County — one of the wealthiest counties in the United States — 1 out of 10 students flunked at least two classes, and the number was almost double that for those with disabilities. Enrollment is falling in closed school districts from coast to coast and many points in between. Some children are exiting for private schools, or private pods. Others are simply MIA.”
Coming soon, from my adviser in graduate school: The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It by Robert B. Reich.
“An urgent analysis of how the ‘rigged’ systems of American politics and power operate, how this status quo came to be, and how average citizens can enact change.”
“The Senate Commerce Committee voted today to advance President Trump’s pick for the Federal Communications Commission, setting up the Senate to potentially deadlock the communications regulator at the start of the Biden administration,” Axios reports.
“Nathan Simington’s confirmation would mean a 2-2 commission, giving Republicans the ability to stall Democratic policy initiatives such as restoring net neutrality rules until Biden is able to get a nominee of his own confirmed by the Senate.”
“Optimism about the economy has taken a nosedive among Republicans. But the economy did not drive the change. The presidential election did,” the New York Times reports.
“After President Trump’s loss to former Vice President Joe Biden, more than 40 percent of Republicans who were polled for The New York Times said they expected their family to be worse off financially in a year’s time, up from 4 percent in October. Democrats expressed a rise in optimism — though not as sharp as the change in Republican sentiment.”
“The new polling, by the online research firm SurveyMonkey, reaffirms the degree to which Americans’ confidence in the economy’s path has become entwined with partisanship and ideology.”
President-elect Joe Biden told Tom Friedman that he felt like he’d “done something good for the country” by defeating President Trump.
Said Biden: “I feel like I’ve done something good for the country by making sure that Donald Trump is not going to be president for four more years. But there’s been no moment of elation…There’s a lot of work to do. I’m just focused on getting some things done as quickly as I can.”
“The Trump administration is rapidly moving forward with a last-minute push to ease hiring and firing standards for many senior federal workers, setting off a clash with Democrats in Congress over whether civil servants should maintain longstanding job protections,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump issued an executive order in October creating a new category of federal worker for career employees with influence over government policy. Employees in the new category, called Schedule F, would lose protections granted to many federal employees, allowing agencies to more easily fire the workers and hire new staffers outside the existing competitive civil-service process.”
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) condemns her Senate runoff challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) as the “most radical and dangerous candidate in America” who “has espoused radical views from the pulpit.”
But Judd Legum reports that less than a year ago, she shared that same pulpit with Warnock in order to praise his work and that of his church. Loeffler called Warnock’s church a “sacred place” in her January address and, while standing right next to her future rival, said she was “surrounded by men and women who advance the cause of freedom.”
“I’m nothing special. I’m just — I’m kind of relentless.”
— Staecy Abrams, in an interview with Rolling Stone, on what she did to turn out the vote and turn Georgia blue for the first time in 30 years.
More than two decades later, Linda Tripp is out with a book: A Basket of Deplorables: What I Saw Inside the Clinton White House.
Tripp “shares her side of the Clinton White House sex scandals for the first time—detailing the behavior of two very flawed people who fooled a nation: Bill Clinton, a sexual predator, and his wife, Hillary, who was his primary enabler.”
“Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, is launching her bid for a third two-year term heading the GOP’s governing organization after the party’s stronger-than-anticipated showing in November’s election, even though President Trump lost,” the AP reports.
Gabriel Sherman has an interesting interview with Doug Band — Bill Clinton’s advisor of nearly two decades — who spoke for the first time about what led to his bitter falling out with the former president.
“QAnon’s days as a solely U.S. phenomenon are over,” Bloomberg reports.
“The conspiracy theory’s foothold in Japan — home to one of its most active networks outside the U.S. — demonstrates how the movement can be made palatable in a range of countries as it gains popularity from Europe to Brazil.”
“Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager who was demoted in July, claimed in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night that President Trump would have handily won the election if he had expressed more empathy about the coronavirus pandemic,” the New York Times reports.
Said Parscale: “We lost suburban families. I think that goes to one thing: the decision on Covid to go for opening the economy versus public empathy.”
He added: “I think if he had been publicly empathetic, he would have won.”
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s (D) “chances of remaining in power were dealt another serious blow Tuesday when a member of his Democratic leadership team said she will not support him for another term leading the chamber,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
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.
