In an annual letter to CEOs, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said: “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” CNBC reports.
He added: “But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that she would begin to eliminate student loan debt on the first day of her administration, using legal tools that would allow her to bypass Congress,” CNBC reports.
“Warren said she will direct her Secretary of Education to begin to ‘compromise and modify’ federal student loans up to $50,000 for 95% of those with outstanding student debt, or 42 million people.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders won the endorsement of an influential teachers’ union in Nevada on Tuesday morning, a key sign of support in the early voting state where unions have significant political power,” BuzzFeed News reports.
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House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, The Hill reports.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not announce at Tuesday morning’s House Democratic caucus meeting which lawmakers will serve as prosecutors — also known as impeachment managers — in the Senate trial.”
House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) told CNN that he “would expect” to be named as one of the impeachment managers.
Politico: “It’s Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden. Or Biden versus Elizabeth Warren. Or Sanders versus Warren, when she isn’t busy brutalizing Pete Buttigieg.”
“Nearing the end of a presidential primary marked by its lack of acrimony, the four-candidate pile-up in Iowa is forcing campaigns to alter their terms of engagement in pursuit of even incremental advantages.”
“The reluctance to brawl is now a vestige of the past. In its place is spray of bullets in every direction.”
CNN: 9 things to watch in tonight’s debate.
“As many as 10 Republican senators are considering bucking President Trump on a resolution that would limit his ability to take military action against Iran,” The Hill reports.
“The increasing number is the latest sign of growing GOP frustration over the Trump administration’s justification for the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.”
Ron Brownstein: “Sanders’ plan, though all of its costs cannot be precisely quantified, would increase government spending as a share of the economy far more than the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Society under Lyndon Johnson or the agenda proposed by any recent Democratic presidential nominee, including liberal George McGovern in 1972, according to a historical analysis shared with CNN by Larry Summers, the former chief White House economic adviser for Barack Obama and treasury secretary for Bill Clinton.”
“Sanders’ plan would also increase the size of government far more than any modern Republican president, including Ronald Reagan, has sought to cut it, Summers’ analysis concluded.”
“President Trump is holding a campaign rally on Tuesday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Democratic presidential candidates prepare for their seventh debate,” CBS News reports.
“The rally also comes as the Senate readies itself for Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, which is expected to begin on Tuesday, January 21.”
A new USA Today/Suffolk poll in Nevada shows Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race with 19%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 18%, Elizabeth Warren at 11%, Pete Buttigieg at 8%, Tom Steyer at 8%, Andrew Yang at 4% and Amy Klobuchar at 4%.
“Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has brought on more than 700 staffers spread out across 33 states, with a growing number of organizers joining his ranks in states that vote on Super Tuesday,” Politico reports.
“All told, the former New York mayor’s operation totals more than 1,000 people, a figure that includes hundreds of staffers who work out of his Manhattan headquarters.”
“The unprecedented scale and scope of the campaign — he has also spent over $200 million on TV ads — gives Bloomberg a massive footprint in states that hold their primaries on March 3 or later. Bloomberg is also working to provide a Democratic counterbalance to President Donald Trump in parts of the country that are vital to his party in November.”
Politico: “The GOP has tried to stay focused on its game plan to shut down Democratic hopes of locking in witnesses at the outset of the trial, but it’s become increasingly clear the party will face an internal reckoning during the trial as it defends its Senate majority and faces a president who demands complete loyalty.”
Playbook: “The Senate GOP leadership line on witnesses has softened in recent days. They clearly don’t want to be boxed in, and want to see how the process goes and how members feel in a few weeks.”
New York Times: “In the 10 days since it carried out the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Trump administration has been struggling to draft an after-the-fact narrative to justify it. On Monday, President Trump put an end to that hash of explanations.”
Tweeted Trump: “It doesn’t really matter, because of his horrible past.”
“Until that message on Twitter, the administration had insisted in various ways that General Suleimani, Iran’s most important military official, was planning myriad “imminent” attacks. The unraveling of the explanations accelerated over the weekend after Mr. Trump said four embassies were under immediate threat, a charge that his own administration could not back.”
“One of the leading Democratic super PACs, Priorities USA, will spend $50 million more than previously announced against President Trump before the Democratic National Convention, with plans to make nearly $30 million in TV ad reservations in the coming days,” the New York Times reports.
Peter Hamby: “Trump stumbled into understanding something crucial about the electorate, which is this: There are plenty of divisions in our conventional wisdom—insider versus outsider, progressive versus moderate, young versus old—but one of the biggest splits in American politics is simply between those who follow politics closely and those who do not.”
“It’s a split that maps, if not perfectly, onto the gap that emerged between college and non-college educated voters in 2016. The latter set are often low-information voters who view politicians and media with contempt, deciding to sit elections out. Trump has exploited them to powerful effect. The president has made politics about culture—not just policy. He found a way to attract new voters, particularly rural and non-college educated whites who previously thumbed their nose at conventional politics. Because he’s a pure attention merchant, he doesn’t care what screen he appears on, as long he is there. Because he lacks an ounce of shame, it all works, with or without the blessing of the legacy press.”
“None of the above can be said for Democrats, who care habitually about the good graces of the national press, and who don’t see politics as a subspecies of the entertainment business.”
“Attorney General William Barr said he and FBI Director Christopher Wray have agreed to implement stricter procedures for opening counterintelligence probes into presidential campaigns, requiring investigators to get approval from both the attorney general and FBI director before moving forward with future investigations,” CBS News reports.
“Top Senate Republicans on Monday rejected President Trump’s call for outright dismissal of the impeachment charges against him, but continued to grapple with the shape of the Senate trial that could begin as soon as this week,” the Washington Post reports.
“Most Senate Republicans are eager to stage a trial that ends with Trump’s acquittal and vindication on charges that he abused the power of his office in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructed a subsequent investigation in the House. But over the weekend, Trump urged the Senate simply to dismiss the charges against him — without hearing arguments from House prosecutors or his own legal team.”
“On Monday, senior Republicans said immediate dismissal could not win approval in the chamber, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren confirmed to the New York Times that Sen. Bernie Sanders told her in 2018 he did not think a woman could win the presidency.
“Ms. Warren’s description of the comment, from a private one-on-one meeting, represents a remarkable salvo at her leading liberal rival in the 2020 race just three weeks before the Iowa caucuses.”
“With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair,” the New York Times reports.
“The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.”
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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