Joe Biden’s campaign denied a report on Wednesday indicating that Biden signaled he would only serve one term in the White House if elected in 2020, The Hill reports.
Tweet from the campaign: “Lots of chatter out there on this so just want to be crystal clear: this is not a conversation our campaign is having and not something VP Biden is thinking about.”
“The battle for control of Libya threatened to escalate further this week as Turkey said it might intervene to stop the Russian-backed forces now closing in on Tripoli,” the New York Times reports.
“In comments to Turkish television networks on Monday night and again on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointedly raised the possibility that Turkey might send troops to counter the Russians if the United Nations-recognized government headquartered in Tripoli formally requested it.”
Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time magazine’s 2019 “Person of the Year,” the Today Show reports.
Time: “For decades, researchers and activists have struggled to get world leaders to take the climate threat seriously. But this year, an unlikely teenager somehow got the world’s attention.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, called Attorney General William Barr a “threat to democracy” and warned he may try to interfere in the 2020 presidential election to benefit President Trump, the HuffPost reports.
Said Shaub: “It’s important not to make the same mistake twice. Some people underestimated Barr’s ruthless partisanship before. No one should do that again. Like Trump, Barr is capable of doing anything he can get away with— and that includes interfering in the 2020 election, if we let him.”
CNN: “On Wednesday, as articles of impeachment against a sitting president were presented for only the fourth time in history, all three networks led with the Jersey City shootout before covering impeachment.”
Ryan Lizza: “Former Vice President Joe Biden’s top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he will serve only a single term.”
“While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicate that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.”
“Mike Bloomberg will donate $10 million Thursday to defend vulnerable Democratic House members against paid Republican attacks on their support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“The money, which is meant to even an arms race on the 2020 congressional battlefield, was cheered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has been fielding concerns from some of her members over a costly Republican advertising offensive as the House moves toward an impeachment vote next week.”
A new WBUR poll in New Hampshire finds Pete Buttegieg leading the Democratic field with 18%, followed by Joe Biden at 17%, Bernie Sanders at 15%, Elizabeth Warren at 12%, Tulsi Gabbard at 5% and Andrew Yang at 5%.
Playbook: “One striking feature of impeachment so far is this: All of the main players are playing the roles we expected. House Democrats came into power with a significant distaste for Trump, but vowing not to impeach him. The moment, they say, has called them. In reality, the majority of House Democrats come from districts eager to dump the president, and a small minority of the party — 10% or so — represents districts where Trump stands a chance.”
“We feign shock that House Republicans are standing firmly behind Trump but when have we seen them do anything else? Republicans have been wiped out of everything besides deep red districts. If they get a centimeter out of line with the president, they risk provoking his ire and that his base.”
“The acrimonious divorce case of Rudy Giuliani and his estranged wife, Judith, a battle that had played out in court and across tabloid headlines for more than a year and a half, came to an abrupt — and harmonious — end on Tuesday evening,” the New York Times reports.
“The couple have resolved all their differences and financial squabbles, according to an emailed statement from Bernard E. Clair, Mrs. Giuliani’s lawyer, and they ‘intend to remain friends in the years to come.'”
David Wasserman: “When President Trump was inaugurated in 2017, there were 241 Republicans in the House. Since then, 104 of them (43%) have either retired, been defeated, or are forgoing reelection in 2020.”
“A federal judge in El Paso blocked the Trump administration’s plan to pay for border barrier construction with $3.6 billion in military funds, ruling that the administration does not have the authority to divert money appropriated by Congress for a different purpose,” the Washington Post reports.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will take up President Trump’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement only after an impeachment trial concludes in the chamber, CNN reports.
“On Dec. 2, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on a trip to a climate change conference in Spain, she held a conference call with about a dozen of the most vulnerable Democrats who delivered her the House,” Politico reports.
“Their message to Pelosi: Keep impeachment focused only on the Ukraine scandal. The obvious but unsaid implication was she should exclude a standalone article of impeachment against President Donald Trump based on the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which described numerous instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump.”
“Two days later, Pelosi called an emergency meeting in her second-floor Capitol office with her senior leadership team, where it quickly became clear her deputies were divided.”
“Pete Buttigieg released the names of nine clients for whom he worked while employed as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, a period of his life that has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks,” the New York Times reports.
“The list shows Mr. Buttigieg worked on projects in the health care and retail industries, along with federal government projects relating to the environment and the economies in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as nonprofit environmental groups.”
A new YouGov poll in the U.K., using the same model that accurately predicted the election outcome two years ago, suggests the Conservatives are on course to win 339 seats, Labour 231, the Lib Dems 15 and the SNP 41.
Although that would give Prime Miniater Boris Johnson a majority of 28, the poll’s range of possible outcomes stretches from 367 Tory seats to only 311.
Said pollster Anthony Wells: “Based on the model we cannot rule out a hung parliament.”
“Andrew Yang has qualified for next week’s Democratic debate, bringing the lineup to seven and ensuring that the candidates onstage will not all be white, though the lineup still does not include any black or Latino candidates,” the New York Times reports.
Rudy Giuliani told the Washington Post that President Trump has asked him to brief the Justice Department and Republican senators on his findings from a recent trip to Ukraine ahead of a likely Senate impeachment trial.
Said Giuliani: “He wants me to do it. I’m working on pulling it together and hope to have it done by the end of the week.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.