Rep, John Shimkus (R-IL) told KMOX that President Trump’s decision to pullout of Syria was “terrible and despicable.”
Shimkus added that he told staff “to take my name off the I support Donald Trump list” and that he is “saddened for the Kurdish people.”
Shimkus is not running for re-election.
Wall Street Journal: “When Donald Trump took the stage last month in Fayetteville, N.C., to support Republican candidate Dan Bishop in a special election, thousands of people showed up.”
“Unknown to the crowd, the Committee to Defend the President, a Republican political-action committee that supports Mr. Trump, had hired a company to collect unique identification numbers from attendees’ smartphones that evening, based on location data those phones were sending to third parties. The goal was to target ads at people it could drive to the polls the next day. Mr. Bishop won by about 3,800 votes.”
“The PAC now plans to use the technique, which is called geofencing, in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election in about half a dozen swing states to find people who may not be registered to vote, said its chairman, Ted Harvey.”
President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has decided to write a book about his time in the Trump administration, Axios reports.
“Given the fact that he wrote a book about his tenure in the George W. Bush administration, from the moment he left the White House, senior officials privately expressed concerns about what Bolton might say and reveal about his time serving Trump.”
“It’s becoming a challenge to keep up with the high crimes and misdemeanors.”
— Hillary Clinton, on Twitter.
Georgia Republicans blamed last night’s humiliating playoff defeat for the Atlanta Braves because of their efforts to ban the “tomahawk chop” chant, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
The team didn’t distribute the trademark foam tomahawks to fans at the decisive National League Division series game after St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, called the chop disrespectful.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he will send the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to Europe if European countries continue to criticize his military incursion in Syria, Reuters reports.
Said Erdogan: “We will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way.”
Coming soon: Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law by Jeffrey Rosen.
“An informal portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, drawing on a series of her conversations with Jeffrey Rosen, starting in the 1990s and continuing through the Trump era.”
“Amy McGrath, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leading Democratic opponent in the 2020 Kentucky Senate race, raised $10.7 million in the third quarter of 2019 after launching her campaign in July,” CBS News reports.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said President Trump’s discussions with foreign governments about Joe Biden were “inappropriate,” but impeaching the president would be a “mistake,” The Hill reports.
Said Alexander: “It’s inappropriate for the president to be talking with foreign governments about investigating his political opponents, but impeachment would be a mistake. An election, which is just around the corner, is the right way to decide who should be president.”
He added: “Impeachment has never removed a president. It will only divide the country further.”
“The White House gave a politically appointed official the authority to keep aid to Ukraine on hold after career budget staff members questioned the legality of delaying the funds, a shift that House Democrats are probing in their impeachment inquiry,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump’s order to freeze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in mid-July is at the center of House Democratic efforts to investigate allegations that Mr. Trump used U.S. foreign-policy powers to benefit himself politically.”
Michael Pillsbury, an informal White House adviser on China, told the Financial Times that he received information about the business activities of Hunter Biden during a visit to Beijing in the same week President Trump urged China to probe the son of Joe Biden.
Said Pillsbury: “I got a quite a bit of background on Hunter Biden from the Chinese.”
President Trump said he planned to meet with the head of the Chinese negotiating team for the U.S.-China trade talks, Chinese vice premier Liu He on Friday, when talks are scheduled to conclude, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Trump: “Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I?”
“I referred them to a campaign finance expert who pretty much resolved it.”
— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the New York Times two weeks ago, minimizing the campaign finance issues facing his two Ukrainian researchers who were arrested last night.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) says she may boycott the Democratic presidential debate next week, accusing the Democratic National Committee and media of “rigging” the primary contest against outsider candidates such as herself, The Hill reports.
Gabbard pointed to what she described as “arbitrary” and nontransparent qualification requirements as evidence party leaders “are trying to hijack the entire election process.”
“Two foreign-born donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges of violating campaign finance rules,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Florida businessmen, have been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, and are expected to appear in federal court in Virginia later on Thursday… The men’s nationalities were unclear, though both were believed to have been born in former Soviet republics.”
USA Today reports both men were scheduled to be deposed this week by the three House committees leading the impeachment probe.
President Trump blasted Fox News over their latest poll showing the majority of Americans now showing support for impeaching and removing him from office.
Said Trump: “From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good Fox News Poll. Whoever their pollster is, they suck.”
He added: “But Fox News is also much different than it used to be in the good old days… Fox News doesn’t deliver for US anymore. It is so different than it used to be. Oh well, I’m President!”
Bloomberg: “Trump super-PAC America First Action has placed Georgia among its six ‘tier one’ states that it will compete heavily in — along with the perennially competitive swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan. Now they say they’re prepared to pour resources into hanging on to what has been a conservative bastion.”
The consensus Electoral Vote Map shows Georgia and Ohio still leaning to Republicans.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country will “happily” investigate whether Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections, the AP reports.
Zelenskiy told reporters that “we can’t say yes or no” as to whether there was any interference without an investigation. He said it’s in Ukraine’s interest to determine what happened.
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.
