“Members of the crowd at the California Democratic Convention booed presidential hopeful John Delaney on Sunday when the former Maryland congressman criticized Medicare for All, CNN reports.
Said Delaney: “Medicare for All may sound good, but it’s actually not good policy, nor is it good politics.”
The booing continued for more than two minutes as Delaney tried to finish his remarks.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “John Delaney, thank you but please sashay away.”
Roger Stone posted and then deleted an inflammatory online call that former CIA Director John Brennan be “hung” for treason, the HuffPost reports.
Stone is under a gag order as he awaits federal trial on charges related to his work on Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The U.K.’s media regulator has ruled that the Fox News programs Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight breached impartiality rules covering British broadcasting, The Guardian reports.
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“As Democrats agonize over a spate of state laws restricting abortion rights and even a potential reversal of Roe v. Wade, one 2020 presidential candidate is putting an ambitious, long-shot plan to reform the Supreme Court front-and-center of his campaign,” NBC News reports.
“Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has talked about his plan to overhaul the high court since his first days as a candidate. In short, it calls for expanding the number of justices from nine to 15, with five affiliated with Democrats, five affiliated with Republicans, and five apolitical justices chosen by the first 10.”
“Supreme Court experts, though, have raised concerns about whether the proposal is constitutional, as well as whether it could backfire by reinforcing the perception that there are Republican and Democratic justices.”
President Trump ripped CNN as he arrived in London, complaining that as his primary source of U.S. news in the U.K. it was “negative” and “so much Fake News.”
Said Trump: “After watching it for a short while, I turned it off.”
He added: “Very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn’t owner AT&T do something?”
Jared Kushner told Axios on HBO that he doesn’t know whether he’d call the FBI if he were to receive an email today like the one before the campaign’s Trump Tower meeting, which had the subject line: “Re: Russia – Clinton – private and confidential.”
Kushner said this after a tense exchange about the email he received to set up the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
“Under normal circumstances, the Kentucky governor’s race would be all but over except for the concession phone call. The incumbent running for re-election this year is a conservative Republican in a state that has recently become as red as hot coal, where unemployment is as low as it has been in nearly two decades and most of the voters are still crazy about the governor’s ally, President Trump,” the New York Times reports.
But, said former Gov. Paul Patton (D): “This is not a normal governor’s race. We’ve got an abnormal governor.”
“In an hour-long town hall in Dubuque, Iowa, she parried questions on President Trump’s border wall, her conservative House record and the trade war with China. She even attacked the network itself for what Gillibrand called its spreading of a ‘false narrative’ on abortion rights,” Politico reports.
“But Gillibrand’s biggest moment — and a potential viral clip — came during an exchange with Fox News’ host Chris Wallace, who asked Gillibrand to explain her tweet from December 2018, when she said the future was ‘female’ and ‘intersectional.’ ‘We want women to have a seat at the table,’ Gillibrand said. At that, Wallace jumped in and asked: ‘What about men?’”
“‘They’re already there — do you not know?’ Gillibrand said, greeted by one of the biggest rounds of applause of the night. ‘It’s not meant to be exclusionary, it’s meant to be inclusionary,’ she said. ‘All right, we’re not threatened,’ Wallace responded.”
Jared Kushner denied on Axios on HBO that he discussed his top-secret security clearance with his father-in-law, even though President Trump is said to have personally ordered the clearance over the advice of his own staff.
This is first time Kushner has denied it on the record.
Politico: ““With the introductory stage of the Democratic presidential primary now over, the lines of engagement are beginning to take shape. And what is emerging is a primary that is no longer one nominating contest, but two. The first, occurring wherever Joe Biden materializes, is the front-runner’s campaign against himself — his history of failed presidential elections, his propensity for gaffes, his need to adhere to new ‘boundaries of protecting personal space.’
“The other includes everyone else. Nowhere were the two tracks of the primary more stark than over the weekend, when Biden positioned himself in Ohio, far from the horde of other Democratic contenders. While more than half the field jostled at the Californian Democratic Party convention here — the largest single state party gathering in the nation — the former vice president had the lectern to himself at a Human Rights Campaign dinner on Saturday, contrasting his candidacy not with any Democrat, but with the Republican president.”
“Britain is gearing up for this week’s state visit by President Trump as only Britain can do. There will be an official greeting ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a lavish banquet with the queen’s best china, a gun salute fired from Green Park and the Tower of London,” the Washington Post reports.
“It will all be suitably over-the-top. But there is also a sense that British officials are slightly less than enthusiastic about this particular round of state visit grandeur.”
“Some of the traditional trappings — such as staying over at Buckingham Palace, a royal welcome at the Horse Guards Parade and a gold carriage procession down the Mall — are notably absent.”
Daily Telegraph: “The U.S. President had been scheduled for a private sit down with Mrs. May but this has now been reportedly taken off the agenda. They will still conduct a joint press conference on Tuesday.”
President Trump tweeted just as he arrived in London:
“Sadiq Khan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me……”
He added: “….Kahn [sic] reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job — only half his height.”
New York Times: “Ms. Chao’s office had made a series of unorthodox requests related to her first scheduled visit to China as a Trump cabinet member, according to people with knowledge of the email. Among them: asking federal officials to help coordinate travel arrangements for at least one family member and include relatives in meetings with government officials.”
“In China, the Chaos are no ordinary family. They run an American shipping company with deep ties to the economic and political elite in China, where most of the company’s business is centered. The trip was abruptly canceled by Ms. Chao after the ethics question was referred to officials in the State and Transportation Department.”
“The Trump administration considered imposing tariffs on imports from Australia last week, but decided against the move amid fierce opposition from military officials and the State Department,” the New York Times reports.
“Some of President Trump’s top trade advisers had urged the tariffs as a response to a surge of Australian aluminum flowing onto the American market over the past year. But officials at the Defense and State Departments told Mr. Trump the move would alienate a top ally and could come at significant cost to the United States.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a sobering assessment of the prospects of the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying “one might argue” that the plan is “unexecutable” and it might not “gain traction,” the Washington Post reports.
He expressed his hope that the deal isn’t simply dismissed out of hand.
Said Pompeo: “It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, ‘It’s not particularly original, it doesn’t particularly work for me,’ that is, ‘It’s got two good things and nine bad things, I’m out,'”
Meanwhile, Politico reports Trump said Pompeo “may be right” in his raw assessment of the administration’s Middle East peace plan.
Jared Kushner said in an interview that the Palestinians aren’t yet able to govern themselves and declined to promise them an independent state in the White House’s long-awaited Mideast peace plan, Bloomberg reports.
Said Kushner: “The hope is that they over time will become capable of governing.”
President Trump said that Kevin Hassett, an architect of his “pro-American” proposal to base immigration policy on immigrants’ skills, not their family relations, is stepping down as chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisers, NBC News reports.
“It is certainly true that much of his conduct qualifies for that, but at the same time we have to recognize the reality that one party, the Republican Party, has turned itself into a cult of the president’s personality and is not likely to act consistent with its constitutional obligations.”
— House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), quoted by Axios, on impeaching President Trump.
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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