One America News, the pro-Trump television network that sent a camera crew with Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine last week, tried to get Ukrainian multimillionaire Oleksandr Onyshchenko a visa to travel to the United States, the Daily Beast reports.
However, German authorities arrested him because of a warrant from Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutors.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked by The Hollywood Reporter about Hollywood’s role in creating Donald Trump.
Said Pelosi: “Well, let me say I’ve never seen his reality show, so I don’t know if it was any good or what. I do think that he was assisted by the communications industry, not just Hollywood, but the press as well, because all they do is enable him, and that is really a sad thing.”
She added: “I’ve said to many of my friends in the press, ‘You’re accomplices, whether you want to be or not,’ and they say, ‘If he’s saying it, then it’s news.’ I don’t think it’s news, but it monopolizes the airwaves. So there is a lot of responsibility to go around in terms of the creation of whatever that is in the White House.”
Rick Hasen gives four reasons for increasing distrust in our election system in his new book, Election Meltdown:
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) vowed to restore voting rights to more than 100,000 people convicted of felonies, CBS News reports.
“Our values are the same. We disagree on policy, but we don’t disagree on humanity, we don’t disagree about love and compassion. I think that’s true for all of us — it’s just that we get lost in our fear of what’s different.”
— Michelle Obama, quoted by People magazine, on her friendship with President George W. Bush.
“Plans for a Democratic presidential debate in January have been complicated by the expected Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, which could tie up several 2020 hopefuls during the final stretch before the Iowa caucuses,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The DNC has struggled to settle on a date for next month’s debate… It isn’t clear when a potential trial would start or how long it would last; the Senate trial of former President Bill Clinton was conducted over five weeks. The Senate could convene six days a week to hold proceedings beginning in January, limiting the number of days in which Senate candidates such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont could appear in a televised debate.”
A new CNN poll in Texas finds Joe Biden holds a large lead in the Democratic presidential race with 35%. followed by Bernie Sanders at 15%, Elizabeth Warren at 13%, Pete Buttigieg at 9% and Michael Bloomberg at 5%.
Key takeaway: “But perhaps the biggest story from our poll is that the formerly deep red state of Texas looks competitive in the general election if the Democrats nominate Biden. President Trump stands at 48% to Biden 47% among all registered voters.”
A new CNN poll in California finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic field with 21%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 20%, Elizabeth Warren at 17%, Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Andrew Yang at 6% and Michael Bloomberg at 5%.
A new OH Predictive Insights poll in Arizona shows Mark Kelly (D) leading Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) by a 47% to 44% margin, fueled by a substantial gender gap.
A new Monmouth poll finds that 61% of Americans say that President Trump has not cooperated with the House impeachment investigation, which is twice the number who say he has (31%).
However, just 45% of Americans feel that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 50% disagree.
Trump’s approval rate is 43% to 50%, essentially unchanged from the last few months.
ProPublica reports Donald Trump Jr. Went on a hunting trip in Mongolia last summer where he shot and killed an argali, an endangered sheep beloved for its giant curving horns.
“His adventure was supported by government resources from both the U.S. and Mongolia, which each sent security services to accompany the president’s eldest son and grandson on the multiday trip. It also thrust Trump Jr. directly into the controversial world of Mongolian trophy hunting — a polarizing practice in a country that views the big-horned rams as a national treasure. The right to kill an argali is controlled by an opaque permitting system that experts say is mostly based on money, connections and politics.”
Beginning at 7 p.m. ET, the House Judiciary Committee will begin the process of marking up House resolution 755, “impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Vox: “Over the course of a more than 90-minute delivery, Trump pushed conspiracy theories and blatant lies, trashed law enforcement officials that aren’t blindly loyal to him, exhibited thuggish tendencies toward protesters, made misogynistic remarks, and demonstrated that he fundamentally misunderstands the Constitution.”
“It was one of his most troubling performances in recent memory and served as a stark illustration of just how ugly Trump’s reelection campaign will be.”
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.”
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.”
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.