Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has reportedly signed a law banning bans and fines on plastic bags, KFOR reports.
“The piece of legislation prohibits municipalities from banning or putting a tax on auxiliary containers made of materials such as cloth paper, cardboard, aluminum, glass and yes, plastic.”
For those in other states: How to pass a plastic bag ban.
GOP presidential candidate Bill Weld is calling on President Trump to resign from office in the wake of Robert Mueller’s investigation, calling him “a one-man crime wave,” the Boston Globe reports.
Weld, writing for The Bulwark: “How can a president function if he instinctively lies to not only the public but to his own staff? There is one essential truth that leaps from the pages of the Mueller report: No one can trust Donald Trump.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) “suggested the federal government misused its power to spy on President Trump for political reasons as part of its investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Said Ernst: “It begs the question too, with the federal government spying on political opponents — what have we come to?”
She added: “And that seemed to generate out of the Obama administration. So I think that there are some things that need to be looked at. We need to understand, when is it appropriate to misuse power so that you’re using your federal assets to go after a political opponent? It sounds very much like something you find in Russia or someplace like that.”
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“The Mueller report is no Access Hollywood tape. While the 2016 bombshell sent Republicans sprinting away from then-candidate Donald Trump, special counsel Robert Mueller’s explosive findings that the president may have committed obstruction of justice is causing a far more muted reaction from Republicans,” Politico reports.
“Not even the most vulnerable Republicans who have pledged to support Trump have abandoned the president. And there is no sign any will.”
“The late Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) family plans to support former Vice President Joe Biden’s White House bid, backing the Democrat not only in his party’s crowded primary race but also in a general election matchup with President Trump,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“The former police officer who arrested Beto O’Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time: that O’Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he caused,” the Texas Tribune reports.
“O’Rourke admits he was intoxicated and says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee.”
“Michael Cohen has disavowed responsibility for some of the crimes to which he has pleaded guilty, privately contending in a recent recorded phone call that he hadn’t evaded taxes and that a criminal charge related to his home-equity line of credit was a lie,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“As he prepares to begin a three-year prison term on May 6, Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, expressed dismay during the conversation that after testifying for more than 100 hours to federal and congressional investigators about his work for Mr. Trump—including the coordination of hush-money deals with two women—he remained ‘a man all alone.’”
Said Cohen: “I lost my business… my insurance, my bank accounts, all for what? All for what? Because Trump, you know, had an affair with a porn star? That’s really what this is about.”
The call was secretly recorded by comedian Tom Arnold.
Just a day after Queen Elizabeth invited him to Buckingham Palace this summer, President Trump pushed out a baseless conspiracy theory that the British government spied on his 2016 campaign on behalf of President Obama’s administration.
The Daily Beast notes British intelligence issued a withering response: “As we have previously stated, the allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
Los Angeles Times: “The former El Paso congressman will stop at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College downtown for an outdoor rally at 4 p.m. Saturday. On Sunday, O’Rourke is planning a town hall at the United Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco, followed by multiple stops in the Central Valley on Monday. He wraps up his visit Tuesday morning with a town hall in San Diego.
“Notably absent from O’Rourke’s itinerary are the private Hollywood and Silicon Valley fundraisers that presidential candidates typically hold during visits to California. Spokesman Chris Evans said O’Rourke has held no fundraising events and has not scheduled any.”
A new Census Bureau report finds that the 2018 midterm election turnout — the highest-turnout in more than a century — “was driven by a surge of voters who ordinarily sit out those contests, and who disproportionately favor Democratic candidates,” The Hill reports.
“While turnout was up across the board, it rose most dramatically among groups that did not participate very much in the 2014 midterm elections — to the benefit of Democrats who took back the House majority.”
“We’re fighting all the subpoenas.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney issued a statement saying he didn’t recall instructing aides to keep discussions about election security off President Trump’s radar, after the New York Times reported Mulvaney said the topic “should be kept below his level,” Politico reports.
Said Mulvaney: “I don’t recall anything along those lines happening in any meeting.”
Charlie Cook: “In the 11 ABC News/Washington Post, 17 CBS News, 22 CNN, 23 Fox News, 106 Gallup, 22 NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and 12 Pew Research Center polls, the president’s approval rating was upside down (higher disapprovals than approvals) in all but one of them… To reiterate: That’s 212 out of 213 polls showing upside-down approval ratings for Trump.”
“He couldn’t even add to that meager total if we included the 22 Kaiser Family Foundation, 29 Marist, 14 Monmouth, and 41 Quinnipiac national polls. That’s 318 out of 319 major national polls.”
The FiveThirtyEight polling average currently finds Trump’s approval at 41% to 54%.
“MJ Hegar, an Air Force veteran whose viral campaign ads nearly helped her get elected in one of Texas’ most Republican-friendly congressional districts last year, set her sights higher on Tuesday and launched a run for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent John Cornyn,” the AP reports.
William Barr said in a 1998 interview that he was “disturbed” that Attorney General Janet Reno had not defended independent counsel Ken Starr from “spin control,” “hatchet jobs” and “ad hominem attacks,” CNN reports.
“Two decades later, Barr is now attorney general himself — and defending another president who has repeatedly blasted a special counsel’s investigation of his activities. Barr stayed silent as President Donald Trump railed against special counsel Robert Mueller’s ‘witch hunt.'”
“Hawaii is likely to move to elections conducted almost entirely by mail as soon as 2020 after a conference committee of state legislators voted in favor of a measure to overhaul voting in the state,” Honolulu Civil Beat reports.
“Democrats want six years of President Trump’s tax returns, and those should be plenty interesting. But it is the other documents they are seeking—administrative files for the president’s IRS audits—that may prove most revealing,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Experienced tax lawyers could take the returns, the audit files and Mr. Trump’s responses to IRS questions and quickly understand the status and core issues of any IRS inquiry into the president.”
President Trump tweeted that “the American people deserve to know who is in this country,” breaking with the Justice Department in its defense of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s efforts to place a citizenship question on next year’s census questionnaire, Politico reports.
“The Commerce Department, in defending its efforts to ask everyone in the country next year if they are U.S. citizens, has said the question would be inserted at the request of the Justice Department as part of an effort to better protect voting rights.”
But Trump offered his own rationale: “The American people deserve to know who is in this Country. Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
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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