Axios: “Does racism fit the definition of high crimes? Congress gets to define the term. And if past is prologue, one of Andrew Johnson’s articles of impeachment was a non-criminal high misdemeanor of speaking ill of Congress.”
Trump Campaign Sees Tweets as Good Politics
Washington Post “Politically expedient: That’s how sources on the Trump campaign and on Capitol Hill see the move. The ensuing outrage that sparked Democrats to coalesce around the group of liberal congresswomen, who have been the center of party infighting, only helps feed Trump’s preferred narrative that the party is beholden to it’s far-left flank.”
Said one Trump adviser: “Trump’s tweets yet again reinforced in the minds of many Americans that the Democratic Party is the party of AOC and Omar.”
Said another: “Strictly from a political standpoint, his tweets seemed designed to get Pelosi and the Squad back on the same team. Being anti-Pelosi polls well with the base. Having Pelosi and the Squad back together polls even better.”
Playbook: “The president now has a foil, and it’s four young women of color who are from the energetic progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Some Republicans think the president is trying to highlight political views he believes are out of the mainstream — albeit ham-handedly.”
For members: The Politics Behind Trump’s Racism.
Financial Crunch Set to Shrink Democratic Field
Politico: “Months of bleak polling couldn’t stop the parade of lower-level Democrats crowding into the presidential primary. But bankruptcy might.”
“Eleven Democratic presidential candidates — nearly half of the sprawling field — spent more campaign cash than they raised in the second quarter of the year, according to new financial disclosures filed Monday. Eight contenders active in the spring limped forward with less than $1 million in cash on hand, and several top-tier contenders were already spending multiples of what their lower-profile competitors raised.”
Washington Post: How the 2020 candidates are spending their money.
Trump Aides Don’t Condemn His Tweets
New York Times: “Almost two years after Charlottesville, when Mr. Trump refused to condemn white supremacists after their deadly clash with a crowd protesting them, presidential statements widely condemned as racist are still putting White House officials in the awkward position of having to defend comments they privately wish Mr. Trump had not made. But they are also causing less heartburn in the West Wing than they used to.”
Trump Ambushed GOP With Attacks on Congresswomen
Politico: “The ambush plunged Trump back into a political crisis with his own party, with no coherent GOP response and little apparent coordination between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill over how to grapple with Trump’s comments that the liberal lawmakers, all women of color, “go back” to where they came from.”
“Senate GOP leaders briefly discussed the matter on Monday afternoon in a private meeting as they compared their responses to the tweets, according to two attendees. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave no indication of how he plans to respond at his weekly news conference on Tuesday.”
“That largely left it up to GOP senators and House members to devise their own responses to Trump’s latest firestorm.”
The Hill: “Most are seeking to steer clear of the firestorm, but a few GOP lawmakers came out against Trump’s suggestion that the four women of color “go back” to their home countries, even though all are U.S. citizens.”
House Probes DeVos’ Use of Personal Email
Politico: “House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings said Monday that he is expanding an investigation into the use of personal email by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Cummings told DeVos in a letter that his move came after ‘disturbing new revelations’ released by the Education Department’s inspector general in May about how DeVos had used personal email while on the job.”
Tariffs Don’t Cover Costs of Trump’s Trade War
“President Trump on Monday portrayed America as being on the winning end of his trade war, saying tariffs are punishing China’s economy while generating billions of dollars for the United States, an economic victory that will allow him to continue his fight without domestic harm,” the New York Times reports.
“But government figures show that the revenue the United States has collected from tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods is not enough to cover the cost of the president’s bailout for farmers, let alone compensate the many other industries hurt by trade tensions. The longer Mr. Trump’s dispute with China drags on, the more difficult it could be for him to ignore that gap.”
Flashback Quote of the Day
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, in a 1968 speech.
Biden Slams Trump for ‘Racist Attack’
Joe Biden panned President Trump’s recent tweets about four minority congresswomen as a “racist attack” after Trump said they should “go back” to their countries, Politico reports.
Biden also added a suggestion for Trump: “He should go home. He should go home.”
O’Rourke Raised Just $3.6 Million Last Quarter
“Beto O’Rourke will report raising about $3.6 million from April through June, a startlingly small sum for a candidate whose presidential campaign once appeared ascendant and who raised massive amounts of money for his 2018 Senate race,” Politico reports.
‘You Cannot Unring These Bells’
Conservative commentator George Will told the New York Times that President Trump is causing lasting damage to the country.
Said Will: “I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse … you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream.”
He added: “I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon’s surreptitious burglaries did.”
We Have a Racist President
George Conway: “No, I thought, President Trump was boorish, dim-witted, inarticulate, incoherent, narcissistic and insensitive. He’s a pathetic bully but an equal-opportunity bully — in his uniquely crass and crude manner, he’ll attack anyone he thinks is critical of him. No matter how much I found him ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist. No matter how much I came to dislike him, I didn’t want to think that the president of the United States is a racial bigot.”
“But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president. Trump could have used vile slurs, including the vilest of them all, and the intent and effect would have been no less clear. Telling four non-white members of Congress — American citizens all, three natural-born — to ‘go back’ to the ‘countries’ they ‘originally came from’? That’s racist to the core. It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against — and there’s plenty to criticize them for — it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president.”
Pelosi Torpedoes White House Debt Limit Plan
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi late Monday said the House of Representatives would not raise the debt ceiling unless it is part of a broader budget deal, putting extreme pressure on the White House and congressional leaders to cut a deal within days,” the Washington Post reports.
“Pelosi said the idea of raising the debt ceiling on its own and not in conjunction with a budget agreement was not ‘acceptable to our caucus’ and therefore did not stand a chance of passage in the House of Representatives.”
How Trump Aides Rushed to Repackage Trump’s Tweets
Politico: “The evolution from the Sunday tweets to the Monday talking points offers a glimpse of what the Trump campaign will likely have to deal with as it heads into the heart of the 2020 election. While Trump’s reelection officials have long insisted that the best strategy is to always follow the president’s political instincts, the last few days have shown they will also have to regularly find ways to map Trump’s outbursts onto the campaign themes they think will drive him to victory.”
“Several advisers and allies expressed concern that the president was undoing months of campaign work to frame the upcoming election as a choice between an America-loving, pro-capitalist president, and a Democratic Party beholden to fringe socialists who hate America and despise capitalism. The comments also had the ancillary effect of uniting a fractious Democratic caucus that had spent the week engaged in intraparty squabbling between party leaders and the progressive members that Trump was going after.”
Trudeau Rips Trump Over Attacks on Lawmakers
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on condemned President Trump for telling a group of female minority lawmakers to go back to the “crime infested places” they came from, The Hill reports.
Said Trudeau: “I think Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments. That is not how we do things in Canada. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. The diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths and a source of tremendous resilience and pride for Canadians and we will to continue to defend that.”
Jury Finds Branstad Discriminated Against Gay Employee
“A jury has awarded a gay former state official $1.5 million in damages, finding that he was discriminated against based on his sexual orientation,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“The eight-person jury decided Monday that the state of Iowa and former Gov. Terry Branstad (R) retaliated against former Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey and discriminated against Godfrey based on his sexual orientation.”
‘I’ll Pay for Their Tickets Out of This Country’
Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA) defended President Trump’s racist tweets attacking four Democratic House lawmakers.
Said Abraham: “There’s no question that the members of Congress that President Trump called out have absolutely said anti-American and anti-Semitic things. I’ll pay for their tickets out of this country if they just tell me where they’d rather be.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“It is time for us to impeach this president.”
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), quoted by CNN.
