“So why aren’t the committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillary’s crimes and Russia relations?”
— President Trump, on Twitter.
“So why aren’t the committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillary’s crimes and Russia relations?”
— President Trump, on Twitter.
New White House communications director Anthony Scarmucci had some advice for new press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Jezebel reports.
Said Scaramucci: “For Sarah Huckabee, I want to do everything I can to make her better at that podium. I think she’s phenomenal there now. But like every athlete that is training for the Olympics, every day we have to make ourselves incrementally better. The only thing I ask Sarah—Sarah, if you’re watching, I loved the hair and makeup person we had on Friday, so I’d like to continue to use the hair and makeup person.”
President Trump is so unhappy with Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he has raised the possibility of bringing back Rudolph Giuliani to replace him, Mike Allen reports.
“Giuliani would have a tough time getting 50 Republicans senators to vote to confirm him. He was such an early and ardent Trump backer that he wouldn’t be seen as an independent guardian of the department in these tumultuous times.”
“In fact, the nomination could be seen as Trump throwing gasoline on a fire. And Giuliani’s stop-and-frisk police policy as New York mayor, and clients since then, also would be controversial with many senators.”
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Gallup: “President Trump, who has averaged 40% job approval since his inauguration, received approval ratings of 50% or higher in 17 states in the first half of 2017. Residents in an equal number of states gave him approval ratings below 40%. In 16 states, his ratings ranged between 40% and 49%.”
New York magazine has a good profile of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski:
Sources close to Trump told me he’s angered by what he perceives to be the phoniness of Scarborough and Brzezinski, the very sort of Washington bullshit he campaigned against in the first place: To his face, and to other members of his administration, they’re friendly; to the cameras, it’s a different story. And those sources in the White House believe the shift in tone on Morning Joe reflects a combination of frustration at being shut out of Trump’s orbit and simple jealousy — Scarborough has always been thought to have presidential aspirations. “He wanted to be president, and he’s not. And, of all people, Donald Trump is. This is crazy,” a second senior White House official said. “They lost access in month two, month one, of a White House where part of their stock-in-trade was ‘Donald this’ and ‘Donald that’ and ‘The president told me this’ and ‘People close to the president told me that.’ It became very obvious around here who they talked to every day, and it wasn’t the president.”
Scarborough and Brzezinski said the White House is misrepresenting their motivations, though they didn’t rule out that Scarborough might be interested in running for president in the future.
Former Sen. David Durenberger (R-MN) “A vote in these circumstances will rightly provoke anger and distrust unlikely to abate. Take it from me: A no vote on the Motion to Proceed this week is the only one that will be defensible in the years to come.”
“I have had my arm twisted by the best of them — presidents and Senate leaders and party whips alike. I know how uncomfortable it can be. Usually, they were able to attempt a convincing argument about what is good about the bill for the country or my state. But I never would have voted for something so far reaching without knowing the answer to all the questions above.”
“Never in all my years did I experience the level of bullying we see today. It doesn’t look good in Minnesota, and I suspect it doesn’t look any better in your state.”
“We will always remember how tenacious and loyal Mark and Debbie Meadows were, especially after Oct. 7. They’re definitely members of what we call the ‘Oct. 8th coalition.’”
— Kellyanne Conway, quoted by the Washington Examiner, praising Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and his wife for standing with Donald Trump after the Access Hollywood tape last October.
A new USA Today/iMediaEthics Poll finds Americans already are split down the middle, 42% to 42%, over whether President Trump should be removed from office.
“President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said on Monday that he had been unaware that a June 2016 meeting he attended at Trump Tower was set up in the hope that a Russian lawyer would provide the Trump campaign with damaging information about Hillary Clinton,” the New York Times reports.
“In prepared remarks to congressional investigators released by Mr. Kushner’s representatives, Mr. Kushner said he arrived at the meeting late and had been so uninterested in the discussion that he emailed his assistant to ask for her help escaping.”
In the remarks, Mr. Kushner flatly denied any collusion: “I had no improper contacts. I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government.”
“Donald Trump Jr., who appeared short of experienced advisers with his email release and multiple statements about the Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, is getting help from Washington stalwart Fred Fielding ahead of this week’s Capitol Hill appearance,” Mike Allen reports.
“The addition of Fred Fielding shows that Trump Jr., who apparently didn’t recognize the seriousness of what he faced, now does.”
“Reince Priebus took the punishing job of President Donald Trump’s chief of staff with the idea that he would stick it out for at least one year. Six months in, with one of his top allies in the West Wing — press secretary Sean Spicer — on his way out, Priebus is in defensive mode, his role diminished and an internal rival hogging the limelight,” Politico reports.
“Trump’s decision to bring Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci into the role of communications director shows the rising power of political outsiders and the diminished influence of establishment figures — which Priebus, the former chairman of the RNC, epitomizes.”
“One White House official and two outside advisers said that while Scaramucci was brought into the White House for the communications job, he’s considered an internal candidate to eventually succeed Priebus as chief of staff.”
Politico: “The Republican Party is more powerful than it’s been in more than a decade — and yet it has never seemed so weak. Continuing chaos in the White House has been punctuated by the failure to deliver on the GOP’s seven-year pledge to overhaul Obamacare, and has many asking whether the party can capitalize on the sweeping victories it has achieved at the federal, state, and local levels.”
“Ahead of this week’s crucial Senate vote on health care, White House aides are already considering how to distance President Donald Trump from Congress and how to go after the Republicans who vote no — an idea the president seems fond of… Several people said he plans to keep up the fight, no matter how this week’s vote goes.”
“Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, traveled to his home state, Oklahoma, 10 times over three months this year, largely at taxpayer expense,” the New York Times reports.
“The findings from the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit group founded by former E.P.A. officials, are drawn from Mr. Pruitt’s calendar and the travel expenses he has submitted for reimbursement. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents show Mr. Pruitt spent 43 out of 92 days from March through May in Oklahoma or traveling to or from the state.”
“Senate Republicans are expected to vote as early as Tuesday to begin debate on their sweeping health-care legislation—but they don’t know yet what measure they will be voting on,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Some senators said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., KY) has told them they would know before the vote whether they would be asked to allow debate on some version of a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or legislation that would repeal the ACA with a two-year expiration date.”
“GOP leaders’ current strategy is to lean heavily on lawmakers to at least vote to allow debate on the bill, in the hopes that amendments and other tweaks could yield an agreement.”
This looks good: The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple.
Related from Jonathan Swan: “Reince Priebus has redefined what it means to be the White House Chief of Staff — and not in a good way. It’s unclear at this point how he survives much longer, and the breeziness with which the President humiliates him has even his enemies wincing in sympathy.”
Jonathan Swan: “President Trump knew that appointing Anthony Scaramucci as communications director would humiliate Reince, who fought hard against it. Scaramucci was smuggled into the meeting with the President on Thursday so Reince wouldn’t know about it. Trump had already taken pains to hide the discussions from his Chief of Staff, knowing Reince would try to foil the move. Trump also knew that inserting a line in the press release saying Scaramucci would report directly to the President — doing an end-run around Reince — was perhaps an unendurable public humiliation.”
“Reince has very few true allies inside the building. At this point, they don’t stretch much further than his personal assistant and the RNC holdovers on the press team. At the senior level, the only WH official who will go to the mat for Reince’s survival is Steve Bannon. They’ve become allies of convenience in a feud against Jared and Ivanka.”
“It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.”
— President Trump, on Twitter.
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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