Out this fall: Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us by Donald Trump Jr.
Axios: “The book’s thrashing of political correctness previews the stump message Don Jr. will use to try to jack up swing-state turnout by the Republican base.”
Former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) announced she is challenging Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), in next year’s election, the Texas Tribune reports.
Playbook: “There are just four days left until the August recess — Democratic leadership has said it would not keep the chamber in session past this week.”
“The question inside the White House is this: Will Mnuchin win, and get Trump to support the bill? Or will the fiscal hawks in OMB, backed by acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and urged on by mischief-making House Republicans, inject enough skepticism to make him wary and tank a deal?”
“The question in the Capitol: How do members of Congress view this deal? A two-year debt limit hike coupled with a boost of budget caps is, broadly speaking, an attractive proposition for Congress in today’s day. But there are tripwires. There will still be a few Republicans who will balk at spending increases. And there will be Democrats who will be wary of any agreement that could allow Trump to enact policies they disagree with.”
Related for members: Stories Being Missed in the Trump Era
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Politico: “Elizabeth Warren has cut sharply into Bernie Sanders’ front-runner standing among members of the progressive political action committee Democracy for America, according to the group’s latest straw poll, while Kamala Harris vaulted ahead of Joe Biden into third place.”
“Sanders led Warren by more than 30 percentage points in the group’s previous survey in April, but the independent senator from Vermont saw his edge over Warren fall to just more than 6 percentage points in the latest survey.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “predicted an imminent economic crisis unless the Trump administration and Congress quickly pass legislation to regulate the financial sector and significantly reduce middle class household debt,” Politico reports.
Said Warren: “Warning lights are flashing. Whether it’s this year or next year, the odds of another economic downturn are high — and growing.”
The Washington Post notes Joe Biden has been endorsed by 15 members of Congress, Kamala Harris by 12, Cory Booker by 12, Amy Klobuchar by 4, Elizabeth Warren by 4 and Bernie Sanders by 3.
By this point four years ago the majority of Democrats in Congress had endorsed Hillary Clinton.
“The White House and President Trump’s re-election campaign plan to tune in Wednesday to watch former special counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony without a coordinated plan to counter the appearance ahead of time, according to multiple officials involved in those discussions,” NBC News reports.
“The president himself is expected to monitor the hearings from the White House as Mueller answers questions about the Russia investigation, according to campaign aides, much like he has done with similar events in the past. His schedule for that day only includes a routine lunch with the vice president, and aides point to his morning ‘executive time’ as a natural window for Trump to take in snippets of the coverage.”
“But when asked directly by reporters last week if he intended to tune in, the president claimed he ‘won’t be watching.'”
Rick Klein: “A full week was consumed by President Trump’s decision to single out four freshman Democratic House members in singularly offensive fashion. The president continues to fuel that storyline, while this week figures to be consumed by Wednesday’s long-awaited Capitol Hill testimony featuring Robert Mueller.”
“The urgency is real for the roughly two-thirds of the field still clamoring for a spot in the fall debates. Efforts to contrast plans with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal or Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s college-debt forgiveness plan — to cite just two prominent examples — need to be heard to get traction.”
“The condemnation of Trump has been swift and unanimous among Democrats. It’s also low-hanging political fruit — made no less tempting by the knowledge that the president would like them to pick it… Labeling Trump, though, is the easy part of the Democratic primary. It’s harder for candidates to turn the focus to something, or someone, else.”
Fox News: “President Trump unexpectedly dropped in on the wedding of PJ Mongelli and Nicole Marie Mongelli on Saturday night at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, as enthusiastic attendees broke into chants of ‘USA.’
“Fox News is told the bride and groom are huge fans of the president, had dreamed of him attending their wedding and got engaged at the golf club in 2017. Flags and pro-Trump banners could be seen at the event. The bride said she’d sent numerous requests to the president in hopes he would attend — and that Trump ended up paying two visits to separate wedding events.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “For one thing, settling for a one-day, two-committee session is already a defeat.., For another, what they did eventually win – a third hour for the judiciary committee, apparently to allow each of the Democrats on the panel to have five minutes to question the witness – suggests the worst: We may be in for a whole lot of grandstanding by individual members.”
Seemingly every experienced observer has said the same thing about these hearings: Democrats should swallow their egos and turn over their time to the committee’s counsel to do the initial questioning – or, perhaps, to a handful of committee members who could coordinate. Here’s my suggestion: New members of the committees should simply give away their time to other lawmakers designated by the committee chairs, on the condition that the questioners consult with them about what to ask.”
“This wouldn’t be an entirely selfless act. After all, new members go last in such hearings anyway. Few constituents will be watching live and it’s unlikely that the end-of-the-line group will win the battle of the sound bites. In other words, five minutes really isn’t worth very much. Giving their time away, by contrast, would probably generate some positive publicity and win some credit from more senior lawmakers. Most important, though, it would be good for the nation – because a better-run hearing will be better able to dramatize Trump’s misconduct, which is supposed to be the point.”
“President Trump said late Sunday night that he wants to set up a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer about conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border following the New York Democrat’s tour of migrant detention centers that he called ‘inhumane,'” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump called for a meeting ‘ASAP’ in tweets that came two days after Schumer and a group of U.S. senators toured several detention facilities.”
Boston Globe: “With a little more than six months to go until the 2020 New Hampshire primary, Sanders can no longer take the state for granted. He has gone from being the unquestioned front-runner to second place — and sliding.”
Chicago Tribune: “Top leaders of the Illinois Republican Party launched an effort at damage control Sunday after a social media post echoed President Trump’s criticism of four Democratic congresswoman and went further, referring to them in a movie-type poster of being a ‘jihad squad’ and contending they believe any criticism is racist.”
Playbook: “On Wednesday, Mueller will come to Capitol Hill to testify. There are two theories rattling around the town. One: that the hearing will be a bust, since Mueller has said he won’t say anything outside the four corners of his report. Two: that the hearing will be powerful no matter what he says. Mueller has been mostly silent for years, and his reading the report could be consequential enough — not least for the reaction it provokes from the TV watcher in chief.”
“To give a sense of just how much coverage these hearings will get, take a look at how the networks are planning to handle them. They’re all wall to wall with their biggest names.”
Politico: Inside the preparations for Mueller’s history-making testimony.
New Yorker: “When I asked him if he truly regretted his decision to resign, he said, ‘Oh, yeah. Absolutely.’ He wishes that he had appeared before a Senate Ethics Committee hearing, as he had requested, allowing him to marshal facts that countered the narrative aired in the press.”
“Constant infighting among top officials. Sudden departures of senior staffers without explanation. A leader who is disengaged and prone to falling asleep in meetings,” Politico reports.
“The Commerce Department has reached its apex of dysfunction under Wilbur Ross, according to four people with knowledge of the inner workings of the department. The 81-year-old Commerce secretary, who has for months endured whispers that he is on the outs, spends much of his time at the White House to try to retain President Donald Trump’s favor, the sources said, leaving his department adrift.”
“He’s hardly the only top Trump official to seek the president’s approval. But department insiders say they’ve rarely seen Commerce so rudderless — and they say Ross’s penchant for managing upward at the expense of his staff is leading to what one plugged-in observer described as ‘a disaster over there.’”
Associated Press: “Puerto Rico braced early Monday for what many people expected to be one of the biggest protests ever seen in the U.S. territory as irate islanders pledged to drive Gov. Ricardo Rosselló from office.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to take over one of the island’s busiest highways Monday morning to press demands for the resignation of Rosselló over an obscenity-laced leaked online chat the governor had with allies as well as federal corruption charges leveled against his administration.”
Geraldo Rivera told the New York Times that President Trump’s recent comments telling four minority congresswomen to “go back” to the countries they came from have shown him that critics of Trump “were much more right than I.”
Said Rivera: “My friendship with the president has cost me friendships, it has cost me schisms in the family, my wife and I are constantly at odds about the president.”
He added that “as much as I have denied it and averted my eyes from it, this latest incident made it impossible to defend him.”
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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