Bloomberg: “Pompeo is now without peer on Trump’s national security team. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is weeks into his job, there’s no confirmed director of national intelligence and United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft was confirmed on Tuesday. Among the president’s advisers, Pompeo will have the biggest sway on decisions about brokering a deal with Iran, restarting talks with North Korea and finding a way to draw down forces in Afghanistan.”
The Final Straw for John Bolton
Politico: “Ultimately, it was hearing media accounts about how Bolton had advised the president to scuttle a meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David that proved a breaking point for Trump … In the president’s telling, he had taken his own counsel in arriving at the decision to call off the meeting and end the negotiations, and he was infuriated to hear Bolton credited with influencing his decision.”
Washington Post: “Among accumulated grievances that had been building for months, the president was annoyed that Bolton would regularly call on members of Congress to try to get them to push Bolton-preferred policies on Trump … Many on Bolton’s handpicked staff were seen as unnecessarily confrontational with other parts of the national security bureaucracy.”
Biden Leads Democrats In Texas
A new Quinnipiac poll in Texas finds Joe Biden tops the Democratic field with 28%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 18%, Bernie Sanders at 12% and Beto O’Rourke at 12%.
Said pollster Peter Brown: “Senator Warren’s popularity continues to grow in Texas as well as nationally. But in either case, the changes are small, and Biden holds on to his double digit lead.”
Trump’s National Security Legacy
New York Times: “No other president has had four national security advisers in his first three years in office.”
Bishop Wins Re-Do Election In North Carolina
Dan Bishop (R), best known for writing North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom bill,” narrowly beat out Dan McCready (D) to win a House seat in the state’s 9th congressional district, according to Decision Desk HQ.
The election was a re-run of last year’s election after the result was thrown out due to election fraud.
With most votes counted, Bishop was ahead by about two percentage points. President Trump won the district by 12 points in 2016.
Issa Will Run for Congress If Not Confirmed
Former Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Roll Call that he intends to run for Congress in Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) district if he is not confirmed to a position in the Trump administration by winter.
Said Issa: “There’s nothing wrong with his voting. But he is injured in a way that, according to most polls I’ve seen — all polls I’ve seen — he cannot win reelection. And as a Republican, I don’t want to lose a seat that is clearly a seat that we need to have to get back in the majority.”
Trump’s Trade War Has Killed 300K Jobs
Yahoo News: “Forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics estimates that Trump’s trade war with China has already reduced U.S. employment by 300,000 jobs, compared with likely employment levels absent the trade war.”
“That’s a combination of jobs eliminated by firms struggling with tariffs and other elements of the trade war, and jobs that would have been created but haven’t because of reduced economic activity.”
Special Election Results
Polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET for the special elections in North Carolina’s 9th and 3rd congressional districts.
Politico and the New York Times are tracking results as the come in.
Leave your reactions in the comments.
Adviser Telegraphs Biden’s Debate Strategy
“Joe Biden plans to argue at this week’s debate that all presidential candidates — including the incumbent — must be transparent about their finances and any business dealings in their past,” Bloomberg reports.
“The approach, described by a Biden adviser on condition of anonymity, could be seen as a veiled attack on Elizabeth Warren, who the Democratic front-runner is sharing a debate stage with for the first time on Thursday in Houston.”
Meanwhile, CNN reports Biden is expected to use this week’s debate to argue Democrats should select a nominee who is able to offer “more than plans,” previewing a potential line of attack against Warren, whose campaign mantra is “I’ve got a plan for that.”
Walter Shapiro: “I have never understand the logic of telegraphing your debate strategy by leaking to reporters before the event. If a campaign is smart, I assume that all such leaks are calculated disinformation.”
Big Majority Say Trump Doesn’t Deserve Re-Election
A new CNN poll finds 60% of Americans say President Trump does not deserve to be reelected.
“Overall, the poll paints a picture of a President who has done little to improve negative impressions of him or his work during his time in office. Across several questions asked early in Trump’s time in office and asked again now, the poll finds little positive change and deep partisan polarization.”
“The President’s approval rating remains about where it was in mid-August, with 39% approving of the job he’s doing and 55% disapproving.”
Candidates Warned Not to Curse at Debates
“Ahead of the third Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston this week, candidates are being instructed to clean up their language,” CNN reports.
In an email to campaigns: “We will not be broadcasting on any delay, so there will be no opportunity to edit out foul language. Candidates should therefore avoid cursing or expletives in accordance with federal law and FCC guidelines.”
Speak Up, John Bolton
David Frum: “Trump prefers to surround himself with grifters and weaklings. That has been harder for him to do in foreign policy, especially after the rapid end of the career of Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn. Men such as Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, H. R. McMaster, and now John Bolton have all had important pre-Trump careers—and all have post-Trump reputations to consider. Yet even after the unhappy culmination of their work for Trump, they have all continued to protect him. They know he is unfit for the job—morally, intellectually, psychologically. But they keep silent.”
“They seem to be impelled by an ideal of loyalty: that the president who appointed them is entitled to their silence afterward. That is normally a fine principle. But all principles must take account of facts, and the facts in this case are unprecedented. They owe their duty to the president not because he is some kind of feudal lord, but because he heads and represents the state they swore to serve. And if they see things that convince them that the president poses a danger to that state, then their duty is to warn their fellow citizens, the common employers of both the aides and the president.”
“Their duty is to speak.”
Trump Reached Out to Ex-Adviser McMaster
“As President Trump began losing confidence in national security adviser John Bolton, whom he fired on Tuesday, he reached out to the man he had fired to give Bolton the job: retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster,” NBC News reports.
“Trump’s contacts with McMaster perhaps presaged his decision Tuesday to unceremoniously fire Bolton. They also marked a significant a remarkable shift for the president that is emblematic of how much Bolton fell out of favor since Trump welcomed him into the White House 17 months ago. At that time, Trump was barely speaking to McMaster and regularly did derogatory impressions of him in his absence.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Internal polling looks great, the best ever!”
— President Trump, on Twitter, without sharing any details.
Bolton Unlikely to Go Quietly
Playbook: “It seems unlikely Bolton will go quietly. This is a guy who is a savvy Washington player — he texts with many reporters — and it seems near-certain he will want to maintain his reputation and tell people some of what he witnessed in the Trump administration. He has already texted multiple reporters, including WaPo’s Bob Costa, to push his claim that the decision to resign was his own.”
“It’s no secret that Trump and Bolton disagreed on many things; the president said so openly, including today. But from what we’re hearing, there were two recent points of friction that triggered his exit: Bolton’s vocal unhappiness over the president’s idea to host the Taliban at Camp David, and a dispute over whether to waive some sanctions on Iran ahead of a possible summit with President Hassan Rouhani. The two men had a heated conversation on the phone after Trump’s rally Monday night in North Carolina, and that was it.”
Trump Pushes for Crackdown on Homeless Camps
“President Trump has ordered White House officials to conduct a sweeping crackdown on homelessness in California, citing the state’s growing crisis,” the Washington Post reports.
“The talks have intensified in recent weeks. Administration officials have discussed using the federal government to get homeless people off the streets of Los Angeles and other areas and into new government-backed facilities, according to two officials briefed on the planning. But it is unclear how they could accomplish this and what legal authority they would use.”
Ex-FEMA Official Arrested for Taking Bribes
“A former top administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was arrested on Tuesday in a major federal corruption investigation that found that the official took bribes from the president of a company that secured $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s shredded electrical grid after Hurricane Maria,” the New York Times reports.
El Paso ‘Hero’ Arrested Before White House Ceremony
“One of the people President Trump honored for his heroism during a mass shooting in an El Paso Walmart last month was arrested by the Secret Service during his visit to the White House on Monday due to an outstanding criminal warrant,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“Police say his tale of heroics does not match video evidence. Chris Grant, 50, was shot in the ribs and a kidney during the Aug. 3 rampage that claimed 22 lives…. Grant said in a series of interviews that he sought to spare fellow shoppers by picking up bottles and throwing them at the gunman, with at least one hitting or nearly striking him.”
