“Ivanka Trump has quietly been calling lawmakers since the El Paso and Dayton massacres to gauge their openness to movement on gun legislation when Congress returns,” sources familiar with her conversations tell Axios.
“This is another sign that President Trump might support new gun control measures, despite the opposition of conservatives in his orbit.”
“It’s crunch time for the remaining Democrats to qualify for the third presidential debate: Two weeks before the qualification deadline, Democratic presidential candidates are racing — and spending money — for the right to make the third debate in September,” NBC News reports.
The Democratic group 314 Action, which supports candidates with a science background, is launching a six-figure “Draft Hickenlooper” campaign Tuesday to encourage John Hickenlooper to drop out of the 2020 presidential race and instead run for Senate, Axios has learned.
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“The Trump administration’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports will for the first time target an array of apparel, and those shopping for women’s and girls’ clothes are more likely to see higher prices,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“All Chinese clothing and shoes face tariffs of 10% starting Sept. 1, but the value of women’s and girls’ clothing and shoes imported from the country is more than twice that for men and boys.”
“Tens of thousands of people rallied Saturday against the exclusion of some city council candidates from Moscow’s upcoming election, turning out for one of the Russian capital’s biggest political protests in years,” ABC News reports.
“After the rally, which was officially sanctioned, hundreds of participants streamed to an area near the presidential administration building to continue with an unauthorized demonstration. They were confronted by phalanxes of riot police and the arrest-monitoring group OVD-Info said 136 people were detained.”
“Julián Castro, a Democratic candidate for president, plans to release a television ad Wednesday directly addressing President Trump and faulting his incendiary rhetoric for the massacre in El Paso that left 22 dead and dozens more injured,” the New York Times reports.
“The ad, which the campaign will also promote on social media, is targeted specifically at the president. The campaign bought several television spots — a small buy of just $2,775 — throughout the day Wednesday on Fox News in Bedminster, N.J., where Trump is spending the week at his private golf club.”
“The ad will also appear in the Bedminster area that morning during ‘Fox & Friends,’ a show the president frequently watches.”
Washington Post: “Trump enjoyed overwhelming support from white evangelicals in 2016, winning a higher percentage than George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney. That enthusiasm has scarcely dimmed. Almost 70 percent of white evangelicals approve of Trump’s performance in office, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll.”
“Interviews with 50 evangelical Christians in three battleground states — Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — help explain why. In conversation, evangelical voters paint the portrait of the Trump they see: a president who acts like a bully but is fighting for them. A president who sees America like they do, a menacing place where white Christians feel mocked and threatened for their beliefs. A president who’s against abortion and gay rights and who has the economy humming to boot.”
New York Times: “Mr. Biden has a long history of verbal flubs and gaffes, so much so that he is comfortable making light of these self-inflicted errors. But he is also a proud man who has often talked about his own brand of speaking plainly and off-the-cuff. In recent weeks, he has expressed frustration to allies that his candidacy will suffer if he is judged too harshly on the slip-ups, which he thinks he can do little to correct so long as he is being true to himself.”
“Some of his advisers said in interviews that they were privately nervous that his recent gaffe spree would become cemented into the larger narrative of the presidential race. They also say that Mr. Biden faces an unfair double standard.”
“Yet there is a real political risk for Mr. Biden. Some party activists have already been worried that, at 76, he may be too old to go toe-to-toe with Mr. Trump, who is 73, and win. If the accumulation of verbal missteps continues, some Democrats say, it will eventually sow doubts about what many primary voters believe is Mr. Biden’s biggest strength: that he is best positioned to beat Mr. Trump.”
“Hong Kong’s airport suspended check-ins for a second straight day on Tuesday as protesters again disrupted its operations, hours after the city’s embattled leader pleaded for order amid escalating chaos,” the New York Times reports.
“Hundreds of demonstrators occupied parts of Hong Kong International Airport’s departures and arrivals halls on Tuesday, and some used luggage trolleys to block travelers from reaching their departure gates. The Hong Kong Airport Authority closed check-in services in the late afternoon, saying in a statement that operations had been ‘seriously disrupted.'”
Washington Post: “From straws to wind turbines to socially conservative issues, Trump is deliberately amplifying public tensions by seizing on divisive topics to energize his base, according to campaign aides and White House advisers. The president is following much the same strategy that he pursued in 2016 — inserting himself into the issues his supporters are already discussing, and using blunt us-against-them language without regard to nuance or political correctness.”
“As Democrats debate policy, Trump has sought to force his potential rivals to defend the most far-reaching cultural ideas circulating within their party.”
“While Trump’s campaign aides have proactively pushed his politically incorrect message with creative and at times tongue-in-cheek marketing, the president has caught some of his advisers off guard by crudely inflaming culture wars on heavier topics such as race, abortion and immigration.”
“Julie Golob, a professional sport shooter and a strong public advocate for gun rights, announced Monday she was resigning from the National Rifle Association board before the end of her three-year term,” the Washington Post reports.
“She is the fourth member in the past two weeks to leave the board of the NRA in a sign of further upheaval within the nation’s most powerful gun rights group.”
“President Trump considers himself a branding wizard, but he is vexed by a branding crisis of his own: how to shed the label of ‘racist,'” the Washington Post reports.
“As the campaign takes shape about 15 months before voters render a verdict on his presidency, Trump’s Democratic challengers are marking him a racist, and a few have gone so far as to designate him a white supremacist.”
“Being called a racist has led Trump in recent days to lash out — in tweets and in public comments — behavior his advisers and allies explain as the natural reaction of anyone who does not consider himself a racist but is accused of being one.”
Politico: “The nation was gripped after the North Carolina rally by the moment when a ‘send her back’ chant broke out as Trump went after Somali-born Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, an American citizen. But some Trump supporters were more fixated on the casual use of the word ‘goddamn’ — an off-limits term for many Christians — not to mention the numerous other profanities laced throughout the rest of the speech.”
“The issue has recently hit a nerve among those who have become some of the president’s most reliable supporters: white evangelicals … The group was key to Trump’s 2016 win, helping bolster his standing in critical swing states, and Trump likely needs to maintain that support if he wants to win a second term. But some are growing fatigued with the irreverent language that often seeps into Trump’s rallies and official events.”
“National security adviser John Bolton voiced the Trump administration’s full-throated support of the new British prime minister’s push to leave the European Union, saying the US even supports a no-deal Brexit during a visit to London to fortify the once strained US-UK relationship,” CNN reports.
James Stewart: “Almost exactly a year ago, on Aug. 16, 2018, I visited Jeffrey Epstein at his cavernous Manhattan mansion.”
“The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.”
“So one of my first thoughts on hearing of Mr. Epstein’s suicide was that many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.”
Politico: “A Democratic presidential field that has struggled to precisely define its general election indictment of Donald Trump appears to have finally found it. In the wake of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas — the latter of which was tied to a suspect whose anti-immigrant sentiments led to the killing of 22 people — candidates are road-testing a withering argument that draws a direct line between gun violence and the president’s racist rhetoric.”
Bank of America sees a greater than 30% chance of a recession in the next year, based on recent data, CNBC reports.
Some economic indicators are “flashing yellow,” signaling a coming recession.
President Trump hit back at Anthony Scaramucci after the former aide suggested the GOP should consider replacing Trump atop the ticket in 2020.
Said Trump: “Scaramucci, who like so many others had nothing to do with my Election victory, is only upset that I didn’t want him back in the Administration (where he desperately wanted to be).”
He added: “Also, I seldom had time to return his many calls to me. He just wanted to be on TV!”
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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