“Donald Trump asked for a meeting with Boris Johnson during his U.K. visit, but was turned down,” Politico reports.
“According to an official close to Johnson, the U.S. president called the former foreign secretary and suggested they have a one-to-one meeting. The official said that Johnson thanked Trump but declined the invitation as he had to prepare for a Tory leadership campaign event.”
Sad and Useless compiled the funniest protest signs from President Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom.
Sean Trende: “The general thinking about the Republican Senate majority is that it has solidified to the point where Democrats are effectively shut out of gaining control of the upper chamber in 2020. But in truth, the GOP majority is in more danger than many analysts believe.”
“Just how much jeopardy depends on how you think about the overall state of the race: If the election is going to be close, as many analysts (including myself) seem to believe, then the Senate probably leans Republican at best. And if President Trump is likely to lose, perhaps badly (as other analysts suggest), then Republicans will have a very difficult time maintaining control of the chamber.”
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Elaina Plott: “According to current and former aides, who requested anonymity to speak freely, when Trump feels he has lost control of the narrative, he grasps at two issues: border security and trade. Those aides said he sees these topics as reset buttons, ways to rile both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and draw attention away from whatever dumpster fire is blazing in a given week.”
Said one campaign adviser: “Whenever a negative story comes around, his instinct is to pivot to immigration or trade. It’s kind of like his safety blanket. He knows that Fox and conservative media will immediately coalesce and change what the base is talking about.”
“The New York Times reported last month that Joe Biden was facing conflict of interest questions for his role as vice president in ousting a Ukrainian prosecutor. Now, a little more than one month later, it’s The Times that is facing conflict of interest questions for that very story and another,” CNN reports.
“On Monday, weeks after The Times published its widely-criticized story, one of the piece’s co-authors, freelancer Iuliia Mendel, announced that she had joined the Ukrainian government as spokesperson for the president of Ukraine.”
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) has met the polling criteria to qualify for the first Democratic presidential debates at the end of June, Politico reports.
“Bennet crossed the polling threshold Tuesday morning when he got 1 percent in a national poll from CNN, the third qualifying poll in which he’s broken at least 1 percent. That makes Bennet, who entered the presidential race a month ago, the 20th candidate to qualify for the debate under criteria set by the Democratic National Committee.”
“Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was sentenced earlier this year to four years in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians, will be transferred later this week from a minimum security facility in Pennsylvania to New York City’s Rikers Island,” a source close to Manafort told Fox News.
“Rikers Island is the famous jail in the shadow of LaGuardia Airport. It has been the temporary home of some of the most high-profile violent criminals in the city, including David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam; and Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon.”
“The 2020 presidential campaigns appear to have done little to prepare for what experts predict could be a flood of fake videos depicting candidates doing or saying something incriminating or embarrassing,” Axios reports.
“The recent manipulated video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was just a taste of what could lie ahead. Fake video has the potential to sow huge political chaos, and countering it is wildly difficult. And right now, no one can agree who’s responsible for countering it.”
Related for members: It’s Going to Get Really Bad
A new CNN poll finds Joe Biden leads the Democratic presidential race with 32%, down from 39% saying they supported him in April.
But none of the other candidates have shown notable gains in the last month. Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to stand alone in second place with 18%, followed by Kamala Harris at 8%, Elizabeth Warren at 7% and Pete Buttigieg at 5%, Beto O’Rourke at 5%, Cory Booker at 3% support, Julián Castro at 2% and Amy Klobuchar at 2% each.
The remaining 14 candidates tested in the poll landed at 1% or less.
“President Trump is targeting a trio of states that he lost in 2016 — a move aimed at widening his path to reelection that comes as he’s struggling in the Rust Belt states that propelled him to the White House,” Politico reports.
“Trump officials are zeroing in on New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire, where they insist there’s an opening despite heavy losses Republicans suffered there in the midterms. They’ve deployed around a half-dozen staffers to New Hampshire and several to Nevada, an unusually early investment in places that favor Democrats. And the campaign is doing polling to tease out Trump’s level of support in New Mexico, a focal point for campaign manager Brad Parscale, and they have discussed dispatching aides to the blue state.”
“The maneuvering underscores how Trump is trying to capitalize on his vast financial and organizational advantage over Democrats. Yet it also illustrates how the president, whose own polling shows him falling behind in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, is seeking out additional routes to a second term.”
Use the interactive Electoral Vote Map to test Trump’s strategy.
“Joe Biden unveiled a wide-ranging climate and energy platform for his 2020 campaign Tuesday, vowing to go ‘well beyond’ President Obama’s policies at a time when he’s facing skepticism on the left,” Axios reports.
“It calls for achieving net-zero U.S. greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. That top-level goal is within range of Jay Inslee’s detailed plan, which calls for net-zero ‘as fast as possible’ and by 2045 at the latest.”
Associated Press: “Biden’s plan calls for $1.7 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, with the rest of the investments coming from the private sector. Biden proposes covering the taxpayer costs by repealing the corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed in 2017, while eliminating existing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.”
Playbook: “Truth be told, the impeachment caucus has swelled. The NYT has 56 Democrats saying they are ready to impeach Trump — that’s still less than a quarter of the caucus, but more than it was last week.”
“Remember this: People doubted Nancy Pelosi’s whipping abilities when she ran for the speakership this time around. She ended up winning the job easily. If she stays firm against impeachment, she’ll be using all of her considerable skill at counting, cajoling and pressuring wayward members to hold the line.”
HuffPost: “With commercial tenants fleeing his Trump Tower, President Donald Trump continues to spend $37,500 a month of campaign money for office space there — with some of that cash destined for his own wallet ― even as thousands of square feet go unused at a newly opened office in northern Virginia.”
“No more than ‘four or five’ campaign staffers work at Trump’s Manhattan base, according to an informal adviser close to the White House, where the campaign rents a few thousand square feet as its ‘headquarters.’ The per-square-foot cost is likely at least triple what the [RNC] pays for the much larger space it shares with the campaign in Arlington, according to a HuffPost analysis.”
“House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn on Monday walked back remarks suggesting that Democrats will impeach President Donald Trump, reversing course to say he’s ‘farther’ from backing impeachment than most of his caucus,” Politico reports.
“Clyburn’s comments came after a private leadership meeting Monday evening in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that she didn’t support launching impeachment proceedings right now despite a growing push within the caucus.”
David Brooks: “For much of the 20th century, young and old people voted pretty similarly. The defining gaps in our recent politics have been the gender gap (women preferring Democrats) and the education gap. But now the generation gap is back, with a vengeance.”
“This is most immediately evident in the way Democrats are sorting themselves in their early primary preferences. A Democratic voter’s race, sex or education level doesn’t predict which candidate he or she is leaning toward, but age does.”
“The generation gap is even more powerful when it comes to Republicans. To put it bluntly, young adults hate them.”
“Congressional Republicans have begun discussing whether they may have to vote to block President Trump’s planned new tariffs on Mexico, potentially igniting a second standoff this year over Trump’s use of executive powers to circumvent Congress,” the Washington Post reports.
“Republican lawmakers aren’t eager to be drawn into a conflict with the president. But some feel they might have to take action following a growing consensus within the GOP that these new tariffs would amount to tax increases on American businesses and consumers — something that would represent a profound breach of party orthodoxy.”
“Mexico said on Monday it would reject a U.S. idea to take in all Central American asylum seekers if it is raised at talks this week with the Trump administration, which has threatened to impose tariffs if Mexico does not crack down on illegal immigration,” Reuters reports.
“Pete Buttigieg distanced himself Monday from Democrats who pushed former Sen. Al Franken to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct, in an implicit critique of his primary competitor, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,” NBC News reports.
Said Buttigieg: “I think it was his decision to make, but I think the way we basically held him to a higher standard than the GOP does their people has been used against us. I would not have applied that pressure at that time before we knew more.”
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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