President Trump declined to say whether he wants the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation made public, the Washington Post reports.
“Totally up to the attorney general. That’s up to the attorney general. I don’t know. It depends. I have no idea what it’s going to say.”
“This country hasn’t dealt well with issues of race. We have a president who’s a racist.”
— Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), in an interview with NBC News.
“President Trump has dismissed the prospect of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo leaving his post to run for a Senate seat, even as Pompeo has signaled that he is open to the possibility,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump said Pompeo told him he was not leaving his current position and voiced confidence that he would not bolt to pursue a Senate seat in Kansas: “I asked him the question the other day. He says he’s absolutely not leaving. I don’t think he’d do that. And he doesn’t want to be lame duck.”
In a phone call with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last month, Pompeo “had not shut the door on the possibility of a run.”
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“The rapidly growing 2020 presidential field is shaping up to be a Wild West of Democratic primaries — with the actual West emerging as a decisive battleground,” the Boston Globe reports.
“The delegate-rich state of California has vaulted itself near the front of the primary calendar, which means candidates seeking to break away from the pack will be looking to build early support on the left coast. The action has already begun in Nevada, the third state to vote, which also hosted a parade of potential candidates during the midterms.”
“The West has a younger, more diverse population than the traditional early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and they are expected to tilt the Democratic debate toward issues such as immigration and climate policy.”
A new CBS News poll finds Americans overwhelmingly opposed to President Trump’s suggestion that he would declare a national emergency in order to bypass Congress and build a border wall, 66% to 34%.
“If government funding runs out on Feb. 15 and there’s still an impasse over wall funding, Americans don’t want either side to force another shutdown. Seventy-three percent of Americans want Mr. Trump to continue negotiating while keeping the government open, rather than demand wall funding if that forces a shutdown.”
Fformer Virginia Gov Terry McAuliffe (D) told CNN that he would like to run for president in 2020 and plans on making a decision by March 31.
“Facing clear political peril, President Trump will deliver his second State of the Union address at a moment when his bully pulpit is uncertain and his negotiating skills in question after a monthlong government shutdown that exposed fractures in his party and sent his poll numbers tumbling,” the AP reports.
“Trump hopes to use his Tuesday speech to reset his agenda and begin to gear up for his 2020 re-election campaign. But even as the president promises a theme of unity, his performance is likely to draw cheers from one side of the deeply divided Congress and stony silence from the other.”
President Trump accused Ed Gillespie (R) of political “malpractice” and “dereliction of duty” for not uncovering the racist yearbook photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) during their gubernatorial campaign in 2017.
Said Trump: “If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!”
New York Times: “The official line from the White House, as with other matters surrounding the president’s physical health and appearance, is that Mr. Trump’s glow is the result of ‘good genes.’ And, O.K., a little powder — a translucent one, not a bronzer — which the president applies himself before television appearances, the official said.”
“But mysteries abound. One persistent question: Does Mr. Trump use a tanning bed, as a talkative makeup artist said in 2016 and Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former aide, claimed in a tell-all book?”
“Mr. Trump’s former boarding school classmates have described him as a fan of ultraviolet rays, someone who would pop a tanning bulb into a light socket to go ‘to the beach.’ … But according to three people who have spent time in the White House residence, no such bed or spray-tan booth exists in a hidden nook of the residence, a cranny of the East Wing or a closet on Air Force One. Two senior White House officials insisted that no such apparatus exists.”
Washington Post: “Trump dealt himself a political defeat with the 35-day government shutdown. He has secured no funding to construct a border wall and is preparing to declare a national emergency to fulfill his campaign promise. He is newly at odds with the nation’s intelligence chiefs and some senators in his own party. The Russia investigation, which has ensnared several of the president’s allies, appears to be nearing its conclusion. New congressional oversight investigations will start soon. And the race to defeat him at the ballot box has kicked off in earnest.”
“The challenges mount at a moment when Trump is as unencumbered and isolated as ever. Inside the White House, aides describe a chaotic, freewheeling atmosphere reminiscent of the early weeks of Trump’s presidency.”
“Power has consolidated around presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior adviser who is functioning as a de facto White House chief of staff. With counterweights like ousted chief of staff John F. Kelly now gone, some advisers say the West Wing has the feel of the 26th floor of Trump Tower, where an unrestrained Trump had absolute control over his family business and was free to follow his impulses.”
President Trump on Saturday named Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson as chief medical adviser and assistant to the president, Politico reports.
He was also nominated on Friday for a promotion to a two-star admiral in the Navy.
The dual announcements came ahead of Trump’s annual physical, which is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 8, at Walter Reed.
“I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it.”
— Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), telling the Washington Post that she doesn’t define herself by race or ethnicity, just as “an American.”
Politico: “It was no easy feat. But on Saturday, Ralph Northam staked a claim in the annals of most surreal political press conferences, presiding over a 40-minute extravaganza that would do Mark Sanford and Jim McGreevey proud. Or something like that.”
“In a bid to salvage his job, the Democratic governor of Virginia denied he was one of the men dressed up as a Klansman and in blackface in a picture on his medical school yearbook page — after admitting the night before he was, in fact, in the photo.”
“But that was just the start.“
Aaron Blake: “Northam may not know it yet, but in all likelihood he is done.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “is preparing a robust, official launch to her presidential campaign in her home state of Massachusetts next week, followed by a six-state, cross country tour that will take her to four early presidential states, key southern states and to delegate-rich California, where an early primary is becoming an increasingly critical calculation to 2020 Democratic aspirants,” Politico reports.
“Warren’s live launch announcement will take place in Lawrence, Massachusetts from the steps of Everett Mills, the site of the 1912 ‘Bread and Roses Strike’ where thousands of women walked off their factory jobs protesting working conditions and low wages.”
David Axelrod tells the New Yorker that it will be very hard for President Trump to win re-election.
Said Axelrod: “He drew an inside straight in the last election and squeaked through in the upper Midwest, which showed real resistance to him in the midterm elections. If he were to lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all of which had strong Democratic showings in 2018, he would lose the Presidency, and there’s not one state I can think of that Trump could add.”
He added: “That said, he should not be underestimated. He has a kind of feral genius for manipulating the media environment. We know there’s nothing that he wouldn’t do to win, so he will be working day and night to destroy whoever the nominee is, and he’s got a great talent for that. Trump did speak to a fundamental sense of jaundice out there about Washington politics as usual. And, to the degree that the nominee can be depicted as a representation of that, his chances improve. All that said, if you were betting today, you would not bet on Donald Trump.”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) “said he is neither of the people in the racist photo that surfaced Friday from a 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.
“Northam said he saw the photo, now more than 30 years old, for the first time Friday. After admitting it was him in the photo and apologizing Friday night, Northam said after reflection with his family and talking to former classmates, he now says it was not him in the photo.”
Northam won’t resign, according to the Washington Post, but said “if he felt he wasn’t able to function efficiently as governor, he would re-visit the matter.”
New York Times: “But he may have made his effort to remain in office more difficult by revealing that he had darkened his face with shoe polish in the 1980s at a Michael Jackson-inspired dance party in Texas when he was a young Army officer.”
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“In the wake of President Trump’s renewed attacks on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments,” Time reports.
“Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called ‘willful ignorance’ when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.”
“What is most troubling, say these officials and others in government and on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on the episodes, are Trump’s angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or beliefs he holds. Two intelligence officers even reported that they have been warned to avoid giving the President intelligence assessments that contradict stances he has taken in public.”
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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