Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested Donald Trump Jr. ignore a subpoena from his Republican colleague in the Senate and “call it a day.”
Said Graham: “If I were Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer, I would tell him, you don’t need to go back into this environment anymore. You’ve been there for hours and hours and nothing being alleged here changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation.”
“The polls may be middling, the fundraising so-so, but Elizabeth Warren has one key asset in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination — a campaign plan more clearly defined than that of just about any other candidate,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“While many of her rivals are recalibrating their strategies and looking for new ways to stand out in a huge field largely eclipsed by former Vice President Joe Biden, Warren is pressing ahead, tortoise and hare style.”
China said it will raise tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods effective June 1,:the Washington Post reports.
“The announcement from the finance ministry in Beijing comes days after the United States raised tariffs on some Chinese imports as talks to resolved a trade fight between the countries faltered.”
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NBC News: “If New Hampshire Democrats voted today, and the most recent polling is correct, the only candidates who would get any delegates at all from the first-in-the-nation primary would be Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.”
“The two are not only leading the packed field of 2020 presidential contenders, but are the only contenders who have clearly separated themselves from the rest of the crowd in polling and surpassed the crucial 15 percent threshold that candidates need to hit to be awarded delegates.”
“And for all their differences, Sanders and Biden have a mutual interest in preserving their duopoly and using each other as foils. Sanders needs an establishment antagonist, while Biden, 76, may prefer running against the 77-year-old Sanders than 20 younger options.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has changed the schedule for his latest trip to Europe, substituting a stop in Brussels for one in Moscow to discuss Iran and other issues with European officials, CBS News reports.
Mike Allen: “Democrats need four seats to win a majority — but very few Republican incumbents look beatable right now. Susan Collins, who sits atop the list, is fairly popular in Maine. The other two most vulnerable Republicans are Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona, who’s being challenged by Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut turned gun-control advocate.”
“But even if Democrats somehow took out those three, they’ll still struggle to hold onto the seat of Sen. Doug Jones in deep-red Alabama.”
“Many Democrats wish these 2020 presidential candidates — and possibilities — would run for Senate instead: Beto O’Rourke in Texas, John Hickenlooper in Colorado and Steve Bullock in Montana. In Georgia, Stacey Abrams has said no to the Senate but is still entertaining a presidential run.”
“It may be nearly nine months until the first balloting of the 2020 primary, but candidates are already practically tripping over one another in Iowa,” the New York Times reports.
“The reason is clear: With twenty-some Democrats running for president, there are far more candidates — especially ones counting on strong results in Iowa — than there are slots to realistically move forward in the 2020 competition after the caucuses. That means most of the contenders are bound to depart the Des Moines airport next February damaged, dispirited or disappointed, if not politically dead.”
CNN: “Many Democrats fear that Trump may be laying an impeachment trap that could consume the House majority, distract them from key issues like health care and alienate persuadable voters.”
“But it’s also possible their leaders could be talking up the idea that Trump wants to be impeached as a way to quell discontent among some base activists that Washington Democrats are not doing more to constrain the President.”
“The question is not going away, given Trump’s staggeringly broad effort to subvert investigations of his presidency, campaign, personal finances and business career.”
Jared Kushner is “preparing to sell ambitious fixes to two of the most stubborn problems of the past 50 years,” Politico reports.
“With a headlong plunge into immigration reform and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kushner is presenting his political inexperience as an asset, telling lawmakers he is free of preconceived notions that stymied previous attempts. His air of breezy self-assurance in the private meetings he is conducting to tease his plans at times astounds the battle-scarred veterans of past such efforts. Critics complain, too, that his briefings are often woefully short on detail.”
Associated Press: “Top Republicans are hunting district-by-district for just the right candidates — women and minorities in many cases — to help them recapture the House six months after a political tidal wave swept Democrats into control of the most diverse majority in history. Among the recruits are a Republican woman in the Oklahoma state Senate and a black political novice from Houston with Iraq combat experience and three Ivy League degrees on his resume.”
“Finding women and minority candidates is an imperative for an overwhelmingly white GOP openly embarrassed that just 13 of its 197 House members are women. By contrast, 89 of the 235 House Democrats are women and nearly 90 are black or Hispanic.”
Politico: “After spending the first months of 2019 fixated on small-dollar online support and adopting rhetoric shunning bigger donors, campaigns are now taking stronger steps to bring wealthy and well-connected supporters into the fold. Jolted by Joe Biden’s splashy $6.3 million first day in the Democratic primary, many of Biden’s rivals are increasingly hungry for bigger donors’ support.”
“Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who raises most of his funds online from small donors, is set to hold his first high-dollar event of the campaign in New York City this week, where attendees have to pledge to raise $25,000 for some tickets. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is holding high-dollar events in cities across the country as he tries to collect on his newfound fame with donors.”
“The Swedish authorities announced on Monday that they would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who is serving a prison term in Britain for jumping bail as the United States seeks his extradition for his role in a huge breach of classified data,” the New York Times reports.
“The United States has already begun trying to extradite Mr. Assange, an effort that was expected to be prolonged and complex even before the announcement in Stockholm on Monday, and it could be further complicated by Sweden’s wish to reinstate its investigation.”
Washington Post: “Republicans for years have tried to lower tariffs to bring down costs for U.S. consumers and businesses, and some have continued to warn him that his steps might backfire.”
“But Trump has increasingly dismissed those concerns, arguing that his supporters believe he is fighting for them and won’t punish him, according to administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.”
Playbook: “Washington is giving Trump room to run in his talks with China. But there is significant concern bubbling below the surface. Politically, the White House is now conceding that the tariffs Trump is using to bring China to the table will hurt Americans. With an election around the corner, how much economic pain is the Republican Party willing to take?”
Jonathan Chait: “The poor guy has disregarded all the advice and decided to run anyway. And initial polling has revealed that a large number of Democrats have not left Biden behind at all. He begins the race leading his closest competitors, including early front-runner Bernie Sanders, by as much as 30 points. Perhaps it was the party’s intelligentsia, not Biden, that was out of touch with the modern Democratic electorate.”
“The conclusion that Biden could not lead the post-Obama Democratic Party is the product of misplaced assumptions about the speed of its transformation. Yes, the party has moved left, but not nearly as far or as fast as everybody seemed to believe. Counterintuitively, House Democrats’ triumph in the midterms may have pushed their center of gravity to the right: The 40 seats Democrats gained were overwhelmingly located in moderate or Republican-leaning districts.”
“Biden’s apparent resurrection from relic to runaway front-runner has illustrated a chasm between perception and reality.”
Jonathan Swan: “The top advocate for corporate America, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has installed a sign on the front steps of its headquarters in Washington, D.C., comparing Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower. Their building is right near the White House.”
“Comparing Trump to Reagan and Eisenhower is quite a leap for a group that got on the wrong side of the president by excoriating his 2016 campaign and clashing with him on everything from tariffs to immigration policy.”
Jonathan Swan: “Senior administration officials — including acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought and fiscally conservative chief Mick Mulvaney — have told Republicans that the president doesn’t want Congress to strike a spending deal in September when current funding runs out. Instead, Team Trump wants a short-term solution to preserve the ability to fight for massive spending cuts in the fifth year of a Trump presidency.”
“The White House thinks the most likely scenario this year is that the president signs a one-year ‘continuing resolution’ (a continuation of 2019 spending levels through 2020), followed by another short-term extension next September to get past the November election.”
“Some senior administration officials envision a newly re-elected Trump liberated to slash spending. They view 2021 as the year to have that fight — the final year in which the president can threaten hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of automatic spending cuts known as the sequester. (These automatic cuts, which attack both defense and domestic spending, expire in 2021.)”
“Republican-led states are charging ahead with a spate of restrictive anti-abortion bills designed to trigger a legal battle that lands at the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court,” NBC News reports.
“Alabama, poised to pass the country’s toughest limits this week in what would amount to an outright ban on abortion, is just one of two dozen states that has proposed or passed measures restricting abortion this legislative session, an onslaught abortion rights supporters say is both unprecedented and strategic.”
“With the new conservative majority cemented on the Supreme Court, many politicians and anti-abortion rights groups see an opportunity to provoke a case that could finally put a dagger through Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told ABC News that Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is an argument against special prosecutors.
Said Paul: “I think since the very beginning this has been politically motivated and now both sides are doing it. It goes back to the Clintons.”
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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