House Speaker Jose Oliva (R) repeatedly described pregnant woman as a “host body” in an interview with CBS News.
Said Oliva: “As technology moves along, a human body can exist outside of its host body earlier and earlier. And so then one has to think, until what time does the host body have veto power over this other life? … The question is: What is the value of that life? And is it subordinate to the value of its host body?”
The Orlando Sentinel reports Olivia later apologized.
“The chief of Russia’s armed forces endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war that has earned him notoriety in the West, especially among American officials who have accused Russia of election meddling in 2016,” the New York Times reports.
“The speech outlined what some Western analysts consider the signature strategy of Russia under President Vladimir Putin — and what other experts call a simple recognition of modern war and politics.”
“President Trump sent out a predawn tweet Saturday boasting about Trump International Golf Links, constructed near Aberdeen, Scotland, among the high, wind-raked dunes along the North Sea,” the Washington Post reports.
Tweeted Trump: “Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship!”
“The comment sparked immediate consternation from critics of the president, who suggested he was using his powerful office to advance his financial interests. The U.S. Constitution has two clauses designed to prevent a national leader from using power in such a manner.”
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“Right now we have people in Congress that hate our country. And you know that, and we can name every one of them if we want. They hate our country.”
Washington Post: “Acquiescence to Trump is now the defining trait of the Republican Party more than two years into his presidency — overwhelming and at times erasing principles that conservatives viewed as the foundation of the party for more than a half century.”
“Trump’s ownership of the GOP was on vivid display again Saturday, when the president appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, an annual gathering that has transformed into a raucous celebration of Trump, featuring propaganda-style art and a speaker who declared that the president was ‘chosen by God.'”
“Standing before an exuberant crowd chanting ‘Trump!’ and ‘U-S-A,’ Trump spent two hours railing against the ‘failed ruling class,’ calling the special counsel’s Russia investigation ‘bullshit’ and portraying his 2016 election as a historic moment in global history.”
Politico: “Trump, basking in the adoration of the crowd, largely glossed over the North Korea summit’s collapse, instead reviving several of his greatest hits, from rehashing the 2016 election to obsessing over the crowd size at his inauguration.”
The Hill has the top 9 moments from Trump’s freewheeling speech.
Washington Post: “In the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential contest, one with a historically diverse field, including Booker and Harris as prominent African American candidates, black voters have quickly become a highly-sought-after electoral prize. The courtship is playing out in complex ways throughout the early-voting states, a dynamic that will become more visible Sunday as several candidates appear in Selma, Ala., taking part in a remembrance of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers in 1965 were viciously attacked by police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.”
CNN: “The crowd of around 13,000 supporters, according to a campaign estimates, many of them having spent the preceding hours tapping their sludgy feet to a live band after queuing up around Brooklyn College’s East Quad early Saturday morning, roared back.”
“Sanders is already striking a different chord as he seeks the Democratic nomination a second time. He has a new campaign manager, a more diverse staff and an inner circle of advisers — some familiar, some new to the fold — that, in its opening stages, has already achieved a small feat: they convinced the 77-year-old Sanders that, as he seeks higher office again, he must be willing to step out of his comfort zone and tell Americans who he is, where he came from — and why it matters.”
New York Times: “During his last presidential campaign, and throughout his political career, Mr. Sanders has offered a policy-focused message almost entirely devoid of personal details. At Saturday’s rally, however, he did something new: He talked about himself.”
John Dean: “There are several parallels between my testimony before Congress in 1973, about President Richard Nixon and his White House, and Michael Cohen’s testimony this week about President Trump and his business practices… We both found ourselves speaking before Congress, in multiple open and closed venues, about criminal conduct of a sitting president.”
“There is one overarching similarity that Mr. Cohen and I share. He came to understand and reject Mr. Trump as I did Mr. Nixon.”
“I was surprised by the number of people who surfaced to support my account. The same, I suspect, will happen for Michael Cohen. The Mafia’s code of omertà has no force in public service. I have heard no one other than Roger Stone say he will go to jail for Donald Trump.”
“Democratic leaders are convinced that Steve Bullock, the popular governor of Montana, would give the party its best shot at unseating Senator Steve Daines, a freshman Republican, when he stands for re-election next year in a state that President Trump carried by 20 points,” the New York Times reports.
“But Mr. Bullock has a bigger — if far less attainable — aspiration: running for president.”
“And so it has gone for Democratic leaders as they struggle to recruit a solid slate of candidates that they will need to net the three or four seats necessary to take control of the Senate next year. Four top-tier potential Democratic Senate candidates — John Hickenlooper in Colorado, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Beto O’Rourke in Texas and Mr. Bullock — are seriously exploring presidential campaigns, forsaking statewide campaigns within their grasp, at least for now, for a national one that would be the longest of long shots.”
“Israelis were confronted with a rude new reality on Friday: a prime minister running for re-election while facing indictment for corruption,” the New York Times reports.
“While there were hints that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be losing support, his right-wing allies appeared to be sticking with him and no one was foolish enough to write off a politician who still retains a strong base and has shown Houdini-like skill in escaping seemingly impossible jams before.”
“The only certainty was that Israel was in for a wild ride between now and the April 9 ballot, with analysts predicting that the country’s political scene — loud, fractious and heated at the best of times — would become only more divisive as Mr. Netanyahu, who is seeking a fourth consecutive term, fights for his political life.”
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada promised a fresh approach to politics, one that was based on openness, decency and liberalism,” the New York Times reports.
“Now he is embroiled in a scandal involving accusations of back-room deal-making and bullying tactics, all to support a Canadian company accused of bribing the Libyan government when it was run by the dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi.”
“Canadian newspapers are filled with outrage and opposition parties are calling for a resignation. Elections are still seven months away, but some members of Mr. Trudeau’s own governing party fear the scandal has armed opposition parties with rich campaign fodder against its leader, who promised ‘sunny ways’ in politics.”
“The judge in charge of Roger Stone’s criminal trial on Friday demanded to know why the court wasn’t made aware of the ‘imminent general release’ of a book that could include discussion of the longtime Trump adviser’s legal proceedings, potentially violating a gag order,” Politico reports.
“Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Stone’s lawyers until Monday to explain why they didn’t tell her until this week about the looming publication, which she emphasized ‘was known to the defendant.'”
“As more former aides shared stories of sometimes-abusive behavior, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar vowed Friday to improve relations with her staffers,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
“The Minnesota presidential candidate is trying to rise from a large field of competitors as stories about her treatment of employees long shared privately among Democratic operatives and insiders are spilling into the open. Former employees of her Senate office and previous political campaigns have anonymously described to BuzzFeed, the New York Times and now the Star Tribune, many examples of behavior by Klobuchar they considered abusive, bullying and demeaning.”
“The top tax-writing committee in the House is readying a request for years of President Trump’s personal tax returns that is expected to land at the Internal Revenue Service as early as the next few weeks, according to congressional aides involved in the process. And Democrats are prepared to ‘take all necessary steps,’ including litigation, in order to obtain them,” NBC News reports.
“Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) has asked the committee’s attorneys to prepare the request… Neal has also contacted the chairs of several other House investigative committees, including Oversight and Government Reform, Financial Services, Intelligence and Judiciary, asking them to provide detailed arguments for why they need the president’s tax returns to conduct their probes.”
Paul Manafort asked a federal judge in Virginia to give him a prison term “significantly below” the 19 to 24 years called for under sentencing guidelines, calling that range “clearly disproportionate to” his crimes of bank and tax fraud, the Washington Post reports.
Michael Bloomberg’s closest advisors “have been interviewing potential aides in early caucus and primary states as the billionaire considers a 2020 run for president,” CNBC reports.
“Kevin Sheekey, one of Bloomberg’s closest confidants, has been meeting with prospective staff members in Iowa and New Hampshire… Iowa and New Hampshire serve as the first two states in the presidential primaries while also acting as an early litmus test for those looking to capture the nomination. Both of the early contests are expected to take place in February 2020.”
President Trump “attempted to clarify his comments that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not responsible for the death of Otto Warmbier after a bipartisan backlash and a blistering statement from Warmbier’s parents,” NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “I never like being misinterpreted, but especially when it comes to Otto Warmbier and his great family. Remember, I got Otto out along with three others. The previous Administration did nothing, and he was taken on their watch. Of course I hold North Korea responsible for Otto’s mistreatment and death.”
“Mark Penn, one of the primary architects of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, met briefly with President Trump in the Oval Office last week,” the New York Times reports.
“The face-to-face meeting, the first between Mr. Trump and a onetime loyal adviser to the Clintons, marked what some saw as the inevitable conclusion of Mr. Penn’s long-running political metamorphosis.”
“As Democrats have moved to the left, Mr. Penn, with his centrist politics, has become alienated from a party in which he once reigned as a winning pollster and is a frequent guest on Fox News and the author of op-ed articles criticizing the special counsel’s investigation as a ‘partisan, open-ended inquisition.’ He has even adopted the president’s term, ‘deep state,’ to describe people he views as Democratic operatives sabotaging the Trump administration from within the government.”
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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