Israeli Prime Mininster Benjamin Netanyahu said he will name a town in the Golan Heights after President Trump, the Jerusalem Post reports.
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Democrats Must Seize This Moment or Trump Will
Eugene Robinson: “The political case for moving deliberately but fearlessly toward impeachment is even clearer: If timorous Democrats do not seize and define this moment, Trump surely will.”
“The conventional wisdom is that Republicans made a political error by impeaching Clinton. But they did win the White House in 2000 and go on to dominate Congress for most of President George W. Bush’s tenure. If impeachment was a mistake, it wasn’t a very costly one. Does it ‘play into Trump’s hands’ to speak of impeachment? I think it plays into the president’s hands to disappoint the Democratic base and come across as weak and frightened. Voters who saw the need to hold Trump accountable decided to give Democrats some power — and now expect them to use it.”
Trump Orders Staff to Boycott White House Press Dinner
A senior Trump administration official tells CNN that White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley announced that all Trump administration officials are being ordered to boycott the White House Correspondents Association dinner this weekend.
The official adds that the order came from President Trump personally “though staffers have been trying to talk him out of it.”
Biden Will Announce on Thursday
Joe Biden will officially enter the presidential race on Thursday, The Hill reports.
“Biden will announce his candidacy with a video… and then will travel to Pittsburgh for a more formal event on Monday.”
The Washington Examiner reports Biden abandoned plans to kick of his campaign in Charlottesville, VA amid opposition from residents who were “unhappy about the scene a tragedy the city would prefer to forget being used as a campaign launch backdrop.”
Justices Seem to Back Census Citizenship Question
“Key U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed inclined to let the Trump administration add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census in a clash that will shape the allocation of congressional seats and federal dollars,” Bloomberg reports.
“In an 80-minute argument Tuesday that was both technical and combative, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh directed almost all their questions to the lawyers challenging the decision to ask about citizenship. Kavanaugh said Congress gave the Commerce secretary ‘huge discretion’ to decide what to ask on the census.”
White House Silent on Measles Outbreaks
As health departments in multiple states battle some of the largest measles outbreaks in decades, there has been radio silence from the White House, STAT reports.
“President Trump’s absence in the national conversation about the measles outbreaks has prompted some debate in the public health community about whether he should be playing a more active role. For some observers, though, the question is not whether public officials should be supporting vaccinations, but rather whether a president who has previously spread false information linking vaccines and autism is the right messenger.”
Kushner Says Mueller Probe ‘More Harmful’ Than Russia
Jared Kushner said that the Mueller probe was “more harmful” to the United States than Russian election interference Mueller was charged with investigating, Politico reports.
Said Kushner: “You look at what Russia did, buying some Facebook ads and trying to sow dissent. It’s a terrible thing. But I think the investigations and all of the speculation that’s happened for the last two years has a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple Facebook ads.”
Biden’s Toughest Opponent Is Himself
Jeff Greenfield: “As he prepares to enter the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden is carrying with him nearly a half a century in the major leagues of American politics. When Pete Buttigieg was born, Biden was had been a U.S. senator for almost nine years. He has cast votes on conflicts in Vietnam, Nicaragua, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the confirmation of 14 Supreme Court justices and the impeachment of a president. He’s served in office when opinions on crime, abortion, race and sexuality have changed root and branch. Perhaps Biden’s biggest challenge—apart from his age itself—will be to persuade Democratic voters not to view his past through the prism of the present.”
“It would likelier be a lot easier for Biden if he were a Republican. One of the signal features of the 2016 campaign was the capacity of GOP voters to sweep aside Donald Trump’s past, both his words and his deeds…. It’s not at all clear that Democrats, especially this year, view the past with such forbearance.”
Bots Push ‘Russiagate Hoax’ After Mueller Report
“A network of more than 5,000 pro-Trump Twitter bots railed against the ‘Russiagate hoax’ shortly after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report last week, according to data gathered by a prominent disinformation researcher and analyzed by NBC News. The network illustrates the ongoing challenge Twitter faces in persistent efforts to manipulate its platform.”
“These bots, however, did not appear to come from Russia. Instead, the bots had ties to a social media operation that previously pushed messages backing the government of Saudi Arabia and were connected to a person who claimed to be a private social media consultant.”
Pence Won’t Release Tax Returns Either
Vice President Mike Pence has filed three tax returns since taking office, but he hasn’t publicly released any of them, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Keeping Trump In Office May Destroy the Republican Party
Joe Lockhart: “For Democrats, leaving Donald Trump in office is not only good politics — it is the best chance for fundamental realignment of American politics in more than a generation. Mr. Trump is three years into destroying what we know as the Republican Party. Another two years just might finish it off. Trumpism has become Republicanism, and that spells electoral doom for the party.”
“Mr. Trump has abandoned most of the core principles that have defined Republicans for the past century. Free trade abandoned for protectionism. Challenging our adversaries and promoting democracy replaced by coddling Russia and cozying up to dictators near and far. Fiscal conservatism replaced by reckless spending and exploding deficits.”
“What’s left of the party is a rigid adherence to tax cuts, a social agenda that repels most younger Americans and rampant xenophobia and race-based politics that regularly interfere with the basic functioning of the federal government.””
DNC Pledges Not to Use Hacked Materials
“The head of the DNC pledged the committee wouldn’t use hacked emails or stolen data for political gain ahead of the 2020 presidential election and pressed his RNC counterpart to make the same commitment,” Politico reports.
‘The Mueller Report Was My Tipping Point’
J.W. Verret: “Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administrations.”
“If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it’s time to begin impeachment proceedings.”
Constraints on the Presidency Being Redefined
Washington Post: “The events of the past week, following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s dramatic 448-page report, are threatening to redefine the legal and ethical standards that have long served as constraints on the American presidency. And they suggest that few, if any, of the traditional guardrails that have kept Trump’s predecessors in check remain for this president and possibly those who will follow him.”
Diversity Not a Priority for Democratic Voters
A new Monmouth poll finds race and gender “do not seem to be important factors for Democratic voters when considering who the party should choose to run against Trump.”
“Fully 87% say the race of the nominee does not matter. Just 5% say it would be better for Democrats to nominate a person of color, which is offset by 6% who say it would actually be better for the party to nominate a white candidate. Similarly, 77% say the gender of the nominee does not matter. Just 7% say it would be better for Democrats to nominate a woman, while slightly more (12%) say it would actually be better for the party to nominate a man.”
Said pollster Patrick Murray: “This is the most diverse field of presidential candidates in history, but that doesn’t seem to be a major consideration for Democratic voters at this early stage of the campaign. It’s probably a large reason why a couple of old white guys are leading the pack right now.”
An Impeachment Alternative
First Read: “For all the debate about whether to pursue impeachment proceedings against President Trump, House Democrats have another remedy at their disposal that’s received far less attention.”
“That idea? Make a big, explicit legislative push to punish individuals and campaigns trying to take advantage of future foreign interference in U.S. elections. If a foreign government interfered in a U.S. election, and a particular campaign was eager to receive that help, why not try to pass laws making it harder for that to happen in the future?”
“Don’t get us wrong: The impeachment debate is a legitimate one; we’ve covered it here for months. And sure, the GOP-controlled Senate can stymie any House-passed bill. (Of course, the same is true for impeachment, and the bar is even higher – a two-thirds vote is needed to convict.)”
“But why aren’t House Democrats trying to call any GOP bluff right now?”
Rivals Scramble for Dirt on Buttigieg
“Caught off guard by his sudden surge, Pete Buttigieg’s rivals are scrambling to find vulnerabilities and lines of attack that can be used against him,” five officials with opposing Democratic primary campaigns and Republican political groups tell NBC News.
“The situation is different than with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, Democrats who have long been on the national scene and were widely expected to run for president…In contrast, Buttigieg was on nobody’s radar as a serious presidential contender until a few weeks ago. As a millennial who has never held an office higher than mayor of a midsize town, his record is largely unexamined.”
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Sri Lanka Bombings
“The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 300 people,” the New York Times reports.
“The claim suggests that the recapture of territory once held by ISIS in Syria and Iraq does not mean the group is no longer a threat.”
