President Trump is suing Deutsche Bank and Capital One in an effort to prevent them from providing financial records requested through congressional subpoenas, USA Today reports.
“The complaint is the latest in a series of disputes between the White House and Congress regarding Trump’s conduct. The president last week filed a federal lawsuit to block the Democratic-controlled House from obtaining financial records from his business’s longtime accountant.”
“The Trump administration is pushing to issue an order that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, bringing the weight of American sanctions against a storied and influential Islamist political movement with millions of members across the Middle East,” the New York Times reports.
A new Morning Consult survey of Democrats found 36% say Joe Biden is their first choice for president, up from 30% the week before.
The increase was enough to more than double his advantage over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), from 6 points to 14 points.
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“President Trump ordered major changes to U.S. asylum policies in a White House memo released Monday night, including measures that would charge fees to those applying for humanitarian refuge in the United States,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s directive also calls for tightening asylum rules by banning anyone who crosses the border illegally from obtaining a work permit, and giving courts a 180-day limit to adjudicate asylum claims that now routinely take years to process because of a ballooning case backlog.”
“A Republican source told the Daily Beast that lobbyist Jack Burkman and internet troll Jacob Wohl approached him last week to try to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, of engaging him sexually while he was too drunk to consent.”
“The source who spoke to The Daily Beast said Burkman and Wohl made clear that their goal was to kneecap Buttigieg’s momentum in the 2020 presidential race. The man asked to remain anonymous out of a concern that the resulting publicity might imperil his employment, and because he said Wohl and Burkman have a reputation for vindictiveness.”
“But the source provided The Daily Beast with a surreptitious audio recording of the meeting, which corroborates his account.”
“President Trump appeared unnerved as Joe Biden secured the endorsement of the top firefighters’ union, issuing Monday a string of four tweets targeting the Democratic presidential candidate and union leaders,” CNN reports.
“That’s exactly the behavior several of the President’s political advisers have been warning him against, wary that Trump will elevate a potentially formidable rival.”
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or tried to limit his options in attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, the New Yorker reports.
Said one former national security official: “The president thinks out loud. Do you treat it like an order? Or do you treat it as part of a longer conversation? We treated it as part of a longer conversation.”
The official added: “We prevented a lot of bad things from happening.”
President Trump’s re-election campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told CBS News that the campaign had sold almost a million MAGA hats.
Said Parscale: “We’re closing in on selling our one millionth red MAGA hat. You know those are 45 bucks a piece. You do the math there really quick, it’s $45 million. So those kind of things—this president has changed the game in the way merchandise, rallies, the entire experience of being part of the political movement. He’s changed it.”
“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein submitted his resignation letter to President Trump on Monday, ending a tumultuous two years in which he tried to steady a rocky Justice Department and its relationship with the White House,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
His resignation is effective May 11.
Joe Biden told ABC News he takes “responsibility” for Anita Hill’s treatment when she testified before the Senate Judiciary committee during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearing.
Said Biden: “I believed her from the very beginning, but I was chairman. She did not get a fair hearing. She did not get treated well. That’s my responsibility. As the committee chairman, I take responsibility that she did not get treated well. I take responsibility for that.”
He added: “I apologized for it. I apologize again.”
“A little more than a year after President Trump slapped a 20% tariff on imported washing machines, new research finds that American shoppers have been the ones to pay the price,” NBC News reports.
“A study conducted by two researchers at the University of Chicago and a Federal Reserve Board Governor found that washers cost an average of 12% more after the imposition of the tariffs, or roughly $86 to $92 more per appliance.”
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports personal income for farmers “fell by the most in three years in the first quarter, as losses to U.S. agriculture mount from Trump’s trade wars.”
Walter Shapiro: “What is lacking throughout the Clinton Library is context. No one should be surprised that the impeachment saga is as airbrushed as an old-time Hugh Hefner-approved Playboy centerfold. Monica Lewinsky is mentioned in a single sentence—and Clinton is portrayed as morally, as well as legally, blameless. As the signage puts it, ‘After the Republicans won Congress in 1994, the fight for power culminated in two government shutdowns and an impeachment battle, bringing partisan opposition to a new high and attempting to deny the very legitimacy of the President’s election.'”
“To give Clinton a break, honesty about sex has never been his strong suit. But the true missing figure in Little Rock, whose shadow dominated the Clinton years, is Ronald Reagan.”
“The White House is reviewing past writings by Stephen Moore, the conservative commentator whom President Trump plans to nominate to the Federal Reserve Board, amid criticism that many of the opinion columns he penned denigrated women,” the New York Times reports.
“Joseph Yun, the former State Department Special Representative for North Korea, confirmed Monday that he signed an agreement to pay North Korea $2 million for the release of American student Otto Warmbier in 2017,” CNN reports.
Said Yun: “As soon as North Korea side told me that this bill for $2 million would have to be paid … I contacted my boss then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He got back to me very quickly thereafter to say yes, go ahead and sign.”
Trump has flatly denied any money was paid for the release of Warmbier.
A new Monmouth poll finds just 12% of Americans say that their family has benefited a great deal from recent growth in the U.S. economy and another 31% say they have received some benefit from the economic upturn.
A majority, though, say they have been helped either not much (27%) or not at all (27%) from the nation’s macroeconomic growth.
Vogue: “As we pass the remains of the Studebaker factories, I ask him what he’d say to those who argue that yet another white male candidate isn’t what Democrats need in this year of all years.”
Said Buttigieg: “I’m sensitive to that. In the end, I think we just bring whatever identity we have to the table. Mine is of a young, gay, first-generation white veteran mayor.”
“Kamala Harris has hired Jim Margolis, one of the Democratic Party’s most accomplished admakers, as her media adviser,” Politico reports.
“Margolis is a veteran of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and served in a key role in Hillary Clinton’s White House bid in 2016.”
New York Magazine: “The candidates who had long cultivated relationships with Wall Street — such as Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand — were struggling to gain traction and had grown more hostile to finance as their party had, too. Biden, leading in early polls, had a comforting history in the Obama White House and a reputation as an Establishment Democrat but had never, until a few months ago, maintained any meaningful relationship with Wall Street, hadn’t even announced his candidacy yet, and struck many bankers as a dubious bet to beat Trump.”
“Nearly everyone else in the field, the financiers felt, was being pulled leftward by Bernie… and Elizabeth Warren (less crazy, Democrats on Wall Street think, and way more competent).”
Said one banker: “She would torture them.”
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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