“President Trump’s next nominee to the Federal Reserve board may be one of his former domestic policy aides who now oversees economic policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Paul Winfree, who was deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, is under consideration for one of the two open positions on the Federal Reserve Board.”
CBS News: “In April, protesters outside the nation’s largest facility for unaccompanied migrant children noticed a familiar face enter the massive, fenced site in Homestead, Florida: former White House chief of staff John Kelly. Soon after, a local television station recorded footage of him riding on the back of a golf cart as he toured the grounds.”
“It wasn’t clear why he was there, but Friday, Caliburn International confirmed to CBS News that Kelly had joined its board of directors. Caliburn is the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, which operates Homestead and three other shelters for unaccompanied migrant children in Texas.”
“Sen. Lindsey Graham will give White House special counsel Robert Mueller a chance to tell his side of the story — but that isn’t the same as promising to let Mueller testify before his committee, as Democrats are demanding,” McClatchy reports.
“The South Carolina Republican sent Mueller a letter Friday inviting him to ‘provide testimony’ if there was ‘any misrepresentation’ in Attorney General William Barr’s recollection of conversations the two men had regarding characterizations of Mueller’s report on the two-year investigation into possible misconduct by President Trump.”
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Wall Street Journal: “But both sides agree that the eventual outcome of these larger battles—whether Congress can review President Trump’s business records and tax returns, among others—holds sweeping ramifications for the two branches of government and threatens to redefine their relationship and the extent of their powers for years to come.”
“If the president wins any of the legal arguments, it would set a precedent to permanently restrict the oversight ability of Congress. If House Democrats are successful, it would put future presidents on notice that Congress could exhume long-buried tax returns, delve into business relationships that predated their arrival to public office and force their staff to reveal private conversations with the chief executive—potentially just before they run for re-election.”
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday and both agreed “there was no collusion” between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, NBC News reports.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that the two briefly discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “essentially in the context of that it’s over and there was no collusion.”
She added that she was “pretty sure both leaders were very well aware of (the Mueller report’s finding) long before this call took place” because it was “something we’ve said for the better part of two and a half years.”
“A federal court on Friday tossed out Ohio’s congressional map, ruling that Republican state lawmakers had carved up the state to give themselves an illegal partisan advantage and to dilute Democrats’ votes in a way that predetermined the outcome of elections,” the New York Times reports.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “This is the latest in a series of decisions across the country striking down partisan maps, including in neighboring Michigan and Pennsylvania. Plus, U.S. Supreme Court rulings are pending for cases out of North Carolina and Maryland.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to announce he’s running for president next week, the New York Daily News reports.
“The 2020 announcement could come as early as de Blasio’s birthday on Wednesday, when he’ll turn 58, said one source. The kickoff was initially expected this week but pushed back, according to another source.”
Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC on Friday that Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden is “advocating a socialist agenda,” just like others vying to take on President Trump.
Said Pence: “I think the choice that we face in this country today is a choice between freedom and socialism,”
NBC News: “Cohen could also be a target of bullying, harassment or worse for his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other probes, and that could make him a candidate for the prison’s protective housing unit… Trump himself has branded Cohen a rat.”
“Factor in the camp’s design — off a secluded two-lane road, without much fencing or security — and Cohen could find himself easily harassed by paparazzi or ambushed by someone looking to do harm.”
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for more than an hour Friday, discussing Venezuela, nuclear agreements, trade and the Mueller report, the Wall Street Journal reports.
A new CNN poll found Beto O’Rourke leads President Trump by 10 points in a hypothetical general election matchup, 52% to 42%.
O’Rourke held the widest lead over Trump among other Democratic presidential candidates who were included in the potential matchup.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden tied for second place behind O’Rourke, with each leading Trump by 6 points.
President Trump called revelations that the FBI sent an undercover investigator to meet with an aide to his 2016 campaign “bigger than Watergate,” praising one of his most frequent media foes, The New York Times, for its reporting, Politico reports.
Jonathan Bernstein: “For one thing, I’d be wary of paying much attention to that polling surge, at least until it sticks for a few weeks. It’s obviously better to get an announcement bounce than not, but it may not matter much in the long run. Biden’s main asset is that most Democrats like him and probably will continue to like him. But knowing that, we should expect that he’ll do well in early trial heats against a bunch of unknowns (and Bernie Sanders, who appears to have very limited appeal). We can also expect his support to rise when he’s been in the news. That doesn’t tell us much about how voters will react when they discover that they also like Julian Castro or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren – which will probably be the case if and when those candidates become well known.”
“I’m also not overwhelmed by Biden’s endorsements. It’s obviously good that he was able to roll out more than the other contenders. And there’s a decent amount of diversity, indicating a coalition-style candidacy. But his lead over Harris and Cory Booker isn’t very big. This is the former vice president we’re talking about. It’s not as if Democratic politicians need to get to know him. If they want to see him on the campaign trail first, that would indicate a lot less confidence in him than if they wanted the same from, say, Amy Klobuchar or Beto O’Rourke. It would suggest either that they weren’t confident he could match his old form, or that they needed something new from him. It’s not a great sign that he hasn’t added any new endorsements since his announcement last Thursday, despite solid polling numbers. In fact, it suggests that a lot of party actors aren’t eager to jump onto the Biden bandwagon. “
Media Matters: “Major media outlets failed to rebut President Donald Trump’s misinformation 65% of the time in their tweets about his false or misleading comments… That means the outlets amplified Trump’s misinformation more than 400 times over the three-week period of the study — a rate of 19 per day.”
Amy Walter highlights a study which found that partisan differences in perceptions of the economy are larger than at any time in recent history.
“For example, during the Reagan administration, Republicans were on average, 11.5 points more optimistic about the economy, while Democrats were 7.4 points more pessimistic, for a gap of 18.9 points. That gap grew a bit during the George W. Bush and Obama eras; 20.9 to 23.9 respectively.”
“But, under Trump, that gap has turned into a chasm. The partisan gap now is 55.4 percent — twice as big as it was during Bush and Obama era and three times as big as it was during Reagan.”
New York Times: “Employers added 263,000 jobs last month, underscoring the economy’s resilience after some analysts had feared earlier in the year that a slowdown was coming.”
“The unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, the lowest level of the 10-year recovery, down from 3.8 percent in March.”
President Trump said “he leaned on one thing to get through special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election: his faith,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “People say, ‘How do you get through that whole stuff? How do you go through those witch hunts and everything else?’”
He looked over to Vice President Mike Pence and shrugged: “We just do it, right? And we think about God.”
At her weekly press conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened President Trump to Richard Nixon: “As you probably know, in the Articles of Impeachment for President Nixon, Article 3 was that he ignored the subpoenas of Congress, that he did not honor the subpoenas of Congress. This is very, very serious. But my judgment will spring from the judgment of our committee chairs.”
Earlier for members: Impeachment is inevitable.
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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