“The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and agribusiness industries, as secretary of the interior. The confirmation of Mr. Bernhardt to his new post coincided with calls from more than a dozen Democrats and government watchdogs for formal investigations into his past conduct,” the New York Times reports.
“Senators voted 56-41, largely along party lines, in favor of Mr. Bernhardt’s confirmation.”
Washington attorney Gregory Craig, who served as White House counsel for President Barack Obama, was charged Thursday with lying to federal officials who were examining whether he should have registered as a foreign lobbyist for legal work he did for the Ukrainian government in 2012, the Washington Post reports.
“The Oregon Senate voted to join a movement designed to award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote,” the Oregonian reports.
“If the bill is approved by the Oregon House and signed into law, Oregon would join 14 other states and the District of Columbia in the National Popular Vote compact. The idea behind the compact is that state legislatures would award their state’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide.”
A new Monmouth poll in Iowa finds Joe Biden leads the Democratic presidential race with 27%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 16%, Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Elizabeth Warren at 7%, Kamala Harris at 7%, Beto O’Rourke at 6%, Amy Klobuchar at 4%, Cory Booker at 3% and Julián Castro at 2%.
Key findings: “Biden does especially well among voters age 65 and older (44%), those earning less than $50,000 a year (38%), and those without a college degree (34%). On the ideological spectrum, Biden’s support comes more from self-described moderates and conservatives (35%) than from liberals (20%), but the same is true for Sanders although to a lesser degree (20% non-liberals, 13% liberals).”
Said pollster Patrick Murray: “If Biden does get into this race, he’ll start out as a clear front-runner in Iowa. Not only does he garner support from crucial demographic groups but he is almost universally well-liked among all Democratic voters.”
Yashar Ali: “I learned this week that not only has McAuliffe been working to marshal support (something he has now confirmed publicly), but he has told friends and supporters that he sees a major weakness in Biden.”
“According to a source familiar with a conversation McAuliffe had with an influential Democratic figure, McAuliffe said he believes that Biden is ‘tanking’ after multiple women said he made them uncomfortable when he touched them without consent.”
Daily Beast: “His dramatic expulsion from the embassy follows a year of ratcheting tension between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts, culminating in Wikileaks publicizing a leak of hundreds of thousands of hacked emails mysteriously stolen from the inboxes of Ecuador’s president and first lady.
“It was this last move that finally set Ecuador’s government firmly against Assange, who was by then already being treated less like a political refugee than an inmate—albeit one who was free to leave at any time.”
Politico: “In addition to confronting Trump on his purge at the Department of Homeland Security and his threat to deploy auto tariffs and keep existing levies, GOP senators hope they can persuade the president to avoid nominating Ken Cuccinelli or Kris Kobach, another immigration hard-liner, to lead DHS. They also want Trump to drop plans to nominate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve and are considering whether to challenge Stephen Moore’s nomination to the Fed.”
“It’s an unusual time in Trump’s Washington, with a Senate Republican majority that’s been at odds with the president for months now — and with GOP senators increasingly comfortable in trying to ward off what they see as Trump’s worst impulses. It’s an inflection point, with Senate Republicans weighing how hard to try to contain the president… The tensions between Trump and Senate Republicans have raged continuously for four months, an arc that intersects neatly with when Mick Mulvaney took the reins.”
A new Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin finds President Trump’s approval rate at 46% to 52%.
“Support for reelecting the president is also little changed since January — 28% say that they would definitely vote to reelect Trump, and 14% would probably vote to reelect him. Another 8% say that they would probably vote for someone else, and 46% would definitely vote for someone else.”
Politico: “The move illustrates how Republicans up and down the ballot are hitching themselves to Trump’s ever-expanding and newly professionalized 2020 political machine. With the president lining up a team of experienced political strategists, deploying an ambitious national field program, and exercising nearly universal control over the party apparatus, Republicans are eager to exploit his organization for their own benefit.”
“Days after South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg directly attacked Mike Pence for his stance on LGBT issues, the Republican vice president denounced the comments,” Politico reports.
Said Pence: “He’s said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better. He knows me.”
Over the weekend, Buttigieg said: “If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade. And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
“President Trump posted a tweet Thursday celebrating his poll numbers as shown in a Fox Business graphic,” USA Today reports.
“But there was a problem: the 55% approval number the graphic cited was actually the president’s unfavorable rating.”
“Attorney Michael Avenatti has been charged in a 36-count federal indictment alleging he stole millions of dollars from clients, did not pay his taxes, committed bank fraud and lied in bankruptcy proceedings,”, according to the Associated Press.
“The new charges do not include the New York extortion case alleging Avenatti demanded millions to stay quiet about claims he planned to reveal about Nike paying high school players.”
Los Angeles Times: “Avenatti stole millions of dollars from five clients and used a tangled web of shell companies and bank accounts to cover up the theft, the Santa Ana grand jury alleged in an indictment that prosecutors will make public Thursday.”
“WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hadn’t been seen in public for many months before he was arrested and hauled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday,” CNN reports.
“It was a moment that global news organizations were desperate to show their audiences. Yet it wasn’t captured by leading UK broadcasters like the BBC, Sky News or Independent Television News… Instead, the only media organization with video of the controversial moment was an obscure outfit called Ruptly.”
“Ruptly, which has carved out a niche for itself by recording events around the world and selling the footage to other broadcasters, is a subsidiary of Russian state-backed media outlet RT.”
“Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed a conspiracy charge against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was arrested by British police Thursday in Ecuador’s London embassy with the permission of Ecuadoran authorities,” the Washington Post reports.
“The case accuses Assange of conspiring to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer when working with former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, who released hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and war logs in 2010.”
“Only Congress can declare war. You do not have our permission to go to war with Iran.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by CBS News, to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“Breaking years of silence on major church affairs, Pope Benedict XVI has written a lengthy letter devoted to clerical sex abuse in which he attributes the crisis to a breakdown of church and societal moral teaching and says he felt compelled to assist ‘in this difficult hour,'” the Washington Post reports.
“The 6,000-word letter, published in tandem Thursday by a Catholic outlet and an Italian newspaper, decries the 1960s sexual revolution, laments the secularization of the West and describes seminaries filled with ‘homosexual cliques.'”
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.