“The end of the special counsel’s investigation sparked fresh speculation that President Trump might pardon some of those charged in the probe. It’s also spawned a don’t-go-there chorus from some of Trump’s closest advisers and GOP allies,” the AP reports.
“They’re warning that pardons could ignite a political firestorm that overshadows what Trump sees as a moment of triumph.”
“Linda McMahon, the head of the Small Business Administration, is planning to announce as soon as Friday that she’s stepping down,” Politico reports.
“McMahon is expected to rejoin the private sector. Her exact plans are unclear, but one of the people said the wealthy business mogul intends to play a fundraising role for President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. She was expected to join the president at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club, this weekend.”
James Hohmann: “The president declared that he had decided to save the Special Olympics as he left the White House to fly to Michigan for a rally to support his reelection campaign. Then, in Grand Rapids last night, Trump announced that he’s going to make sure the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is fully funded. Trump’s budget earlier this month proposed slashing that program, which funds the cleanup of the Great Lakes, by 90 percent – from $300 million to $30 million.”
“During his first year in office, Trump called for eliminating the program entirely. Last year and this year, he asked Congress to cut it by 90 percent. But Republicans and Democrats on the Hill teamed up to fully fund it over White House objections.”
“This is part of a pattern. Remember when Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and then attacked Democrats for not protecting the “dreamers” from deportations that he put them at risk for?”
Michael Towle: “Official counting continues past election night. State and federal laws allow extensions of voting deadlines for military personnel and citizens living abroad. Absentee ballots and provisional ballots (required by law when there is a question about the voter’s status) often don’t show up in the first sets of reported numbers. Oregon, Washington and Colorado have a vote-by-mail system, which can slow the processing of ballots. Maine uses a ranked-choice system for its federal elections that requires a second round of counting if no candidate has a majority after the first round.”
“We can’t stop the networks from reporting the results that they have, but we can require that votes not be released to the networks until there is a reasonable certainty of the outcome.”
“Unfortunately, premature announcements result in questions about the validity of elections. If early reports differ from the more complete final counts, the urge to cry foul is strong.”
“British lawmakers on Friday rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for withdrawing from the European Union for the third time, leaving her policy in ruins and the casting the nation’s politics into further confusion, with the scheduled departure date looming two weeks away,” the New York Times reports.
“The defeat appears to leave the increasingly weakened prime minister with two unpalatable options in the short run: Britain can leave the bloc on April 12 without an agreement in place, a chaotic and potentially economically damaging withdrawal; or Mrs. May can ask European leaders – who have ruled out a short delay if her plan failed – for what could be a long postponement.”
The Guardian: “Donald Tusk, the European council president, has called an emergency EU summit for Wednesday 10 April in light of this vote.”
Just Security: “If the report delivered by Mueller to Barr didn’t include the counterintelligence piece of Mueller’s investigation (or included only pieces of intelligence directly relevant to the potential criminal conspiracy), where is that body of counterintelligence analysis? How else might it get shared with Congress or the public?”
“One possibility emerged within 24 hours of Barr’s letter going to Congress. ‘Senior officials’ told news outlets that the FBI anticipates briefing congressional leaders on Mueller’s counterintelligence findings. Oral briefings, rather than written findings, provided in closed session may have been deemed by Mueller more appropriate given genuine classification concerns—especially if aspects of the investigation remain ongoing and transferred to a different part of the Justice Department with Mueller’s office winding down.”
A new Emerson College poll in Pennsylvania shows President Trump losing to five potential Democratic challengers: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke.
Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon told CNBC that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Beto O’Rourke stand the best chance of giving President Trump a tough fight during the 2020 election.
Bannon, who said he doesn’t expect Trump to lose in 2020, said he would put the two Democrats on a combined ticket with Harris running for president and O’Rourke for vice president. They would be “a way to mobilize their base and give it their best shot.”
“New York State lawmakers have agreed to impose a statewide ban on most types of single-use plastic bags from retail sales, changing a way of life for millions of New Yorkers as legislators seek to curb an unsightly and omnipresent source of litter,” the New York Times reports.
My wife is a leader in this effort and wrote about the lessons learned from banning plastic bags in our own community on her new site, Green That Life.
Gallup: “It is well-established that President Trump’s ratings are the most politically polarized Gallup has measured for a president. Trump’s support also has shown consistent differences by gender and by race and education, among other characteristics. What has been less clear is whether those subgroup differences mainly reflect the party leanings of those groups or if they demonstrate an appeal Trump has to certain groups that transcends partisanship.”
“A new Gallup analysis of 2019 Trump job approval data indicates that subgroup differences largely originate in the party orientation of those groups. Once party is taken into account, there is little to no variation among demographic or attitudinal subgroups. To the extent subgroup differences exist, they are more apparent among independents than among Republicans or Democrats.”
Joshua Spivak: “In the general election, it is not clear that a vice presidential pick ever helps or even hurts the candidate. Studies have found that voters do not take running mates into account. Richard Nixon, who was on the Republican national ticket five times, believed that the vice presidential choice could serve only to damage the president. While the VP has occasionally seemed to provide momentum to the ticket, there is no evidence of a VP making a different in the race—with the possible exception of Lyndon Johnson in 1960.”
“President Trump’s effort to rework a major trade deal with Canada and Mexico is showing signs of faltering on Capitol Hill, straining under a variety of angry complaints from lawmakers of both parties who won’t commit to backing the plan,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump reached agreement with Canada and Mexico last year to update the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. But Congress must approve the deal, and the White House has been unable to mollify the growing complaints.”
“The administration’s goal is to get the pact approved ahead of Congress’ annual August recess. It’s not clear if that timeline is realistic. But delaying action past Labor Day could greatly increase political risk because of the accelerating presidential campaign.”
Pete Buttigieg told Vox that President Trump is “radicalizing” Americans.
Buttigieg noted that “when people are economically or socially dislocated, they are always more vulnerable to being radicalized.”
He added: “And I think a lot of Americans are being radicalized by this administration. The experience of disruption that’s gone on, especially in the interior, has obviously made it more fertile to being taken advantage of by people like this president.”
President Trump’s flip-flop on Special Olympics funding is “a reminder of why his team can never feel safe: He loves to put aides in their place,” Axios reports.
“And it’s why at home and abroad, no one is really sure that anyone besides Trump — even a Cabinet member — is speaking for the administration.”
“Administration officials past and present have told us that Trump savors news coverage that shows him acting unilaterally. Even — one source said especially — when it involved like overriding members of his own administration.”
New York Times: “Ideologically, Mr. Buttigieg is a progressive — sometimes an adventurous one, calling to expand the Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College. But his main themes are generational change and winning back Rust Belt voters who supported Mr. Trump.”
“President Trump is muscling into a blue state where Democrats are reeling: Virginia,” Politico reports.
“With a tenuous grip on states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the president is looking for opportunities to expand his electoral playing field. He’s set his sights on Virginia, a state where Democrats have dominated the past decade, but where the party’s three top officeholders are embroiled in scandals.”
“Leading the offensive is Vice President Mike Pence, who on Wednesday evening headlined a fundraiser in McLean for Republican state legislators up for election in November. Pence is expected to hold additional events for Virginia lawmakers in the coming months, and White House officials intend to use the 2019 elections to test whether they can make inroads in the state, which Trump lost by 5 percentage points.”
“President Trump feels vindicated. And now he’s out for blood. Wearing the same red tie he wore on Inauguration Day, Trump took the stage in Michigan on Thursday for the first time since being cleared of Russian conspiracy charges and proceeded to tear through a vengeance-laced speech that felt as much like a second inaugural as it did a campaign rally,” Politico reports.
“One by one in front of a packed audience, Trump ticked through those who he felt wronged him over the 22-month Russia probe that dogged his presidency — from lawmakers to television pundits — egging the adoring crowd on as it chanted, ‘Lock them up.’ And he expressed sympathy for those caught up in the probe, describing them as ‘innocent’ individuals badly damaged by ‘an elaborate hoax,’ amid speculation that he will pardon former aides facing Mueller-related prison time.”
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.