Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “came close to shutting the door Wednesday on a possible U.S. Senate race, but left it open a crack,” McClatchy reports.
“Pompeo did not explicitly rule out a run, but said his ‘singular focus’ was on his current post and that he plans to serve as long as President Trump wants.”
Five former Department of Homeland Security secretaries — including former White House chief of staff John Kelly — wrote a letter to Congress and President Trump urging them to restore funding to the agency to ensure that its “critical national security functions continue without compromise,” Axios reports.
Vanity Fair runs an excerpt from Team of Vipers by former White House aide Cliff Sims in which Kellyanne Conway lends him her personal MacBook to type up a statement defending her against charges of leaking to the media.
I sat down and started slowly pecking out a statement. While working in the White House, I found that I’d grown so accustomed to writing in Trump’s voice that writing for other people had become somewhat harder than it normally would have been. I was already getting off to a slow start, but I was also getting distracted by the nonstop stream of iMessages popping up on the screen. At that point, personal phones had not yet been banned in the West Wing, so Kellyanne was sitting at her desk texting away. And since her iMessage account was tied to both her phone and her laptop, which she must not have even considered, I could inadvertently see every conversation she was having.
Over the course of 20 minutes or so, she was having simultaneous conversations with no fewer than a half-dozen reporters, most of them from outlets the White House frequently trashed for publishing “fake news.” Journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, and Bloomberg were all popping up on the screen. And these weren’t policy conversations, or attempts to fend off attacks on the president. As I sat there trying to type, she bashed Jared Kushner, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Sean Spicer, all by name.
I was sitting there, watching this, totally bewildered. I was supposed to be writing a statement, defending her against accusations that she had done almost exactly what I was watching her do that very moment.
“White House officials were caught off guard Wednesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally disinviting President Trump from giving his State of the Union address from the House chamber, leaving them scrambling for a response,” CNN reports.
“White House officials had believed Pelosi wanted only to postpone Trump’s State of the Union for political reasons after she sent a letter to him last week asking him to delay the address until after the partial government shutdown ended. The plan from administration officials was to call her bluff by pressing forward with plans to deliver the speech, including a new letter on Wednesday that they hoped would force her hand.”
“Now they’re left exploring alternative venues.”
“Jared Kushner spoke up at a recent Oval Office meeting about cutting a deal to end the government shutdown, which has been the latest project for President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser,” the Washington Post reports.
“After listening to Kushner expound on policy and possible areas of compromise with Democrats, Trump glanced at the others in the room. ‘Apparently, Jared has become an expert on immigration in the last 48 hours,’ Trump said.”
“The remark, described by one White House official as playful, underscored the latest power shift inside the White House: Kushner has emerged as an omnipresent and assertive player in the now-33-day impasse, despite deep skepticism on Capitol Hill about his political abilities and influence.”
A new CBS News poll finds that 50% of Americans now think the special counsel’s Russia investigation is justified, while 45% think it is politically motivated.
“As recently as November, a slight majority of Americans felt the investigation was politically motivated. This shift in opinion is due to more Democrats calling it justified. Eighty-three percent of Republicans continue to say the Russia investigation is politically motivated, the same as in November.”
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that organizers “have cleared the last major hurdle in the city’s quest to host the event by lining up a third-party line of credit.”
Said Barrett: “I have secured a line of credit, which is guaranteed, that really meets the needs that have been brought to us. And I’m continuing to do more.”
“When Nancy Pelosi says a wall is immoral, we look at that and go, ‘How is a wall immoral? Look, I have four walls around my house and they keep bad people out and critters out.”
— Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). quoted by the Washington Post.
“White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has pressed agency leaders to provide him with a list of the highest-impact programs that will be jeopardized if the shutdown continues into March and April,” the Washington Post reports.
“Mulvaney wants the list no later than Friday… and it’s the firmest evidence to date that the White House is preparing for a lengthy funding lapse that could have snowballing consequences for the economy and government services.”
A new AP/NORC poll finds just 34% of Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance.
“That’s down from 42% a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The president’s approval among Republicans remains close to 80%, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.”
“Are you fucking serious, Mikey?! What about my family? You gave zero shits about my baby. In all serious though, this is why you shouldn’t back down! This is your chance to be a hero! I’ll loan you some of my balls, hold your hand, or whatever else you need to do the right thing.”
— Stormy Daniels, excoriating Michael Cohen on Twitter, for postponing his testimony before the House Oversight Committee because of threats from President Trump.
BuzzFeed News: “With the preface that, like many existential questions of life, no one can really quantify how much branding matters, one exciting development this year is how many 2020 candidates are using all kinds of colors in their logos!”
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela “faced the most direct challenge to his power Wednesday, when an opposition leader swore himself in as the nation’s legitimate president, cheered on by tens of thousands of supporters and a growing number of governments, including the Trump administration,” the New York Times reports.
“The fast-moving developments convulsing the impoverished country appeared to give momentum to the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, a 35-year-old politician who stepped onto the national stage just recently.”
“But Mr. Maduro dismissed the move, derisively calling it an American-led plot to overthrow him. He said he was cutting all remaining diplomatic relations with the United States.”
Washington Post: “The dramatic developments came as anti-Maduro protests drew hundreds of thousands of people into Venezuelan streets.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a letter to President Trump that the House will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the president’s address in the House chamber until the government has opened, the Washington Post reports.
Pelosi’s response came shortly after President Trump said he would show up at the House for the prime-time speech on Tuesday.
Back at the White House, the New York Times reports Trump offered a quick retort, telling reporters: “I’m not surprised. It’s really a shame what’s happening with the Democrats. They’ve become radicalized.”
Mother Jones found video of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) singing for a cover band he formed called The Sheeps, which performed punk rock classics.
“Band members apparently wore a variety of disguises on stage—most notably, tight onesies and sheep masks.”
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) “had an uncomfortable run-in Tuesday when a fellow airplane passenger found him flying first class from Chicago to Washington, D.C.,” the HuffPost reports.
Said the passenger: “Congressman, do you think it’s appropriate to fly first class while 57,000 TSA agents aren’t being paid?”
Davis remained silent, prompting the person to say, “Taking that as a yes.”
President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said that he will postpone his scheduled Feb. 7 testimony before the House Oversight Committee due to “threats against his family from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani,” as well as his cooperation in ongoing investigations, Axios reports.
Said Cohen’s lawyer: “This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first.”
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.