Washington Examiner: “From the outside, Texas appears troubling for President Trump in 2020 because of demographic changes that have featured a steady climb in the population of Hispanic voters.”
“But actually, the leftward drift, first evident in 2016 when Trump won Texas by less than 10 percentage points, is a byproduct of sharp opposition to the president in Texas’ burgeoning upscale suburbs that are dominated by whites, according to Texas Republican strategists.”
“We were sitting around thinking about this three weeks ago, and her name came up. Immediately, everyone in the room said, ‘Let’s do it.’ She’s an amazing person with an amazing story.”
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), quoted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, on picking Stacey Abrams to deliver the Democratic response to President Trump’s State of the Union address.
First Read: “Right now, we have seven candidates who have declared or who have filed paperwork, and it already feels a bit, well, crowded. Part of that is due to Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand announcing early, and staking claims to their lanes.”
“And part of it is due to the fact that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke have the name ID, potential resources and ability to wait on a decision, thus freezing the rest of the field.”
“If you’re not in early, and if you’re not Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke or a billionaire like Mike Bloomberg, it becomes harder and harder to differentiate yourself and your candidacy.”
“Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus, and said it intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers rather than the manufacturing workforce the project originally promised,” Reuters reports.
“Announced at a White House ceremony in 2017, the 20-million square foot campus marked the largest greenfield investment by a foreign-based company in U.S. history and was praised by President Donald Trump as proof of his ability to revive American manufacturing.”
The Washington Post has more on U.S. intelligence officials directly contradicting President Trump before Congress yesterday: “None of the officials said there is a security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where Trump has considered declaring a national emergency so that he can build a wall.”
Stripes: “Their analysis stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s almost singular focus on security gaps at the border as the biggest threat facing the United States.”
“The intelligence assessment, which is provided annually to Congress, made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which Trump has asserted as the basis for his demand that Congress finance a border wall. The report predicted additional U.S.-bound migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with migrants preferring to travel in caravans in hopes of a safer journey.”
“Senate Republicans are signaling they will do just about anything to prevent a second shutdown after the White House was widely seen as badly losing the political fight over the closure that ended with President Trump’s retreat on Friday,” The Hill reports.
“Republicans are in no mood to be dragged back into another partial closure in mid-February, the deadline to get a deal on spending for roughly a quarter of the government.”
Said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), modifying a well-known quote: “There certainly would be no education in the third kick of the mule.”
Former Gov. Chris Christie told Stephen Colbert that President Trump “blew it” and “got rolled” when he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it.
Said Christie: “If you’re going to do this, you’d better have an exit plan.”
Christie said he still agrees with Trump’s policies “more than I agree with Hillary Clinton’s,” but admitted that Trump “has turned the Republican Party into something different that it was when I started to run for president.”
When asked if he would be a better president than Trump, Christie didn’t hesitate responding: “Yes.”
“Furious Democrats hope to pound Starbucks chairman emeritus Howard Schultz into an early departure from his exploration of an independent 2020 bid,” Axios reports.
Said one Democratic operative: “I’ve talked to six dozen Democrats, and the overwhelming sentiment is that he will be pushed out by this incredible wave of disgust and disdain rolling his way.”
He added: “The flaw in Schultz’s logic is that we’re living in this massively abnormal moment. When you’re on the head of a pin, even 500 votes in the wrong place can be existential. The bottom line is: Nobody thinks this is sustainable.”
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said that Jared Kushner “was still ‘seething’ from events that took place more than a decade prior — when Christie, as a U.S. attorney, prosecuted Kushner’s father, Charles, for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions, sending the elder Kushner to prison for 14 months,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Christie: “It’s one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney. And I was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey — so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there!”
“Michael Bloomberg looked alot like a traditional presidential hopeful on Tuesday with a well-attended speech in New Hampshire, a factory visit and a walking tour of local businesses. But he didn’t sound much like a Democratic candidate,” Politico reports.
“Other than his sharp criticisms of Donald Trump on climate change, the government shutdown and the president’s governing style, the New York billionaire seemed intent on testing the limits of how far he could deviate from Democratic Party orthodoxy.”
A new Morning Consult poll finds just 31% of voters support shutting the government down again to force Congress to appropriate money for the wall, while nearly twice that many, 58%, oppose another shutdown.
Meanwhile, President Trump has suggested that he could declare a “national emergency” to avert a shutdown but still build the wall — but that, too, is unpopular. A narrow, 51% majority opposes declaring an emergency, which is supported by 38%.
Politico: ““Democrats are ruling out the idea of negotiating on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, skeptical that Trump would actually provide a permanent fix for the young undocumented immigrants after he previously rejected just such a deal. Meanwhile, top Republicans also doubt an expansive agreement could be put together in the next three weeks.”
“The fading prospects of the negotiation mean Trump is likely to receive only a fraction of the $5.7 billion he’s been seeking for his southern barrier in any deal, if one can be put together at all by Feb. 15. Then he would have to decide whether to unilaterally move funds around by declaring a legally dubious national emergency or embrace another debilitating shutdown.”
Washington Post: “Republicans intent on averting another government shutdown sought Tuesday to expand border security talks to dealing with U.S. debt and other issues as lawmakers operated with no clear signal from President Trump on what he would accept.”
Playbook: “President Trump has nothing on his schedule today besides his intelligence briefing. So far this week, the president has just had lunch with the VP on his schedule. Nothing else.”
“She’s not running for president.”
— Former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, quoted by The Hill, saying speculation that Hillary Clinton would run again was “media catnip.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will announce that he will not run for president in 2020, Politico reports.
“Garcetti had been considering a presidential campaign for months and traveled the country raising money for Democrats.”
“House Democrats plan to put Republicans on the spot Wednesday with a vote to condemn future government shutdowns, even as the threat of another border wall showdown remains just weeks away,” Politico reports.
“Democratic leaders will force a vote on a resolution that states that ‘shutdowns are detrimental to the nation and should not occur.’
“Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign hasn’t officially launched yet but it’s already melting down,” Politico reports.
“Two-and-a-half weeks after she told CNN she had decided to run for the White House—an announcement that even her own staff didn’t know was coming, after weeks of debating the timing of the rollout—the 37-year-old congresswoman has struggled to contain the chaos.”
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.