“Trump’s base is unhappy after the three M’s: midterms, Mattis and market fall. Manufacturing a crisis around border funding unites and excites Republicans at a time when Trump’s base is softening. As long as Trump feels pressure from his base, he’s going to have trouble folding on the wall.”
— GOP strategist Alex Conant, quoted by the Washington Post.
First Read: “As we enter Day 17 of the government shutdown, President Trump isn’t budging on his demands for more than $5 billion in border wall funding, and Democrats are panning his offer to build it from steel rather than concrete.”
“But amid the noise of his daily repetition of the same demands for a border wall — and the daily coverage of the negotiations over how the impasse could end — it’s important not to obscure the larger truth here: Trump hasn’t been winning on the immigration issue, at the ballot box or in public opinion polls.”
“Remember, Trump spent the final weeks of the 2018 campaign making aggressive moves to mobilize his base with the immigration issue… But with immigration front and center late last year, the GOP suffered its worst midterm House loss since Watergate. They lost the popular vote by nine points. Democrats gained seven governorships. While Republicans did pick up two Senate seats, they also saw seats flip to Democrats in two Southwestern states (Nevada and Arizona) and got at least a scare in a third (Texas.)”
“So Trump is staking all the political and economic consequences of a lengthy shutdown on an immigration play that hasn’t been shown to be a political winner outside of his own base.”
Edward Luce: “Politics isn’t usually this simple. But Donald Trump lives and dies by marketing slogans. In this case — ‘Build the wall!’ — the outcome is near certain defeat. It’s all the more remarkable for being self-created. The fact that he only started to care about redeeming his promise after Democrats regained the House in the midterms, makes it even more self-destructive. He had two years of Republican control to push it through and failed. It’s hard to see Democrats striking almost any deal to fund a wall they revile and that even anti-immigrant hardliners concede would do little to fix America’s immigration problems… As a result, Trump is hurtling with great steam into an entirely needless train wreck.”
“The question is why he is only now becoming serious when he has the least chance of succeeding. The charitable answer is that he didn’t see the midterm election defeat coming. He tried to win that election by hyping up a crisis about an invasion of central American migrants. It backfired. This is his last chance to fund a wall. The uncharitable answer, which I think is the right one, is that Trump’s politics only works in a climate of permanent frenzy. A government shutdown meets that test.”
“But even if he got his wall, it wouldn’t redeem his election promise. The second half of his promise was ‘…and Mexico will pay for it.’ Two years later, Trump is holding the federal government to ransom in an attempt to force Americans to pay for it. We shouldn’t overlook that irony. In the unlikely event Trump upheld his promise, he would be breaking it.”
“Democrats want to investigate the Trump Hotel deal and President Trump’s taxes. They want to haul up conflicted Cabinet officials and dig into controversial changes to the census and food stamps. They want to put Education Secretary Betsy DeVos under oath and investigate child detentions at the border,” Politico reports.
“The threat of subpoenas, investigations and oversight hearings will dominate the new House Democratic majority agenda, targeting the White House’s most controversial policies and personnel, spanning immigration, the environment, trade and of course, the biggest question of them all: Russian collusion.”
“President Trump is betting big on the Supreme Court in 2019 to revive controversial policies on issues ranging from immigration and border security to transgender soldiers in the military,” USA Today reports.
“Seeking to match the success he had at the high court on his immigration travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries last year, Trump is counting on the justices – including two that he picked – to reverse lower court losses at the hands of both liberal and conservative judges.”
Playbook: “The one positive element our sources took out of yesterday’s meeting at the White House is that this government funding stalemate needs to get much worse before it gets solved, and that is what began happening yesterday.”
“By the end of the day, this will be the second-longest government shutdown in U.S. history. If it lasts to Saturday, Trump’s Washington will be the owner of the longest government shutdown ever.”
“Previously unreported documents obtained by the Daily Beast provide the first glimpse into the finances of a key node in that network, traced to Federalist Society president Leonard Leo, a major player in Washington’s wars over the makeup of the federal judiciary.”
“Those documents, like others revealed over the last few months, provide a deeper glimpse into the expanding role that Leo’s played in advancing the Trump administration’s agenda on legal matters in particular. And they underscore the degree to which anonymous, high-dollar donors have bankrolled the advocacy behind Trump’s highly successful efforts to reshape the federal judiciary.”
Bloomberg: “Mueller may submit his findings on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign to the Justice Department as early as February, according to one U.S. official. After that, things could get messy.”
“Democrats who now control the House have said they’ll demand that the department hand over the report — and that they intend to make it public. The White House may counter by asserting executive privilege to prevent key findings from being turned over, according to people familiar with internal deliberations.”
David Leonhardt: “He has repeatedly put his own interests above those of the country. He has used the presidency to promote his businesses. He has accepted financial gifts from foreign countries. He has lied to the American people about his relationship with a hostile foreign government. He has tolerated cabinet officials who use their position to enrich themselves.”
“To shield himself from accountability for all of this — and for his unscrupulous presidential campaign — he has set out to undermine the American system of checks and balances. He has called for the prosecution of his political enemies and the protection of his allies. He has attempted to obstruct justice. He has tried to shake the public’s confidence in one democratic institution after another, including the press, federal law enforcement and the federal judiciary.
“The unrelenting chaos that Trump creates can sometimes obscure the big picture. But the big picture is simple: The United States has never had a president as demonstrably unfit for the office as Trump.”
President Trump “is tightening his iron grip on the Republican Party, launching an elaborate effort to stamp out any vestiges of GOP opposition that might embarrass him at the 2020 Republican convention,” Politico reports.
“The president’s reelection campaign is intent on avoiding the kind of circus that unfolded on the convention floor in 2016, when Never Trump Republicans loudly protested his nomination before a national TV audience. The effort comes as party elites like Utah Sen. Mitt Romney are openly questioning Trump’s fitness for the job, and it’s meant to to ensure that delegates to next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are presidential loyalists — not anti-Trump activists looking to create a stir.”
“Whatever questions Elizabeth Warren faced before becoming the first major Democratic candidate to step toward the 2020 presidential race, a nearly flawless and well-received trip to Iowa this weekend made it clear she intends to win and has a plan to do it,” NBC News reports.
“But a pointed question from an audience member about the bungled roll out of her DNA test, along with doubts about whether she can beat Trump, offered reminders that nobody will have an easy path to the Democratic nomination in 2020.”
“The Trump White House maintained its hard line on funding for a border wall in a letter Sunday to congressional leaders, demanding $5.7 billion for construction of a barrier as the partial government shutdown heads into its third week after weekend talks,” the Washington Post reports.
“Senior administration officials described the letter as a flicker of progress, in particular the request for ‘an additional $800 million to address urgent humanitarian needs’ and unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border, an issue they said Democrats have made a priority during the talks. The officials also said that the letter’s formal call for a ‘steel barrier’ rather than a massive concrete wall — as Trump long promised — was another notable, if minor, development.”
Playbook: “Sure, the room did not explode into a massive screaming match — and that’s a good start. But Republicans and Democrats are still miles apart and nowhere near ending this shutdown. This is could last another month or so, according to experienced aides who were in the room.”
“A few sources we spoke to say there were close to 50 people in the room yesterday for the wall negotiations. These deals are usually cut in rooms with a handful of people. There is no way to get a deal like this done in such a big group.”
The Barre Montpelier Times Argus, a newspaper in Vermont, is urging Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) not to run for president in 2020.
From the editorial: “Bernie Sanders should not run for president. In fact, we beg him not to.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden “is in the final stages of deciding whether to run for president and has told allies he is skeptical the other Democrats eyeing the White House can defeat President Trump, an assessment that foreshadows a clash between the veteran Washington insider and the more liberal and fresh-faced contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Biden would instantly be the early front-runner if he ran, but he would have to bridge divides in a primary that would test whether Democrats are willing to embrace a moderate white man in his 70s if they view him as the best bet to oust Mr. Trump.”
President Trump on Sunday said he’s in no rush to name permanent members of his Cabinet after a series of departures, claiming that members of his administration serving in an acting capacity give him “more flexibility,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “Well, I’m in no hurry. I have ‘acting.’ And my actings are doing really great.”
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.