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Delaney Already Campaigning Hard In Early States

April 22, 2018 at 9:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “The first presidential contests of 2020 are nearly two years away, but for one Democrat the campaign is already in full swing. John Delaney — a wealthy, little-known congressman from Maryland — has spent more than $1 million on TV in Iowa, hired staffers and opened a campaign office in Des Moines.”

“Since announcing his bid last July, he’s made 110 campaign stops in 48 of Iowa’s 99 counties. He has visited New Hampshire six times, and on Friday made his second trek to South Carolina.”

McCaskill Holds Edge In Missouri

April 22, 2018 at 9:29 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Missouri Scout poll finds Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) holding a slight edge over her likely challenger Josh Hawley (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 44% with another 8% undecided.

Budget Committees Are Not Doing Their Job

April 22, 2018 at 9:21 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Stan Collender: “It’s fairly typical for the House and Senate to miss the April 15 deadline set in federal law for Congress to adopt the budget for the coming year.”

“But what’s not typical is what’s happening now: The GOP-controlled House and Senate Budget Committees are flatly refusing to comply with the law (and fulfill their only real statutory responsibility) by not even trying to do a budget for the fiscal year that starts this October 1.”

“Yes, you read that right. The House and Senate Budget Committees only have one job — to adopt a budget resolution — and this year they are unwilling, incapable or just stomping their feet and refusing to do what the Congressional Budget Act specifically requires of them.”

Presidential Candidates Collecting IOUs for 2020

April 22, 2018 at 8:52 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

NBC News: “Barack Obama didn’t pull off one of the greatest political upsets of the century alone. He beat Hillary Clinton in 2008 with a little help from friends he made on the campaign trail two years earlier when he was a senator stumping for Democrats around the country in the midterms.”

“Today, with a potential midterm wave building, the 2020 presidential race is off to a rolling start as a host of potential Democratic candidates look to help themselves by helping others, quietly stepping up their political work to curry favor with key party members ahead of what could be a presidential primary contest with a double digit number of hopefuls competing.”

Quote of the Day

April 22, 2018 at 8:47 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The day Trump announced he was running, I admitted to a couple of Times editors that I’d watched eight seasons of The Apprentice and that we should do a story about it. They told me political reporters wouldn’t be writing about Trump. ‘We have enough candidates to cover,’ one editor said. ‘Let the TV writers do it.'”

— Amy Chozick, in her new book Chasing Hillary.

Romney Forced Into a Senate Primary

April 22, 2018 at 8:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Salt Lake Tribune: “After 11 hours of political elbowing and shoving at the Utah Republican Convention — held appropriately at a hockey arena — delegates forced Mitt Romney into a primary election against state Rep. Mike Kennedy in the U.S. Senate race.”

“In fact, Kennedy — a doctor and lawyer — finished in first place at the convention with 51 percent of the vote to Romney’s 49 percent. The former GOP presidential nominee fell far short of the 60 percent needed to clinch the nomination outright.”

More Voters See Trump and GOP as the Same

April 21, 2018 at 3:35 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A Politico/Morning Consult poll finds that 43% of voters believe President Trump represents the majority viewpoint of Republicans in Washington, compared with 37% who said he does not.

That’s a net swing of 20 points from a August poll when 47% said Trump did not represent the viewpoint of most Republicans, and 33% said he did.

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This is important: Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” but now voters see him as part of the swamp. [/alert]

New York Senate Hinges on Tuesday Special Election

April 21, 2018 at 1:40 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “The intense scrutiny for a seemingly obscure seat is the result of a fragile deal that was recently brokered in which a group of breakaway Democrats who had long shared power with Senate Republicans agreed to return to the Democratic fold. That collaboration had helped give Republicans control of the Senate, despite Democrats holding a numerical majority, until early April, when the so-called Independent Democratic Conference agreed to return to the mainstream fold.”

“The deal gave the Democrats a chance to sweep the Legislature and governor’s office. There was just one hitch: two Senate seats that had previously been occupied by Democrats will be decided on Tuesday in special elections.”

Trump Vows That Cohen Will Not Flip

April 21, 2018 at 1:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump vowed on Twitter that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not “flip” and cooperate against him in the special counsel investigation into his campaign’s connections to Russia, attacking a New York Times story as part of a “witch hunt” against him, the Washington Post reports.

He also slammed reporter Maggie Haberman and called a former aide quoted in the story as a “drunk/drugged up loser.”

Living Large In Oklahoma

April 21, 2018 at 1:32 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The New York Times looks at EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s lifestyle back home and concludes his “political career in Oklahoma reveals that many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.”

“Lobbyists and others in Oklahoma state politics who encountered Mr. Pruitt recalled him as a tough competitor who always had his eye on a higher office. Some called him a ‘Boy Scout’ who was stingy with his money, while others said privately that he had exuded a sense of entitlement — that rules did not apply to him.”

Lobbying Firm Contradicts Pruitt’s Denials

April 21, 2018 at 1:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Poltico: “The prominent lobbyist whose wife rented a condominium to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt lobbied the agency while Pruitt was leading it, contrary to his and Pruitt’s public denials that he had any business before the agency, according to a Friday filing by his firm.”

“The disclosure from the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen contradicts Pruitt’s public statement last month that the lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, had no clients with business before the EPA, and comes hours after Hart’s resignation from the firm.”

Pressure to Release Comey Memos May Have Backfired

April 21, 2018 at 7:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“For days, top Republicans in Congress demanded the release of James Comey’s memos about President Trump, threatening Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, with a subpoena if he failed to share the highly anticipated documents written by the former FBI director,” the New York Times reports.

“But if Mr. Trump and his allies believed that Mr. Rosenstein’s refusal would deliver a pretext to call for his firing, as Democrats asserted, his decision to quickly release all the memos late Thursday night foiled that plan. The memos leaked to reporters hours after being delivered to lawmakers in both parties.”

“And the seven memos, in which Mr. Comey methodically documented his interactions with the president in real time, did little to help Republicans undermine Mr. Comey’s credibility or expose contradictions with his best-selling, tell-all book. Taken together, the 15 pages of detailed notes largely back up the stories that Mr. Comey told in congressional testimony, in the pages of his memoir, A Higher Loyalty, and during numerous television and radio interviews.”

Cohen Tried to Apologize to Melania Trump

April 21, 2018 at 7:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “At a Republican fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, Mr. Cohen went so far as to approach the first lady, Melania Trump, to try to apologize for the pain he caused her with the payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who has claimed to have had the sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.”

Ex-Stormy Daniels Lawyer Cooperating

April 20, 2018 at 11:19 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Keith Davidson, the former attorney for two women who were paid to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump, has been contacted by federal authorities investigating Trump attorney Michael Cohen and is cooperating with them,” the Washington Post reports.

“Shortly before the 2016 election, Davidson negotiated a confidentiality agreement with Cohen under which porn star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000.”

“Davidson also represented Karen McDougal, a Playboy centerfold, in the $150,000 agreement she struck in August 2016 with the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., for the rights to her story.”

Sessions Warned He Would Quit If Rosenstein Fired

April 20, 2018 at 6:53 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Attorney General Jeff Sessions “recently told the White House he might have to leave his job if President Trump fired his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election,” the Washington Post reports.

“Sessions made his position known in a phone call to White House counsel Donald McGahn last weekend, as Trump’s fury at Rosenstein peaked after the deputy attorney general approved the FBI’s raid April 9 on the president’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.”

Pompeo Won’t Pass Committee Vote

April 20, 2018 at 6:50 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) announced “that he will not vote to support the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state, officially closing the door on Pompeo’s chances of being favorably recommended out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ahead of a full Senate floor vote,” ABC News reports.

Greitens Charged with Another Crime

April 20, 2018 at 6:49 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“St. Louis prosecutors charged Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) with a felony for his use of a charity donor list for his 2016 political campaign, adding to the first-term governor’s legal woes,” the AP reports.

“The charge of tampering with computer data is in addition to an earlier charge alleging Greitens took and transmitted a nonconsensual photo of a partially nude woman with whom he had an extramarital affair in 2015.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Now the House is considering a special session that may lead to Greitens’ impeachment. The new charge will give lawmakers more material to weigh as they decide how to proceed on that front.”

Judge Wants Cohen Response Before Ruling on Lawsuit

April 20, 2018 at 6:45 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A federal judge in California said that he needed to hear from Michael Cohen directly before deciding whether to issue a stay in a civil lawsuit involving porn star Stormy Daniels,” CNN reports.

The judge “gave Cohen’s attorney until Wednesday to file a declaration by Cohen himself indicating whether his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination could be at issue in the civil case due to an ongoing criminal investigation in New York.”