“Everyone knew yesterday, long before the House vote, that the president’s wall lacked 60 votes in the Senate. It has proven to lack even 50 votes. It will never pass the Senate. Not today, not next week, not next year.”
— Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), quoted by the Washington Examiner.
“Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group, has resigned in protest to President Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, joining Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in an administration exodus of experienced national security officials,” the AP reports.
“Only 11 days ago, McGurk had said it would be ‘reckless’ to consider IS defeated and therefore would be unwise to bring American forces home. He decided to speed up his plan to leave in mid-February.”
“President Trump’s self-inflicted shutdown before Christmas has left Republicans with a debacle as their last act in control of the House. And now the party is even more worried about the outlook beginning Jan. 3, when Democrats take over,” Axios reports.
Said one adviser: “It’s a showdown, but one side has already lost.”
“For Republicans, the hell of this is that this could have been a celebratory week to a bleak political year: Trump yesterday signed a years-in-the making criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act — an authentic bipartisan accomplishment that makes a true difference in the lives of tens of thousands.”
“Still with the benefit (or curse) of an inside perspective, I must say that the instability and chaos in our government the past few days has been particularly pronounced — worse than at any point during my service in Congress, and really, my lifetime. Things are not well in the USA.”
— Outgoing Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), on Twitter.
President Trump “has discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as his frustration with the central bank chief intensified following this week’s interest-rate increase and months of stock-market losses,” Bloomberg reports.
“Advisers close to Trump aren’t convinced he would move against Powell and are hoping that the president’s latest bout of anger will dissipate over the holidays… Some of Trump’s advisers have warned him that firing Powell would be a disastrous move.”
“Yet the president has talked privately about firing Powell many times in the past few days.”
“President Trump, who has long believed that he is his own best adviser and spokesman, was forced to test that idea on Friday when few of his allies seemed willing to publicly share in his evident satisfaction with the tumultuous events that have buffeted the White House in the past few days,” the New York Times reports.
“As he lost the public support of those once willing to step forward on his behalf, Mr. Trump grew angry over his news coverage and told people close to him that he would be fine without Mr. Mattis. He rebuffed them for even expressing concern.”
“Mr. Trump also privately groused about having to postpone departure plans for his 16-day trip to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.”
Politico: “The trend could prove perilous for the president after Democrats assume control of the House in January. Should the House vote to impeach Trump, he will have to rely on an increasingly exasperated Senate GOP conference to prevent him from being thrown out of office.”
“Two days before the 2016 presidential election, an Instagram account called @woke_blacks posted a message in support of long-shot Green Party candidate Jill Stein,” NBC News reports.
Said the post: “The excuse that a lost Black vote for Hillary is a Trump win is bs. It could be late, but y’all might want to support Jill Stein instead.”
“According to a report commissioned by the Senate, the account was a fake, part of the Russian campaign to sway the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. The report was one of two that leaked this week saying the Russian effort to disrupt the election specifically targeted black voters and harnessed America’s top social media platforms. But the reports contained another finding that was largely overlooked — the Russians also focused on boosting Stein’s candidacy through social media posts like the one from @woke_blacks.”
“Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. But instead of honoring his responsibility to the American people, President Trump threw a temper tantrum and convinced House Republicans to push our nation into a destructive Trump Shutdown in the middle of the holiday season. President Trump has said more than 25 times that he wanted a shutdown and now he has gotten what he wanted.”
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in a joint statement.
Washington Post: “In 2014, Donald Trump sued to have his name taken off a pair of Atlantic City casinos he built three decades earlier that had gone bankrupt. It took the president just 10 days this month to remove his name from something else he once proudly owned but that wasn’t going great — the federal government shutdown.”
“After threatening a shutdown for months over border wall funding and vowing last week that he would ‘“take the mantle’ of responsibility, Trump tried to shift the blame Friday, just hours before a government funding bill expired at midnight.”
Tweeted Trump: “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”
“Mississippi’s Republican governor is considering Medicaid expansion, the first sign that long-held GOP opposition could be wilting in the Deep South after an election that was a big winner for the Obamacare program,” Politico reports.
“Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, entering his final year in office, has been engaged in quiet talks about adopting expansion after resisting for years.”
Foreign Policy: “As late as 2003, Trump was in such desperate financial trouble that at a meeting with his siblings following his father’s death he pressed them to hurriedly sell his father’s estate off, against the late Fred Trump’s wishes, the New York Times reported in an investigation of Trump family finances in October. And his businesses kept failing: In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy with $1.8 billion dollars of debt.”
“But Trump eventually made a comeback, and according to several sources with knowledge of Trump’s business, foreign money played a large role in reviving his fortunes, in particular investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing body of evidence amassed by news organizations, as well as what is reportedly being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York.”
“President Trump’s near-simultaneous decisions this week to force a government shutdown over his demand to fund a border wall and withdraw American troops from Syria and Afghanistan have imperiled the fragile Republican coalition, exacerbating the party’s fears about what may become of his presidency — and its own electoral prospects in 2020,” the New York Times reports.
“By placating the far right on immigration, embracing his instincts on foreign policy and unnerving investors with his trade wars and policy gyrations, Mr. Trump is elevating the nativist and noninterventionist elements of his party. In doing so, he is deeply straining his most important links to mainstream Republican governance, and the national security hawks and conservative business executives who have long been pillars of the right.”
For members: The Mattis Resignation Puts Trump In Real Danger
President Trump “has at least twice in the past few weeks vented to his acting attorney general, angered by federal prosecutors who referenced the President’s actions in crimes his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to,” CNN reports.
“Trump was frustrated, the sources said, that prosecutors Matt Whitaker oversees filed charges that made Trump look bad. None of the sources suggested that the President directed Whitaker to stop the investigation, but rather lashed out at what he felt was an unfair situation.”
“The federal government headed toward a partial shutdown late Friday as the House and the Senate both adjourned for the evening, ending any hopes of a last-minute compromise to pass a spending bill that would keep nine cabinet agencies operating past a deadline of midnight,” the New York Times reports.
“Talks between White House officials and congressional leaders are hung up over President Trump’s repeated demands for money to build a wall on the southern border, and a burst of late-afternoon activity could not break the deadlock.”
Amy McGrath (D), who ran a nationally watched campaign for Congress, said she will not seek her party’s nomination for Kentucky governor in 2019, the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
The former Marine fighter pilot’s decision comes two weeks after the Courier Journal reported that some Democrats had concerns about whether she fulfilled the residency requirement to run.
Incoming White House acting-chief of staff Mick Mulvaney called President Trump’s views on a border wall and immigration “simplistic” and “absurd and almost childish” in a 2015 interview uncovered by CNN.
Mulvaney added he believed Trump’s emotional appeals and cavalier attitude might prompt him to try going around the Constitution.
Said Mulvaney: “I wonder who is more interested in going around the Constitution in order to get things done. Barack Obama or Donald Trump?”
“The Supreme Court on Friday denied the Trump administration’s request that it be allowed to immediately enforce a new policy of denying asylum to those who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, a change that lower courts declared possibly illegal,” the Washington Post reports.
“Four justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — would have granted the administration’s request to let the order go into effect.”
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.