“What too many lawmakers fail to see is this: If you don’t go on the record, your opinion doesn’t count. Worse, neither will your legacy. Refusing to publicly acknowledge your convictions simply affirms your unwillingness to act on them. And that is an indictment of you, not the president.”
— Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL), writing in the Washington Post, calling out Republican lawmakers who refuse to condemn President Trump.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds President Trump’s support among America’s union workers has dropped 15 points in just a year.
Trump’s support among union workers now sits at 47%, down from its all-time high of 62%.
A new Pew Research poll finds 57% of Americans find little or no common ground with Donald Trump on issues, but 41% say they agree with him on “all or nearly all” the issues.
The public’s assessment of Trump’s conduct as president is little changed over the past nine months, with 54% saying they don’t like the way he conducts himself as president.
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Former President Barack Obama endorsed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) bid to fend off a reelection challenge from the Democratic Party’s left flank, calling the California senator “one of America’s most effective champions for progress,” Politico reports.
“The endorsement — a rare intervention from Obama — served as the highest profile rebuke yet of state Sen. Kevin de León’s (D) long-shot effort to unseat Feinstein.”
Investigators working with special counsel Robert Mueller questioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg as part of the probe into Russian election interference, the New York Times reports.
They stopped the Russian billionaire at a New York-area airport earlier this year and wanted to search his electronic devices.
Vekselberg had attended President Trump’s inauguration as well as the December 2015 dinner in Russia that Michael Flynn took part in.
New York Times: “No one is saying goodbye, not explicitly. The son and grandson of admirals, Mr. McCain ‘doesn’t like overt sentimentality,’ as his friend and former chief of staff Grant Woods put it. But his visitors are telling him they love him, how much he has meant to them — and together they are taking care of unfinished business.”
“The Republican senator encouraged the former Democratic vice president to ‘not walk away’ from politics, as Mr. Biden put it before refusing to discuss a possible 2020 presidential run. Mr. McCain is using a new book and documentary to reveal his regret about not selecting former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman as his running mate in 2008. His intimates have informed the White House that their current plan for his funeral is for Vice President Mike Pence to attend the service to be held in Washington’s National Cathedral but not President Trump, with whom Mr. McCain has had a rocky relationship.”
Washington Post: “By virtue of her position, Sanders is inextricably bound in the mistruths of the Trump administration. She is a willing warrior for Trump, and her critics say she should be held accountable for his utterances — from the untruthful to the racist to the sexist. Since taking office, Trump has made more than 3,000 false or misleading claims, according to an analysis by The Washington Post’s Fact Checker.”
“Sanders said she first learned that Trump had reimbursed Cohen by watching Giuliani’s interview with Hannity. At another point in her briefing, she repeated her assertion that she does not intentionally mislead the public, but acknowledged that she is not always provided the most accurate or complete information about her boss.”
Michael Cohen “gained access to as much as $774,000 through two financial transactions during the 2016 presidential campaign as he sought to fix problems for his boss,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Those transactions could factor into a broad investigation of Mr. Cohen’s business affairs being conducted by Manhattan federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who are examining whether Mr. Cohen violated any laws in his efforts to raise cash and conceal negative information about Mr. Trump… Those include transactions tied to his credit line and his ownership of real estate and taxi medallions.”
“President Trump knew about a six-figure payment that Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April,” the New York Times reports.
“It was not immediately clear when Mr. Trump learned of the payment, which Mr. Cohen made in October 2016, at a time when news media outlets were poised to pay her for her story about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. But three people close to the matter said that Mr. Trump knew that Mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from becoming public at the time the president denied it.”
President Trump “is increasingly relying on longtime outside advisers rather than White House staff as he deals with several major issues simultaneously, from a North Korean summit to the Russia investigation. But the perils of that approach were on display this week following a television interview he orchestrated with his new counsel, Rudy Giuliani,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“For instance, Mr. Trump has been in contact of late with his former campaign manager and senior adviser Stephen Bannon… And Mr. Trump invited former campaign staffer Corey Lewandowski, whom Mr. Trump ousted from the campaign and never hired in the White House, to travel with him on Air Force One to a recent rally in Michigan.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Nevada finds that Jacky Rosen (D) leads Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) in the U.S. Senate race by a narrow 44% to 42% margin, with 14% of still undecided.
The poll also found a plurality of Nevadans said they supported the Affordable Care Act, and with a majority saying they disapproved of both Heller and President Trump’s job performance.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ (R) office said “she will sign legislation prohibiting nearly all abortions in Iowa after a fetal heartbeat is detected, making it the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“The law, which goes into effect on July 1 if not stopped by courts, will require physicians to conduct an abdominal ultrasound to test for a fetal heartbeat on any woman seeking an abortion. If a heartbeat is detected, a physician cannot perform an abortion. Experts said a fetal heartbeat can be detected about six weeks into a pregnancy and often before a woman realizes she’s pregnant.”
Associated Press: “Similar legislation passed in other states didn’t go into effect after they were challenged in court over their constitutionality.”
A CNN analysis “has found that embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt paid himself nearly $65,000 in reimbursements from his two campaigns for Oklahoma attorney general, a move at least one election watchdog has sharply criticized as being recorded so vaguely that there was no way to tell if such payments were lawful.”
“The reimbursement method, which Pruitt used in his 2010 and 2014 campaigns, effectively scuttled two key pillars of campaign finance: transparency about how campaign funds are spent and ensuring campaign funds are not used for personal purchases.”
Washington Post: “More than 50,000 Hondurans who have been allowed to live and work in the United States since 1999 will have 20 months to leave the country or face deportation… the latest in a series of DHS measures aimed at tightening U.S. immigration controls.”
Rudy Giuliani said in a statement that the October 2016 settlement with adult actress Stormy Daniels was made to protect President Trump’s family and “would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not,” the Washington Post reports.
Giuliani’s latest comments came after he mused what would have happened if Daniels’s allegation of a decade-old affair had surfaced right before the election – remarks that legal experts said gave investigators new fodder.
“Vice President Mike Pence’s physician has resigned, the latest fallout from the collapse of Ronny Jackson’s nomination for secretary of Veterans Affairs,” Politico reports.
“Dr. Jennifer Peña, who like Jackson is a military physician detailed to the White House, was among those who detailed claims of professional misconduct against Jackson to senators considering his nomination.”
“Peña claimed in memos that Jackson may have violated Karen Pence’s patient privacy rights by sharing details of a medical incident involving the second lady to chief of staff John Kelly. The memos were first reported by CNN.”
President Trump “undercut his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and said the former New York mayor will eventually get the facts right regarding a payment to a pornographic actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump,” the New York Times reports.
Trump said that everything “has been said incorrectly,” blaming the media coverage and Mr. Giuliani’s short time on the job.
He added that Giuliani, who joined Trump’s legal team last month, “started a day ago” but will “get his facts straight.”
“House Republicans are preparing to endorse President Trump’s plan for a military parade in the nation’s capital, with warfighting vehicles rolling down city streets and planes flying overhead,” Bloomberg reports.
“The display in Washington would be authorized under the Republican-proposed draft for the annual defense policy measure.”
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.
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