The Wall Street Journal has this great detail when President Trump called Larry Kudlow to offer him a job as his top economic adviser:
At one point during their call Tuesday, Mr. Kudlow said the president seemed to revel in the fact that his staff didn’t know they were discussing the job. The president told him, “‘No one else knows that you and I are having this conversation.’ I loved it,” said Mr. Kudlow. “He is who he is.”
Chris McDaniel (R) announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), instead of pursuing his previously announced Republican primary challenge to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the Jackson Clarion Ledger reports.
For members: How Democrats Could Pick Up a Senate Seat in Mississippi
“We should be able to elect a box of hammers in this district. If we’re losing here, you can bet there is a Democratic wave coming.”
— Republican strategist Mike Murphy, quoted by the Washington Post, on yesterday’s Pennsylvania special congressional election.
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President Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia probe, John Dowd, contributed more money last year to the president’s re-election campaign than is legally permissible, CNBC reports.
“Under federal law, the maximum amount an individual may contribute to a political campaign, per election, is $2,700. But Dowd has given a total of $3,000 to Trump’s 2020 general election campaign, according to the tally the FEC sent the Trump campaign.”
In 14 months covering this White House, Jonathan Swan says he’s “never registered such a mood of acute anxiety from within the West Wing.”
“Nobody knows what exactly is happening, who’s about to be fired, or which staffer will next be frogmarched out the door by security for some shadowy clearance issue.”
Said one official: “This is the most toxic working environment on the planet. Usually tough times bring people together. But right now this atmosphere is ripping people apart. There’s no leadership, no trust, no direction and this point there’s very little hope. Would you want to go to work every day not knowing whether your future career was going to be destroyed without explanation?”
“A man who registered as a Green Party candidate for Montana’s U.S. Senate race was on the state Republican Party’s payroll and heads a newly formed anti-tax group,” the AP reports.
“Timothy Adams filed as a challenger Monday against Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who faces a tough re-election campaign, in a race where a Green Party candidate could siphon votes from the Democrat.”
Energy Secretary Rick Perry said “he had no interest in becoming the next head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, flatly rejecting speculation that he would soon take over the position amid rapidly eroding White House support for embattled VA Secretary David Shulkin,” the AP reports.
Two administration officials said that Shulkin’s position “is growing more precarious and that he could be out of a job within the week, but cautioned that nothing was finalized.”
Sources tell Vanity Fair that President Trump has discussed a plan to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“According to two Republicans in regular contact with the White House, there have been talks that Trump could replace Sessions with E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, who would not be recused from overseeing the Russia probe. Also, because Pruitt is already a Cabinet secretary, he would not have to go through another Senate confirmation hearing.”
James Hohmann: “There are not many — if any — real opportunities for Republican incumbents to score meaningful legislative achievements between now and November.”
“The GOP’s struggles are remarkable because the economy is so strong. A solid jobs report came out last Friday, and the stock market is still up big since Trump took office, even after the recent correction.”
“But it’s not puzzling what’s going on: Trump’s approval rating is hovering below 40 percent, and he sucks up all the oxygen. He did it again yesterday, when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over Twitter.”
Nate Silver: “It’s true that other measures aren’t as bad for Republicans as these special elections — for instance, they trail Democrats by ‘only’ 8 or 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot, which suggests a close race for control of the House this year that only narrowly favors Democrats. By contrast, the 16- or 17-point5 average Democratic overperformance in special elections so far suggests a Democratic mega-tsunami.”
“But those special election results consist of actual people voting, whereas generic ballot polls are mostly conducted among registered voters — or sometimes all adults. (Very few pollsters will apply their likely voter models until later this year.) In midterm years, polls of likely voters sometimes show a substantial gap from those of registered voters — there was about a 6-point enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans in 2010, for instance, which took that year from being mildly problematic for Democrats into a massive Republican wave that saw them pick up 63 House seats.”
“That sort of turnout gap suggests that registered-voter polls could be underrating Democrats in this year’s midterms — and could turn a challenging year for Republicans into a catastrophic one.”
“I think the President helped close this race. I think you saw the public polling. The public polling wasn’t looking so good and the President came in and helped close this race and got it to where it is right now, which is within a few hundred votes.”
— Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), quoted by CNN, when asked if the Pennsylvania special election was a “wake up” call for President Trump.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing a recommendation to fire the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew McCabe, just days before he is scheduled to retire on Sunday,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. McCabe was a frequent target of attack from President Trump, who taunted him both publicly and privately.”
“Though no decision has been made, people inside the Justice Department expect him to be fired before Friday, a decision that would jeopardize his pension as a 21-year F.B.I. veteran.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s earlier support for the Iraq war and defense of enhanced interrogation techniques — or ‘torture’ in the view of Paul and many other senators — is disqualifying for his nomination to be Secretary of State, Politico reports.
“And the Kentucky senator indicated he may be willing to filibuster both Pompeo’s nomination and CIA director nominee Gina Haspel, who he says is ‘gleeful’ in her defense of torture techniques.”
“Republicans on Wednesday struggled to explain their likely loss in the Pennsylvania special election: GOP leaders warned lawmakers that the outcome in the pro-Trump district could spell disaster in the midterms if they don’t respond forcefully, but many lawmakers dismissed the race as an anomaly and seemed to be in denial,” Politico reports.
“Most rank-and-file going in and out of the meeting downplayed the election, suggesting Republican candidate Rick Saccone was weak and Lamb was a “unicorn” who couldn’t be replicated in tight races this fall.”
“The special congressional election in Pennsylvania appears headed to a recount, with Republicans preparing behind the scenes to cry foul after the vote count showed Democrat Conor Lamb leading Republican Rick Saccone by 627 votes,” Politico reports.
“The GOP is considering challenging the accuracy of voting machines in the district, in addition to confusion over the state’s changing congressional map later this year.”
Larry Kudlow has accepted the job from President Trump to head the White House’s National Economic Council, the Washington Post reports.
President Trump “is willing to entertain a temporary extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in exchange for border-wall funding in the upcoming spending bill,” the Washington Post reports.
“The move, which White House officials communicated to Republican congressional leaders this week, represents a stunning shift for Trump, who has insisted for months on including strict limits on legal immigration as part of any deal to protect DACA recipients. A deal could largely remove immigration from the national agenda until after the 2020 election.”
First Read: “Finally, last night’s result could very well scare off a handful of GOP incumbents who are on the fence about running in 2018. The good news for Republicans is that many filing deadlines have already passed. The bad news is that one or two more GOP retirements in semi-competitive districts could end up proving decisive in November’s race for control of Congress. That’s maybe why Republicans have been spinning the results so much — essentially saying, ‘Hey, last night wasn’t THAT bad’ — so they can prevent more retirements.”
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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