Rihanna turned down performing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show out of support for Colin Kaepernick, Us Weekly reports.
Said one source: “The NFL and CBS really wanted Rihanna to be next year’s performer in Atlanta. They offered it to her, but she said no because of the kneeling controversy. She doesn’t agree with the NFL’s stance.”
James Hohmann: “The president has told party poohbahs that he believes the midterms will primarily be a base election. His adopted party is likely to hold the Senate because this year’s best pick-up opportunities are in states he carried by double digits that are overwhelmingly white and heavily rural, where his immigration positions most resonate. GOP candidates, especially in red states, have followed Trump’s lead and made immigration a major theme of their advertising in the home stretch. The strategy might work.”
Los Angeles Times: “The shift reflects the growing popularity of Obamacare and Democrats’ success in using the issue to make a compelling closing argument in the midterm races. A handful of Republican lawmakers and candidates, including Costa Mesa Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Missouri Senate hopeful Josh Hawley, have filmed ads about their children’s medical conditions — the kinds of health problems that without Obamacare’s protections would make insurance coverage unaffordable. Others have made promises in videos and debates.”
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Washington Post: “Nearly 78,000 people have completed ballots since absentee voting began Sept. 15 — more than double the number who voted early by this point last year, according to an analysis of voting data by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project. That number is still shy of the 123,221 absentee ballots cast during the 2014 midterm elections, state data shows. But with a little less than three weeks before the Nov. 6 elections, local election officials say this year’s absentee totals are on pace to eclipse 2014 and may even approach the turnout for the presidential election of 2016, when a near-record 496,452 Virginians cast their ballots early.”
President Trump has moved his Texas rally for Sen. Ted Cruz’s reelection campaign to a larger venue because of what a top aide called “huge and unprecedented” ticket sales, Politico reports.
The Trump campaign originally chose Houston’s NRG Arena, which can hold 8,000, and then abruptly changed locations on Thursday to the Toyota Center, which can hold 19,000.
Evangelical leader Pat Robertson told viewers of the 700 Club to “cool down the tempers of those who are screaming blood for the Saudis” and not risk a $100 billion arms deal with the United States over the apparent death of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Said Robertson: “These people are key allies. I don’t think on this issue we need pull sanctions and get tough. I just think it’s a mistake.”
Politico: “Trump initially seemed to rule out choosing Grenell for the job, telling reporters he’d prefer to keep him in Germany… But in recent days, several of Trump’s closest advisers have put forward Grenell’s name again, pointing to his seven-year stint as the United States’ U.N. spokesman.
President Trump amped up his focus on immigration ahead of the midterm elections by claiming, without evidence, that Democrats were behind a group of Central American migrants trying to reach the U.S., Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Now we’re starting to find out — and I won’t say it 100 percent, I’ll put it a little tiny question mark on the end, but we’re not going to get it, but we have the fake news back there, fake news — a lot of money has been passing through people to try to get to the border by Election Day, because they think that is a negative for us. Number one, they are being stopped and number two, regardless, that’s our issue.”
Rep. Jim Renacci’s (R-OH) U.S. Senate campaign issued a news release that he said depicted an unnamed woman’s story of an “unwanted and sudden advance” from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in the late 1980s, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
The statement does not provide a date, a location, supporting evidence or identify the woman, but describes her as “a very credible source and a professional woman.”
It comes a day after Renacci told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he’d heard from “multiple women” with abuse allegations against Brown, while providing no additional details or supporting evidence.
First Read: “In the final days of the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump campaigned on brute force… And history appears to be repeating itself in 2018, at least in how Trump was campaigning last night in Montana on conspiracy theories, Hillary Clinton, violence and brute force.”
“And like in 2016, this pure brute force from Trump could work, because there is no equal response from Democrats. If the next 18 days are going to be like last night, Trump’s message will be the dominant one. Are Democratic TV ads on health care, bipartisanship and ‘check and balance’ enough to counter Trump on the campaign trail?”
“If you woke up from a coma and watched Trump’s rally in Montana last night, you’d conclude that the president and his party were off the rails. Instead, given the polling and Senate momentum we’ve seen for the GOP over the past month, it appears that Trump is actually putting the train back on track.”
Amy Walter: “This election — like every midterm before it — is a referendum on the president. Democrats don’t need to remind their voters of this — their voters have been ready to rebuke Trump since early 2017. Republicans, however, are taking a different tact on dealing with a polarizing president of their own party than previous candidates did under similar circumstances. They aren’t trying to show their independence from Trump – as many Democrats unsuccessfully did with an unpopular Obama in 2010 or Republicans did with an unpopular Bush in 2006. Instead, Republicans are trying to win back their formerly committed GOP voters by stressing the loyalty their Democratic opponent shows to Pelosi.”
“Ultimately, fear of the future unknown is tougher to sell than fear of the present. Which makes the Pelosi-fear-factor ads a tough sell. I still think that Trump’s approval rating in a GOP-held district is a better gauge of whether it is vulnerable, than Pelosi’s image in that district. And, instead of weakening Pelosi, these ads may actually embolden her bid for Speaker. If Democrats win the House, Pelosi will be able to crow to her members — even those who said they’d vote against her — that she was the topic of more ads than Trump — and still won.”
Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley insisted that “in America, our political opponents are not evil,” a sharp rhetorical break from President Trump, who has labeled Democrats as “evil,” crime-loving and unwilling to defend the nation, Politico reports.
“Three prominent female Democrats all but openly began running for president this week, taking their most active steps yet to challenge President Trump and claim leadership of a movement of moderate and liberal women that has come to define their party during the 2018 elections,” the New York Times reports.
“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) campaigned in the early primary state of New Hampshire on Thursday, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was poised to visit similarly crucial South Carolina and Iowa. And Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) left little doubt about her intentions when she released a genetic test indicating she has Native American ancestry — a move to blunt Mr. Trump’s taunts alleging she had mischaracterized her heritage.”
New York Times: “In conversations with allies, the president has begun to distance himself from Prince Mohammed, 33, saying he barely knows him. And he has played down the relationship that Mr. Kushner has cultivated with the Saudi heir.”
President Trump praised Rep. Greg Gianforte’s (R-MT) body slamming a reporter in 2017, saying that anyone who did such a thing was “my kind of guy,” Politico reports.
Said Trump:” “Never wrestle him, you understand that? Any guy who can do a body slam is my kind of guy.”
He added: “I was in Rome with a lot of the leaders from other countries talking about all sorts of things and I heard about it, and we endorsed Greg very early, but I heard that he had body slammed a reporter. And he was way up, and he was up, and this was like the day of the election or just before, and I said, ‘Oh, this is terrible, he is going to lose the election, and then I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him. And it did.’”
Politico: “House Republicans — and privately, even a few Democrats — say the GOP could still hang on, if only by a few seats. The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has given GOP voters a badly needed enthusiasm boost, they argue, and several races seen as unwinnable just weeks ago are suddenly back within reach for Republicans.”
“Republicans say there’s no question that their lot has improved in the past few weeks. Their internal polls show the president’s approval ratings have increased by an average of 5 points in a handful of swing districts, giving Republicans who were underwater a fighting chance.”
Playbook: “Internal polling shows many races within the margin of error, but nearly all of those contests would have to break for the GOP for them to keep the House.”
“President Trump’s critics have spent the past 17 months anticipating what some expect will be among the most thrilling events of their lives: special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on Russian 2016 election interference. They may be in for a disappointment,” Politico reports.
“That’s the word Politico got from defense lawyers working on the Russia probe and more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning Watergate to the 2016 election case. The public, they say, shouldn’t expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump — not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “sought to skirt or alter department policies to justify his taxpayer-funded trips with his wife, the agency’s inspector general said in the latest critical report on travel practices by President Trump’s Cabinet members,” Politico reports.
“Zinke’s maneuvers included pressing Interior staffers to research whether his wife, Lola, could become a volunteer at the agency, a move the employees said was designed to enable her to travel with him at taxpayer expense.”
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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