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Trump Won’t Answer Questions on Obstruction

September 6, 2018 at 8:21 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “will not answer federal investigators’ questions, in writing or in person, about whether he tried to block the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election,” the AP reports.

Rudy Giuliani said questions about obstruction of justice were a “no-go.”

“Giuliani’s statement was the most definitive rejection yet of special counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts to interview the president about any efforts to obstruct the investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russians. It signals the Trump’s lawyers are committed to protecting the president from answering questions about actions the president took in office.”

Carper Fends Off Primary Challenge

September 6, 2018 at 7:45 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) warded off a primary challenge from political newcomer Kerri Evelyn Harris, throwing cold water on progressives’ hopes for another upset victory over a longtime incumbent, the New York Times reports.

“The most successful statewide politician in Delaware history, Mr. Carper won renomination for a fourth Senate term and what will likely be his 14th consecutive general election victory.“

Officials Contacted Psychiatrist About Trump

September 6, 2018 at 7:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“White House officials reached out to a noted Yale University psychiatrist last fall out of concern over President Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior,” the New York Daily News reports.

Dr. Bandy Lee, who edited the best-selling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, said the staffers contacted her because the President was “scaring” them and they believed the President was “unraveling.”

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Georgia’s Race for Governor Is Tied

September 6, 2018 at 7:27 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Channel 2 Action News poll in Georgia finds Stacey Abrams (D) and Brian Kemp (R) deadlocked in their race for governor at 45% each.

Key finding: “The poll also points to the limits of President Trump’s popularity in the state. Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 and his surprise endorsement in July helped fuel Kemp’s runaway runoff victory, but his approval ratings are underwater in Georgia.”

White House Aides Turn on Each Other

September 6, 2018 at 7:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “The president left behind a White House seized with paranoia, as staffers worried that anything they say to colleagues or in meetings will become fodder for the next tell-all or leak.”

“Trump aides feel burned not just by leaks to Woodward but by last month’s release of secret tapes that their former colleague Omarosa Manigault Newman made during the 2016 campaign and in the West Wing. And they’re worried that the nascent search for the author of the Times op-ed will become an excuse for aides to exact revenge on each other — ‘or target those they dislike,’ as one staffer put it.”

“The overwhelming atmosphere of distrust and suspicion among Trump’s closest aides echoes earlier ugly periods in the White House, including last spring’s crackdown on leaks following the publication of remarks made by a press aide in an internal meeting dismissing Arizona Sen. John McCain’s health.”

Obama Won’t Pull His Punches on Campaign Trail

September 6, 2018 at 5:36 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Former President Barack Obama “is set to launch a political offensive designed to focus his party’s energies in the midterm elections, breaking from his self-imposed political exile with a message that will draw a sharp contrast with President Trump,” NBC News reports.

“Since leaving the White House, Obama has taken pains to remain above the political fray — sometimes to the disappointment of his fellow Democrats who’ve lacked a national voice to rally behind in opposing the new administration. But even as he may not target Trump by name, ‘no one will come away thinking he held back or held his punches,’ said a source close to the former president.”

Bredesen Holds Small Lead In Tennessee

September 6, 2018 at 5:21 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new NBC News/Marist poll in Tennessee finds Phil Bredesen (D) edging Marsha Blackburn (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 46% among likely voters.

Among the larger pool of registered voters, Bredesen leads Blackburn by four points, 48% to 44%, but it’s still within the survey’s margin of error.

Twitter Bans Alex Jones

September 6, 2018 at 5:03 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Twitter announced that it has permanently banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Infowars from its social media platform, CNBC reports.

The ban comes weeks after Jones was banned or suspended by other major tech companies like Apple, Facebook and YouTube.

Why the 25th Amendment Is a Dead End

September 6, 2018 at 4:43 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Bernstein: “The anonymous New York Times column by a ‘senior official in the Trump administration’ has people talking about the 25th amendment again. But the writer is absolutely correct: Trying to remove the president by that mechanism – an idea that apparently was batted around in ‘early whispers within the cabinet’ — would have failed, risking a serious constitutional crisis.”

“That’s because the relevant portions of the 25th amendment allowing the removal of a president ‘who is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office’ are poorly drafted, and are entirely useless for a situation in which the president contests his removal.”

Michael Moore Says Gwen Stefani Is Responsible for Trump

September 6, 2018 at 3:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Hollywood Reporter: “Yes, he acknowledges factors like Russian President Vladimir Putin and former FBI head James Comey, but asserts that the person most responsible for the Trump presidency is… Gwen Stefani. ‘You hadn’t heard that before, have you?’ Moore asks, delighted with the audacity of the claim.”

“Moore posits that when Trump realized Stefani’s performance fees as a coach on ‘The Voice’ were larger than his own on ‘The Apprentice’, he staged his now-infamous Trump Tower campaign announcement to prove his popularity to NBC, which aired both shows… After Trump’s accusation that Mexico was sending rapists across the border, NBC cut ties with him. But Trump, suddenly finding himself cheered on by massive crowds and an indulgent media, figured why not make a serious run for the highest office in the land?”

Said Moore: “He’d been talking about running for president since 1988, but he didn’t really want to be president. There’s no penthouse in the White House. And he doesn’t want to live in a black city. He was trying to pit NBC against another network, but it just went off the rails.”

Inauguration Photos Were Edited After Trump Intervened

September 6, 2018 at 2:38 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president,” The Guardian reports.

“The photographer cropped out empty space ‘where the crowd ended’ for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.”

Inside the Remaking of the Democratic Party

September 6, 2018 at 1:17 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Associated Press: “With just a few primaries remaining before the decisive midterm elections in November, voters have dramatically reshaped the Democratic Party to become younger, more diverse and unquestionably liberal.”

“For now, Democratic leaders are embracing the enthusiasm of their base — even as it’s unclear where it will lead.”

Ryan Claims ‘Understanding’ to Prevent Shutdown

September 6, 2018 at 1:03 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Speaker Paul Ryan says that he has a “good understanding” with President Trump to fund the government by a Sept. 30 deadline, despite Trump’s comments a day earlier that he would be willing to shut down government if Congress does not provide enough border security funding, Reuters reports.

Said Ryan: “We have a very good understanding with the president that we want to get our appropriations done… And we have a very good agreement and understanding that we’re going to keep government funded.”

Stan Collender: “Trump continues to be ‘consistently inconsistent’ about a shutdown so everything he says about it on any day should be taken with at least a grain, if not a whole shaker, of salt. Bottom line: There’s still a 60 percent chance of a shutdown.”

Trump Keeps Losing College-Educated White Voters

September 6, 2018 at 12:59 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 53% of voters disapprove of President Trump’s job performance while just 38% approve.

What is more, the share of voters who say they “strongly disapprove” of Trump has increased by five points, from 37% to 42%, over the past few weeks.

Key finding: “The decline in the president’s numbers stems largely from a change among college-educated whites. These voters will have a disproportionate weight in the upcoming midterm elections to the House of Representatives, both because they show up at polling booths and because so many of them live in marginal congressional districts. In the same poll, 49% of college-educated whites support Democratic candidates for the House (the generic ballot), while 40% support the Republicans. These are awful numbers for Republicans: the president is contagious.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

September 6, 2018 at 11:45 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The drama of this op-ed, the drama of the Woodward book, the drama of the Omarosa tapes, the drama of Cohen, the drama of Manafort, the drama of just the three-ring circus that is the White House almost every day, I think that it exhausts the American people. And I know that the founders would regard anything like this as you know, really unhelpful. You don’t run the country as a soap opera.”

— Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

Booker Will Release ‘Committee Confidential’ Documents

September 6, 2018 at 10:31 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced at the start of Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh that he would publicly release “committee confidential” documents, Axios reports.

Said Booker: “I am going to release the email about racial profiling. And I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate. And if Sen. Cornyn believes that I violated Senate rules, I openly invite and accept the consequences…the emails being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security.”

Leaked Email Shows Kavanaugh Views on Abortion

September 6, 2018 at 10:10 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“As a White House lawyer in the Bush administration, Judge Brett Kavanaugh challenged the accuracy of deeming the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to be ‘settled law of the land,'” according to a secret email obtained by the New York Times.

“The email, written in March 2003, is one of thousands of documents that a lawyer for President George W. Bush turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Supreme Court nominee but deemed ‘committee confidential,’ meaning it could not be made public or discussed by Democrats in questioning him in hearings this week.”

Wrote Kavanaugh: “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”

Exchange of the Day

September 6, 2018 at 10:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Guardian excerpts a scene from Bob Woodward’s new book Fear: Trump in the White House, in which Steve Bannon explains to Donald Trump that his campaign was for the common man, against crony capitalism and insider deals.

TRUMP: “I love that. That’s what I am, a popularist.”

BANNON: “No, no. It’s populist.”

TRUMP: “Yeah, yeah. A popularist.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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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