Former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen tweets:
To the many dozens of journalists who called me, questioning Omarosa’s claim in her new book that Donald Trump took a note from me, put it in his mouth and ate it… I saw NO such thing and am shocked anyone would take this seriously.
President Trump retweeted Cohen even though his former “fixer” has now apparently turned on him.
“Voter engagement in the 2018 midterm races remains feverish, primaries in notable swing states Wisconsin and Minnesota showed on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
“Both states showed dramatic increases in participation as voters picked candidates for Congress, Senate and governor, with Minnesota’s turnout surpassing a two-decade high and Wisconsin’s hitting levels not seen for a state primary since at least 2002.”
First Read: “While measuring primary turnout isn’t a perfect way to gauge how the general election will play out — primary voters, after all, don’t necessarily equal general-election voters — it’s unmistakable that more Democratic voters participated last night.”
“Minnesota Republicans decisively rejected the comeback bid of former governor Tim Pawlenty, a onetime kingmaker in state politics who proved unable to overcome his 2016 description of Donald Trump as ‘unhinged and unfit’ for once boasting of grabbing women,” the Washington Post reports.
“The surprise result was just the latest evidence of the president’s rising control over the Republican Party electorate and the waning power of veteran lawmakers.”
Said Pawlenty: “The Republican Party has shifted. It is the era of Trump, and I’m just not a Trump-like politician.”
“Jahana Hayes, the former National Teacher of the Year who grew up in public housing, won the Democratic nomination for the open 5th Congressional District seat Tuesday night, bringing her closer to becoming the first black Democrat from New England to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives,” the Hartford Courant reports.
”Hayes, who had never run for office before, defeated Mary Glassman, a veteran politician with a long history in government.”
“Vermont Democrats made history Tuesday by nominating Christine Hallquist as the first transgender individual to be a major party candidate for governor,” the Burlington Free Press reports.
”Meanwhile, preliminary results showed that Gov. Phil Scott survived a challenge animated by his former Republican allies in the gun-rights movement.”
“The general election matchup pits Hallquist, a former utility executive who has never held statewide elected office, against Scott, a former construction company owner seeking a second term.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) “has captured the Republican nomination for governor after the tightest primary fight in Kansas history, edging out the state’s sitting governor,” the Kansas City Star reports.
“Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) announced his concession Tuesday night after he failed to narrow the gap with Kobach when provisional ballots in Johnson County were tallied.”
There are primaries in four states today. Here are the poll closing times with links to results:
First Read has seven good storylines to watch tonight.
Leave your own reactions to the results in the comment section.
Susan Glasser: “I’m going to type it out one more time: the President of the United States called someone a ‘dog’ on Twitter Tuesday morning. I wasn’t surprised, and, as appalling as it was, the early-morning tweet wasn’t treated by most Web sites and cable-news operations as the top news of the day. Those tended to focus on the arbitration case that Trump’s 2016 campaign filed against Manigault-Newman for allegedly violating her nondisclosure agreement or the about-to-conclude money-laundering trial of Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who may be so confident in a Presidential pardon that his defense has rested without even mounting a case or calling any witnesses.”
“But are we so numb to Trump’s rhetorical outrages that we can’t still be a little bit horrified by them?”
“A daily trickle of revealing internal conversations between staffers. Growing anxiety about what one might have once said. No sense of how long it will go on.” Politico reports.
“Omarosa Manigault Newman’s slow release of secretly taped conversations from inside the Trump campaign and White House is having the same effect on staffers as the daily dumps from WikiLeaks had on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, when chairman John Podesta’s emails were trickled out during the final stretch of the race.”
Said one former Trump aide: “People are terrified. Absolutely terrified.”
Former Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson began his campaign to unseat Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), “seeking political opportunity in the space between Democrats and voters loyal to President Trump,” the AP reports.
In a signing statement for a $716 billion defense policy bill, President Trump “raised objections to 52 provisions of the law – including four of the eight provisions dealing specifically with Russia. The signing statement suggests he may not enforce provisions that he said raise constitutional concerns,” USA Today reports.
“As passed by Congress, the defense bill attempts to tie the president’s hands on Russia in a number of ways. It forbids him from using federal funds to recognize Russian control over Crimea and bans military cooperation with Russia until Russia pulls out of Ukraine.”
Trump said those provisions undermine the president’s role “as the sole representative of the nation in foreign affairs.”
Pentagon chief spokesperson Dana White “is being investigated by the Defense Department Office of Inspector General for allegedly retaliating against staff members after she used some of them to conduct her personal errands and business matters,” CNN reports.
“White is alleged to have misused support staff, asking them, among other things, to fetch her drycleaning, run to the pharmacy for her and work on her mortgage paperwork. Staffers also charge that she inappropriately transferred personnel after they filed complaints about her.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that she “can’t guarantee” that President Trump has never used the “N-word,” but said that she has never heard him say it, ABC News reports.
Adam Serwer: “That’s one of the stranger paradoxes of this political era: Trump’s political opponents know who he is. His aides know who he is. Americans don’t need a tape to know who Trump is, or what he represents. He’s already shown who he is. He shows it every day.”
“The only people still laboring under the delusion that Trump lacks the animus to use a racial epithet are some of the people who voted for him. It would be naive to think that a mere recording of him using it would alter that.”
A different take, for members: Why the ‘Apprentice’ Tapes Would Be a Big Deal
Omarosa Manigault Newman told MSNBC that she has spoken to special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and “there was a lot of corruption” in the campaign and the administration.
She also claimed Donald Trump knew about the hacked Democratic emails before they were released by WikiLeaks.
Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) “was heckled at a town hall meeting Monday night in Birmingham when a woman threw a pair of stuffed lips in the senator’s direction while venting her anger that Alabama’s junior senator is keeping an open mind on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh,” the Birmingham News reports.
Said the woman: “You have enough information. We love you. But you will vote no. And you have enough information to vote no. You can kiss my ass if you vote yes. You can kiss my ass if you vote yes. You can kiss my ass.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that just 31% of American voters like President Trump as a person, while 59% dislike him.
Republicans like Trump by a 66% to 24% margin, the only listed party, gender, education, age or racial group which likes him.
Meanwhile, Trump currently has a 41% to 54% job approval rating, including 48% who disapprove strongly and 30% who approve strongly.
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.