NBC News: “Hours after President Trump departed NATO headquarters Thursday, U.S. military leaders embarked on a full-scale ‘damage control’ operation with calls to their counterparts across Europe to reassure them that America will abide by its defense commitments in the region.”
“The outreach, directed by the Pentagon leadership, came after Trump threatened to reassess those commitments during a gathering with NATO allies in Brussels.”
“I’ll be 71 years old in August, you’re going to whip me? Kiss my you know what.”
— Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), quoted by Politico, when asked if Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can influence his vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Tacking in a different direction, President Trump said that the relationship between the United States and Britain is “very, very strong” and praised Prime Minister Theresa May for working “very hard” with him during a just-finished NATO summit in Brussels, NBC News reports.
“Trump’s remarks came just hours after the British tabloid The Sun published an interview with Trump in which he torched May over her handling of the U.K.’s impending divorce from the European Union and, perhaps more important, said that if her plan for Brexit goes forward it would “probably end” the chances of a bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Britain.”
“When asked directly whether he regretted the interview, which appeared at a time when May’s job is on the line over her proposal for a ‘soft’ Brexit, Trump closed his eyelids and rolled his eyes.”
Jonathan Swan: “This is Trump saying whatever’s on his mind and damn the consequences — always playing to his base, and refusing to put himself in another leader’s shoes. Trump’s doesn’t have a great relationship with May, but it’s not as bad as his relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
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NBC News: “A video that was created to spur on the internal university investigation into a former Ohio State University wrestling doctor — and last week led to questions about what Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a former coach, knew about the alleged abuse at the time — is an emotional recounting of what one former athlete has called a ‘cesspool of sexual deviance.’”
New York Times: “The trade war between the United States and China showed no signs of yielding on Thursday, as Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told lawmakers there was no clear path to resolution and Beijing blasted the administration over its approach. Mr. Mnuchin, who has tried to avoid calling the trade tensions with China a ‘war,’ said talks with Beijing had ‘broken down’ and suggested it was now up to China to come to the table with concessions.”
“The Chinese, meanwhile, accused the United States of ‘acting erratically’ and said the administration had ‘blatantly abandoned the consensuses that two sides have reached and insisted on fighting a trade war with China.’”
Politico: “House Republican leaders plan to hold a vote on a liberal bill to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — forcing Democrats to weigh in on a controversial issue that has divided the party just months before the midterms.”
“But Pocan and the bill’s other authors, Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), say they won’t be part of a GOP ‘political stunt.’ Pocan said he expects other Democrats to follow suit in voting no but said they’d relish the opportunity to debate immigration on the House floor.”
Playbook: “The kind of backfired on Republicans. They said this vote would put Dems in a tough spot. Democrats are expected to almost uniformly vote no. Guess it didn’t put them in that tough a spot. The biggest pitfall in Democrats’ strategy is that the base gets upset with them. There was dissent in GOP leadership on this plan, because some people realized it could make Republicans look silly.“
Susan Glasser: “Beyond the allure of aggrandizement and the mystery of President Trump’s affinity for the Russian strongman, why the meeting is taking place now remains a mystery. Is the purpose to discuss arms control? Syria? Ukraine? To rehash the 2016 election? Remarkably, it’s not clear, and that is and of itself marks this as a most unusual summit.”
“Needless to say, one preparatory trip, no formal agenda, and no ‘deliverables’ is not normal for a summit between the heads of the world’s two biggest nuclear-armed nations. Washington usually spends months, or even years, working up to a meeting between the President and the leader of Russia. But not this time.”
Washington Post: “Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law, lacks the security clearance level required to review some of the government’s most sensitive secrets, according to two people familiar with his access. For the first year of the Trump administration, Kushner had nearly blanket access to highly classified intelligence, even as he held an interim security clearance and awaited the completion of his background investigation.”
“But when White House security officials granted him a permanent clearance in late May, he was granted only ‘top secret’ status — a level that does not allow him to see some of the country’s most closely guarded intelligence.”
Boston Globe: “The brief meeting with Queen Elizabeth — the Trumps are set to have a 25-minute tea with the monarch — is a moment for Trump to bathe in some of the pomp and ceremony he’s tried to copy in his own life with gold adornments and rococo style. He has recounted how, as a boy, his mother — whom he says he gets his sense of showmanship from — sat for an entire day watching Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Even his youngest child is named with royal flair: Baron.”
President Trump told The Sun that British prime minister Theresa May “ignored his advice by opting for a soft Brexit strategy. And he warned her any attempts to maintain close ties with the EU would make a lucrative US trade deal very unlikely.”
Said Trump: “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.”
Robert Kagan: “But even Trump must know the likely response in Europe. The insults and humiliations he inflicted on allied leaders will not be forgotten or forgiven. They will make it impossible for European leaders to win public support for the spending Trump disingenuously claims to want. What German leader after such a tongue-lashing could do Trump’s bidding and hope to survive politically?”
“Any student of history knows that it is moments like this summit that set in motion chains of events that are difficult to stop. The democratic alliance that has been the bedrock of the American-led liberal world order is unraveling. At some point, and probably sooner than we expect, the global peace that that alliance and that order undergirded will unravel, too. Despite our human desire to hope for the best, things will not be okay. The world crisis is upon us.”
Former President George W Bush said he is “disturbed” by the immigration debate taking place in the United States because it “undermines the goodness of America,” CNN reports.
Said Bush: “I think it doesn’t recognize the valuable contributions that immigrants make to our society. And it obscures the fact — the rhetoric does — that the system is broken and needs to be fixed.”
“The White House has rebuffed concerns among American intelligence and law enforcement officials and ordered that more lawmakers be given access to classified information about an informant the F.B.I. used in 2016 to investigate possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia,” the New York Times reports.
“Both the director of national intelligence and the director of the F.B.I. tried to keep the classified documents tightly restricted, fearing that a broader dissemination of operational reports and other sensitive material could lead to more leaks of detailed information about the role of the confidential F.B.I. informant.”
The House hearing with FBI agent Peter Strzok “erupted into a shouting match” after Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) directly asked Strzok about his affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page, CNN reports.
Said Gohmert: “I’ve talked to FBI agents around the country. You’ve embarrassed them. You’ve embarrassed yourself. And I can’t help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife’s eye and lie to her about Lisa Page?”
The comment prompted jeers from others on the committee, including one person who could be heard saying: “This is outrageous.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) also responded to Gohmert: “You need your medication.”
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has a new book in which he contradicts President Trump’s assertion that Paul Manafort played a minor role in the presidential campaign, the Guardian reports.
Writes Spicer: “Paul brought a much-needed maturity to the Trump campaign when it needed an experienced political professional operative more than anything else. There was no semblance of a campaign structure, just a few, distraught, overworked people constantly barking into their phones. Paul immediately set up and staffed the political and communications operations necessary to take on the Clinton machine.”
He added: “The Manafort message was clear: Trump will be our nominee and our next president, and anyone who didn’t want to work to that end could spend the next four years in political Siberia. (No Russia pun intended.)”
“The American Civil Liberties Union is launching a new electoral program to mobilize its 1.8 million members to vote as a bloc — a sign of how the group, flush with cash from the election of Donald Trump, is increasingly turning itself into a political engine of the resistance,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“If the new ACLU reminds you of the National Rifle Association, that’s not an accident.”
President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has purchased a $6.7 million apartment in New York City in a building that is being developed by two of Trump’s friends, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Millions of dollars from anonymous donors are helping shape the fight over President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee as Republicans and Democrats undertake a bruising battle for ideological control of the nation’s loftiest tribunal,” the AP reports.
“The anonymity is made possible by federal rules that permit groups structured as tax-exempt social welfare organizations to shield the identities of their benefactors. The upshot is that deep-pocketed donors may wield significant influence without ever revealing who they are, unless they choose to.”
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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