It’s just one poll, but Gallup shows President Trump’s approval rate down 4 points in a week to 41%. His disapproval jumped 5 points to 55%.
It’s the first poll since the crisis over separating families at the Mexican border began.
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Mueller Obtains Erik Prince’s Phone and Computer
Special counsel Robert Mueller “is digging deeper into Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince,” ABC News reports.
“Prince acknowledged last week that he ‘cooperated’ with Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after falling under scrutiny amid questions about an alleged effort to establish a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, something Prince has vehemently denied.”
“ABC News has since learned that Mueller is also reviewing Prince’s communications… A spokesperson for Prince released a statement noting that Prince has provided Mueller with ‘total access to his phone and computer.'”
Pelosi Says Democrats Will Contest 70 GOP-Held Seats
“As many as 100 seats could be in play,” but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “says the party can only afford to contest about 70. Candidates who want to keep the full backing of the DCCC will have to stick to the playbook,” Rolling Stone reports.
Said Pelosi: “Everybody in the 70 has to really perform, or else they know we’ll go someplace else.”
Majority Approve of Trump’s Handling of the Economy
For the first time since President Trump took office, the CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows more than half the public approving his handling of the economy, and it appears to be having some impact on his overall job approval rating.
“The president’s economic approval rating surged 6 points to 51% with just 36% of the public disapproving… His overall approving rating rose 2 points to 41% from the first quarter survey, but the percentage of Americans who disapprove dropped 10 points to 47%, the lowest recorded by CNBC during his presidency.”
Democrats Want to Be the Health Care Party
Bloomberg Businessweek: “For the first time since it became law in 2010, Obamacare is a political asset for Democrats heading into an election—a striking turn after several cycles in which the law’s unpopularity helped Republicans sweep into power in legislative races across the country. Still, Democrats face a challenge: President Trump’s attacks on Obamacare prompted a broad reassessment of its merits and hurt his party’s political standing. To successfully exploit the issue, Democrats have to find a way to cut through the din of Trump news and scandal coverage and convince voters they’ll defend the health-care law from ongoing GOP sabotage and repeal efforts.”
“That will entail digging deep into their own pockets to pay for advertising. Democratic strategists have all but given up on trying to influence Trump-obsessed cable news coverage, even though a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that health care is voters’ top issue, above jobs and the economy, guns, taxes, and immigration.”
Supreme Court Punts on Gerrymandering Case
The Supreme Court said it is declining to wade into a dispute over a North Carolina redistricting plan that a lower court had found violated the Constitution by overly favoring Republicans, the Washington Post reports.
Politico: “The justices had already passed up chances to issue sweeping decisions in cases from Wisconsin and Maryland involving claims of partisan gerrymandering. Instead, the high court ruled on narrow, technical grounds that steered clear of the central issue of when legislative districts are so skewed to favor one party that they violate voters’ constitutional rights.”
The Bellwether Race for 2018
First Read: “The midterm battle for Senate control has plenty of colorful characters, important narratives and high-profile races… But for a true bellwether contest about the state of the country in 2018, the best bet might be Indiana, where Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly is facing off against relative political newcomer and GOP businessman Mike Braun.”
“Why? Donnelly doesn’t have the strong personal and political brand of a McCaskill or a Manchin, and Braun doesn’t have the political baggage of being a ‘D.C. insider.’ That makes this more of a generic Democrat v. Republican ballot than most of the other marquee Senate races elsewhere in the country. And it’s in a state where — despite a GOP-leaning history — Democrats have sometimes benefitted from political winds blowing their way, including Barack Obama’s win there in 2008 and Donnelly’s victory in 2012.”
Tariffs Force Harley-Davidson Production Overseas
“Harley-Davidson, up against spiraling costs from tariffs, will begin shifting the production of motorcycles headed for Europe from the U.S. to factories overseas… The maker of the iconic American motorcycle said in a regulatory filing Monday that EU tariffs on its motorcycles exported from the U.S. jumped between 6 percent and 31 percent. The company said it expects the tariffs will result in an incremental cost of about $2,200 per average motorcycle exported from the U.S. to the EU,” the Associated Press reports.
First Read: “It’s the unintended consequence of Trump’s tariff move, and it’s particularly stinging to Republicans, who have often held up Harley as exactly the kind of U.S. company that their policies would help to grow.”
Where Is Obama?
New York Magazine: “Beyond the anguish is, often, simply bafflement: How did the most ubiquitous man in America for eight years virtually disappear? Over the course of his presidency, Obama cast himself as the country’s secular minister as much as its commander-in-chief, someone who understood the moral core of the nation and felt compelled to insist that we live up to it. What explains his near absence from the political stage, where he might argue publicly against the reversals of his policy accomplishments, and also from American life more broadly?”
“What is keeping him from speaking more frequently about the need to protect democratic norms and the rule of law, to be decent people? Where is the man who cried after Sandy Hook and sang in Charleston, who after each mass shooting tried to soothe an outraged nation, who spoke of American values in his travels across the globe? And, tactically, what is behind the relative silence of one of the most popular figures alive just as American politics appears to so many to be on the brink of breaking?”
Cruz Leads By Just 5 Points in Texas
A new Texas Tribune poll finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leads challenger Beto O’Rourke by just five points in the U.S. Senate race, 41% to 36%.
Kander Will Run for Kansas City Mayor
Jason Kander (D), the former Missouri secretary of state whose growing nationwide profile as a Democrat led to speculation about his presidential ambitions, confirmed his unexpected decision to run for mayor of Kansas City, the Kansas City Star reports.
Trump Slams Restaurant That Wouldn’t Serve Sanders
President Trump slammed The Red Hen, a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, in a tweet following the controversy after Sarah Sanders was asked to leave by the restaurant’s owner.
The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!
Trump’s Cynical Strategy
President Trump “thinks he has found a winning formula,” his advisers tell Axios.
“And he might be right: The more he trashes Mueller, and the more he trashes the media and the media trashes him, the more Republicans want to have his back. And the more casual viewers see everything like the Russia probe as messy and muddy, not just Trump. Our politics are becoming ever more tribal, and his voters are numb to the outrageousness.”
“It’s arguably the most cynical strategy imaginable. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be successful politically.”
Military Leaders Worried They Could Not Fend Off Russia
Washington Post: “Although many barriers would drop away if there were a declaration of war, the hazy period before a military engagement would present a major problem. NATO has just a skeleton force deployed to its member countries that share a border with Russia. Backup forces would need to traverse hundreds of miles. And the delays — a mixture of bureaucracy, bad planning and decaying infrastructure — could enable Russia to seize NATO territory in the Baltics while U.S. Army planners were still filling out the 17 forms needed to cross Germany and into Poland.”
“During at least one White House exercise that gamed out a European war with Russia, the logistical stumbles contributed to a NATO loss.”
Trump No Longer Listens to His Defense Secretary
NBC News: “The way these recent presidential decisions on major national security issues have played out, as detailed by current and former White House and defense officials, underscores a significant change in Mattis’s role in recent months. The president is relying less and less on the advice of one of the longest-serving members of his cabinet, the officials said.”
Said a former senior White House official: “They don’t really see eye to eye.”
“The president has cooled on Mattis, in part because he’s come to believe his defense secretary looks down on him and slow-walks his policy directives… The president is now more inclined to rely on his own instincts or the advice of Pompeo and Bolton.”
Romney Says He’ll Speak Out Against Trump
Mitt Romney, writing in the Salt Lake Tribune:
“I have and will continue to speak out when the president says or does something which is divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions. I do not make this a daily commentary; I express contrary views only when I believe it is a matter of substantial significance.”
Iowa GOP Bets It All on Trump
“Donald Trump’s trade war with China could cost Iowa farmers hundreds of millions of dollars and do untold damage to the state economy,” Politico reports.
“But you’d never know it from talking to Republicans at the recent state GOP convention here. When Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann asked more than 1,100 delegates a defining question — who was still behind President Donald Trump? — there was no hesitation. In an exuberant display of unity, more than 1,100 delegates sprang to their feet, whistling, cheering and offering prolonged applause.”
Quote of the Day
“My people love it.”
— President Trump, quoted by the New York Times, telling advisers that separating families at the border was the best deterrent to illegal immigration.
