Roger Stone shared an image on Instagram of himself, President Trump and several other Trump allies wearing spacesuits with swastikas on them.
Said Stone: “I love this — proud to be in this crew — but the only lies being told are by liberal scumbags.”
He’s since deleted the image.
A new CNN poll finds that just 34% of Americans approve of President Trump’s handling of the Russia investigation as compared to 55% who disapprove.
In addition, 56% believe Trump has interfered with the investigation while just 38% who say he has not. And 58% say this is a serious matter that should be investigated while only 37% who think it’s mainly an effort to discredit Trump.
Greg Sargent: “Trump is losing every single public argument about the Mueller probe.”
A new Monmouth poll in New Jersey’s 3rd congressional district finds Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) barely leading challenger Andy Kim (D), 41% to 40%, among all potential voters – that is voters who have participated in an election since 2010 or have newly registered to vote.
“When applying two different likely voter models, the contest shifts in the Democrat’s favor although it remains basically tied. A historical midterm model gives Kim 45% support and MacArthur 44%, while a model that includes a turnout surge in Democratic precincts gives Kim a slight 46% to 43% lead. These gaps are within the margin of error for these samples.”
The Cook Political Report has the district as Lean Republican.
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Bradley Moss: “What is concerning here is the continuous and repeated appearance of political considerations seeping into the traditionally apolitical disciplinary process at the FBI. President Trump made no bones about his distaste for Agent Strzok, just as he similarly publicly criticized Director Comey and Director McCabe prior to their terminations. All three men played or were still playing a role in the investigation into the president’s campaign before they were fired.”
“With the firing of Peter Strzok, the president’s purge of senior FBI leadership who helped launch that investigation is now complete. For those wondering whether Trump would allow the bureau to do its job without political interference from the White House, I think we have our answer.”
“Paul Manafort turned to Jared Kushner for help in an attempt to secure a Trump administration job for a Chicago banker at the center of Manafort’s fraud trial,” Bloomberg reports.
“Manafort… got a quick response.”
“‘On it!’’ Kushner replied on Nov. 30, 2016, according to an email submitted by prosecutors into evidence Monday at Manafort’s trial on bank and tax-fraud charges.”
A new recording obtained by CBS News seems to back up Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s story in her new book, Unhinged, that several Trump campaign advisers discussed an alleged tape which had Donald Trump saying the N-word during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump campaign advisers denied yesterday that any conversations took place but the new recording “appears to confirm Omarosa’s claims that Trump campaign officials were aware of a tape in which then-candidate Trump uses a racial slur, and they talked about how to handle it.”
A new Gonzales Research poll in Maryland finds Gov. Larry Hogan (R) leading challenger Ben Jealous (D) by 16 points, 52% to 36%.
President Trump fired off a nasty tweet at his former aide Omarosa Maigault Newmany, calling her a “lowlife” and a “dog.”
Said Trump: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
“The confidence indices are telling a very important story, and POTUS is polling in the low to mid fifties on the economy. The great blue wall has crashed. I think GOP will lose seats but keep the House.”
— White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, quoted by Politico.
“The West Virginia House of Delegates voted late Monday night to impeach all of the justices on the Supreme Court, a decision prompted initially by reports of extravagant spending on office renovations,” the New York Times reports.
“In a series of votes that frequently fell along rough party lines, lawmakers approved 11 articles of impeachment against the four sitting justices, sending the process on to the State Senate.”
Charleston Gazette-Mail: “Throughout debate on the articles, leaders in the Republican-majority House said they would work through midnight to finish the work amid arguments from House Democrats that the presentation of the articles was done in a way that would allow Republican Gov. Jim Justice to appoint four justices on the five-member court for the next two years.”
“Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) holds a narrow 44% to 41% lead over Gov. Rick Scott (R) among Latino voters in Florida’s Senate race, according to a new poll that’s raising fresh concerns among Democrats that the incumbent is in a dicey position with a core group of voters he needs to carry by bigger margins,” Politico reports.
“For Democrats, those numbers are a problem because a Republican who wins as much of the Hispanic vote as Scott is taking usually wins statewide in Florida. Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the survey by 40% to 33%.”
“Tom Steyer’s NextGen America organization is working to register 100,000 students in one month at college campuses across 11 states as part of its ‘Welcome Week’ program launching this week,” Axios reports.
“This is the group’s biggest voter registration effort yet, focused specifically on the most crucial bloc of non-voters, and it’s happening just three months before the 2018 midterm election.”
In a trip to New York, President Trump claimed that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), thought to be a potential 2020 White House candidate, had once told him he would “never run for president against” him, the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “Oh, please do it.”
Shane Goldmacher: “I have asked five senior Cuomo advisers if it is true that Cuomo once told Trump he would never run against him, as Trump said today. None of them has responded.”
Mother Jones: “As special counsel Robert Mueller zeroes in on Roger Stone, prosecutors are looking into seemingly threatening emails the longtime Trump adviser sent to a former radio host.”
”A lawyer for Randy Credico, the radio host, confirmed Friday that he received a subpoena from Mueller’s office requesting that Credico testify before a grand jury in Washington on September 7. The attorney, Martin Stolar, said he believes prosecutors want to ask Credico about his contacts with Stone and also potentially about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.”
Playbook: “This is the second time President Trump has been entangled with a woman who is equally adept at playing the media. First it was Stormy Daniels. Now it seems like Omarosa has gotten in Trump’s head.”
“Omarosa is someone who has known the president for years, and she has gone rogue. She’s publicly said she has betrayed Trump and the White House in the worst way — by surreptitiously recording what seems to be hours of private conversations that she might or might not release depending how events unfold. Oh, and by the way, she said on “Hardball” last night that she’d be glad to pass the tapes over to Robert Mueller should he ask.”
“She is making it clear that she is in control — not Trump and the White House. Buying her silence didn’t work. John Kelly’s suggestion she go quietly obviously fell flat. The president’s brand is savvy and strength, and Omarosa is putting him back on his heels. In that, Trump risks looking weak.”
President Trump tweeted that Mark Burnett, the producer of The Apprentice, “called to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.”
He added: “I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have.”
CNN: “Nevertheless, the tapes have only deepened a pre-existing sense of paranoia among Trump staffers… fueling an underlying suspicion that everyone inside the West Wing is out for themselves. The White House has no way of knowing how many tapes Manigault Newman might have, the official said, even as they explore legal avenues for preventing their release and punishing her for making them. The official declined to specify what specific legal steps were being considered.”
”Several senior aides said Monday that they doubted Manigault Newman was the only person taping her conversations at work.”
“Long before Omarosa Manigault Newman lodged explosive claims against her former boss, President Trump’s White House foresaw the potential problems with ex-staffers’ tell-all books,” Politico reports.
“Embedded in the White House’s two-page non-disclosure agreement was a seemingly innocuous clause that prohibited top aides from disclosing confidential information in any form including books, without the express permission of the president.”
”But Manigault Newman says she refused to sign it.”
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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