President Trump said he is considering posthumously pardoning boxer Muhammad Ali, who was convicted in 1967 after refusing military service in Vietnam, CNN reports.
Said Trump: “I’m thinking about Muhammad Ali. I’m thinking about that very seriously and some others.”
“President Trump said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven leading economies, breaking with other world leaders who have insisted Moscow remain ostracized following its involvement in the 2014 Crimean crisis,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s comments, made as he was departing to Canada for the annual G-7 summit, have the potential to further upend talks with other world leaders. U.S. officials believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and part of this year’s G-7 summit was supposed to focus on protecting democracies from foreign meddling.”
Axios: “The party in power tends to do well in the House during midterm elections when voters are happy with the economy, but it does poorly when the president’s approval rating is low. There’s no recent precedent in which the economy is doing well but the president’s approval rating is underwater.”
“Anyone who talks about the election as if it’s only about Trump, or only about the economy, is only telling you half the story. We won’t really know what’s going to happen with the House until we know which half matters the most to the voters.”
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Utah U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney (R) “bluntly predicted” that President Trump would win reelection in 2020, Politico reports.
“Addressing a group of major GOP donors, Romney — who bitterly collided with Trump during the 2016 campaign and implored his party to nominate someone else — also said Trump would easily capture the Republican Party’s 2020 nomination. He said Trump’s political fortunes would be bolstered by a pair of factors: an improving economy and the likelihood that Democrats would choose an outside-the-mainstream candidate.”
Said Romney: “I think President Trump will be re-nominated by my party easily, and I think he’ll be reelected solidly.”
“I think I’m very well prepared. I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.”
— President Trump, quoted by Politico, about his upcoming summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Rudy Giuliani “has yet to genuinely affect the course of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe despite being a near-constant presence on TV since he became President Trump’s lawyer,” Bloomberg reports.
“For example, Giuliani told several media outlets that he wants to see secret FBI documents related to the origin of the Russia investigation, including the use of a confidential informant. So he asked for the documents — informally. The answer? No response from the Justice Department or Mueller. The incident illustrates how nearly two months after joining Trump’s legal team, Giuliani isn’t yet seen as a power player with the legal authority to go up against Mueller’s team of career prosecutors.”
French President Emmanuel Macron “threatened to join with other world leaders to issue a rare rebuke of the United States at a global summit here this weekend, drawing immediate and sharp replies from President Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“Macron said Trump could be excluded from joining with other leaders in a joint declaration of unity at the end of a global summit here, a very unusual move that was meant to isolate Trump’s recent burst of trade threats aimed at numerous U.S. allies.”
Said Macron: “The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.”
Politico: “The president — who claimed in 2016 that he was self-funding his campaign so he couldn’t be ‘controlled’ by donors, even though he ultimately raised most of his funds from outsiders — has developed a new ease with the donor class and is spending significant time away from the White House fundraising from them. Trump has attended eight events for the political groups supporting him in 2018, an uptick from the five he attended the previous year, and he has crisscrossed the country to Los Angeles, Dallas and Columbus, Ohio.”
“Federal law enforcement officials secretly seized years’ worth of a New York Times reporter’s phone and email records this year in an investigation of classified information leaks. It was the first known instance of the Justice Department going after a reporter’s data under President Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“The seizure — disclosed in a letter to the reporter, Ali Watkins — suggested that prosecutors under the Trump administration will continue the aggressive tactics employed under President Barack Obama.”
“The special counsel’s accusation this week that Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, tried to tamper with potential witnesses originated with two veteran journalists who turned on Mr. Manafort after working closely with him to prop up the former Russia-aligned president of Ukraine,” the New York Times reports.
“The two journalists, who helped lead a project to which prosecutors say Mr. Manafort funneled more than $2 million from overseas accounts, are the latest in a series of onetime Manafort business partners who have provided damaging evidence to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Their cooperation with the government has increasingly isolated Mr. Manafort as he awaits trial on charges of violating financial, tax and federal lobbying disclosure laws.”
“The Justice Department will not defend the Affordable Care Act in court, and says it believes the law’s individual mandate — the provision the Supreme Court upheld in 2012 — has become unconstitutional,” Axios reports.
“The Justice Department almost always defends federal laws when they’re challenged in court. Its departure from that norm in this case is a major development — career DOJ lawyers removed themselves from the case as the department announced this shift in its position.”
“The ACA’s individual mandate requires most people to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. The Supreme Court upheld that in 2012 as a valid use of Congress’ taxing power.”
A new Fox News poll finds 48% of voters favor the Democratic candidate in their congressional district and 39%the Republican.
That 9-point lead is up from a 5-point edge the Democrats held in March.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “asked members of his 24/7 security detail to run errands for him on occasion, including picking up his dry cleaning and taking him in search of a favorite moisturizing lotion,” the Washington Post reports.
“Pruitt, who also has enlisted agency staffers in tasks including apartment hunting and securing a mattress for his personal use, faces congressional scrutiny over an expanding number of spending and management decisions. Federal rules bar public officials from receiving gifts from subordinates, including unpaid services, and from using their office for private gain.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) told NPR that she wants federal judges who are fair, qualified, and “care about individual and civil rights.”
And then, without missing a beat, she added: “If that’s considered liberal, as opposed to what I call justice and fairness, as I am wont to say, fuck them!”
Dan Balz: “In election after election, whether primary contests or special elections, women have provided energy at the ballot box and, increasingly, the leadership as candidates for the Democrats. That was in evidence again Tuesday, another day of validation that the dynamics of American politics have shifted under this president. If Democrats are to win the House in November, they must hope that is maintained through Election Day, although there have been no signs that this energy is abating.”
First Read: “Check out these numbers: In the merged NBC/WSJ polling of 2017, white women with college degrees preferred a Dem-controlled Congress by 17 points (55% to 38%). In the merged NBC/WSJ polling from January to April, it was 26 points (60% to 34%). And in this latest poll, the margin is now 30 points (60% to 30%).”
“Jeanine Pirro has a top-rated Fox News show and a forthcoming book — Lies, Leakers, and Liberals — but she still wants to be President Trump’s attorney general,” Politico reports.
“A former prosecutor and judge, Pirro has repeatedly told Trump’s aides and advisers over the past 18 months that she’s interested in taking over as the nation’s top law enforcement official… Trump has dangled the possibility of giving her a top appointment.”
CNN: “Trump and Kim are due to meet on June 12 for the first time and the US leader is due to return home the next day, but US officials in Singapore have established a contingency plan for a second day of discussions.”
“It’s not clear if Trump is eager for a two-day summit with Kim, but he has expressed a desire for flexibility in the negotiations and has stressed to aides and US allies that he plans to follow his gut as he negotiates with the North Korean leader.”
Jonathan Chait: “Donald Trump possessed less relevant experience and subject expertise for the job of president than any person ever elected to the job. Those deficits can be offset, to a degree, with dogged study and hard work. But rather than make up for his historical lack of qualifications, Trump has compounded the problem with historical laziness. He famously lounges in front of the television having ‘Executive Time’ until 11 a.m., checks out early, refuses to read briefings, and otherwise disdains the most important parts of his job.”
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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