The Evisceration of American Diplomacy
Ronan Farrow: “After Tillerson’s brief and chaotic ride as America’s top diplomat, Pompeo will face a Department with an uncertain future, in which the evisceration of American diplomacy well under way, if not complete. Should he be confirmed, he will face decisions with profound implications, potentially for generations of American foreign policy.”
Said former Secretary of State John Kerry: “In a couple years, if we get a Presidency of either party that values diplomacy, you can fix a budget, you can invest again in the State Department. But it takes years to undo what’s happening, because it takes years to build up expertise and capacity.”
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell offered a similarly blunt assessment saying the Trump Administration has been “ripping the guts out of the organization.”
A must-read from Farrow: War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.
Few Republicans Ready to Endorse Trump for Re-Election
“A wide array of House and Senate Republicans are not yet ready to endorse President Trump’s bid for a second term, a reflection of the deep uncertainty on Capitol Hill over his political standing amid growing problems at home and abroad,” CNN reports.
“In interviews with a cross-section of more than two dozen GOP lawmakers, ranging from rank-and-file members, conservatives and party leaders, many refused to say they’d back Trump’s re-election bid — a surprise declaration given that members of Congress are typically quick to endorse sitting presidents of their own party without hesitation. Hardly any would offer a categorical endorsement of the President.”
Paul Brandus: History suggests double trouble for incumbent Trump.
Kyle Kondik: Underestimate Trump’s re-election odds at your own peril.
Trump ‘Great Man’ Play on North Korea
Jonathan Swan: “He came into office thinking he could be the historic deal maker to bring peace to the Middle East. He’s stopped talking about that. There’s very little point. The peace deal looks dead and cremated. But Trump wants to sign his name even larger into the history books, and he views North Korea as his moment.”
“Sources close to him say he genuinely believes he — and he alone — can overcome the seemingly intractable disaster on the Korean Peninsula.”
Said a source who has discussed North Korea with Trump: “He thinks, ‘Just get me in the room with the guy and I’ll figure it out.'”
GOP Strategist Predicts Loss of 40-50 House Seats
Alex Castellanos: “Thanks to a map that puts more Democratic than Republican seats at risk, our party will still cling to control of the Senate, but GOP House members lack insulation: They will crawl out from the smoking rubble of a 40- to 50-seat pounding to find they have lost their majority.”
Trump Allies Increasingly Concerned Cohen Will Flip
President and his outside advisers “are increasingly worried that his longtime personal attorney might be susceptible to cooperating with federal prosecutors. Two sources close to the president said people in Trump’s inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen – long seen as one of Trump’s most loyal personal allies – might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump,” Politico reports.
Said law professors Alan Dershowitz: “That’s what they’ll threaten him with: life imprisonment. They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings.”
What Was Pruitt Doing In Morocco?
ABC News: “The 47-hour journey in Morocco was already drawing congressional scrutiny and criticism from outside groups because of the lack transparency over why Pruitt was in the country and what he was doing while he was there.”
“Conservative congressional estimates put the cost of the trip at more than $40,000, and because of travel snags, Pruitt and his aides spent two days in Paris at high-end hotels. Pruitt did not publicly announce he was going ahead of time, did not bring reporters along, and when he finally released copies of his itinerary in response to Freedom of Information requests from ABC News and other news organizations, the bulk of the schedule was blacked out.”
GOP Fears Risk in Senate Races If House Extend Tax Cuts
“Heading into a contentious campaign for control of Congress, Republicans are increasingly divided over how to bolster their signature legislative achievement — a $1.5 trillion tax cut — amid signs it is not the political gift they had expected it to be last year,” the Washington Post reports.
“House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) aims to pass another massive tax cut this summer, which Republicans hope will rev up the GOP base and improve the standing of Republicans at the polls.”
“But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is under pressure to block a vote, which Republican campaign strategists worry could allow red-state Democrats to vote for additional tax cuts and undermine one of the GOP’s most effective lines of attack in conservative-leaning states: that Democrats voted against a big tax cut last December.”
Dismal Fundraising for House Republicans
“A whopping 43 House Republicans raised less money than Democratic challengers in the first three months of 2018 — nearly the same number of stragglers the GOP had at the end of last year,” Politico reports.
“An overlapping group of 16 Republican incumbents already have less cash on hand than Democratic challengers, up from the end of 2017, despite hopes that tax reform would open more donor wallets.”
New York Attorney General Seeks to Bypass Pardons
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York is moving to change New York state law so that he and other local prosecutors would have the power to bring criminal charges against aides to President Trump who have been pardoned, according to a letter Mr. Schneiderman sent to the governor and state lawmakers on Wednesday.
Trump Warned Cohen Will Flip Quickly If Charged
“One of President Trump’s longtime legal advisers said he warned the president in a phone call Friday that Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and close friend, would turn against the president and cooperate with federal prosecutors if faced with criminal charges,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mr. Trump made the call seeking advice from Jay Goldberg, who represented Mr. Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. Goldberg said he cautioned the president not to trust Mr. Cohen. On a scale of 100 to 1, where 100 is fully protecting the president, Mr. Cohen ‘isn’t even a 1,’ he said he told Mr. Trump.”
“Mr. Goldberg said the volume of correspondence taken and the potential pressure the government can bring to bear on Mr. Cohen to testify puts the president in more potential peril from the Cohen matter than from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.”
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]What’s most interesting is that a Trump ally seems to assume Cohen can tie the president to crimes.[/alert]
Haley Draws a Red Line for Trump
“In the span of 24 hours, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has done what none of her colleagues in President Trump’s Cabinet have before: successfully telegraphed to her boss that she will not quietly suffer his public humiliations,” Politico reports.
“The incident has met with silence from the president and his loyalists but has only helped to burnish Haley’s image outside of the White House.”
Arizona GOP Tries to Delay Vote If McCain Leaves Senate
Arizona lawmakers “are considering a bill that would take Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) seat off the November ballot if the six-term Arizona Republican, who is battling a deadly form of brain cancer, leaves office early,” the Arizona Republic reports.
TPM: “Statehouse Republicans seemingly tried to pull a fast one on their Democratic counterparts, quietly adding an emergency clause to a bipartisan bill to clean up special election laws in the state that would have handed Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) assurance that he’d get to appoint a replacement for McCain through 2020.”
Kobach Held In Contempt of Court
A federal judge ruled that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) was in contempt of court for failing to comply with her orders in a lawsuit over the state’s voter registration law, the Topeka Capital Journal reports.
“Robinson ordered Kobach to pay for attorney fees for litigating the contempt motion, with additional remedies to be determined later.”
Ex-Playboy Model Is Free to Talk About Trump Affair
“The tabloid news company American Media Inc. agreed to let a former Playboy model out of a contract that had kept her from talking freely about an alleged affair with Donald Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“The settlement agreement, reached Wednesday, ends a lawsuit brought by the model, Karen McDougal, and protects the president from being drawn into a legal case involving efforts to buy the silence of women who had stories to tell about him during the 2016 campaign.”
Top Senate Democrat Will Vote ‘No’ on Pompeo
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he will oppose President Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, “making it unlikely he will have the committee’s backing before the full Senate votes,” Reuters reports.
“Pompeo, currently director of the Central Intelligence Agency, can still be confirmed by the full Senate without the committee’s support. However, he would be the first secretary of state nominee, at least since such votes were made public in 1925, not to win the panel’s backing.”
Related for members: Why the Pompeo Secret Mission Leaked
Trump Hits All-Time High with White Evangelicals
A new PRRI survey finds President Trump’s favorability at an all-time high with white evangelical Christians, 75% to 22%.
Also interesting is that white evangelicals prefer Trump as 2020 Republican nominee, 58% to 32%.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I don’t think it’s possible, I’ll be honest with you. My expectation is that I will be in the minority in the Senate.”
— Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen (D), quoted by the New York Times, to Republicans who suggest a vote for him is a vote to make Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) the majority leader.
