Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY) “has been accused of using his official position to get his baby mama’s son out of a heroin arrest on Staten Island,” the New York Post reports.
“Donovan, a former district attorney who now represents Staten Island and part of South Brooklyn, stepped in after his domestic partner’s son was arrested with a friend for ‘criminal sale and possession of a controlled substance (heroin),’ according to an allegation filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics last week.”
“The failure of President Trump and Democratic lawmakers to strike a deal on young undocumented immigrants puts the divisive issue into the middle of some hotly contested campaigns for November’s midterm elections — ones which could tip control of Congress,” Bloomberg reports.
“A sizable majority of Americans, especially Democrats and independents, support giving legal status to Dreamers, opinion polls have shown. The topic resonates especially in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida and Nevada — states with large Hispanic populations where Democrats are seeking to chip away at the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.”
A new Monmouth University Poll finds large majorities of the American public believe that traditional media outlets engage in reporting fake news and that outside sources are actively trying to plant fake stories in the mainstream media.
More than 3-in-4 Americans believe that traditional major TV and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” including 31% who believe this happens regularly and 46% who say it happens occasionally. The 77% who believe fake news reporting happens at least occasionally has increased significantly from 63% of the public who felt that way last year.
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Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) “has cemented his image as a rising star — one with an unusually independent reputation in today’s Republican Party,” McClatchy reports.
“In an era of intense political tribalism, Gallagher is the rare House member from a strongly pro-Trump district who has broken sharply with the White House over a range of issues, including the firing of ex-FBI Director James Comey and the Russia-related investigations. Even more rare: he has done it—so far—without sparking crippling conservative backlash.”
“Republican donors and operatives see the freshman workaholic as the next sterling-credentialed member with a maverick streak who could shape the future of their deeply divided party—if he can outlast the turbulence and tribalism of the moment.”
Associated Press: “He is one of the Republican Party’s most-prized recruits, a young U.S. Senate candidate with an outsider resume and a populist message designed to appeal equally to farmers, suburban moms and the national GOP’s moneyed elite.”
“But things get complicated when you ask Josh Hawley about President Trump. Hawley, who launched a Republican Senate bid in Missouri less than a year after being elected state attorney general, won’t say whether he considers the Republican president a role model.”
Politico: “When Mitch McConnell took over as majority leader in 2015 after years in the minority, he vowed to make good on a central campaign pledge of returning to a more ‘free-wheeling’ Senate. And in the early days of his tenure, he did: McConnell presided over open, raucous floor debate on the Keystone XL Pipeline, winning praise even from some Democrats.”
“But the Senate has reverted to form. The body has taken just 25 roll call votes on so-called binding amendments so far during this two-year Congress, a sharp decrease from the 154 amendments voted on by this point during the 114th Congress under Barack Obama. Each year since McConnell took over, the Senate has voted on fewer nonbudget amendments: 140 in 2015, 57 in 2016, 19 in 2017 and six so far this year.”
Said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): ‘There’s a lot of weeks I’m not sure why I show up.”
“China is moving forward with its plan to counter President Trump’s new tariffs on steel and aluminum, levying duties that will take effect Monday on more than $3 billion in U.S. exports to the country. In a statement Sunday, the Chinese government said it would impose the retaliatory tariffs on 128 products, according to an informal translation,” Politico reports.
“China will impose a 15 percent tariff increase on goods including American fruit and nuts and add a 25 percent tariff on pork, recycled aluminum and other goods, the government said. The move to impose the duties comes just over a week after the Chinese Commerce ministry had announced it was considering tariffs on the goods. Just over a week later, those tariffs are taking effect.”
Financial Times: Who will fare worse in a China-US trade war?
Politico: “Ballard is a veteran Florida lobbyist who’s been in Washington for barely a year — the blink of an eye in an industry in which many of the top practitioners have spent decades inside the Beltway. But Ballard is closer to the president than perhaps any other lobbyist in town. He’s parlayed that relationship into a booming business helping clients get their way with the Trump administration — and his clients and even some of his rivals say his firm has a better grasp of what’s going on in the West Wing than almost anyone else on K Street.”
“Ballard’s relationship with Trump has helped him solve a lucrative puzzle that has frustrated more established players. For all of the president’s ‘drain the swamp’ rhetoric, the new administration has given corporate America and its lobbyists the opportunity to revive dreams of tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and rule changes that were mothballed during the Obama administration.”
New York Times: “A year into Trump’s tenure, Mattis has become a quietly central figure in an administration of near-constant purges. He may be the lone cabinet member to have survived with his status and dignity intact, and in the process his Pentagon — perhaps the one national institution that is still fully functional — has inherited an unusually powerful role in the shaping of American foreign policy.”
“The removal of Tillerson and the national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, has further reduced the core of the group once known as the ‘committee to save America,’ underscoring Mattis’s unique position and putting even more weight on his relationship with the president. Although their conversations are a tightly guarded secret, Trump is said to consult Mattis regularly about a wide range of subjects.”
Out this week: Unified: How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC).
“As President Trump increasingly tunes out formal advisers, there’s a growing list of misfits and hangers-on that he just can’t seem to quit — and whose advice he seems to welcome and even adopt,” Mike Allen reports.
Said one source: “The ‘misfits’ or ‘deplorables,’ as some people call them, offer the President insight into the perspective of various constituencies: middle America, the Trump base, movement conservatives, culture crusaders, evangelicals, and populist nationalists.”
Former Gov. Chris Christie told ABC News that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt likely faces trouble over reports of his living in a condo co-owned by the wife of a top lobbyist for energy firms.
Said Christie: “I don’t know how you survive this one, and if he has to go, it’s because he never should have been there in the first place.”
New York Times: “It was sweet redemption for Charles Kushner last year when his son Jared was named senior White House adviser. A dozen years earlier, a sordid scandal stemming partly from a family falling-out had reduced the senior Mr. Kushner from real estate baron to felon making wallets at a prison camp in Alabama.”
“Now, with his son newly installed as a top aide to the president, Mr. Kushner even expressed hope, one close family friend said, that he might receive a pardon.”
“Absolution, however, is not what the White House has conferred on the Kushners. For the patriarch and his family, the pinnacle of American political power has turned out to be a wellspring of trouble.”
President Trump on Twitter this morning:
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!
“Rex Tillerson has all but vanished from the State Department’s website as his unceremonious firing by tweet took effect over the weekend,” the AP reports.
“The ‘Secretary of State Tillerson’ link at the top of the department’s homepage disappeared overnight Saturday and was replaced with a generic ‘Secretary of State’ tab. When clicked, it leads to a page that informs visitors in a brief statement that Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan ‘became acting Secretary of State on April 1, 2018.’ It shows a photo of Sullivan signing his appointment papers as deputy in June 2017 but offers no explanation for the change in leadership.”
New York Times: “Two developments are converging to give Pennsylvania its outsize role: New congressional districts drawn by the State Supreme Court make the map more of an equal playing field; and a special-election upset by a Democrat in one of the reddest parts of the state signaled an incipient blue wave.”
“I’m afraid to say this and it hurts me to say this, but the evidence is irrefutable, they have no soul.”
— Ted Nugent, interviewed by Newsmax, on the Parkland students’ demands for new gun control laws.
Former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin told NBC News that “he was fired and did not resign from his post, despite conflicting claims from the White House.”
A White House spokesperson told Politico that Shulkin “resigned,” despite the former Cabinet member’s public statements saying otherwise.
“The terms of Shulkin’s departure could have an impact on President Trump’s ability to pick a replacement.”
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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