Just published: LBJ’s 1968 by Kyle Longley.
“1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the ‘year of a continuous nightmare’.”
A new Marquette University Law School poll in Wisconsin finds 64% of Democrats said they felt “very enthusiastic” about voting in November, as compared to 54% of Republicans.
In 2014, it was Republicans who had the enthusiasm edge, 55% to 52%.
Donna Shalala (D), the former University of Miami president and Health and Human Services secretary, is officially running to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the Miami Herald reports.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Over the last several weeks, the Post-Dispatch and the Columbia Missourian attempted to contact about 60 people who worked on Greitens’ 2016 campaign. Of the handful who agreed to speak with reporters, five people said they signed nondisclosure agreements. Two others… would not say whether they signed one.”
“The newspapers were told that the use of nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, on the Greitens campaign was widespread — and workers as low-ranking as volunteers may have been asked to sign them. Now, Missouri’s governor is fending off scandals on multiple fronts, and some say the agreements may slow the release of information about how Greitens operated during the campaign.”
President Trump “pushed back against reports that his White House is in chaos, following the resignations of senior staff members and as the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election meddling inched closer to his inner circle,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump on Twitter: “People will always come and go.” He added: “There is no Chaos, only great Energy!”
Nashville Mayor Megan Barry (D) is expected to announce her resignation at a press conference Tuesday morning, the Tennessean reports.
“The resignation comes amid an investigation of an affair with her former bodyguard Metro police Sgt. Robert Forrest.”
James Hohmann: “Navarro’s reemergence is a testament to the value of longevity and staying power in Trump’s orbit. The survivors who can stick it out long enough often wind up near the top of the pile. During the chaotic first few weeks of the administration, Navarro was often seen at Trump’s side. He stood behind the president as he signed the executive orders withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and blocking federal funds for groups that provide abortions. But he was marginalized over time as the globalists, corporatists and more traditional conservatives in the West Wing found their footing and worked together to sideline him.”
“Navarro suffered several public humiliations last fall when Kelly reorganized the White House economics team to place him under Cohn. ‘Mr. Navarro was required to copy Mr. Cohn, his new superior, on all emails. He was absent from some high-level strategy meetings on trade, as well as the president’s trip to China,’ the New York Times’s Ana Swanson reported.”
“Trump decided three weeks ago to reverse these moves.”
“A key aide to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has been granted permission to make extra money moonlighting for private clients whose identities are being kept secret,” the AP reports.
Norm Eisen: “This is insane. In the Obama White House, I even made people quit uncompensated non-profit outside positions because of conflicts risks. This is FOR profit work that could conflict with official duties. Prediction: by end of Trump admin, prisons will be full of his associates.”
First Read has six story lines to watch:
1. Do Democrats turn out almost at the same rate as Republicans? As we noted yesterday, nearly 50,000 more Democrats than Republicans voted early in Texas’ largest 15 counties – a reversal from 2014, when early-voting Republicans easily outnumbered Democrats in the same counties. Now these large counties don’t include the more rural (and GOP-leaning) areas, so here’s the comparison to track tonight: In 2014, 1.3 million Republicans voted in the gubernatorial and Senate primaries, versus roughly 500,000 Democrats. How much closer do those numbers get tonight?
2. Can George P. Bush avoid a runoff? It’s not every day that we pay attention to a race for land commissioner. But it’s also not every day that a Bush scion – in the Trump Era – happens to be on the ballot. Incumbent Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush, needs to surpass 50 percent to avoid a May 22 runoff against former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who wants his old job back. President Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have endorsed Bush. But is that enough when the GOP, even in the Lone Star State, is the party of Trump and not of the Bushes?
3. Who wins the Dems’ gubernatorial primary? In maybe the least talked-about major primary race in Texas, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez faces off against businessman Andrew White (son of former Gov. Mark White) in the Democratic race to take on incumbent GOP Gov. Greg Abbott. Yes, Abbott is a shoo-in to win re-election, but either Valdez or White will be on the top of the Democratic ticket with likely Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke.
4. Does Laura Moser make the runoff in TX-7? This has been the race with all the Democratic drama after the DCCC dropped oppo on fellow Democrat Laura Moser (for criticizing small-town Paris, Texas while she was a writer living in DC). The question tonight will answer: Did the oppo work for the DCCC? Or backfire?
5. Who wins the GOP’s TX-21 primary? A whopping 18 Republicans are running to replace retiring Rep. Lamar Smith in this San Antonio/Austin suburbs district – led by former Ted Cruz staffer Chip Roy, former U.S. Rep. Quico Canseco, state Rep. Jason Isaac, Bexar County GOP Chair Robert Stovall and former Bush administration official Jenifer Sarver (who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016). With the wrong candidate, there’s an outside chance Democrats could make this race interesting.
6. Who wins the Dem TX-32 primary? Another vulnerable GOP congressman is Rep. Pete Sessions (Hillary Clinton won his district in 2016), and the top Dems are former Obama State Department official Ed Meier, attorney and former NFL player Colin Allred and former USDA official Lillian Salerno, who is backed by EMILY’s List.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) has told Republicans that President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have urged him to appoint himself to the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Thad Cochran, who is retiring early due to health issues, the AP reports.
Bryant is limited to two terms as governor, and his time in that job ends in January 2020.
Eugene Robinson: “Trump and his family have refused to divest themselves of their businesses or even draw more than a flimsy veil between their official actions and the impact those actions have on their personal finances. Does the administration’s policy toward Panama really have nothing to do with a bitter dispute over the Trump-branded hotel in Panama City? Does the administration’s tough new attitude toward Qatar really have nothing to do with that nation’s refusal to invest in Jared Kushner’s debt-laden real estate company?”
“It’s not the potential answers to those questions that are so corrosive; it’s the questions themselves. As in many countries whose governance we scoff at, Americans must now wonder whether policy is being tailored for our leaders’ personal gain.”
“There’s something unsanitary about bringing people to your office who are talking about public policy where you spent the night, and that’s unhealthy, unsanitary — and some people would say it’s almost nasty.”
— Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), quoted by Politico, criticizing members of Congress who sleep in their offices.
“Michael Flynn, the retired Army general and ex-Trump national security adviser who pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about his Russian contacts, has put his Virginia home up for sale to pay mounting legal fees,” friends and family members told ABC News.
“North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has told South Korean envoys that his country is willing to begin negotiations with the United States on abandoning its nuclear weapons and that it would suspend all nuclear and missile tests while it is engaged in such talks,” the New York Times reports.
“During the envoys’ two-day visit to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, which ended on Tuesday, the two Koreas also agreed to hold a summit meeting between Mr. Kim and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on the countries’ border in late April.”
“President Trump, facing an angry chorus of protests from leaders of his own party, including House speaker Paul Ryan, insisted on Monday that he would not back down from his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But the White House was devising ways to potentially soften the impact of the measures on major trading partners,” the New York Times reports.
“The intense maneuvering, which began before Mr. Trump’s unexpected announcement of the tariffs last Thursday, is likely to delay any formal rollout of the measures until next week, according to several officials who have been briefed on the deliberations.”
Politico: “Gary Cohn and other free-trade advocates inside the White House and the Treasury Department are mounting a last-ditch effort to blunt the impact of Trump’s head-turning decision.”
Former Rep. Mike Espy (D-MS) announced his “strong intention to run” for the U.S. Senate seat Thad Cochran announced he’ll leave April 1, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports.
“Espy served as a Democrat in the U.S. House representing the 2nd District from 1987 to 1993 — the first African-American to hold a Mississippi congressional seat since Reconstruction, then served as secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, the first African-American to hold that post.”
Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg “spent much of Monday promising to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller, even throwing down the challenge to ‘arrest me,’ then backed off his defiance by saying he would probably cooperate in the end,” the AP reports.
“Nunberg said he was angry over Mueller’s request to have him appear in front of a grand jury and turn over thousands of e-mails and other communications with other ex-officials, among them his mentor Roger Stone. But he predicted that, in the end, he’d find a way to comply.”
“This tweet is a great example of your paranoia, constant misrepresentation of the facts, and increased anxiety and panic (rightly so) about the Mueller investigation. When will those in Congress and the 30 percent of Americans who still support you realize you are a charlatan?”
— Former CIA Director John Brennan, on Twitter., responding to President Trump’s accusation that President Obama launched Russia investigation to help Hillary Clinton.
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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