“The evangelical base is about as solid as I’ve seen for any sitting president. By and large, they’re focused on results, and they’re willing to overlook any perceived imperfections in the president.”
— Republican consultant Marc Rotterman, quoted by the Washington Post.
“Omarosa Manigault, who left the White House under dramatic circumstances at the tail end of last year, is set to enter the Celebrity Big Brother house,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Emails like this make my day:
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And this one:
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David Leonhardt: “There are good reasons to be wary of impeachment talk. Congressional Republicans show zero interest, and they’re the ones in charge. Democrats, for their part, need to focus on retaking Congress, and railing about impeachment probably won’t help them win votes.”
“But let’s set aside realpolitik for a few minutes and ask a different question: Is serious consideration of impeachment fair? I think the answer is yes. The evidence is now quite strong that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Many legal scholars believe a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. So the proper remedy for a president credibly accused of obstructing justice is impeachment.”
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) raised $2.4 million last quarter in his effort to oust Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Dallas Morning News reports.
“It’s the second time O’Rourke has out-raised the Republican favorite in a single fundraising quarter. Following O’Rourke’s news, the Cruz campaign announced it brought in $1.9 million in the final quarter of 2017.”
Also interesting: “O’Rourke has sworn off the help of political action committees. According to the campaign, more than 70 percent of the last quarter’s donations came from Texas, and none of the funds came from loans.”
“An analysis by Bloomberg Government of historical data, election maps and public polling points to sweeping Democratic gains in the November election, when all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate are on the ballot.”
“Since the end of World War II, the party in control of the White House has, on average, had a net loss of 26 House seats in midterm elections. Democrats can win control of the House with a net gain of 24 seats in November. They’d need to win two seats to gain a majority in the Senate.”
“Adding to that, Trump’s approval rating at this stage of his presidency, 36 percent, is lower than any of his predecessors going back to Harry Truman, according to Gallup polling data. The less popular the president, the more seats his party tends to lose.”
Out in March: Secret Empires: How Our Politicians Hide Corruption and Enrich Their Families and Friends by Peter Schweizer.
Axios: “The book is under a strict embargo, however sources reveal members of both parties will get a full Schweizer drill-down, including current members of Congress, high-ranking Obama officials, and the Trump family.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told Politico that Congress late last year received “extraordinarily important new documents” in its investigation of President Trump and his campaign’s possible collusion with the 2016 Russian election hacking, opening up significant new lines of inquiry in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe of the president.
Warner says “end-of-the-year document dumps” produced “very significant” revelations that “opened a lot of new questions” that Senate investigators are now looking into, meaning the inquiry into Trump and the Russia hacking—already nearly a year old—will not be finished for months longer.
Politico: “Two rising stars in California are about to collide: Sen. Kamala Harris of San Francisco and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. As potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2020, the pair might soon be asking the activists and donors who have known them their entire political careers to finally choose sides. It’s a thorny dilemma for California Democrats, but one that could be commonplace over the next two years. At least eight states have multiple Democrats considering national bids, an unprecedented development that threatens to fracture the party in some of the bluest states in the nation.”
“Until the government shutdown last week, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer believed cutting a deal with President Trump was his best chance to protect ‘dreamers,’ the more than 1 million undocumented immigrants who had arrived in this country as children,” the Washington Post reports.
“Now the faith has been broken, and the Democratic leader says he is charting a new path.”
Said Schumer: “Unless Donald Trump realizes that the kind of deal I offered is good for him, it’s better that he stays away. If he disappears, we still, I think, have a very good chance to pass things, as long as he doesn’t mess it all up, which could very well happen.”
New York Times: “A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it. The renewal shows that the Justice Department under President Trump saw reason to believe that the associate, Carter Page, was acting as a Russian agent.”
“But the reference to Mr. Rosenstein’s actions in the memo — a much-disputed document that paints the investigation into Russian election meddling as tainted from the start — indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the inquiry.”
Coming this fall: Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House by April Ryan.
“Republican lawmakers warned President Trump on Sunday not to fire Robert Mueller, but showed little sense of urgency to advance long-stalled legislation to protect the special counsel despite a report that Mr. Trump had tried to remove him last June,” the New York Times reports.
Said House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): “I don’t think there’s a need for legislation right now to protect Mueller. Right now there’s not an issue. So why create one when there isn’t a place for it?”
Washington Post: GOP splits on protecting Mueller.
Jonathan Swan: “I can’t overstate the level of anxiety among sources close to Trump after the president told the NYT’s Maggie Haberman last week he was willing and eager to submit himself to a live interview under oath with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”
“One source, who knows Trump as well as anyone, told me he believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself.”
Said the source: “Trump doesn’t deal in reality. He creates his own reality and he actually believes iIt.”
“Lawmakers in both parties said Sunday that the immigration debate should focus narrowly on efforts to legalize young immigrants known as “dreamers” and beef up border security, suggesting that President Trump’s demands to slash legal immigration levels are likely to sink a deal,” the Washington Post reports.
President Trump says he would take a “tougher” attitude toward Brexit negotiations than the approach now being used by British Prime Minister Theresa May, the AP reports.
Said Trump: “Would it be the way I negotiate? No, I wouldn’t negotiate it the way it’s (being) negotiated… I would have had a different attitude.”
He added: “I would have said that the European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.”
“Everybody in the White House knows it’d be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he fires Mr. Mueller.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in an ABC News interview,
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.