The Daily Beast was informed that porn star Jessica Drake is not allowed to discuss President Trump on account of a non-disclosure agreement she signed barring her from any such talk.
NDAs are often deployed as part of settlements to silence accusers.
Washington Post: “A decade after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the United States suddenly finds itself at a place where almost everyone who wants a job can find one.”
“The unemployment rate in December was 4.1 percent, leaving employers struggling to attract and retain good workers and raising the prospect of higher wages as the United States approaches congressional elections in November.”
Related: This Year Looks a Lot Like 2006, Except for One Thing
“Five Republican lawmakers told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they received calls from the governor since the news of the affair broke Wednesday.”
“The phone calls underscore the lengths to which [Missouri Gov. Eric] Greitens, a Republican, is going to preserve his political career. In the past, Greitens has derided members of the Legislature, at one point comparing them to third-graders and calling them into Jefferson City for two special sessions last summer, which he called ‘summer school.’”
“Now, he is seeking their support as well as trying to shore up support among his donors.”
Politico: “Donald Trump got crushed by Hillary Clinton in Massachusetts. And after his first year in office, polls show the president is now even less popular here.”
“Trump’s rock-bottom ratings should be dragging Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to defeat in 2018. Instead, the opposite is occurring. Baker is not only more popular than any other politician in solidly Democratic Massachusetts, he’s the most popular governor in the nation.”
“His defiance of the laws of political gravity is proving maddening to opponents who once viewed him as a certain one-termer. And it offers a ray of hope to the handful of other Republican governors facing blue-state electorates in November with the prospect of an unpopular president in the background.”
It’s so nice to wake up to an email like this:
I’ve been a reader for YEARS, I think actually as far back as 2000 when the Florida debacle dragged me into politics kicking and screaming, though I don’t remember the exact date. Now I’m back in DC regularly engaged with people who Do Policy® and often I’m telling them things they didn’t know or giving them perspectives they hadn’t explored because I saw it on Political Wire long before the news hit the front burner. This site is literally the first thing I check when I wake up in the morning, and I keep up with it constantly all day long via your invaluable RSS feed. That feed keeps me up to the literal second on what’s happening in the political world. I’ll see something on it, share it with my politicos on Facebook and suddenly Political Wire is directly influencing a policy debate and consensus among people who matter in DC.
Don’t change a thing. And for god’s sake make sure your RSS feed lives forever! You’re providing one hell of a service.
And this one too:
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Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) “is confronting a fierce backlash from conservatives over his refusal to support Roy Moore in last month’s special election — with Moore backers pushing a censure resolution and robocall campaign targeting the powerful lawmaker,” Politico reports.
Bloomberg: “Michael Wolff may have already reaped $1 million from his controversial book about President Trump and stands to earn $7.4 million or more if readers snap up copies that are now on the way to stores.”
From a New York Times editorial:
Mr. Trump denied making the remarks on Friday, but Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who attended the meeting, said the president did in fact say these “hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly.”
Of course he did. Remember, Mr. Trump is not just racist, ignorant, incompetent and undignified. He’s also a liar.
Some followup on news that President Trump’s lawyer paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the presidential election to stay silent about their affair:
The New York Times says Daniels had been discussing sharing her account with ABC’s “Good Morning America” and the online magazine Slate before being paid.
The Daily Beast had “also been in protracted talks with Daniels about arranging an interview after three sources—including fellow porn star Alana Evans—told The Daily Beast that Daniels and Trump were involved. She ultimately backed out on Nov. 3, just five days before the 2016 election.”
John Cassidy: “For the past year, Republicans, senior Democrats, and many media commentators have held back from applying the R-word to Trump. In some circumstances, there are good reasons for exercising such caution. Calling someone a bigot is not a step to take lightly. Often, it can shut down discourse and fuel animosity. With Trump, there is the added consideration that, as long as he’s the President, other politicians in Washington have little choice but to deal with him. Also, he runs his mouth so much that a lot of what comes out of it doesn’t merit serious consideration.”
“After this latest outburst, however, the arguments for being reticent seem absurd. The obvious truth can no longer be avoided or sugarcoated: we have a racist in the Oval Office.”
Mother Jones: “When news broke that President Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as ‘shithole countries,’ newsrooms across the country had to decide how to handle the expletive… On CNN, anchor Wolf Blitzer avoided using the word by saying ‘s hole’ (over and over) instead. The Washington Post boldly put ‘shithole’ in the headline of the scoop and many outlets followed suit.”
“But media in non-English speaking countries are having a different challenge of having to translate the term.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden told the the Los Angeles Times that he has little sympathy for millennials who think they have it tough.
Said Biden: “The younger generation now tells me how tough things are. Give me a break. No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break. Because here’s the deal guys, we decided we were gonna change the world. And we did. We did. We finished the civil rights movement in the first stage. The women’s movement came to be. So my message is, get involved. There’s no place to hide.”
He added: “There’s an old expression my philosophy professor would always use from Plato, ‘The penalty people face for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse than themselves.’ It’s wide open. Go out and change it.”
“President Trump’s comments about ‘shithole countries’ like Haiti could hurt him most severely in his winter home of Florida, a state that’s also home to a large Haitian community. And it’s just the latest time he’s singled out a key voting bloc to antagonize in the state,” TPM reports.
“His racially charged comments add insult to injury to the community, just weeks after his administration ended temporary status protection for 60,000 Haitian refugees living in the U.S.”
“And that’s nothing compared to how much he’s infuriated the state’s fast-growing Puerto Rican community with his administration’s shoddy response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island.”
“The government is seven days away from shutting down over an impasse on immigration and this week of talks between the White House and Congress may have only made things worse,” Axios reports.
Said one senior GOP aide: “Everybody hates each other right now.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) “faced relentless questioning about President Trump’s fitness for office and his own handling of the investigation into Russian election meddling at a rural town meeting here Friday morning,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“It was a striking scene, not least because of where it was playing out: in a rural western Iowa county where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two-to-one and where Trump carried 65 percent of the vote in 2016. And in contrast to the crowds that packed into lawmakers’ town meetings last year, the anti-Trump contingent was not obviously organized.”
Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), a member of House Democratic leadership, told CNN the Congressional Black Caucus is pursuing a censure resolution against President Trump next week after the President’s vulgar remarks on immigrants.
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.