Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) should leave the race, Politico reports.
Said McConnell: “I think he should step aside. I believe the women, yes.”
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New Roy Moore Accuser to Come Forward
“An Alabama woman is expected to disclose allegations of sexual assault against Roy Moore during a press conference today in New York,” the Birmingham News reports.
“New York Attorney Gloria Allred is holding a press conference at 2:30 p.m. EST with the new accuser, whose name hasn’t been made public. The woman alleges that Moore, Alabama’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, assaulted her when she was a minor.”
Quote of the Day
“I think it demonstrates to Mr. Putin that Donald Trump can be played by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national security standpoint.”
— Former CIA Director John Brennan, quoted by the Washington Post, on not confronting Russian president Vladimir Putin over his election interference.
Cuomo Bypasses Small Donors
New York Times: “At $25 million and counting, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) sits atop the largest tower of campaign contributions of any Democratic politician in America, but this monument to his prodigious fund-raising strength also reveals one of his greatest vulnerabilities, especially if he harbors presidential ambitions. He has virtually no small donors.”
“Since the beginning of 2015, Mr. Cuomo has raised more than 99 percent of his campaign money from donations larger than $1,000 and nearly 99.9 percent of his funds from donors who gave at least $200, according to an analysis by The New York Times. At one point last year, Mr. Cuomo went six months without reporting a single individual donor who gave less than $200.”
The Old Republican Party Is Gone Forever
Frank Rich: “The idea that the pre-Trump GOP will make a post-Trump comeback to vanquish these forces is laughable. Old-line Establishment Republicans in the Senate and the House, even very conservative ones like Flake, are engaging in self-deportation, as Mitt Romney might say, rather than face a firing squad in the primaries. The Trumpists will with time expunge the rest, including Paul Ryan (whom Bannon has dismissed as ‘a limp-dick motherfucker who was born in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation,’ according to Joshua Green in The Devil’s Bargain).”
“It’s a replay of the purge of the 1960s, when the reinvented GOP shaped by Goldwater, Nixon, and the ‘southern strategy‘ shoved aside the likes of Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney. Given that 89 percent of Republicans voted for Trump in November and that 80 percent of today’s GOP voters reliably give Trump favorable approval ratings no matter what he has said or done since, that means only a fifth of those Americans identifying as Republicans are (possibly) Never Trumpers.”
“The remains of Establishment Republicanism are at best a Potemkin village. It’s too little, too late for ‘the Republican renovation project’ floated in October by the former George W. Bush speechwriter and passionate Never Trumper Michael Gerson, who imagined that John Kasich, Flake, Ben Sasse, and the like would dream up ‘a compelling alternative to the Bannon appeal.’ History will show that feckless Establishment Republicans repeatedly missed their chance to take back or renovate their party by being too cowardly, too cynical, or too inept to confront Trumpism as it fanned the flames of racial backlash under Palin, the tea party, and finally Trump during the Obama years.”
Republicans Are In Big Trouble with Women
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Biden Not Sure About Running In 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden “says he’s uncertain about a run for president in 2020, but he indicates he’s looking for fresh blood to lead the Democratic Party,” the AP reports.
Said Biden: “I’m just not sure it’s the appropriate thing for me to do.”
He added: “We gotta turn this ship around… I’d much prefer to be helping someone turn it around than being the guy trying to turn it around.”
Gerrymanders Dim Hopes for 2018
New York Times: “Around the country, gerrymandering, refined to a high art, and increasingly restrictive voting laws have left many experts wary of assuming that the intensity of Democratic voters will translate into equally robust electoral gains… Striving to expand the political playing field, Democrats have announced a target list of 80 House seats.”
“But in a sign of their fundamental advantages, Republicans have a far shorter list of races that concern them, and multiple party strategists said they believed there were only 35 to 40 Republican lawmakers in seats that Democrats could seize.”
Trump Teases Major Trade Announcement
President Trump said he’ll make a “major” announcement on trade next week at the White House upon returning from his Asia trip, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “We’ve made some very big steps with respect to trade, far bigger than anything you know.”
Still No Path Forward on Tax Bill
Playbook: “With the Roy Moore controversy continuing to rage, Republicans in Washington are looking to return to more comfortable territory this week — tax reform. After months of work, the House is expected to pass its overhaul of the tax code while the Senate Finance Committee is slated to pass their own version. The forward progress is welcomed by the White House and GOP operatives who believe passing a tax package before the midterm elections is even more essential to holding their majorities in Congress than it was just a week ago.”
“Nothing is over in Washington until it is over. There are still massive differences in the House and Senate bills and it’s unclear how Republicans will find a path forward on key issues like state and local tax deductions. So Republicans could find themselves one step forward, two steps back when it comes to final passage.”
What Mueller’s Org Chart Says About Russia Investigation
“Special counsel Robert Mueller has not publicly uttered a single word about the direction of his high-stakes Russia probe. But the way he’s assigned the 17 federal prosecutors on his team — pieced together by Politico from court filings and interviews with lawyers familiar with the Russia cases —gives insight into how he’s conducting the investigation and what might be coming next.”
“His most experienced attorneys have discrete targets, such as former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and current White House aides. Mueller’s longtime chief of staff is coordinating all the lawyers, including some who cover multiple topics. Select FBI special agents have been tapped to question witnesses.”
‘They’re In a World of Shit’
Vanity Fair: “A year after Trump’s stunning election, the administration has zero legislative wins, a looming investigation hanging over their heads, and Jared and Ivanka have a pretty erratic family member/boss to deal with—and New York isn’t looking much prettier.”
“The Trump-Kushners, as much skilled branders as they are political neophytes, have not been able to privately shake concern over the looming investigation. During the weekend before Mueller’s first indictments were unsealed, three sources who spoke to Kushner or were familiar with his conversations told me that he worked the phones asking about whether they thought the investigation would amount to anything. ‘They’re in a world of shit,’ one of the people close to the family told me. ‘He may seem cool, but he’s sweating, and she’s like her father. She’ll never acknowledge it and [will] blame the media. But she’s been working on her reputation forever, and now it’s going to suffer horrifically. And for what?'”
Trump Careens Off Message After Talking to Putin
President Trump “stayed on script for more than a week as he crisscrossed Asia — and then Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up,” Politico reports.
“After chatting with Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here, Trump abandoned the diplomatic tone the White House had carefully scripted for his five-country tour, once again contradicting the overwhelming consensus among current and former U.S. officials that the Russian leader tried to manipulate the 2016 election.”
Republicans Have Actually Made Tax Cuts Unpopular
Jonathan Chait: “There was a time when liberal professionals, watching in horror as Republican presidents drove the federal budget into a ditch, could at least count on the semi-guilty consolation of a tax break. And I would indeed be happy to have my tax rate raised for the purpose of reducing the deficit or funding important social needs. But the prospect of paying higher taxes in order to finance gigantic tax cuts for much richer people is a novel misery. The comprehensive awfulness of the Trump administration has extended into new terrain.”
“The Republican government seems hell-bent on this course.”
Ryan Breaks Record for Shutting Down Floor Debate
“Paul Ryan vowed an end to the much-despised top-down approach of his predecessor when he took the speaker’s gavel in 2015, promising a House that’s ‘more open, more inclusive, more deliberative, more participatory,'” Politico reports.
“But two years later, the House Rules Committee, which is controlled by the speaker, just set a record for the most closed rules in a session — barring lawmakers for the 49th time from offering amendments on a bill.”
“Ryan has yet to allow a single piece of legislation to be governed by an open rule, which allows members to propose changes on the floor.”
Half of White Southerners Say They’re Under Attack
A new Winthrop University poll finds that nearly half of white Americans living in the South feel like they’re under attack.
“Forty-six percent of white Southerners said they agree or strongly agree that white people are under attack in the U.S. More than three-fourths of black respondents said they believe racial minorities are under attack. And 30 percent of all respondents in the poll agreed when asked if America needs to protect and preserve its white European heritage.”
Biden’s Memoir Offers Peek at Possible 2020 Campaign
NBC News says former Vice President Joe Biden’s new memoir “offers a road map for what a Biden campaign might have looked like in 2016 — and could still in 2020.”
“A cautious, trim-around-the-edges campaign was pointless. So Biden for President was going to go big. Because frankly, at this point in my career and after all my family had been through, anything less just wasn’t worth it,” he writes.
“So many of the presidential campaigns that summer seemed locked in the past. A fight over what happened, what went wrong, what America lost. If I ran, I wanted to paint a picture of America’s future, what we could become, how everyone could be dealt back into the deal.”
Jones Grabs Lead In Alabama
A new JMC Analytics poll in Alabama finds Doug Jones (D) now leading Roy Moore (R) in the U.S. Senate special election run off, 46% to 42%, with 9% undecided.
Interesting: “While 38% of poll participants said they were ‘less likely’ to vote for Moore in the aftermath of the allegations, 29% said it made them ‘more likely’ to vote for him and 33% said it made ‘no difference.'”
