Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC) told the Washington Post that Republicans are not accurately portraying their tax bill: It isn’t a middle-class tax cut, it’s a corporate one.
Said Sanford: “Fundamentally the bill has been mislabeled. From a truth in advertising standpoint it would have been a lot simpler if we just acknowledged really on this bill, which is it’s fundamentally a corporate tax reduction and restructuring bill, period.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said he was ousted as head of President Trump’s transition due in part to his opposition to the hiring of Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Politico reports.
Said Christie: “I thought it was a significant reason… Suffice to say, I had serious misgivings, which I think have been confirmed by the fact that he pled guilty to a felony in federal court.”
A new Strategy Research poll in Alabama finds Roy Moore (R) leading Doug Jones by seven points in next week’s U.S. Senate special election, 50% to 43%.
Politico: “The Democratic women of the Senate had been talking among themselves about the Franken allegations for weeks… In calls and texts, the female senators eventually came to an unstated agreement, according to another aide familiar with their discussions: The next credible story of misconduct in a credible news outlet would prompt them to call for Franken’s resignation.”
Doug Jones (D) and his allies “are trying to finalize plans to bring in several high-profile current or former African American elected officials, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), to campaign for him this weekend in Alabama as he wages an aggressive final push to turn out black voters in a Tuesday special election with national stakes,” the Washington Post reports.
“Jones has been trying to piece together a delicate coalition built on support from core Democrats and some crossover votes from Republicans not drawn to their party nominee, Roy Moore (R). Crucial to that plan is strong turnout by African Americans, who make up about a quarter of Alabama’s electorate.”
Donald Trump Jr. “cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign,” Politico reports.
“Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.”
Said Schiff: “I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present. That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”
The White House said President Trump’s slurred speech at the end of his announcement about Jerusalem was no more than a case of dry mouth, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Said a spokesman: “His throat was dry. There’s nothing to it.”
Daily Mail: “Conspiracy theorists on Twitter launched into high gear, including Democratic partisans who speculated about every possible cause from a mini-stroke to cocaine use.”
“But a Virginia dentist… watched a video of the speech Wednesday afternoon and concluded that the speech quirk ‘sounds like a loose denture plate.'”
A Democratic official who has spoken to Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and key aides tells Minnesota Public Radio that Franken will resign his Senate seat on Thursday.
More than 30 Democratic senators have now joined the calls for Franken to step aside, according to Axios.
However, Franken’s office tweets: “No final decision has been made and the Senator is still talking with his family.”
Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) is entering the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, the Nashville Post reports.
“According to multiple sources, Bredesen began calling major donors this afternoon to confirm that he is in the race. He has been mum about a campaign since Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) announced he would step down next year, only acknowledging that he was contemplating a run. A formal announcement of his intent to run has not yet been made.”
President Trump is pushing Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) to run for the U.S. Senate, the Washington Post reports.
“Trump has told advisers he plans to call Mr. LePage, the bombastic governor who endorsed him in February 2016, and ask him to jump in against Sen. Angus King (I-ME) in 2018 — and that he would endorse him. King is an independent who often caucuses with Democrats.”
“Republican leaders, convinced they need to find new revenue in order to fund last-minute changes to the giant tax package moving through Congress, are looking at decreasing the size of their planned corporate tax cut,” the Washington Post reports.
“The House and Senate passed separate tax-cut packages in recent weeks, and both bills would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. But GOP negotiators are now openly discussing the possibility of moving that rate back up to 22 percent to generate more revenue.”
The Minneapolis Star Tribune wants Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) to resign:
Franken is only partway through a second term and had only recently started to become a larger voice on the national stage, particularly with the publication of a new book. But the incidents of alleged sexual misconduct have become too damaging for him to continue. Franken has said he will make an announcement on Thursday: It should be that he is resigning.
If this is to be an actual turning point in our culture, there must be real and lasting consequences to behaviors that never should have been accepted. That these incidents came so late in Franken’s life should make him all the more accountable. Instead, he has mostly offered hollow apologies that failed to acknowledge what happened.
Donald Trump Jr. told House investigators that did not communicate directly with his father when confronted with news reports about his June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, CNN reports.
“Instead, Trump Jr. said he was speaking to White House aide Hope Hicks about how to respond to the reports. He said President Trump was debating between a longer and a shorter statement while President Trump and Hicks were aboard Air Force One.”
“John Conyers III, a Detroit hedge fund manager named as a possible successor to his scandal-rocked father, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), was arrested in Los Angeles this year on suspicion of domestic violence, but prosecutors declined to charge him,” according to documents obtained by NBC News.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told radio host Ross Kaminsky that Republicans will next try to reduce spending on Medicare, Medicaid and anti-poverty programs in an effort to reduce America’s deficit.
Said Ryan: “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit… Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”
Earlier for members: Gutting Social Security and Medicare Is Next
David Ermold, a gay man who was denied a marriage license by Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis (R), will run to unseat her in 2018, WKLC reports.
“In the two years since then, things have quieted down in this Appalachian town. But last month, Davis announced she would run for re-election and face voters for the first time since refusing to issue the licenses. Three other people have also filed to run against her.”
Tina Dupuy is the latest woman to accuse Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) of groping her.
I only bug celebrities for pictures when it’ll make my foster mom happy. She loves Franken, so I asked to get a picture with him. We posed for the shot. He immediately put his hand on my waist, grabbing a handful of flesh. I froze. Then he squeezed. At least twice.
I’d been married for two years at the time; I don’t let my husband touch me like that in public because I believe it diminishes me as a professional woman. Al Franken’s familiarity was inappropriate and unwanted. It was also quick; he knew exactly what he was doing.
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.