White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a reporter that it would be “highly inappropriate” to get into a debate with “a four-star Marine general” over whether he misstated facts, the Washington Post reports.
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Kelly Misrepresented Congresswoman’s Remarks
“Video of a 2015 speech delivered by Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) revealed Friday that John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, misrepresented her remarks when he accused her of bragging about securing $20 million for a South Florida F.B.I. building and twisting President Barack Obama’s arm,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Kelly, escalating a feud between Mr. Trump and Ms. Wilson, had cast the congresswoman on Thursday as a publicity-seeking opportunist. However, the video, released by the Sun Sentinel, a newspaper in South Florida, showed that during her nine-minute speech, Ms. Wilson never took credit for getting the money for the building, only for helping pass legislation naming the building after two fallen federal agents.”
Washington Post: “It marked the fifth day of a controversy that has raged since Trump attempted to deflect criticism of his handling of the deaths of four service members in an ambush in Niger.”
Trump Has No Regrets Over His Week
Daily Beast: “Over the past week, President Trump has accused his predecessors of not caring enough about fallen soldiers and their families, used his own chief of staff’s dead son as a political weapon, brought a Gold Star widow to tears, and repeatedly attacked a congresswoman for speaking out about it.”
“It was a spectacularly-shambolic week for the White House. And Trump has absolutely no regrets about any of it.”
Said one White House aide: “He loved Kelly’s performance yesterday, and considers the issue won.”
Trump Says Feuds with GOP Senators Sometimes Help
President Trump told Fox Business that his personal feuds with Republican lawmakers are an asset, not a liability, because “sometimes it gets people to do what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Said Trump: “Sometimes it helps, to be honest with you. So we’ll see what happens in the end.”
Trump’s Action Could Lead to Free Health Insurance
“If President Trump prevails in shutting down a major Obamacare health insurance subsidy, it would have the unintended consequence of making free basic coverage available to more people, and making upper-tier plans more affordable,” the AP reports.
“The unexpected assessment comes from consultants, policy experts, and state officials, who are trying to discern the potential fallout from a Washington health care debate that’s becoming even more complicated and volatile.”
Bannon’s Speech to California GOP Has Some Nervous
“The California Republican Party’s decision to invite right-wing provocateur and former presidential advisor Stephen Bannon to address its convention Friday created an unsettled concoction of excitement, dread and rubbernecking curiosity for GOP loyalists in the state,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Bannon will appear before a California GOP desperate to reverse its deteriorating influence in a state where it has been losing members and where Republican victories in statewide political races have been nonexistent for a decade. His admirers hope his speech will invigorate the GOP base and lure Trump supporters outside of the party into its fold. But Republican critics worry he’ll undercut efforts to rekindle the party in a state where Trump and his policies remain widely unpopular.”
McCain Writing a New Memoir
Coming next year: The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
Most Think Trump Will Be One of the Worst Presidents
A new Marist poll finds that 58% of Americans believe Donald Trump will be remembered as either one of the worst presidents in the nation’s history.
Said pollster Lee Miringoff: “Deep into his first year as president, Donald Trump’s less than stellar approval rating has lowered expectations about how history will judge him. For history to treat him kinder, he will have to up his game.”
GOP Lawmaker Suggests Quarantine for HIV Patients
Georgia state Rep. Betty Price (R), the wife of former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, asked in a hearing this week “what are we legally able to do” to limit the spread of HIV throughout the state, Stat reports.
Said Price: “I don’t want to say the quarantine word — but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition, so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. … Are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread?”
Congressional Approval Sinks Further
A new Gallup poll finds Americans’ approval of Congress fell to 13%.
“Americans of all political stripes hold Congress in similarly low regard. Just 18% of Republicans, 14% of Democrats and 10% of independents approve of the job the legislative body is doing. This month, these figures are unchanged among Republicans, while down slightly among Democrats and independents.”
Trump Nominees Working Without Being Confirmed
“The Trump administration is pushing the limits of an obscure federal law that restricts nominees from serving in federal positions before they’re approved by the Senate,” Politico reports.
A review “has identified four officials at three different agencies doing substantially similar work to the position for which they have been nominated – despite not yet getting a green-light from the Senate.”
“Lawyers and other experts said the moves to have unconfirmed nominees show up for work appears to skirt the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which prohibits most people who have been nominated to fill a vacant government position from performing that office’s duties in an acting capacity.”
Why Facebook Doesn’t See They’re a Problem
BuzzFeed News: “To truly understand how Facebook is responding to its role in the election and the ensuing morass, numerous sources inside and close to the company pointed to its unemotional engineering-driven culture, which they argue is largely guided by a quantitative approach to problems. It’s one that views nearly all content as agnostic, and everything else as a math problem. As that viewpoint has run headfirst into the wall of political reality, complete with congressional inquiries and multiple public mea culpas from its boy king CEO, a crisis of perception now brews.”
Love Begins Re-Election Race with a Lead
A new Salt Lake Tribune/Hinckley Institute poll in Utah finds Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) leading challenger Ben McAdams (D), 48% to 42%.
New Ad Calls for Trump’s Impeachment
Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer is funding a television and social media ad campaign to “demand that elected officials take a stand” on impeaching President Trump.
Uninsured Rate Begins to Climb
Gallup finds the percentage of U.S. adults lacking health insurance rose in the third quarter of 2017 to 12.3%, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous quarter and 1.4 points since the end of 2016.
Virginia Polling Swings Are Normal
FiveThirtyEight: “The October average of Virginia gubernatorial surveys has Northam leading Gillespie by 7 percentage points, 50% to 43%.”
“With an average Northam lead of about 7 points, sampling error alone1 suggests that some polls should find Gillespie up by a little and some polls should find Northam with double-digit advantages. That’s exactly what we’re getting.”
“The results we’re getting in Virginia are totally normal and fine, and people shouldn’t be demanding that every poll show the exact same thing.”
Tillerson Insists He’s Not Going Anywhere
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the Wall Street Journal he was confused about rumors of his departure and said he would remain in the job “as long as the president thinks I’m useful.”
Said Tillerson: “Who in the world is telling you that stuff?”
When asked if Trump should be reelected, Tillerson “paused for a beat, then said, ‘Well, of course. … I mean, I don’t think about it, quite frankly, right now… We’ve got these things we’re dealing with, but yeah.'”
Trump Blindsides Advisers with Promised Opioid Plan
President Trump “overrode his own advisers when he promised to deliver an emergency declaration next week to combat the nation’s worsening opioid crisis,” Politico reports.
“Blindsided officials are now scrambling to develop such a plan, but it is unclear when it will be announced, how or if it will be done, and whether the administration has the permanent leadership to execute it.”
“Trump’s off-script statement stunned top agency officials, who said there is no consensus on how to implement an emergency declaration for the drug epidemic.”
