For some reason, Newsweek thought it would be interesting to get disgraced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s views on why Congress is broken.
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Collins Will Not Run for Governor of Maine
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “ended more than two years of political speculation Friday and announced she would not run for governor in 2018, a decision that opens up the race for the Blaine House and keeps Collins’ moderate voice in the thick of national politics,” the Portland Press Herald reports.
Hannity Hits Back at Sasse
Fox News host Sean Hannity fanned the flames of his feud with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), saying he has “done nothing” in the Senate and to “call me when you repeal Obamacare loser,” The Hill reports.
He added: “How about standing up to McConnell?”
Trump Threatens to Hurt Millions Out of Anger and Spite
Greg Sargent: “As the implosion of President Trump continues amid the increasingly bitter intraparty war engulfing the GOP, let’s not lose sight of the very real impact this spectacular meltdown could have: It could end up harming millions and millions of people.”
“This morning, Trump unleashed two tweets that telegraph the massive damage that may yet ensue. The first bashed Democrats for allegedly not wanting to secure our border and claimed this imperils a deal to protect the ‘dreamers.’ The second signaled that Trump is set to broaden his efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act.”
Trump Takes a Sledgehammer to Obamacare
Sam Baker: “President Trump left little doubt yesterday that he intends to do as much damage as he can to the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets. And he can do a lot.”
“The executive order Trump signed yesterday aims to undercut some of the ACA’s core ideas about how insurance markets should work. His decision to halt the law’s cost-sharing subsidies will blow up those markets in the short term. And his administration has taken a slew of other steps to undermine enrollment. There’s one constant here — to wound the ACA as badly as possible.”
Quote of the Day
“It’s the Congress. That’s where the flaw comes. You can do whatever you want in the administration. Congress is much more about process than about results. That will be tragic for the American economy.”
— Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, interviewed by Newsmax.
Zinke Revives Arcane Flag Ritual
Washington Post: “At the Interior Department’s headquarters in downtown Washington, Secretary Ryan Zinke has revived an arcane military ritual that no one can remember ever happening in the federal government. A security staffer takes the elevator to the seventh floor, climbs the stairs to the roof and hoists a special secretarial flag whenever Zinke enters the building.”
“When the secretary goes home for the day or travels, the flag — a blue banner emblazoned with the agency’s bison seal flanked by seven white stars representing the Interior bureaus — comes down. In Zinke’s absence, the ritual is repeated to raise an equally obscure flag for Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt.”
Concerns Mount Over Thad Cochran’s Health
Politico: “Republicans are worried about Thad Cochran. The Mississippi senator has been recovering the past several weeks from a urological procedure. And concern is growing on and off Capitol Hill over whether the 79-year-old lawmaker will return to work on Monday when the Senate comes back from recess — not to mention how long he’ll be able to continue leading a high-profile committee or even remain in the Senate. Multiple sources close to the senator said his staff and allies have received limited information from his family about his health status, further fueling questions about his future.”
“Cochran’s office maintains that the Mississippi Republican will return next week as planned, and Senate Republican aides said they expect him back as well. But several K Street sources and Cochran allies said he’s unlikely to be back next week. Multiple sources said there’s increasing worry his absence could stretch through the end of the year.”
Lawmakers Close to Deal on State and Local Tax Deduction
“House Republicans are moving closer to keeping some form of the state and local tax deduction, and President Donald Trump isn’t standing in the way, signaling a possible breakthrough in an early spat over tax reform. Several lawmakers who huddled with GOP leaders Thursday indicated that the talks were going well,” Politico reports.
Wall Street Journal: “The aim, lawmakers say, is to keep the break for middle-income households while repealing it for higher-income households. One idea is to cut off the deduction for households whose incomes exceed a certain level. The challenge will be finding agreement on where that dividing line should be.”
Lankford Says Trump Will Give More Time for Dreamers
Sen. James Lankford (R-OL) told the Washington Post that President Trump said he was willing to “give it some more time” to allow lawmakers to find a solution for “dreamers,” unauthorized immigrants brought to this country as children, if Congress does not pass legislation extending protections before time is up.
Said Lankford: “The president’s comment to me was that, ‘We put a six-month deadline out there. Let’s work it out. If we can’t get it worked out in six months, we’ll give it some more time, but we’ve got to get this worked out legislatively.”
Twitter Deleted Data Crucial to Russia Probe
Politico: “Twitter has deleted tweets and other user data of potentially irreplaceable value to investigators probing Russia’s suspected manipulation of the social media platform during the 2016 election… Federal investigators now believe Twitter was one of Russia’s most potent weapons in its efforts to promote Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.”
“By creating and deploying armies of automated bots, fake users, catchy hashtags and bogus ad campaigns, unidentified operatives launched recurring waves of pro-Trump and anti-Clinton story lines via Twitter that were either false or greatly exaggerated.”
Trump Plans to Vilify Iran Over Nuclear Deal
President Trump “plans to deliver a broad and harsh critique of Iran in a speech Friday declaring that the landmark Iran nuclear deal is not in America’s national security interests,” the AP reports.
“Trump’s speech from the White House will outline specific faults he finds in the 2015 accord but will also focus on an array of Iran’s troubling non-nuclear activities… Those include Tehran’s ballistic missile program, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and other groups that destabilize the region.”
“Under U.S. law, Trump faces a Sunday deadline to notify Congress whether Iran is complying with the accord that was painstakingly negotiated over 18 months by the Obama administration and determine if it remains a national security priority. Although Trump intends to say Iran is living up to the letter of the agreement, he will make the case that the deal is fatally flawed and that its non-nuclear behavior violates the spirit of the regional stability it was intended to encourage.”
Trump Will Halt Critical Obamacare Subsidy
President Trump “plans to cut off subsidy payments to insurers selling Obamacare coverage in his most aggressive move yet to undermine the health care law,” Politico reports.
“The subsidies, which are worth an estimated $7 billion this year and are paid out in monthly installments, may stop almost immediately since Congress hasn’t appropriated funding for the program.”
Sam Baker: “If Congress doesn’t step up and guarantee this funding, expect insurance companies to raise their premiums dramatically; leave at least some of the ACA’s marketplaces altogether; and potentially sue the administration for withholding payments the law says they’re supposed to receive.”
Mnuchin Won’t Fill Deputy Treasury Post
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “has no plans to fill the No. 2 slot in his department after two candidates for the job dropped out of the running,” Politico reports.
“The department made the surprising announcement after Brian Brooks withdrew from consideration for deputy Treasury secretary, according to several people familiar with his decision. In May, Goldman Sachs executive Jim Donovan dropped out due to family concerns.”
Trump’s NOAA Pick Has Massive Conflict
“As a top executive at AccuWeather, Barry Myers has pushed for limits on the kinds of products that the National Weather Service offers to the public, saying they offered unfair competition to his industry,” Politico reports.
“Now, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Myers to lead the weather service’s parent agency could allow him to make those kinds of restrictions mandatory — to the benefit of his family-run forecasting company.”
Discounting Trump
Jack Shafer: “Trump loves watching the press and its allies scramble their jets in defense of the First Amendment when he makes threats because that puts his names in lights. As long as we continue to over-react to his tweets, as long as we keep reading too much into them, he’ll keep doing it. So am I advocating that we ignore Trump’s tweets? Never. Instead, I suggest that we discount their value in the political marketplace down to the junk level, perhaps placing them in the bundle that includes campaign speeches, advertisements and slogans.”
“Watch more of what Trump does and a little less of what he tweets. And go ahead and sleep in.”
Trump Claims Stock Market Rise Can Erase National Debt
President Trump “suggested that a soaring stock market might be ‘in a sense’ reducing the national debt, a statement that is not true, in any sense,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “The country — we took it over and owed over $20 trillion. As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. Possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value.”
He added: “So you could say, in one sense, we’re really increasing values. And maybe in a sense we’re reducing debt.”
New Polls from a Dozen House Races
Public Policy Polling surveyed a dozen different GOP-held House districts, three of which are open seats while the other nine feature incumbents seeking re-election.
David Nir: “While a couple of these results (particularly CA-49 and VA-10) look good for Democrats, overall they paint a picture of a very close battleground and don’t make it feel like a wave election is in the offing. But it’s still very early, and with over a year until Election Day, these races still have a long time to take shape.”
