“I certainly disagree with what he said, I thought it was divisive.”
— Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, in an interview on WEEI about President Trump’s criticism of NFL players.
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Strange In Trouble In Alabama
“The White House and senior Republicans are deeply worried about Sen. Luther Strange’s chances in Tuesday’s GOP runoff here — even after unleashing the full weight of the party machinery to stop his opponent, flame-throwing conservative Roy Moore,” Politico reports.
“The sheer breadth of the anti-Moore campaign has stunned Alabama’s political class: It includes non-stop TV ads, a meticulously-crafted get-out-the-vote effort, and detailed, oppo-research-filled debate prep sessions for Strange. … Much of the assault has played out on the air. During the final week of the contest, a trifecta of pro-Strange GOP groups — the Senate Leadership Fund, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Rifle Association — flooded the state with about $2.5 million in TV and radio ads. Moore was confronting a nearly five-to-one spending deficit on the airwaves.”
The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Moore ahead by nearly eight points, 51% to 43%, ahead of Tuesday’s election.
The Divider In Chief
New York Times: “Over the course of just 17 hours this weekend, President Trump assailed John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Stephen Curry, the National Football League, Roger Goodell, Iran and Kim Jong-un — the ‘Little Rocket Man.’ And that was on his day off. … While he has restrained himself for brief stretches, his penchant for punching eventually reasserts itself. Never in modern times has an occupant of the Oval Office seemed to reject so thoroughly the nostrum that a president’s duty is to bring the country together. Relentlessly pugnacious, energized by a fight, unwilling to let any slight go unanswered, Mr. Trump has made himself America’s apostle of anger, its deacon of divisiveness.”
“In his brief career as president and a candidate for president, Mr. Trump has attacked virtually every major institution in American life: Congress, the courts, Democrats, Republicans, the news media, the Justice Department, Hollywood, the military, NATO, the intelligence agencies, the cast of ‘Hamilton,’ the cast of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ the pope and now professional sports. He has attacked the Trump administration itself, or at least selected parts of it (see Sessions, Jeff), and even the United States of America (‘you think our country’s so innocent?’).”
James Hohmann: “Trump, who was a developer before he became a reality TV star and then a politician, has long been a builder of straw men. Everyone knows that he trades on controversy, but his chaotic approach to governing also depends on constantly presenting the American people with false binary choices.”
GOP Health Care Bill Still Stalled
Playbook: “At this moment, senior Senate Republican aides seem skeptical this will turn the process around. In our conversations, one theme keeps coming up: much of the opposition to the bill is fundamental. Many senators don’t like how it was put together, and say it’s the product of a bad process. Take Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) interview with the Post‘s Bob Costa. He says he would support a bill — as long as it does not block grant funds to states. In other words, he would support a bill, as long as it’s not this bill. Momentum is everything on Capitol Hill. And right now, this bill does not have momentum.”
‘It’s Brought the Players Together’
Michael Strahan, Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw slammed President Trump’s comments on NFL protests during “Fox NFL Sunday.”
Associated Press: “About 150 players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance during early games. A week ago, just six players protested. Most of the players on Sunday locked arms with their teammates — some standing, others kneeling — in show of solidarity. A handful of teams stayed off the field until after ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to avoid the issue altogether.”
New York Daily News: NFL blitzes Trump with all-out protests.
GOP Health Care Bill Altered to Lure Two Senators
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “will release a revised version of their health-care bill Monday aiming to send more health-care dollars to the states of key holdout Republicans,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Cassidy-Graham bill overhauls the Affordable Care Act by lumping together spending on subsidies and Medicaid expansion and redistributing it to states in the form of block grants. Alaska would get 3 percent more funding between 2020 and 2026 and Maine would get 43 percent more funding during that time period.”
“Republican senators from both states, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have said they want to understand how Cassidy-Graham would affect their states before supporting the bill. Both have expressed deep opposition to cuts to health-care spending under previous versions.”
Is Trump All Talk on North Korea?
New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s willingness to casually threaten to annihilate a nuclear-armed foe was yet another reminder of the steep risks inherent in his brute-force approach to diplomacy. His strengths as a politician — the ability to appeal in a visceral way to the impulses of ordinary citizens — are a difficult fit for the meticulous calculations that his own advisers concede are crucial in dealing with Pyongyang.”
“The disconnect has led to a deep uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump is all talk or actually intends to act. The ambiguity could be strategic, part of an effort to intimidate Mr. Kim and keep him guessing. Or it could reflect a rash impulse by a leader with little foreign policy experience to vent his anger and stoke his supporters’ enthusiasm.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I don’t know what he’s going to do tomorrow. He changes his statements almost on a daily basis. So for me to spend my time trying to analyze what he says, I don’t know.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview on 60 Minutes, on President Trump.
Moore Holds 10-Point Lead Over Strange
A new Optimus poll finds Roy Moore (R) leading Sen. Luther Strange (R) in the GOP Senate primary runoff, 55% to 45%.
Key finding: “80% of those surveyed and 86% of primary voters know Trump endorsed Strange, which is up 5% since Tuesday and 15% since last week. Moore has maintained similar leads throughout this period.”
Trump Issues New Travel Ban
President Trump “issued a new order banning almost all travel to the United States from seven countries, including most of the nations covered by his original travel ban, citing threats to national security posed by letting their citizens into the country,” the New York Times reports.
“Starting next month, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be indefinitely banned from entering the United States, Mr. Trump said in a proclamation released Sunday night.”
Axios: “One obvious change is that, after the earlier policy was labeled a Muslim ban, the Trump administration has added countries that are not majority-Muslim.”
Obama Warned Zuckerberg About Fake News
“Nine days after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dismissed as ‘crazy’ the idea that fake news on his company’s social network played a key role in the U.S. election, President Obama pulled the youthful tech billionaire aside and delivered what he hoped would be a wake-up call,” the Washington Post reports.
“For months leading up to the vote, Obama and his top aides quietly agonized over how to respond to Russia’s brazen intervention on behalf of the Trump campaign without making matters worse… Now huddled in a private room on the sidelines of a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, two months before Trump’s inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race.”
Kushner Used Private Email for White House Business
Jared Kushner “has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business,” Politico reports.
“Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. Politico has seen and verified about two dozen emails.”
Steelers Stay In Locker Room for National Anthem
Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin said his team would remain in the locker room for the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner, the Sporting News reports.
Said Tomlin: “These are very divisive times for our country. For us, as a football team, it’s about us remaining solid. We are not gonna be divided by anything said by anyone.”
He added: “If a guy wants to go about his normal business and participate in the anthem, he shouldn’t be forced to choose sides. If a guy feels the need to do something, he shouldn’t be separated from his teammate who chooses not to. So we’re not participating today. That’s our decision. We’re gonna be 100 percent. We came here to play a football game. That’s our intentions, and we’re gonna play and play to win.”
Cruz Not Ready to Support Latest GOP Health Bill
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Texas Tribune that he’s not ready to vote for the Graham-Cassidy health care bill which would repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Said Cruz: “Right now they don’t have my vote, and I don’t think they have Mike Lee’s either.”
Graham Predicts He’ll Get the Votes
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the GOP would manage to round up the 50 votes necessary to pass Obamacare repeal through the Senate by the end of the next week, Politico reports.
But his path to 50 votes is unclear.
“Among the Senate’s 52 Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona have already said they will vote against the proposal, which would repeal Obamacare and replace it with block grants to the states. Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Sunday she would have a difficult time voting for the bill, and Senate Republicans also expect Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to vote against it.”
NFL Owner Joins Players During Anthem Protest
“Less than three hours after President Trump called on NFL owners to suspend or fire players who protest during the national anthem, the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars — the first teams to play on Sunday — linked arms or took a knee during the playing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ before the teams 9:30 a.m. EDT kickoff in London’s Wembley Stadium,” the Washington Post reports.
“Ravens Coach John Harbaugh joined his players, linking arms, and Ravens Hall of Famer Ray Lewis took a knee. Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who had contributed $1 million to the Trump inauguration, locked arms with his players in what is believed to be the first visible participation in relation to anthem protests by a league owner.”
Trump Is Trying to Distract from His Big Losses
Mike Allen quoted former Clinton advisor Doug Sosnik on what President Trump is trying to accomplish by attacking professional athletes who protest during the national anthem: “One of Trump’s typical moves is to toss a bomb out of nowhere to deflect what is really bothering him, in the hopes that the press will be distracted.”
He added: “There is a good chance that the candidate he endorsed and campaigned for will lose in the Alabama Senate primary. On top of that, it looks like … another failed Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare. So he figures that the shows on Sunday focusing on his fights with professional athletes is more appealing than a discussion about how he is becoming a loser.”
Collins Can’t See Voting for GOP Health Care Bill
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told CNN that it would be “very difficult for me to envision a scenario” where she would vote for Republicans’ latest plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, but the Maine Republican said she wanted to wait for a Congressional Budget Office score of the Graham-Cassidy bill before rendering a final decision.
