“In remarks in Seoul with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the North of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs — and vowed to defeat any attack,” the AP reports.
“Mattis said North Korea engages in ‘outlaw’ behavior and that the U.S. will never accept a nuclear North. He added that regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old U.S.-South Korean alliance.”
Roll Call suggests the most likely indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — coming as soon as Monday — are Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Carter Page.
The “long shots” are Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner.
“If Mueller is targeting the commander in chief, going after his son or son-in-law this early would be a way of getting Trump’s attention.”
“Rank-and-file House Republicans are increasingly alarmed by the secrecy shrouding the massive tax bill their party leaders plan to ram through Congress next month,” Politico reports.
“Just days ahead of the legislation’s release, GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee are still in the dark on numerous details being ironed out by the powerful tax-writing committee’s chairman, Kevin Brady (R-TX), and his staff. And they’re blaming the panel’s top-down approach for the uncertainty.”
The BBC caught scam call center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking.
The BBC caught scam call center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking. One worker bragged about making $250k from victims. The disturbing truth? Scammers don’t pick phone numbers at random. They buy your data from brokers.
Once your data is out there, it’s not just calls. It’s phishing, impersonation, and identity theft. That’s why I recommend Incogni: They delete your info from the web, monitor and follow up automatically, and continue to erase data as new risks appear. Try Incogni here and get 55% off your subscription with code POLITICALWIRE.
Note to readers: I use Incogni myself and highly recommend it.
A new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds 71% of Americans say the nation’s politics have reached a dangerous low point, and a majority of those believe the situation is a “new normal” rather than temporary.
“The poll finds that 7 in 10 Americans view the Trump administration as dysfunctional. But dissatisfaction extends well beyond the executive branch: Even more Americans, 8 in 10, say Congress is dysfunctional, and there is limited trust in other institutions, including the media.”
“The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald Trump and the Russian government,” the New York Times reports.
“It has long been known that Fusion GPS was first hired by Republicans, but it was not known who was the source of the funding.”
Washington Post: “Opposition research is nothing new in political races, or the corporate world, but it is not a common practice for a news website to hire out such work, which is often expensive. Firms like Fusion GPS can charge tens of thousands of dollars for research on a single subject.”
Facebook is bringing “dark posts” into the light in response to the election interference on social media last year, and the new rules will impact all advertisers, Ad Age reports.
“On Friday, Facebook revealed a new system of disclosing what groups and companies paid for ads on its platform: Any ads running on Facebook will be readily viewable by anyone.”
“That means no more so-called dark posts, ads that target only a particular set of people but are invisible otherwise because they never appear as posts on a brand or group’s page. The ads themselves will remain available—only now they’ll be visible to all.”
“The Florida Senate’s top Democratic leader, Jeff Clemens, resigned Friday after admitting to having an affair with a lobbyist during the last legislative session, saying that repairing his personal life was impossible while serving in the high-profile role,” the Miami Herald reports.
Said Clemens: “I have made mistakes I am ashamed of, and for the past six months I have been focused on becoming a better person. But it is clear to me that task is impossible to finish while in elected office. The process won’t allow it, and the people of Florida deserve better. All women deserve respect, and by my actions, I feel I have failed that standard. I have to do better.”
A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, CNN reports.
“The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.”
A new Middle Tennessee State University poll finds Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) approval rate sank from 52% in February to 45% after his public fight with President Trump.
Worse, just 37% of Republicans now say they approve of Corker as compared to 61% in February.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) “has privately told allies in Utah that he is planning to retire at the end of his term next year, and if he does, Mitt Romney intends to run for his seat,” The Atlantic reports.
“Sources close to both men said plans have already been set in motion for Hatch to retire and for Romney to run, but they cautioned that the timing of the announcements has not yet been finalized, and that either man could still change his mind. They spoke on condition of anonymity, because the plans are not yet public, and the subject is sensitive to Hatch.”
Natalia Veselnitskaya “arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said, and any suggestion that she was acting at the Kremlin’s behest that day is anti-Russia ‘hysteria,'” the New York Times reports.
“But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika’s office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim.”
“The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya’s account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman.”
“President Trump delights in making spectacles out of personnel decisions. He conducted cabinet interviews at his New Jersey golf club, inviting members to gather and gawk. He summoned both finalists for a Supreme Court seat to the White House on the day of the announcement. And now he is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed’s most vocal critics.”
Politico: Trump leaning toward Powell for Fed chairman.
“Mr. Moore, I have been teaching in this school for thirty years, and in all of that time you’re the most mixed-up person I’ve ever taught. I’m going to call you Fruit Salad.”
— University of Alabama law school professor Clint McGee, quoted by the New Yorker, when first meeting Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) as a law student.
David Brooks: “The Republican senators went to the White House and saw a president so repetitive and rambling, some thought he might be suffering from early Alzheimer’s.”
“I remember saying to myself, I never realized what a large man — I mean stature-wise, he’s a big man, with massive hands. I don’t have small hands, but when I shook hands with him, the first time I shook hands with him, I realized he was a big man.”
— Former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), quoted by New York Magazine, on first meeting Donald Trump.
The article goes on to discuss how, after seven months in prison, Grimm is strategically attempting to draw “a kind of cosmic bond” between himself and Trump and his “real” and “regular” supporters.
Andrew Sullivan: “The past week was another watershed, it seems to me, in the rising power of Donald Trump. Flake is quitting; Corker is retiring; McCain is mortal. Sasse, Murkowski, Collins, and Paul remain, but the odds are mounting against them. A new slew of Bannonite candidates is emerging from under various rocks and crannies to take their places. The Trump propaganda machine was given a chance to turn the Russia story into a Clinton scandal – lowering even further the possibility of impeachment – and gleefully took it. The FBI is the next target for a barrage of hostile propaganda, since it might expose the Supreme Leader. Mueller is being daily savaged in the right wing press. Outside Washington, Trump’s targets are faltering. The NFL is reeling; a Gold Star widow is attacked; Obamacare is at risk of being sabotaged to death; the EPA is castrated.”
“This time last year, I warned about an abyss. This is what it looks like.”
“In a major escalation of Spain’s territorial conflict, Catalan lawmakers declared independence on Friday, setting up a showdown with the central government in coming days,” the New York Times reports.
“Undeterred by the government’s threat to seize control of Catalonia, separatists in the region’s Parliament passed a resolution to “create a Catalan republic as an independent state.” In protest, lawmakers opposed to independence walked out of the chamber before the vote.”
A well-known female media veteran emailed Mike Allen with pretty good advice in light of the revelations about Mark Halperin:
If you are anxiously looking around your media organization wondering who the harassers are or were, start with the men in power who are bullies: who screamed at subordinates, berated them, seemed to take pleasure in humiliating them — often publicly. We all know them. We have all worked with them. There is clearly a correlation between that behavior and this… I would love to send a message to the screamers that their behavior will no longer be tolerated.
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.
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