Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “still is not a ‘yes’ vote on the Graham-Cassidy health care bill, according to a Cruz aide, despite changes made in a new version of the legislation released publicly Monday morning,” Axios reports.
“Cruz is the third Republican senator to say he opposes the bill. It only takes three to kill it.”
“Some of her friends have decided, ‘We don’t want to be your friend because your mom supports President Trump.’”
— RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, quoted by the Detroit News, on her daughter having a hard time at school.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) believes Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “should be recalled while he battles brain cancer and so that the GOP can replace him with someone who will support the party’s latest effort to repeal the 2010 health care law,” Roll Call reports.
Said Gohmert: “Nothing inhibits recovery from cancer like stress. I think Arizona could help him, and us. Recall him, let him fight successfully this terrible cancer, and let’s get someone in here who will keep the word he gave last year.”
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A new Suffolk University poll in New Jersey finds that 84% of likely voters says Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) should resign if convicted on bribery charges, while just 10% said he should not.
Public opinion of Menendez is negative overall, with 20% having a favorable view while 46% have an unfavorable view of him.
“North Korea’s foreign minister asserted that the pariah state has the right to defend itself by shooting down U.S. planes, even if they are not in the country’s airspace,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Ri Yong Ho: “The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country.”
He added: “Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country.”
On Saturday, President Trump tweeted about North Korea saying “they won’t be around much longer!”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes the revised version of the Cassidy-Graham health-care bill, the Washington Post reports.
Paul joins Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as firmly against the bill.
Steve Bannon “plotted to plant a mole inside Facebook,” according to emails sent days before he took over Donald Trump’s president campaign which were obtained by BuzzFeed News.
“The email exchange with a conservative Washington operative reveals the importance that the giant tech platform — now reeling from its role in the 2016 election — held for one of the campaign’s central figures. And it also shows the lengths to which the brawling new American right is willing to go to keep tabs on and gain leverage over the Silicon Valley giants they used to help elect Trump — but whose executives they also see as part of the globalist enemy.”
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) “has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl in a case that may have cost Hillary Clinton’s the presidency,” the AP reports.
“As his sentence was announced Monday, the former Democratic congressman from New York dropped his head into his hand and wept, then stared straight ahead. After the hearing ended and Judge Denise Cote left the bench, he sat in his seat for several minutes, continuing to cry.”
“Weiner was also fined $10,000. After his sentence is served, he must undergo internet monitoring and must have no contact with his victim. He must also enroll in a sex-offender treatment program.”
President Trump called into Alabama radio hosts “Rick and Bubba” this morning and warned that “Ray” Moore would open the state’s U.S. Senate seat to Democrats, the Birmingham News reports.
Said Trump: “Luther Strange is going to be a great Senator. He loves Alabama, he loves the state and he loves the country. He will absolutely win against the Democrat. Ray will have a hard time. If Luther wins, the Democrats will hardly fight. If Ray wins (Democrats) will pour in $30 million.”
When host Rick Burgess clarified that Moore’s first name was Roy and not Ray, Trump came back with why it’s “not a good sign” when the president doesn’t know your name.
Washington Post: “Party leaders are quietly circulating proposals to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and lower the top individual income tax rate from 39.6% to 35%, according to the people familiar with the plan.”
“Top White House negotiators and key GOP leaders have agreed on those targets, but apparently President Trump has not. On Sunday, as he was about to board Air Force One in New Jersey, Trump told reporters he hoped to see the corporate tax rate lowered to 15%, a level that his own negotiators had privately dismissed weeks ago.”
“Roy Moore would be the Todd Akin of 2017 and 2018 for every Republican on the ballot. Republicans will be asked, ‘Do you agree homosexuality should be punished by death, do you believe 9/11 was a result of God’s anger?’ He’ll say outrageous things, the media will play it up, and every Republican will be asked, ‘Do you agree with that?'”
— Karl Rove, quoted by the New York Times, on Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s election to a fourth term was tarnished by a surge in vote for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Germany’s election result confirms the overriding trend of European politics in the past year: the crumbling of the Continent’s established parties in the face of voter anxiety over economics and identity.”
“The fragmented vote mirrors this year’s elections in other Continental European countries including France and the Netherlands. Established parties have suffered steep losses, especially on the center left, and voters have turned to upstarts on the nationalist right, the anticapitalist left or the liberal center.”
CNN: “The AfD won 13% of the vote and came a stunning third place behind the main center-right and center-left parties. It becomes the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag since 1961.”
A new Wason Center poll in Virginia finds Ralph Northam (D) leading Ed Gillespie (R) in the governor’s race by six points, 47% to 41%.
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds 86% of Americans support a right to residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, with support crossing the political spectrum.
Two-thirds back a deal to enact such legislation in tandem with higher funding for border control.
A new CBS News poll finds that just 20% of those polled said they approved of the Graham-Cassidy health care bill aimed at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama.
Even more striking: Only 46% of Republicans said they approved of the bill.
“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.
“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.
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.”
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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