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Is the GOP Finally at a Breaking Point?

September 12, 2017 at 12:18 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Republican Party likes to think of itself as a big tent — not always a harmonious one, but full of all types,” the New York Times reports.

“In the minds of many, however, it’s grown too full, and badly needs an excision. Now more than at any point in its modern history, the party has reached such a breaking point that historians, political analysts and Republicans themselves say it faces the possibility of splintering and spawning a third party.”

Historian Michael Beschloss said the conditions were so ripe for a split: “I’ve been startled that this has not happened.”

Bannon Says He Still Talks to Trump Regularly

September 12, 2017 at 11:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon speaks with President Trump every two to three days, he told a private lunchtime gathering Tuesday in Hong Kong, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Bannon said he most recently spoke with Mr. Trump the previous night for an hour…White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Monday that she thought Mr. Bannon had spoken with the president once since leaving his role in the administration.”

Gift Memberships!

September 12, 2017 at 10:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

We’ve now made it really easy to give a gift membership to Political Wire.

You have the option to set a delivery date and include a special note for the gift recipient.

Thanks for your support of Political Wire!

Bonus Quote of the Day

September 12, 2017 at 10:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Extreme heat, drenched in sweat, with no air movement, scores of angry men, snoring and other bad, unpleasant sounds—I remember moaning to myself, ‘How the ‘f’ did I end up here?’”

— Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), in an interview with Chicago Magazine on his life in prison.

Another GOP Lawmaker Mulls Retirement

September 12, 2017 at 10:18 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Associated Press reports Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) “is weighing retirement.”

Update: A Lance staffer now says this story is incorrect and that the congressman will run again.

Quote of the Day

September 12, 2017 at 10:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Before I know what’s happening, his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on my cheek. My eyes widen. My body freezes. My heart stops. Fuck. I hope the cameras didn’t see that. My bosses are never going to take me seriously.”

— Katy Tur, writing in Unbelievable: My Front Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, recounting when Donald Trump tried to kiss her on the set of “Morning Joe.”

Out of Touch

September 12, 2017 at 10:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Thomas Frank reviews Hillary Clinton’s What Happened:

That Clinton might have done well to temper her technocratic style with some populist outrage of her own only dawns on her towards the end of the book, by which point it is too late.

Not to mention impossible. Hillary Clinton simply cannot escape her satisfied white-collar worldview – compulsively listing people’s academic credentials, hobnobbing with officers from Facebook and Google, and telling readers how she went to Davos in 1998 to announce her philosophy.

And then, in her concluding chapter, returning to her beloved alma mater Wellesley College and informing graduates of that prestigious institution that, with their “capacity for critical thinking” (among other things) they were “precisely what we needed in America in 2017.”

I wish it were so. I wish that another crop of elite college grads were what we needed. I wish Hillary’s experts and her enlightened capitalist friends could step in and fix this shabby America we inhabit today, where racists march in the streets and the Midwest falls apart and cops shoot motorists for no reason and a blustering groper inhabits the White House.

I wish it were all a matter of having a checklist of think-tank approved policy solutions. But I know for sure it isn’t. And voters knew that, too.

Trump Slams Authors Who Write About Him

September 12, 2017 at 9:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump lashed out at authors who write about him, posting on Twitter that their books and articles amount to “fake news” because “they know nothing about me,” Politico reports.

“Trump did not make clear which authors, books or articles he was referring to, although he has been a regular critic of the news media, which he has often complained covers him unfairly. The president’s tweet coincided with the release of two prominent books related to the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign memoir, entitled What Happened, and NBC political reporter Katy Tur’s Unbelievable: My Front Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History.”

GOP Seat In Michigan Is Now a Toss Up

September 12, 2017 at 9:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Wasserman: “In a wave election, Michigan’s 11th CD is exactly the kind of seat Democrats need to flip to win House control. In 2011, GOP legislators carefully drew it to take in the most Republican inner suburbs of Detroit and exclude the heavily Democratic city of Pontiac. In 2016, it voted for President Trump 49 percent to 45 percent. However, it’s also the most college-educated seat in the state and the only one where Trump’s margin failed to improve from Mitt Romney’s in 2012.”

The Cook Political Report moved the race from “Likely Republican” to “Toss Up.”

Why Roy Moore Will Likely Win Alabama’s Senate Race

September 12, 2017 at 9:16 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

First Read: “So given those past failures, why is Moore likely headed for success in two weeks? Here’s a theory: In the Trump Era, it’s much easier for a controversial (and well-known) figure to win a GOP primary than during the Bush Era (when “compassionate conservatism” was the mantra) or even the Tea Party Era (when fiscal matters often overshadowed social ones).”

“Yes, opponent Luther Strange has his own set of problems stemming from his appointment to the job by an embattled governor, and Moore is benefitting from a set of political crosswinds in the state that are pretty unique. But his rise still shows that, in the Trump Era, the parameters of what’s politically palatable in the Republican Party aren’t where they used to be.”

Cruz No Longer ‘Likes’ Pornographic Post

September 12, 2017 at 8:33 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that a “like” on a pornographic post on the Texas lawmaker’s Twitter account has been undone and reported to the social media site, Politico reports.

The Verge: “t’s unclear if Cruz liked the video himself, or if it was the late-night work of an aid that manages his social media presence. Nevertheless, Ted Cruz quickly became a trending topic and the butt of a raging internet joke machine. The last time Cruz reached this level of popularity on Twitter was when the internet wondered aloud if Cruz was the unidentified Zodiac Killer.”

Hicks Will Take Top Communications Post Permanently

September 12, 2017 at 8:31 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Hope Hicks, who has been serving as interim White House communications director, will now lead the communications team on a permanent basis, Bloomberg reports.

“She’s viewed by staff as a strong leader because she is one of the president’s most trusted aides and therefore secure in her standing.”

Security Clearance Backlog Leads to Risky Interim Passes

September 12, 2017 at 8:04 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A government backlog of 700,000 security clearance reviews has led agencies like the Defense Department to inadvertently issue interim passes to criminals — even rapists and killers — fueling calls for better and faster vetting of people with access to the nation’s secrets,” the AP reports.

Mueller Going For the Kill

September 12, 2017 at 7:25 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Mike Allen reports that special counsel Robert Mueller “is burrowing in hard on the obstruction of justice angle.”

“Republicans close to the White House say every sign by Mueller — from his hiring of Mafia and money-laundering experts to his aggressive pursuit of witnesses and evidence — is that he’s going for the kill.”

“Trump allies fret that the White House is ill-prepared for the public showdown with Mueller that will eventually come, and should be making legal, political and constitutional arguments for the president’s right to fire Comey. Statements by Trump lawyers tend to rattle, rather than reassure, White House allies.”

Trump Plans Aggressive Road Show to Sell Tax Overhaul

September 12, 2017 at 7:10 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “plans an aggressive travel schedule, taking him to as many as 13 states over the next seven weeks, to sell the idea of a tax overhaul as the administration tries to avoid repeating the communications failures of its attempt to repeal Obamacare,” Bloomberg reports.

“With a make-or-break legislative battle looming on taxes, the White House is moving to clean up a disorganized communications operation, said four people familiar with the effort.”

Playbook: “Republicans have not yet passed a budget — a prerequisite for tax reform. There’s talk they’ll take it up in the House in the last week of September, but the support is not nearly firm enough yet. There’s a chance there is no final action on the budget until October or November. Without a budget, tax reform talks are just that, talk.”

Clinton Thinks Trump Colluded with Russians

September 12, 2017 at 7:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Hillary Clinton, whose book What Happened is out today, told USA Today she’s “convinced” that Trump allies colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Said Clinton: “There certainly was communication and there certainly was an understanding of some sort… Because there’s no doubt in my mind that Putin wanted me to lose and wanted Trump to win. And there’s no doubt in my mind that there are a tangle of financial relationships between Trump and his operation with Russian money. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the Trump campaign and other associates have worked really hard to hide their connections with Russians.”

She added: “I happen to believe in the rule of law and believe in evidence, so I’m not going to go off and make all kinds of outrageous claims. But if you look at what we’ve learned since (the election), it’s pretty troubling.”

Kaine Hits the Campaign Trail Again

September 12, 2017 at 7:03 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “An aide to Tim Kaine enters a diner in Charlottesville and informs the host that the Virginia senator is about to walk in. The host smiles and cracks a joke: ‘You mean the guy who lost to Trump?’ Ten months after the presidential election, Kaine is still trying to shed the stigma of being the vice presidential candidate on the ticket that came up short against Donald Trump, a man so reviled by Kaine’s fellow Democrats that many of them can’t bear the thought of him serving out his full four-year presidential term. The senator is back on the campaign trail — stumping in Virginia for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam and preparing for his own 2018 reelection campaign.”

“But even as Kaine tries to keep his focus on the next election, there are constant reminders of the last one — the only election he’s ever lost. Trump, it seems, looms over everything. Kaine isn’t interested in relitigating one of the biggest electoral upsets in U.S. history. He looks visibly uncomfortable talking about the election and cautions against ‘overinterpreting’ what went wrong.”

Russia Used Facebook to Organize Anti-Immigrant Rallies

September 12, 2017 at 6:49 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Russian operatives hiding behind false identities used Facebook’s event management tool to remotely organize and promote political protests in the U.S., including an August 2016 anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rally in Idaho,” the Daily Beast reports.

“The Facebook events—one of which echoed Islamophobic conspiracy theories pushed by pro-Trump media outlets—are the first indication that the Kremlin’s attempts to shape America’s political discourse moved beyond fake news and led unwitting Americans into specific real-life action.”