A Faustian Bargain
Charlie Sykes: “I have long admired Paul Ryan and thought of him as the future of the Republican Party. But he’s made a Faustian bargain. I keep thinking about that scene from A Man for All Seasons, where Thomas More says, ‘What profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul, but for Wales?’ And I keep thinking, But for tax cuts, Paul?”
French Voters Sour on Macron
A new Le Figaro poll in France finds that just 36% of French citizens approve of President Emmanuel Macron after 100 days in office.
GOP Has Spent $1.3 Million at Trump Properties
Washington Post: “At least 25 congressional campaigns, state parties and the Republican Governors Association have together spent more than $473,000 at Trump hotels or golf resorts this year… Trump’s companies collected an additional $793,000 from the RNC and the president’s campaign committee, some of which included payments for rent and legal consulting.”
“The nearly $1.3 million spent by Republican political committees at Trump entities in 2017 has helped boost his company at a time when business is falling off at some core properties.”
Trump Cares Deeply About the Snubs
James Hohmann: “He has spent his entire life trying to get onto the A-list. He’s a Queens kid who has tried hard to win acceptance in Manhattan. The pomp and circumstance of the presidency were big draws when he chose to run. He was genuinely excited about the ceremonial duties of the office after he unexpectedly won the election. More than most presidents, whatever he may say to the contrary, he has shown a love for ceremonies like the one at the Kennedy Center.”
“What he does not like, and goes to great lengths to avoid, is public humiliation. After his experience at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, when Barack Obama and Seth Meyers ridiculed him from the stage, he announced that he’d skip this year’s. He didn’t throw the ceremonial first pitch at the Nationals home opener, as past presidents have, because he was afraid of getting booed.”
Lawmaker Says Impeachment More Likely Than Removal
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) “received an overwhelming endorsement from constituents Sunday for his decision to introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Several hundred attendees of a town hall cheered Sherman’s recitation of the reasons he thinks Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment.”
Said Sherman: “Impeachment is more likely than the 25th Amendment, and it could take a few more shocking things to happen. We’re not there yet.”
Bannon vs. the Murdochs
Mike Allen: “The coming war between Steve Bannon and the ‘globalists’ inside the White House promises to be a public spectacle, and a continuing distraction for the Trump administration. But it’s Bannon vs. the Murdoch sons that could really define conservatism — or at least conservative media — far beyond the Trump era.”
“We reported this weekend that Bannon, backed by the billionaire Mercers, has dreams of the Fox rival in the video/TV space. It will be unapologetically nationalist, and unapologetically at war with the Republican establishment, globalism and anyone who sides with either.”
“Oh, and Bannon has the added incentive of knowing Rupert Murdoch — executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, the parent of Fox News — pushed for his ouster.”
Trump Ramping Up 2020 Re-Election Bid
President Trump “is methodically building a 2020 reelection campaign machine, shunting aside doubts about his viability for a second term as controversy consumes the early months of his administration,” Politico reports.
“Trump is mapping out a fall fundraising tour that is expected to fill his campaign bank account with tens of millions of dollars. His team has tracked dozens of potential Democratic rivals, a list of names that ranges from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. And his administration has received political advice from a top campaign pollster from his 2016 campaign, who has urged the president to keep up his attacks on the mainstream media.”
Secret Service Has Blown Through Budget on Trump
USA Today: “The Secret Service can no longer afford to pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.”
“Secret Service Director Randolph ‘Tex’ Alles said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year. The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas.”
Ryan Gives Big Fundraising Boost to Republicans
Speaker Paul Ryan “continued building a campaign war chest for House Republicans ahead a possibly treacherous midterm election, transferring another $1.5 million to the NRCC in July,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“The transfer brought the total the Wisconsin Republican has raised for the NRCC to more than $27 million through July 31, and represented an increase of nearly $500,000 over what he gave to the House GOP campaign arm in July of last year. Of the $60 million the NRCC raised through June 30, Ryan was responsible for more than half — $33 million (the committee ended the first six months of the year with $33.7 million in the bank).”
Bannon Had Once Planned a Graceful Exit
New York Times: “John Kelly, the new White House chief of staff, told Stephen Bannon in late July that he needed to go: No need for it to get messy, Mr. Kelly told Mr. Bannon, according to several people with firsthand knowledge of the exchange. The two worked out a mutually amicable departure date for mid-August, with President Trump’s blessing.”
“But as Mr. Trump struggled last week to contain a growing public furor over his response to a deadly, race-fueled melee in Virginia, Mr. Bannon clashed with Mr. Kelly over how the president should respond. Give no ground to your critics, Mr. Bannon urged the president, with characteristic truculence… By Friday, when he was forced from his job as Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Mr. Bannon had found himself wholly isolated inside a White House where he once operated with such autonomy that he reported only to the president himself.”
White House Braces for Angry Reception in Arizona
New York Times: “Of particular concern for some officials is the prospect that Mr. Trump may be planning to announce a pardon for Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who became an avatar for hard-line policies with his roundups of undocumented immigrants. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers worry that a pardon could deepen the racial wounds exposed in the last week and compound the president’s political problems.”
“Reached by phone at home on Sunday, Mr. Arpaio said that he was not sure why Mr. Trump was thinking of the pardon, and that he had not talked to the president since around Thanksgiving, when Mr. Trump called to ask about the health of Mr. Arpaio’s wife. But Mr. Arpaio would not say whether he had talked to the Trump campaign or White House about the visit Tuesday, or whether he had made formal plans with them to make an appearance.”
Bannon Readies His Revenge
Gabriel Sherman:”Bannon also told friends that he believed Kushner encouraged Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch to lobby Trump to fire him. Last week, The New York Times reported that Murdoch told Trump over a private dinner with Kushner that Trump needed to jettison his chief strategist. The Bannon camp believes that Murdoch was especially receptive to Kushner’s lobbying because Murdoch is worried about the rise of Sinclair Broadcasting as a competitor to Fox, and blames Bannon for Trump’s decision so far not to block the Sinclair’s $3.9 billion takeover of Tribune Media in May.”
“Bannon has media ambitions to compete with Fox News from the right. Last week in New York, he huddled with his billionaire benefactor, Robert Mercer, and discussed ways to expand Breitbart into TV, sources said. ‘Television is definitely on the table,’ a Bannon adviser told me. A partnership with Sinclair remains a possibility. In recent days, Sinclair’s chief political analyst Boris Epshteyn has spoken with Breitbart editors about ways to form an alliance, one Breitbart staffer said. ‘All the Sinclair guys are super tight with Breitbart. Imagine if we got together Hannity and O’Reilly and started something?'”
Trump to Announce New Afghanistan War Strategy
President Trump “will give a nationally televised address Monday night to unveil his strategy for the long-running war in Afghanistan, the White House said, a plan expected to include sending as many as 4,000 more troops to the country,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
No Sunday Show Defense from White House
Jonathan Swan: “Not a single Trump administration official appeared on today’s Sunday shows to defend the president. I’m told the White House made no serious efforts to convince officials to go on, knowing the hosts of the shows would pressure the guests relentlessly on the president’s response to the racist carnage in Charlottesville.”
“The White House judged it was better to have nobody out there than risk providing fuel for another 24-hour negative news cycle on Charlottesville.”
Quote of the Day
“You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill.”
— An unnamed White House staffer to Mike Allen, on why many Trump aides are not resigning despite their disappointment.
Kasich Has No Plans to Challenge Trump In Primary
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) sidestepped questions about whether he thinks President Trump should face a primary challenge in 2020, Politico reports.
Said Kasich: “I don’t have any plans to do anything like that. I’m rooting for him to get it together. We all are. I mean, we’re only, like, seven months into this presidency.”
How Democrats Could Win 50 House Seats In 2018
NBC News: “As Democrats look to the horizon in 2018, they think they see a distant tsunami forming in their favor. Trump has dreadful approval ratings; Democrats are dominating generic ballot tests, which ask voters which party they want to control Congress; and presidents almost always lose a slew of seats in their first midterm elections.”
“The last time a president went into his first midterm election as unpopular as Trump is now was in 1946, when Harry Truman lost 55 House seats. The Senate may be out of reach but Democrats say they can almost feel the House Speaker’s gavel in their hands.”
