A must-read: Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell.
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How Kushner Helped Russians Gain Access to Trump
Ryan Lizza: “If you read Jared Kushner’s statement to congressional committees looking for evidence of a crime, there isn’t much there. But if you read it from the perspective of the Russians trying to gain a toehold—or more—inside the Trump campaign, you realize how easy he made it for them. As the evidence mounted last year that the Russian government launched an unprecedented hacking and influence campaign to affect the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor, the Trump team, including Kushner, became increasingly more solicitous to high-level Russians offering information and requesting meetings.”
“As with his accounts of all the other interactions with Russians, Kushner claims he was simply a naïve staffer exchanging benign pleasantries. His professed innocence about the nature of these contacts may be the most troubling part of his testimony. The Russians were running a complex—and seemingly successful—campaign to gain access to Trump’s orbit and the President-elect’s most trusted adviser claims he was clueless about what was actually going on. Kushner’s testimony does not reveal evidence of any crimes, but it does reveal a campaign and Presidential transition that was a remarkably easy target for Russian-intelligence efforts.”
Aide Admits Funneling Money Between Campaigns
An aide to one of Rep. Bob Brady’s (D-PA) former political rivals admitted to engaging in an alleged scheme that helped remove a challenger to the congressman’s 2012 re-election bid, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“Carolyn Cavaness told a federal judge that she helped funnel $90,000 from Brady’s campaign fund to the campaign coffers of his Democratic primary opponent, former Philadelphia Municipal Judge Jimmie Moore. The payments were intended to cover Moore’s political debts in exchange for a promise that he would drop out of the race… The payments were allegedly routed through two political consultants, who created false invoices to generate a paper trail intended to justify the payments from Brady’s campaign committee.”
Brady referred questions to his political consultant: “They did all that. That’s five years ago. I don’t remember none of that.”
Why McCain May Ultimately Kill the GOP Health Bill
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Flake Will Take on GOP Rift In New Book
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) “faces political challenges from both sides in seeking re-election next year: On the left, emboldened Democrats are aggressively recruiting candidates to run against him. On the right, allies of President Trump are devising ways to punish Mr. Flake for his outspoken rejection of Mr. Trump last year,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet Mr. Flake, seemingly undaunted, has secretly planned an unconventional campaign kickoff that risks intensifying both threats: Working privately, and largely without the knowledge of political advisers, he has written a book that amounts to an ideological manifesto for his own version of conservatism.”
Three people who have seen the manuscript “said it would likely inflame debate about the direction of the Republican Party.”
Trump Won’t Say if He’ll Fire Sessions
President Trump “expressed his disappointment in Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday and questioned the importance of Mr. Sessions’s early endorsement of Mr. Trump’s candidacy, but the president declined to say whether he planned to fire him,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Trump: “It’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement. I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.”
When asked how long he would keep criticizing Session, he added: “I’m just looking at it. I’ll just see. It’s a very important thing.”
McConnell Wins Vote to Proceed on Health Care Bill
The Senate voted to begin 20 hours of debate on a GOP health care bill, 50 to 50, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) were the only two Republicans to oppose the measure.
It’s still not clear what version of the health care bill will be brought up.
David Nather: “No one knows if any of the repeal proposals can pass the Senate — but it will be harder for Senate Republicans to give up and shelve the effort now that they’ve gotten this far.”
Health Care Confusion Won’t Help the GOP
Nate Silver: “In reading Heller’s statement for why he’d support for the motion to proceed — part of a series of shifting positions that Heller has taken on health care — I was struck by how confusing all of it must be to voters who aren’t following the debate very carefully.”
“In general, confusion is something you want to avoid with voters, especially on matters like health care where voters are inherently nervous about changes from the status quo. If the GOP considers some very severe bills — such as a full repeal of Obamacare — before eventually passing a more moderate one, voters will be further confused, especially given that many members of Congress will have indicated their support for one of the more severe bills at various points in the months-long debate. I wouldn’t expect Republicans to get all that much benefit of the doubt from voters, in other words, given how the process has gone down.”
Ivanka Trump Lawyers Up
National Law Journal: “Along with her husband, Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter has retained criminal defense lawyer Abbe Lowell, who is head of the white-collar group at Norton Rose Fulbright in Washington, D.C., to counsel her through the probe into Russian interference.”
North Korea Will Be Able to Hit U.S. Early Next Year
“North Korea will be able to field a reliable, nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year, U.S. officials have concluded in a confidential assessment that dramatically shrinks the timeline for when Pyongyang could strike North American cities with atomic weapons,” the Washington Post reports.
Sessions Is Growing ‘Pissed’ at Trump
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no plans to leave office, as friends tell the Daily Beast that “he’s grown angry with President Donald Trump following a series of attacks meant to marginalize his power and, potentially, encourage his resignation.”
Said one ally: “Sessions is totally pissed off about it. It’s beyond insane. It’s cruel and it’s insane and it’s stupid.”
Exchange of the Day
The Washington Post reports that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) were caught on a hot mic after a committee hearing complaining about President Trump:
COLLINS: “I swear, OMB just went through and whenever there was ‘grant,’ they just X it out. With no measurement, no thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing. It’s just incredibly irresponsible.”
REED: “Yes, I think — I think he’s crazy. I mean, I don’t say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy.”
COLLINS: “I’m worried.”
REED: “Oof, You know, this thing — if we don’t get a budget deal, we’re going to be paralyzed.”
COLLINS: “I know.”
REED: “Department of Defense is going to be paralyzed, everybody is going to be paralyzed.”
Then they discussed comments made yesterday by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX):
COLLINS: “Did you see the one who challenged me to a duel?”
REED: “I know. Trust me. Do you know why he challenged you to a duel? ‘Cause you could beat the shit out of him.”
COLLINS: “Well, he’s huge. And he — I don’t mean to be unkind, but he’s so unattractive it’s unbelievable.”
REED: “Did you see the picture of him in his pajamas next to this Playboy bunny?”
What’s Likely to Happen with the Health Care Vote
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Senate Won’t Let Trump Make Recess Appointments
“Senators are planning to continue procedural moves to prevent the Senate from formally adjourning for recess next month in order to prevent President Trump from making recess appointments, when the chamber eventually adjourns through the Labor Day weekend,” CNN reports.
“Using the threat of a filibuster, Democrats plan to force the Senate to hold pro forma sessions — a practice both parties have carried out to block recess appointments from presidents of opposite party… Recess appointments let a president install nominees who normally must be confirmed by the Senate; their terms would run through the end of the ‘next session’ of the Senate, but the ‘pro forma’ sessions essentially means the Senate is never in recess.”
The Worst Social Policy in U.S. History?
Jonathan Chait: “There is probably no example in American history of Congress and a president attempting to pass major social legislation on this scale with such manifest disregard for its design and effect. It is the domestic equivalent of invading Iraq without a plan for the occupation.”
“A large part of the cause of disarray in the Republican plan is the fact that it is being passed through an abuse of the process.”
“Donald Trump is widely known for his ignorance of, and indifference to, policy substance, and for his simple desire for a ‘win.’ Traditional Republicans have quietly shifted the blame for their haphazard legislative record onto the president and his chaotic team of novices and hacks. But the shambolic rush through which Trumpcare may become law is a pure creation of Mitch McConnell and the institutional party.”
Trumpocracy
Out early next year: Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum.
How to Deal With a Kamikaze President
Jack Goldsmith: “Donald Trump’s angry morning tweet storm reached another new low with attacks on his Attorney General for not investigating his former presidential opponent, and on his acting FBI Director’s integrity. This and other attacks on key law enforcement figures in his own Executive branch goes far beyond breaking norms of investigatory independence. They bring us clearly into the territory, where we may have been for a while, of a president bent on destroying the authority of the Justice Department that he worries, perhaps for reasons only he knows, may destroy him. At no time in modern history (and perhaps ever) has a President been so openly at odds, and bent on discrediting, his senior law enforcement and intelligence officials.”
“The problem is that there is nothing anyone can to do stop the President short of impeachment. Attorney General Sessions could and should speak out sharply against the President and in defense of the integrity of his Department. That would hasten Sessions’ departure and not stop the shameless President. And resignations in protest of Sessions’ departure would only make matters worse, especially since there are so very few political appointees in DOJ at the moment.”
Scaramucci Axes First Staffer
“Newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on Tuesday that he plans to dismiss assistant press secretary Michael Short,” Politico reports.
“Short was closely aligned with press secretary Sean Spicer… He was scorned by many of his colleagues for quitting the Trump campaign, only to rejoin as a White House staffer because of Priebus.”
Scaramucci warned that Short would be the first of many, if he’s not able to stop the leaks: “I’m committed to taking the comms shop down to Sarah [Huckabee Sanders] and me, if I can’t get the leaks to stop.”
