Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rand Paul (R-KY) “will both be voting no on the revised Senate health bill,” Axios reports.
“This comes after Mitch McConnell unveiled his new health care bill Thursday, which would let insurers sell skimpy policies that are low-cost but which adds money for combating the opioid epidemic.”
If true, McConnell cannot afford to lose another Republican vote.
Bloomberg: “Changes made to the Republican legislation to repeal large parts of Obamacare would send hundreds of millions of extra federal dollars to Alaska, whose Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski has been holding off from giving her much-needed vote to the bill. Under formulas in the revised legislation, only Alaska appears to qualify for the extra money.”
“The money comes from the legislation’s $182 billion in funding meant to help stabilize insurance markets and help states provide coverage. Under the formulas, states — in this case just Alaska — with disproportionately higher premiums would get extra funds from that account.”
Gallup: “Americans who disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president primarily base their views on his character and personality. By contrast, U.S. adults who disapproved of Barack Obama’s job performance in July 2009, during his first year in office, focused mainly on his policies and stances on issues. In mid-2001, Americans who disapproved of George W. Bush were significantly more likely to explain their views with broad or general negative evaluations of his job performance.”
Ezra Klein summarizes the revised GOP health care bill:
“This is a very bad idea for anyone who is sick, has been sick, or is likely to get sick.”
A must-read: The Destruction of Hillary Clinton by Susan Bordos.
The Guardian: “Many books have been written about the way racial differences among feminists both divided and pushed feminist thinking and practice forward over the past several decades. In the 2016 election, however, it was not race but generation that was the dynamic factor among left-leaning women.”
“You’re in such good shape.”
— President Trump, overheard by ABC News, to Brigitte Macron, the wife of French president Emanuel Macron.
There’s so much going on, so I’ll keep this brief:
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told NPR that he has sent a letter to Donald J. Trump Jr. saying that he wants him to testify in an open session of the committee as early as next week and will subpoena him if necessary.
“With the prospects for passing the current Senate Republican health care bill still in jeopardy, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) are working with their GOP colleagues on an alternative approach to replacing Obamacare: keeping much of the federal taxes in place and sending that money to the states to control,” CNN reports.
David Nather summarizes the key points:
Matt Bai: “I wasn’t right about a lot of things during last year’s campaign, but I was dead right when I warned that Trump would run the government the way he had run his business — as a family enterprise, the plaything of his children. To me, this is the single greatest threat his presidency poses.”
“They strike me as careless people. They know as much about consequence as I do about handbags.”
Josh Marshall: “Trump has skidded on the edge of legality for decades. He at least worked with and took money from crooks and organized crime figures for decades. Other than having to settle a few lawsuits, he’s never paid any price.”
“A big federal investigation like this is like a broad lava flow. It moves slowly but it is unstoppable. It burns and crushes things in its wake. And things too big or unburnable it just covers over. The little antics and PR gambits mainly do not matter. Key players in this mix don’t seem to appreciate that.”
“Senate GOP leaders plan to unveil a revised health-care proposal Thursday that would allow insurers to sell austere plans that do not comply with requirements imposed under the Affordable Care Act,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the proposal would incorporate a version of a controversial proposal from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), which conservatives have been pushing vocally during the last few weeks in an effort, they say, to lower premiums and give consumers more choices.”
“The way Trump tells it — Jim is a friend who loves Paris and used to visit every year. Yet when Trump travels to the city Thursday for his first time as president, it’s unlikely that Jim will tag along. Jim doesn’t go to Paris anymore. Trump says that’s because the city has been infiltrated by foreign extremists,” the AP reports.
“Whether Jim exists is unclear. Trump has never given his last name. The White House has not responded to a request for comment about who Jim is or whether he will be on the trip.”
In an interview on Fox News, Vice President Mike Pence’s spokesman Marc Lotter refused, repeatedly, to say if the vice president had met with any Russians himself during the presidential campaign.
Chuck Todd spoke at an Axios roundtable this morning and reported the White House “doesn’t know what it’s doing. They have no idea how to make legislation happen. They have no idea how to work with Congress. They came in with no big plan, no big agenda.”
He added: “We’re at a point where it’s every man and woman for themselves. It’s not a point where everyone is abiding by that, but it’s more and more every day.”
Also interesting about President Trump: “He showed me his DIRECTV list…he records a lot. If it’s not about him, then [channel click noise]. He watches all five Sunday shows every Sunday at some point in time.”
Amy Walter notes the forces opposed to the GOP’s health care legislation are outspending those supporting the bill $5.8 million to $354,000.
“According to data supplied to the Cook Political Report from Kantar Media CMAG, a nonpartisan tracker of political TV advertising, there have been 26,713 ads run between May 23 and July 10 that mention the health care bill. Just over 25,000–or 94 percent–of those ads have been critical of the GOP plan. Note that these figures don’t represent digital or radio ad buys.”
Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) “railed against Carrier Corp. for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico last year, even as he profited from a family business that relies on Mexican labor to produce dye for ink pads,” the AP reports.
“Donnelly, considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable Democratic senators up for re-election next year, has long blasted free-trade policies for killing American jobs… However, an arts and crafts business Donnelly’s family has owned for generations is capitalizing on some of the very trade policies — and low-paid foreign labor — the senator has denounced.”
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.