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House GOP Leaders Can’t Get Votes for Budget

July 20, 2017 at 7:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Speaker Paul Ryan and his top lieutenants have a serious math problem when it comes to their budget. After weeks of delays and false starts, House Republicans are expected to advance their fiscal blueprint through committee on Wednesday night. But they’re far from the 218 votes needed to pass it on the floor,” Politico reports.

“With only one more week until the House leaves for the August recess, it looks increasingly likely that Republicans will punt once again on the most fundamental task of governing: passing a budget. Missing that deadline will leave the GOP exposed to criticism at home and undermines their chances of moving on to another key agenda item.”

One in Eight Trump Voters Would Not Do So Again

July 20, 2017 at 6:54 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“About one in eight people who voted for President Donald Trump said they would not do so again after witnessing Trump’s tumultuous first six months in office,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2016 voters.

“While most of the people who voted for Trump on Nov. 8 said they would back him again, the erosion of support within his winning coalition of older, disaffected, mostly white voters poses a potential challenge for the president. Trump, who won the White House with the slimmest of margins, needs every last supporter behind him to push his agenda through a divided Congress and potentially win a second term in 2020.”

Another Powerful Right Wing Media Company Emerges

July 20, 2017 at 6:14 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Bloomberg Businessweek: “Whatever a particular station’s network affiliation—ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, or NBC—Sinclair viewers get a steady dose of conservative political commentary. Lately, Executive Chairman David Smith has begun assembling a kind of junior varsity squad of commentators and making unspecific murmurings about competing head-to-head with the senior lettermen and women at Fox News. To left-leaning viewers only just becoming aware of the company’s reach, Sinclair is positioned to flip a switch and turn those 173 stations’ newscasts—currently delivering bulletins on weather, school closings, and local affairs—into a cohesive network that pushes a Fox News-esque worldview of outrage and conflict into individual cities, counties, and towns.”


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Trump’s Embrace of Russia Makes Advisers Wary

July 19, 2017 at 8:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump’s “persistent overtures toward Russia are placing him increasingly at odds with his national security and foreign policy advisers, who have long urged a more cautious approach to dealing with the foreign adversary,” the AP reports.

“The uneasy dynamic between the president and top aides has been exacerbated by the revelation this week of an extended dinner conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recent summit in Germany. The previously undisclosed conversation, which occurred a few hours after their official bilateral meeting, raised red flags with advisers already concerned by the president’s tendency to shun protocol and press ahead with outreach toward Russia, according to two U.S. officials and three top foreign officials.”

Trump’s Deutsche Bank Accounts Under Scrutiny

July 19, 2017 at 8:40 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Banking regulators are reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans made to Mr. Trump’s businesses through Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management unit… The regulators want to know if the loans might expose the bank to heightened risks.”

“Separately, Deutsche Bank has been in contact with federal investigators about the Trump accounts… And the bank is expecting to eventually have to provide information to Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.”

“It was not clear what information the bank might ultimately provide. Generally, the bank is seen as central to understanding Mr. Trump’s finances since it is the only major financial institution that continues to conduct sizable business with him.”

Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Picked Sessions

July 19, 2017 at 7:36 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump told the New York Times that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision “very unfair to the president.”

Said Trump: “Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”

Trump also accused former FBI director James Comey of trying to leverage a dossier of compromising material to keep his job.

Said Trump: “In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there… When he brought it to me, I said this is really, made-up junk. I didn’t think about any of it. I just thought about man, this is such a phony deal.”

McCain Has Brain Cancer

July 19, 2017 at 7:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been diagnosed with brain cancer after pathology was performed following this weekend’s surgery, CNN reports.

Agree or disagree with his politics, McCain is a true American hero. I know I speak for all readers in conveying our best wishes to the senator and his family.

Manafort Owed Pro-Russian Interests $17 Million

July 19, 2017 at 7:21 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Financial records filed last year in the secretive tax haven of Cyprus, where Paul J. Manafort kept bank accounts during his years working in Ukraine and investing with a Russian oligarch, indicate that he had been in debt to pro-Russia interests by as much as $17 million before he joined Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign in March 2016,” the New York Times reports.

“The money appears to have been owed by shell companies connected to Mr. Manafort’s business activities in Ukraine when he worked as a consultant to the pro-Russia Party of Regions. The Cyprus documents… include audited financial statements for the companies, which were part of a complex web of more than a dozen entities that transferred millions of dollars among them in the form of loans, payments and fees.”

Most Want GOP to Work with Democrats on Health Care

July 19, 2017 at 7:18 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Fox News poll finds 74% of Americans want GOP lawmakers to reach out to Democrats and try to find a compromise on a new health care bill. That includes 86% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans.

Kushner to Testify Before Senate Intelligence

July 19, 2017 at 6:57 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has agreed to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian election meddling on Monday, July 24,” ABC News has learned.

“The closed-door session sets up what could be one of the most highly anticipated interviews for lawmakers to date.”

Politico reports that on Wednesday, July 26, the Senate Judiciary Committee intends to call Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to testify on a panel about foreign influence in elections.

Axios: “Expect wall-to-wall coverage for the open Trump Jr./Manafort hearing.”

Repeal-Only Would Cause 32 Million to Lose Insurance

July 19, 2017 at 5:26 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The CBO estimates that the GOP repeal-only health care bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 17 million in 2018, compared with the number under current law.

That number would increase to 27 million in 2020, after the elimination of Medicaid expansion and the elimination of marketplace subsidies, and then to 32 million in 2026.

In addition, average premiums in the nongroup market would increase by roughly 25% in 2018. The increase would reach about 50% in 2020, and premiums would about double by 2026.

Freedom Caucus May Force Vote on Repeal-Only Bill

July 19, 2017 at 5:24 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Politico: “Leaders of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday evening will jump-start a process intended to force the measure — a mirror of the 2015 repeal proposal that President Obama vetoed — to the floor as early as September.”

“Their effort is unlikely to result in a bill landing on Donald Trump’s desk — many Republicans have rejected calls to eliminate the core of Obamacare without having a comprehensive replacement plan ready. But if the group garners enough signatures to trigger the floor vote, it would force many mainstream and moderate Republican lawmakers into the uncomfortable position of rejecting a repeal measure they backed just two years ago.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

July 19, 2017 at 5:16 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“I don’t think there are 40 votes to repeal and say to the American people, ‘Well, trust us to come up with something in the next couple of years.’ I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

— Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), quoted by CNN., on the proposed “clean” repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Lawmakers Still Don’t Know What They’re Voting On

July 19, 2017 at 5:08 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Caitlin Owens: “It’s up in the air what Senate Republicans will vote on next week, following their meeting with President Trump on Wednesday. The goal seems to be to get something passed, regardless of whether it just repeals parts of the Affordable Care Act or tries to replace them.”

“It can’t be overstated how wild it is that Senate Republicans are planning to vote on a massive restructuring of the health insurance system next week, without knowing what it will look like. And though passage of anything seems unlikely, if they do manage to pass a replacement bill, it’ll be a patchwork of last-minute compromises on top of a bill that is already massively unpopular and hasn’t been thoroughly analyzed. And Republicans will then own whatever happens under their bill.”

Hastert Booking Photo Released

July 19, 2017 at 5:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

WGN has obtained the booking photo of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) who served 13 of his 15 month prison sentence and checked in today for electronic monitoring.

“Hastert was convicted on banking charges related to a scheme to pay hush money to a man who said Hastert molested him as a boy decades ago. The case led several men to come forward to say they too were sexually abused by Hastert when he was their wrestling coach at Yorkville High School.”

GOP Health Bill Holdouts Will Meet Tonight

July 19, 2017 at 4:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Axios: “All of the Republican senators who oppose the Senate health care bill are meeting tonight to work out their differences — after being told by President Trump this afternoon that they need to work late into the night to get a deal. The holdouts, including moderates and conservatives, are scheduled to meet in Sen. John Barrasso’s office at 7:30 pm Eastern with the goal of getting a deal to revive the shelved Affordable Care Act repeal and replacement bill.”

However, one senior GOP aide dismissed the chances for actual progress: “This is just the death rattle.”

Midterm Wave Watch

July 19, 2017 at 4:21 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

With several news polls out in recent days, FiveThirtyEight’s generic congressional ballot polling average shows Democrats leading Republicans by a little more than 10 points, 48.3% to 38.1%.

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White House Scales Back Ambitions for Business Tax Cut

July 19, 2017 at 4:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“With President Trump’s promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act nearly dead, administration officials are scaling back their ambitions to cut the corporate tax rate sharply, apparently taking a more pragmatic approach as they scramble to secure a major legislative victory this year,” the New York Times reports.

“One crucial point of discussions in the coming days, the person said, will be the proposed business tax rate. In April, a White House policy paper pegged it at 15% for corporations and small businesses alike. The current rate is 35%. But now the proposed business tax rate is “drifting higher,” this person said, and may end up in the low 20 percent range.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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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