Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) “told a group of high school and middle school students last week that it’s fine to be a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer community ― but if you’re too open about it, don’t be surprised if you get picked on,” the HuffPost reports.
Said Enzi: “We always say in Wyoming you can be anything you want to be as long as you don’t push it in somebody’s face.”
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that President Trump’s executive order threatening to pull funding from sanctuary jurisdictions is unconstitutional, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Sanctuary policies vary, but they all limit in some way cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.”
The New York Times calls it “another setback for President Trump in what is shaping up to be a long season of litigation surrounding the clash between the White House and so-called sanctuary cities.”
Jack Shafer: “The national media really does work in a bubble, something that wasn’t true as recently as 2008. And the bubble is growing more extreme. Concentrated heavily along the coasts, the bubble is both geographic and political. If you’re a working journalist, odds aren’t just that you work in a pro-Clinton county—odds are that you reside in one of the nation’s most pro-Clinton counties. And you’ve got company: If you’re a typical reader of Politico, chances are you’re a citizen of bubbleville, too.”
“I’m not happy to have to pass this on. I’m very, very troubled to have to pass this on. And I want to say at the outset that I hope my interpretation is wrong, and I hope this is not the case. But it looks like, from here, right here, right now, it looks like President Trump is caving on his demand for a measly $1 billion in the budget for his wall on the border with Mexico.”
— Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show.
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), leader of the centrist Tuesday Group, told the Washington Examiner that he still opposes the House Republican healthcare repeal bill, saying that a proposed compromise does not address his key concerns.
Said Dent: “Based on what I’ve read, it does not change my position. I was a no, and I remain a no.”
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau admitted that his late brother was once charged with marijuana possession – and that their father’s resources and connections helped make the charge “go away,” the Guardian reports.
Said Trudeau: “He reached out to his friends in the legal community, got the best possible lawyer and was very confident that he was going to be able to make those charges go away. We were able to do that because we had resources, my dad had a couple of connections, and we were confident that my little brother wasn’t going to be saddled with a criminal record for life.”
Maria Comella, a former top aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is crossing party lines to become New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) new chief of staff, CNN reports.
“Comella also has a long history of working on presidential campaigns, having joined George W. Bush, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Christie during their respective runs. That experience could benefit Cuomo if he decides to make a run of his own in 2020.”
Doug Robinson, who is Mitt Romney’s nephew, is running for governor of Colorado, the Denver Post reports.
“The Denver investment banker declared his candidacy for the 2018 race in a letter sent to Republican activists and launched online advertisements directed to a new campaign website.”
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn likely broke the law by failing to disclose foreign income he earned from Russia and Turkey, the Washington Post reports.
House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) “said they believe Flynn neither received permission nor fully disclosed income he earned for a speaking engagement in Russia and lobbying activities on behalf of Turkey when he applied to reinstate his security clearance, after viewing two classified memos and Flynn’s disclosure form in a private briefing Tuesday morning.”
Said Chaffetz: “As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else. And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate, and there are repercussions for a violation of law.”
Meanwhile, CNN reports the White House declined to provide documents that the panel investigating Michael Flynn had requested.
“Americans’ support for immigration and free trade hit record highs in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, just three months after the inauguration of a president who pledged to curtail both.”
“Six in 10 Americans said immigration helps the nation more than it hurts—up 6 points since the last sounding, in September 2016…. Support for free trade rose slightly in the latest survey, with 57% saying it is beneficial for the U.S. and 37% saying it isn’t—a gap of 20 points, and a record level of support.”
Former President Barack Obama will be paid $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference this September, the Washington Examiner reports.
Matthew Yglesias: “That’s so much cash, for so little work, that it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to turn it down… Indeed, to not take the money might be a problem for someone in Obama’s position. It would set a precedent… Which is exactly why he should have turned down the gig.”
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) purchased $2.2 million worth of stock in Innate Immunotherapeutics as part of its initial public offering in late 2013, the Daily Beast reports.
“The IPO prospectus said Innate would seek FDA approval of its drug to treat multiple sclerosis. More than a year later, Collins wrote into a bill language to expedite the FDA’s approval process for such drugs. Four months before the bill was signed into law, Collins again purchased stock in Innate, this time as much as $1 million.”
A new Harvard IOP poll finds that just 32% of 18 to 29 year old Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance overall.
Stuart Rothenberg: “If 2016 was a realignment, it was a shallow one. Yes, the Republican presidential nominee carried Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but the margins were extremely narrow: just over 44,000 votes out of over 6 million cast in Pennsylvania and under 23,000 out of almost 3 million in Wisconsin.”
“Still, realignments in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (to say nothing about competitive states like Ohio and Iowa), particularly around cultural issues, could affect near-term elections, including next year’s midterms and the 2020 presidential election.”
“Count me as skeptical that the statewide shifts in both states are large enough and long-lasting enough to constitute partisan realignments. But the 2018 and 2020 elections should give us a better handle on what, if anything, has happened in both states.”
Gerald Seib: “This presidency wouldn’t have started with polarizing issues guaranteed to back both parties further into their corners: aiming to repeal the Democrats’ signature health-care law and imposing a ban on travel from a set of Muslim-majority countries as the first step in fighting terrorism. Rather, it would have opened with two big initiatives in which at least a few Democrats would have been willing—maybe even eager in some cases—to cooperate: rebuilding American infrastructure and changing the nation’s inefficient tax code.”
“This alternative presidency would have set out from the beginning to build bridges to the 10 Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018 from states Mr. Trump carried, and the 12 House members who represent districts Mr. Trump carried in 2016. In this Trump presidency, the cabinet he chose would have been populated with fewer ideological conservatives and instead would have included some moderate Democrats.”
“As the Trump presidency approaches its 100-day mark Saturday, it’s easy to imagine that Mr. Trump, given a do-over, might choose this kind of opening act. It would have capitalized on his strongest single asset, which is the fact that he isn’t the product of the traditional party system but rather that rarest of things in Washington, a genuine free agent.”
“When President Barack Obama announced the ‘one-time gesture’ of releasing Iranian-born prisoners who ‘were not charged with terrorism or any violent offenses’ last year, his administration presented the move as a modest trade-off for the greater good of the Iran nuclear agreement and Tehran’s pledge to free five Americans,” Politico reports.
“But Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal… In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security.”
Playbook: “The White House yesterday sent out the message that they planned to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent — fulfilling a campaign-season promise. Is this an opening negotiating position or what Trump wants to achieve? We don’t know, because we haven’t seen him in a successful legislative negotiation yet.”
“But privately, Capitol Hill Republicans are seething. Why? Because a 15 percent corporate rate is practically impossible to achieve without blowing a hole in the budget. The president might be willing to balloon the national deficit, but Hill Republicans — which have made debts and deficits their central issue over the last decade — are not. To make a cut like that permanent, Republicans would need Democratic votes in the Senate, because it would run afoul of reconciliation rules. Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans raise $1 trillion in new cash with the border-adjustment tax, and they can only get the corporate rate down to 20 percent. Trump is signaling he has no interest in the so-called BAT.”
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.