“Donald Trump promised during the campaign to implement a ‘secret plan’ to defeat ISIS, including a pledge to ‘bomb the hell out of’ the terror group in Iraq and Syria.”
“Now, the Pentagon has given him a secret plan, but it turns out to be a little more than an ‘intensification’ of the same slow and steady approach that Trump derided under the Obama administration,” two senior officials who have reviewed the document told NBC News.
Former DNC chair Donna Brazile acknowledged sending town hall topics to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, writing in Time magazine that it a “mistake I will forever regret.”
Said Brazile: “My job was to make all our Democratic candidates look good, and I worked closely with both campaigns to make that happen. But sending those emails was a mistake I will forever regret.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said that President Trump should apologize to former President Barack Obama for accusing him of ordering an illegal wiretap of his phone lines, given that there is no public evidence to support it, Politico reports.
Said Cole: “I see no indication that that’s true. And so it’s not a charge I would have ever made. And frankly, unless you can produce some pretty compelling proof, then I think the president, you know, President Obama is owed an apology in that regard.”
President Trump, “who made headlines for shaking hands with Japan’s prime minister in front of reporters for a full 19 seconds, seemed to ignore German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she suggested that they exchange the same courtesy during her White House visit Friday,” Politico reports.
“In an exchange caught on video, photographers gathered around Trump and Merkel in the Oval Office early Friday afternoon and suggested that the two leaders shake hands for the camera.”
Axios has a series of “headline grabbing moments” from the Trump-Merkel press conference.
“We’ve been dreaming of this since I’ve been around… since you and I were drinking out of kegs.”
— Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), in an interview with National Review, about this “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cut Medicaid spending.”
Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was removed from his post by the Trump administration last week, was overseeing an investigation into stock trades made by the president’s health secretary, ProPublica reports.
“Tom Price, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, came under scrutiny during his confirmation hearings for investments he made while serving in Congress. The Georgia lawmaker traded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of shares in health-related companies, even as he voted on and sponsored legislation affecting the industry.”
“The Trump administration filed court papers Friday hoping to salvage its second version of a travel ban, after two judges in separate cases this week found it likely violated the Constitution,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Justice Department filed legal papers in federal court in Maryland, setting up a new showdown in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, located in Richmond, Virginia.”
“Facing a jeering crowd of demonstrators and left-leaning voters, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said that President Donald Trump should release his tax returns,” Politico reports.
“As she absorbed boos and heckles for her answers on health care, climate change and Planned Parenthood, the Iowa Republican gave the mostly Democratic crowd something to cheer for: Becoming one of the latest high-profile lawmakers to call on Trump to release more of his financial information.”
“The first big tax cut moving through Congress under President Donald Trump would likely benefit the president himself, potentially saving him millions of dollars in taxes on his rental income next year and even more money on other income if he wins a second term,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mr. Trump’s decision to continue owning his businesses as president without running them expands the tax’s effect on him and thus makes him benefit more from the proposed repeal, which would take effect in 2018, according to accountants and tax lawyers.”
A new OnSight poll in Colorado finds Sen. Cory Gardner’s (R-CO) efforts to keep President Trump at arm’s length may be hurting his support among Republicans. His approval among GOP voters was 63% — a far cry from the 83% of Colorado Republicans who approved of Trump.
Sebastian Gorka, President Trump’s top counter-terrorism adviser, is a formal member of a Hungarian far-right group that is listed by the U.S. State Department as having been “under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany” during World War II, leaders of the organization have told the Forward.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says he hasn’t been getting much pushback from fellow House Republicans about his controversial tweet over the weekend saying that “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” The Hill reports.
Said King: “My colleagues have generally been coming by and patting me on the back. And a surprising number have said that they pray for me. And, meaning they support me and they agree with me, a surprising number.”
He added: “I don’t often have members come up and say at the end of the day, ‘I prayed for you this morning.’ So they must think I’ve got a lot of arrows in my back.”
“There’s not a person in Washington who thinks that there actually was a wiretap, that this is true… It makes you question the credibility of the president on anything.”
— Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News.
President Trump hasn’t forgotten Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) decision not to endorse him and wasn’t timid in bringing it up during his visit to the state, Politico reports.
Said Trump as he posed for a photo op: “Come on governor, even though you didn’t endorse me.”
He added: “I never forget.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said that she opposes the House Republican health care bill being debated in Congress, the Portland Press Herald reports.
“Though the moderate Republican previously has raised concerns about the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, she had not previously said she was against it.”
Said Collins: “This is not a bill I could support in its current form. It really misses the mark.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ruled out opening any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and said for the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action “if they elevate the threat of their weapons program” to an unacceptable level, the New York Times reports.
“The secretary of state’s comments were the Trump administration’s first public hint at the options being considered, and they made clear that none involved a negotiated settlement or waiting for the North Korean government to collapse.”
Said Tillserson: “The policy of strategic patience has ended.”
The United States has made a formal apology to Britain after the White House accused GCHQ of helping Barack Obama spy on Donald Trump in the White House, the Telegraph reports.
“Sean Spicer, Mr Trump’s press secretary, repeated a claim on Thursday evening – initially made by an analyst on Fox News – that GCHQ was used by Mr Obama to spy on Trump Tower in the lead-up to last November’s election.”
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.