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Trump Says His White House Is Most Productive Ever

March 16, 2017 at 9:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “touted his first two months in office as the most productive ever for a president and compared himself to President Andrew Jackson during a raucous rally Wednesday in Nashville that resembled the campaign that catapulted him into office,” the Tennessean reports.

“Drawing roars from the thousands in attendance, Trump slammed a Hawaii federal judge’s decision from earlier in the day that temporarily halted the administration’s new attempt to ban much travel from six majority Muslim countries…Trump vowed to fight for his travel ban, appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary while floating the idea of reissuing the original ban…”

“Leading up to Trump’s speech, health care had been expected to be the focus, but he didn’t approach the issue until nearly a half-hour into his remarks.”

Quote of the Day

March 16, 2017 at 8:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Let’s see whether or not I proved it. You looked at some proof. I mean, let’s see whether or not I prove it. I just don’t choose to do it right now.”

— President Trump, in a Fox News interview, on allegations he made that President Obama ordered wiretaps of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.

Trump’s Budget Stuck In the Mud

March 16, 2017 at 8:48 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

First Read: “The budget that President Trump sent to Congress Thursday sums up his first eight weeks in office. It’s bold, brash, boisterous — and not going anywhere.”

“The problem? ‘It’s dead on arrival,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said last month, objecting to the cuts in State Department funding. What’s more, Republicans will need 60 votes to erase the budget caps in military spending put in place by sequestration. And while all it takes are simple majorities to pass a budget resolution bill, the White House and the GOP Congress will need 60 votes to eventually spend/cut money through the appropriations process. Oh, and you could argue that this Trump budget outline might make it harder for Congress to pass ANY budget resolution — which will be needed to get the reconciliation protection to pass the tax cuts that Trump and congressional Republicans want.”


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GOP Senators Hoping Health Care Bill Fails in House

March 16, 2017 at 8:41 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A growing number of GOP senators are hoping the House fails to pass its bill to repeal and replace ­Obamacare so they won’t be blamed for killing it in the upper chamber,” The Hill reports.

“Support for the House legislation has ‘disintegrated’ in the Senate, according one Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal conference politics. It will require substantial revisions to win the support of moderate Republicans in the upper chamber — something that will likely make it unacceptable to conservatives.”

David Nather: “The White House and House Republican leaders have one urgent mission in the coming days: get those Republican holdouts back on board the Obamacare repeal train. They’re trying to do it by making concessions to the conservatives — though they don’t seem to be in sync on which ones they’re willing to make. And some of the changes could hurt them in the Senate, but the top priority right now is to just get it through the House.”

Playbook: “The only play right now is to get this bill through the House. The Senate is going to drastically change the legislation — some think it will never get through the other chamber. So Ryan and the White House’s focus at this point is how to get it through the House.”

Trump Misses Again on Travel Ban

March 16, 2017 at 8:35 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rick Klein and Shushannah Walshe: “It feels like deja vu. President Trump’s revised travel ban was blocked once again, this time by a federal judge in Hawaii who Wednesday issued a nationwide temporary restraining order on one of the president’s signature initiatives.”

“This version was, no doubt, harder to challenge in court, but because the plaintiffs came back to the fact they believe this was a discriminatory Muslim ban, thanks to not just Miller’s comments, but the president himself while on the campaign trail last year, it’s going to expose any version of this policy, watered down or not, to a court challenge. And it’s not just Hawaii, early Thursday morning, a Maryland judge blocked the executive order’s 90-day pause on the issuance of visas to citizens of six Muslim majority countries. The question now is what does the administration do? We should get more of those answers today.”

Perez Begins Overhaul of DNC

March 16, 2017 at 7:52 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

NBC News: “To guide his transition process, Perez on Wednesday tapped a wide range of Democrats for a transition advisory committee that will work over the next month or so to provide advice and recommendations. The 30 members of the committee were selected to represent and highlight the party’s broad coalition, from former Alaska Sen. Mark Begich to Black Lives Matters activist Deray McKesson to former South Carolina Gov. and DNC Chair Don Fowler to undocumented immigrant activist Astrid Silva.”

“And in a nod to Bernie Sanders allies, the committee includes freshman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who won an election last year in Washington state with the backing of the Vermont senator.”

Clinton Ally Sees No Sign of Trump-Russia Collusion

March 16, 2017 at 6:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who endorsed Hillary Clinton and called Donald Trump a dupe of Russia, cast doubt Wednesday night on allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia,” NBC News reports.

“Morell, who was in line to become CIA director if Clinton won, said he had seen no evidence that Trump associates cooperated with Russians. He also raised questions about the dossier written by a former British intelligence officer, which alleged a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.”

Nunes Says No Evidence to Support Trump’s Claims

March 15, 2017 at 8:31 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who has been one of the few defenders of Trump’s claims, made clear that there is zero evidence to suggest Trump Tower was wiretapped, the Washington Post reports.

Said Nunes: “I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower.”

He added that if you are taking Trump’s tweets literally — which he said you shouldn’t do — then “clearly the president was wrong.”

Dutch Liberals Projected to Beat Wilders’s Party in Election

March 15, 2017 at 8:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals easily beat the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders in Wednesday’s election, an exit poll showed, as voters responded to Rutte’s plea to send a signal on halting the spread of populism,” Bloomberg reports.

“The Liberal Party is projected to take 31 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament compared with 19 seats for the Freedom Party… Wilders’s party has to share second place with the Christian Democrats and centrist D66, both of which are also forecast to get 19 seats.”

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Revised Travel Ban

March 15, 2017 at 8:11 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A federal judge in Hawaii blocked President Donald Trump’s new travel ban on Wednesday afternoon, hours before the ban was set to go into effect,” CNN reports.

“The ruling — which applies nationwide — means that travelers from six Muslim-majority countries and refugees will be able to travel to the US.”

New York Times: “The ruling was the second frustrating defeat for Mr. Trump’s travel ban, after a federal court in Seattle halted an earlier version of the executive order last month. Mr. Trump responded to that setback with fury, lashing out at the judiciary before ultimately abandoning the order.”

Ryan Now Open to Changes to Health Care Bill

March 15, 2017 at 8:09 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Speaker Paul Ryan said that his health-care proposal “must change to pass the House, marking a significant retreat from his earlier position that the carefully crafted legislation would fail if altered,” the Washington Post reports.

“The shift came after a private meeting of House Republicans from which Ryan (R-Wis.) emerged to tell reporters that his proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act would ‘incorporate feedback’ from the rank-and-file. Ryan attributed the change of strategy to the effect of an analysis issued Monday by the Congressional Budget Office.”

Trump Defends Wiretap Claims

March 15, 2017 at 8:02 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “defended his explosive and so far unsupported claim that former President Barack Obama ordered an illegal wiretap of Trump Tower,” Politico reports.

Said Trump: “Wiretap covers a lot of different things. I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.”

Trump Aides Stay Close By, Even When He Travels

March 15, 2017 at 8:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“When President Trump boarded Air Force One on Wednesday morning to travel to Michigan and Tennessee, he didn’t wing it alone: his entire senior West Wing staff traveled with him,” Politico reports.

“It’s a dynamic that’s been in place since Trump took office — wherever the president goes, the gang’s always all there with him.”

Trump Will Propose Slashing EPA and State Department

March 15, 2017 at 6:56 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump’s “budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year would slash the Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent and cut State Department spending by a similar amount in a brash upending of the government’s priorities,” the New York Times reports.

“The budget outline, to be unveiled on Thursday, is more of a broad political statement than a detailed plan for spending and taxation. But it represents Mr. Trump’s first real effort to translate his bold but vague campaign themes into the minutiae of governance.”

“The president would funnel $54 billion in additional funding into defense programs, beef up immigration enforcement and significantly reduce the nondefense federal work force to further the ‘deconstruction of the administrative state,’ in the words of Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon.”

Trump Approval Slips Over Last Month

March 15, 2017 at 6:54 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Fox News poll finds President Trump’s overall job approval is down five percentage points from last month. Currently, 43% of voters approve, while 51% disapprove.

Majority Don’t Want to Repeal Obamacare

March 15, 2017 at 1:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows 49% of Americans have a positive view of the current Affordable Care Act as compared to 44% who have a negative view.

A slight majority of respondents — 51% — are opposed to repealing the law.

Chelsea Clinton Fuels Speculation of Political Run

March 15, 2017 at 12:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“When rumors started swirling after the election that Chelsea Clinton was considering her own foray into politics, it was met with eye rolls even from staunch supporters of the family,” The Hill reports.

“But that skepticism is starting to fade… Clinton has only stoked the rumors further, particularly on Twitter, where she has repeatedly gone after President Trump and his associates since Inauguration Day.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

March 15, 2017 at 11:34 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“It is mortally wounded, I don’t know if it’s died yet.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Huffington Post, on the GOP health care bill.

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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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