Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “distanced himself from President Trump’s positions on Russia, voter fraud and the travel ban, while criticizing the president for attacking a federal judge,” Politico reports.
Said McConnell: “It is best not to single out judges. We all get disappointed from time to time. I think it is best to avoid criticizing them individually.”
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
If you’re scared of Donald Trump right now, it should not be because he’s powerful but because he’s so weak. In fact, as political scientist Matt Glassman and law professor Josh Chafetz have argued, it’s hard to overstate how institutionally weak the president is right now.
Trump is struggling to just control the White House, let alone the executive branch. Leaks are undermining nearly everything he’s tried to do and reports of infighting among his top staff are worse than any president in modern history.
He’s also made little progress in taking control of the federal bureaucracy. His political appointees either have not been confirmed or they haven’t even been made yet. Despite Republicans controlling the U.S. Senate, he’s way behind previous administrations in getting his top officials in place.
His most prominent executive action — instituting a travel ban from seven primarily Muslim countries — is being criticized by members in his own party and has been stopped temporarily by the courts.
His calls with foreign leaders have been routinely leaked and Republican senators are doing damage control behind the scenes.
Finally, his public support is lower than any new president in the history of polling.
This means that President Trump is now more isolated and more reduced to his formal powers than any president in modern history. His powers are real, but without real influence over the White House, the federal bureaucracy, Congress or the public, they are more of a mirage than reality.
This mirage has enabled him to keep Republican lawmakers in line so far because they still perceive him to have support among the Republican base. But if his approval with voters declines much further — as George W. Bush’s did in 2006 — these lawmakers will feel no obligation to the president as they face their own re-elections.
The greatest danger now is that Trump’s inexperience and ego will lead to him lashing out in risky or dangerous ways to compensate for his weakness.
This is just perfect.
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Politico: “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Total GOP control of Washington should mean that Trump gets everything he wants out of Capitol Hill.”
“But Senate Democrats — the last line of Democratic defense — are slow-walking the installation of Trump’s Cabinet to a historic degree, so much so that Republicans haven’t even started yet on Trump’s legislative agenda. Republicans will eventually win all these confirmation battles, but it will be time-consuming and ugly.”
“Democrats spent years turning George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove into a bogeyman whose mere mention sent liberals’ blood boiling. Now, members of Congress are doing the same to top Trump hand Steve Bannon — but in much darker terms,” Politico reports.
“Increasingly, Democratic lawmakers are labeling the former Breitbart chief a ‘white supremacist’ who has no business at the highest echelons of American power.”
A new Opinium/Observer poll finds that 64% of the British public believe Donald Trump is a threat to international stability and a clear majority believe he will be a bad president.
“The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to lift a ruling by a Seattle judge halting President Donald Trump’s travel ban executive order, but the appeals court turned down the Trump administration’s request for immediate permission to reinstate the controversial limits on travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries,” Politico reports.
“The number one thing that’s going to determine whether we win or lose? If Trump’s at 35% we could take back the Senate. If Trump’s at 55%, we could lose the whole ball of wax. So part of my job is to make sure that we don’t let Trump get away with stuff.”
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), quoted by the Washington Post.
“Over the past three months, Steve Bannon has been reading David Halberstam’s book, The Best and the Brightest. (A NYT reporter spotted him with the book in an airport in December.),” Axios reports.
“It’s a devastating account of self-regard, delusion, and the tragic series of miscalculations that led America into Vietnam. The book shaped Bannon’s thinking during the transition, and he recommended it to associates, including Jared Kushner and Anthony Scaramucci, as a warning against hubris.”
“Two Republican lawmakers representing reliably conservative districts on opposite ends of the country on Saturday faced down heated questions from Obamacare supporters who flooded town hall events demanding that Congress not dismantle a health care law that has provided insurance for millions of people,” Politico reports.
President Trump gave an interview to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News in which he commented on Russian president Vladimir Putin:
TRUMP: “I do respect him, but I respect a lot of people. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him.”
O’REILLY: “But, he is a killer.”
TRUMP: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
The interview will air just before the Super Bowl.
Washington Post: “Having sought to create unprecedented disruption in Washington, his critics will now seek to bring unprecedented disruption to his life as president — including demonstrations that follow him when he travels and protests that will dog his businesses even when he doesn’t.”
“Already this week, Trump — the most unpopular new president in modern times — canceled a trip to the Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee, where local groups had planned to protest his appearance; the White House said the protests were not the reason for the cancellation. And, around the business empire that Trump still owns, his critics treat each location as an avatar for the president.”
“A day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the White House’s immigration order, the government on Saturday began opening the nation’s doors again to refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations even as President Trump unleashed a fusillade of criticism against the court ruling and the Justice Department moved to have it overturned,” the New York Times reports.
“On another day of chaotic developments over the week-old order, the State Department reversed its cancellation of visas for people from the seven affected countries and restarted efforts to admit refugees. Aid groups scrambled to take advantage of what they acknowledged might be a brief opportunity for refugees to enter the United States, and small numbers of travelers from the previously banned countries began their journeys, knowing that the judge’s ruling could be reversed at any time.”
“The developments led Mr. Trump to lash out throughout the day on Saturday, prompting criticism that he failed to respect the judicial branch and its power to exert a check on his authority.”
New Yorker: “Most modern White Houses have had a strong chief of staff who could limit the influence of other senior advisers by controlling their access to the President and insisting they use a formal process to set policy. But Trump has created a top-heavy staff in which Bannon, Priebus, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and several others all seem to have easy access to a President who, especially on issues that he is unfamiliar with, is famously susceptible to persuasion. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both used this structure, known as ‘spokes of the wheel,’ which proved to be disastrous, because it created warring factions that fought for turf.”
Washington Post: “News reports have depicted Trump’s West Wing as two warring factions, pitting Bannon and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller against Priebus and his cohort of deputies. But top officials rejected that portrayal, saying they spend much of their time working collaboratively — whether in Priebus’s spacious corner office, where he keeps a fire crackling, or in the Oval Office with the president.”
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture agency charged with ensuring the humane treatment of large research animals, such as primates and goats, has quietly scrubbed all inspection reports and enforcement records from its website,” according to Nature.
“The move has drawn criticism from animal welfare and transparency activists who say the public has the right to know how their tax dollars are being used.”
“Senate Democrats and human rights activists are rallying against Donald Trump’s selection of an officer linked to the CIA’s controversial enhanced interrogation program to take the number-two seat at the agency,” The Hill reports.
“As a clandestine officer, Gina Haspel oversaw the brutal interrogation of two terrorism suspects at a black site in Thailand — and then later played a role in the destruction of video tapes documenting the harsh treatment of the detainees, according to multiple reports.”
Politico: “Adversaries of Betsy DeVos are mounting a furious last-minute bid to sink her nomination for Education secretary, with tactics that include a ‘tie-breaker telethon’ in Alaska, a flood of emails to U.S. senators and celebrity appeals to millions of Twitter followers. Teachers unions and a ragtag assemblage of other opponents are bombarding congressional offices with tens of thousands of phone calls and more than 1 million emails — a massive but almost certainly doomed effort to vanquish one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said that the last three days had “been the busiest in Capitol switchboard history” by “almost double.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.