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Ivanka’s Grand Plan

January 11, 2017 at 7:44 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Mike Allen: “Following her decision not to take a formal White House role, Ivanka Trump plans to stay out of the spotlight for a few months as her family moves to D.C., hoping the temperature goes down on nepotism questions involving her husband, Jared Kushner. But then she’ll begin taking high-profile stands on policies aimed at women’s entrepreneurship and economic empowerment. A well-wired source tells me her focus will be consistent with her brand: issues affecting women who work, including family leave and equal pay.”

“Behind the scenes, Ivanka is moving to put a high-powered, high-level staffer inside the White House to help her cause. My sources tell me her first and likely choice is Goldman Sachs exec Dina Powell, who runs the firm’s 10,000 Women and 10,000 Small Businesses, and was in charge of presidential personnel for George W. Bush.”

Russia Says It Has No Compromising Material on Trump

January 11, 2017 at 7:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Russia “denied it has compromising material on Donald Trump, calling a dossier of unverified allegations an ‘absolute fabrication’ and an attempt to damage U.S.-Russian relations,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “This is a clear attempt to damage our bilateral relations. Truly, there are those who whip up this hysteria, who will break their necks to support this ‘witch hunt'”

He added that “the Kremlin wasn’t involved in collecting compromising information on anyone, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

Mike Allen: “Just asking: Would they really tell us if they had the goods on the president-elect?”

How Trump Rewrote the Scandal Playbook

January 11, 2017 at 7:08 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Ronald Klain: “As someone who served as an adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign, I fundamentally disagree with everything that Trump stood for on the trail. But it would be foolish to ignore how often his tactics were effective. The president-elect refused to release his tax returns; he’s been accused of sexually harassing numerous women; and he’s likely to take office on January 20 without having divested his business interests. How did he get away with it?”

“Trump saw a change in the political landscape that many other failed to see; and everyone from political strategists to corporate communicators to those in the media would do well to pay attention. If they want to survive controversies in the future, they’ll want to study these five core postulates of Trump’s new crisis management playbook.”

Trump Will Finally Hold a News Conference

January 11, 2017 at 7:02 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“When President-Elect Donald Trump meets the press on Wednesday — for his first formal news conference in 168 days—the most intriguing questions may not be about Russia, or his business conflicts, or his son-in-law’s prospective job, but about the interactions between Trump and the press,” Politico reports.

“How contentious will the questions be? How respectful—or disdainful—will Trump be toward his inquisitors? Will this event signal the new president’s willingness to hold regular news conferences, or a swan song for a 55-year old institution?”

CNN: 10 questions for Donald Trump

The news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. ET in New York City.

GOP Relents and Delays Hearings for 4 Trump Nominees

January 11, 2017 at 6:57 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Senate Republicans, under increasing pressure to ensure that President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees are fully vetted by federal authorities, have delayed the hearings of four potential cabinet members, three of whom have not been cleared by the agency charged with unraveling potential conflicts of interest,” the New York Times reports.

“As frustrations over confirmations grow, a group that supports Republicans accused the ethics office and its leader — in a highly unusual attack on the nonpartisan agency — of politicizing a process long viewed by both parties as arduous but essential for anyone serving in government.”

President Obama’s Farewell Address

January 10, 2017 at 8:37 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Obama is giving his final speech to the nation at 9 p.m. ET from Chicago.

It will be carried live on C-SPAN.

[Read more…]

FBI Sought Surveillance of Trump Campaign Officials

January 10, 2017 at 8:01 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Guardian “has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (FISA) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The FISA court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus.”

“According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation.”

Reports Suggested Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia

January 10, 2017 at 6:41 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

BuzzFeed: “The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Barack Obama and Trump.”

“Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.”

Washington Post: “The officials said that U.S. intelligence agencies have not corroborated those allegations, but believed that the sources involved in the reporting were credible enough to warrant inclusion of their claims in the highly classified report on Russian interference in the presidential campaign.”

Officials Say Russia Has Compromising Info on Trump

January 10, 2017 at 5:19 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump,” CNN reports.

“The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.”

And there’s this: “The two-page document also noted allegations that there was an exchange of information between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government during the campaign, two national security officials told CNN.”

Trump Asks Vaccine Skeptic to Chair New Commission

January 10, 2017 at 5:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President-elect Donald Trump asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a proponent of a widely discredited theory that vaccines cause autism, to chair a new commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity,” the Washington Post reports.

“The stunning move pushes up against established science, medicine and the government’s position on the issue. It comes after Trump — who has long been critical of vaccines — met at Trump Tower with Kennedy, who has spearheaded efforts to roll back child vaccination laws.”

Quote of the Day

January 10, 2017 at 4:19 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“We’ll talk about it on Wednesday. All I can say is it’s very simple, very easy.”

— President-elect Donald Trump, quoted by the New Yorker, on how he will disentangle himself from his business interests so as to not violate the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

GOP Plans to Quickly Confirm Nominees Stall

January 10, 2017 at 3:58 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “Republican plans to quickly confirm Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees were upended Tuesday amid Democratic pressure to slow down the schedule as a federal ethics watchdog reviewing the backgrounds of nominees warned it could take months to probe some of the wealthier picks.”

“There are no indications that any of Trump’s Cabinet choices are at risk of being rejected by the Senate — a rare occurrence — and Republican leaders continue to insist that all of Trump’s choices will be confirmed. But the calendar changes followed days of Republican assurances that hearings would commence quickly and simultaneously.”

Most Think Trump Will Be Too Impulsive

January 10, 2017 at 3:39 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Pew Research survey finds that when it comes to making important decisions, 58% of Americans think that Donald Trump will be too impulsive, while 34% think he will be about right and just 4% think he will be too cautious in his decision-making.

Meanwhile, as confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet nominees begin, 41% say they approve of his cabinet choices and other high-level appointees, while 49% say that they disapprove.

Trump Demands Immediate Repeal of Obamacare

January 10, 2017 at 3:27 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President-elect Donald Trump pressed Republicans to move forward with the immediate repeal of the Affordable Care Act and to replace it very quickly thereafter, saying, “We have to get to business. Obamacare has been a catastrophic event,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump’s position undercuts Republican leaders who want a quick vote to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic achievement but who also want to wait as long as two to three years to come up with an alternative… That demand is very likely impossible. Republicans in Congress are nowhere close to agreement on a major health bill that would replace President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.”

Vox: “The GOP’s realistic options are either to delay the entire repeal process until they have a replacement in mind (which could take months) or else they can do repeal next week and leave Americans eager to find out what, if anything, the “terrific” alternative they’ve been promised turns out to amount to. Trump’s alternative idea is totally unworkable.”

Obama Leaves Behind a More Divided Country

January 10, 2017 at 1:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Despite President Obama’s stated aim to reduce the level of partisanship in the country, the way Democrats and Republicans view their president is now wider than at any point going back 60 years.

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Liberal Disappointment with Obama Will Fade

January 10, 2017 at 1:20 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

James Hohmann notes that every Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt “has left behind a swath of disillusioned lefties when he left office – only to see his image markedly improve among the base after a Republican subsequently took office.”

Bill Clinton is now remembered fondly by Democrats for presiding over a pre-9/11 period of peace and prosperity, but so many liberals were despondent during his tenure about everything from throwing Zoe Baird under the bus at the beginning to pardoning Marc Rich at the end – as well as shepherding through NAFTA, jacking up mandatory minimums, embracing welfare reform and elevating Dick Morris in between.

Jimmy Carter is remembered now for his post-presidency embrace of humanitarian causes. But he almost got defeated by Ted Kennedy, running at him from the left, in the 1980 Democratic primaries. He never pushed comprehensive health care reform, but he did cut capital gains taxes and deregulate the airline and trucking industries.

Obama was often compared negatively by liberals during the last few years to Lyndon Johnson, a wheeler-dealer who successfully cajoled a Congress dominated by segregationists to pass civil rights and voting rights acts. Most seem to forget that he dropped out of contention for the Democratic nomination in 1968 after liberal opposition, driven mainly by Vietnam, metastasized. He also hardly got anything done in his final two years because of Republican gains in the 1966 midterms.

Harry Truman, now venerated as a liberal fighter who gave ‘em hell, watched as more than a million progressives defected to Henry Wallace in 1948 because they were mad about his record on labor and his failure to expand the New Deal.

More Americans Think Trump Will Be a Worse President

January 10, 2017 at 12:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Quinnipiac poll finds 45% of American voters think Donald Trump will be a worse president than Barack Obama, while 34% say he will be a better president and 15% say he will be about the same.

Voters disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president-elect, 51% to 37%.

Fox News Settled Sexual Harassment Suit Against O’Reilly

January 10, 2017 at 12:28 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In the weeks after Roger Ailes was ousted as the chairman of Fox News in July, amid a sexual harassment scandal, company executives secretly struck an agreement with a longtime on-air personality who had come forward with similar accusations about the network’s top host, Bill O’Reilly,” the New York Times reports.

“The employee, Juliet Huddy, had said that Mr. O’Reilly pursued a sexual relationship with her in 2011, at a time he exerted significant influence over her career. When she rebuffed his advances, he tried to derail her career.”