Donald Trump boasted that he has filed a new personal financial disclosure report, one that shows “tremendous cash flow” and income in excess of a half a billion dollars, Politico reports.
“The campaign added in the statement that Trump’s net worth has only grown since his first statement last July and that his net worth is now above $10 billion.”
“The general election effort to take down Donald Trump through television ads will begin on Wednesday, with the main super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton airing its first two attack ads on broadcast television in four important swing states. The effort kicks off a multimillion-dollar campaign that will flood TV screens in those battlegrounds in the months to come,” the New York Times reports.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) “may support Hillary Clinton, but the Democratic senator provided one reason Tuesday that he might think twice before accepting an invitation to be her running mate: Ohio Gov. John Kasich would nominate his replacement if the ticket is successful,” Politico reports.
Donald Trump told Reuters that he “is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program.”
Said Trump: “I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him. At the same time I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China.”
“Trump also said he disapproved of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in eastern Ukraine, called for a renegotiation of the Paris climate accord, and said he would dismantle most of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations if he is elected president.”
New Republic: “Trump’s proclivity toward outlandish stories about hidden machinations will present a particular problem to his likely general-election opponent, Hillary Clinton. Given his long record of conspiracy-mongering, it’s unquestionable that he’ll deploy the many lurid stories that have long circled around the Clintons, and no doubt cook up new ones. To be sure, the Clintons are no strangers to mudslinging…”
“But there’s a crucial difference between the 1990s and now, though: The most sensational and unproven stories won’t just stay on the right. Thanks to the megaphone he’ll enjoy as the Republican presidential nominee, anything Trump says, no matter how far-fetched, will make mainstream news. And Trump has prepared an echo chamber network ready to spread rumors, which runs from the dirty tricks operative Roger Stone (who is an unofficial hatchet man for the campaign), to the radio host Alex Jones (whose show, Infowars, Trump has appeared on), to the National Enquirer (whose anti-Ted Cruz stories were reportedly engineered by Stone).”
Bernie Sanders “accused the Nevada Democratic Party of abusing its power to unfairly hurt his campaign, and denied accusations of promoting violence among his supporters,” The Hill reports.
Said Sanders: “The Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place. If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned.”
But new audio obtained by CNN shows a senior Sanders aide — on the eve of the Nevada convention — encouraging the senator’s supporters try to “take over” the convention, change party rules and continue the “revolution” that Sanders has long campaigned on.
“In the face of a brutal new Democratic advertising assault, Donald Trump said he plans to rehabilitate his battered image in the coming weeks by publicly addressing head-on some of the most controversial episodes of his campaign,” the Washington Post reports.
“The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s strategy is fueled by a desire to persuade voters that he’s nothing like the monster he believes his political adversaries and the media have portrayed him to be. Trump is taking other steps to recalibrate the impression he leaves voters. He sat down for a television special airing Tuesday night to make peace with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, with whom he has feuded for 10 months, and he has forcefully contested reporting that shows him to be callous and lecherous with women.”
“The moment speaks to the core challenge for Trump: His incendiary behavior, both before and during his populist campaign, has sown doubts about his character and fitness for office.”
This guest piece from Michael Cohan, author of American Maelstrom, is only available to Political Wire members.
In 2004, as John Kerry was preparing to face off against President George W. Bush in that year’s presidential election, a senior White House political advisor spoke off the record to the Wall Street Journal about on the challenges facing Kerry, particularly those related to the war in Iraq.
“It’s always 1968 for Democrats,” said the anonymous official.
Then, those words dealt with the balancing act that Democrat politicians had faced for 35 plus years in talking about foreign policy, while at the same time not alienating the anti-war wing of the party. But today, in the midst of a presidential campaign that has been witness to violent protests in Chicago; the rise of a racist, politically incorrect demagogue; a major political party seemingly on the cusp of a nervous breakdown; and an insurgent challenge from a political outsider within the Democratic Party, the themes of 1968 continue to be as relevant as ever.
In fact, the election of 1968 is the single best starting point for understanding how we’ve gotten to where we are today in American politics. The themes that emerged out of that year created a new political narrative that still informs our political discourse in 2016.
“We know the truth. He’s not Hitler. He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn’t, but he does.”
— Melania Trump, in an interview with Du Jour.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Arizona finds Sen. John McCain leading a multi-candidate primary field with 39%, followed by Kelli Ward at 26%, Alex Meluskey at 4%, Scott McBean at 3%, and Clair Van Steenwyk at 2%. Another 27% are undecided.
In a head-to-head match up, McCain and Ward are tied at 41%.
Key finding: “Only 35% of GOP voters approve of the job McCain is doing to 50% who disapprove.”
Coming next month: Hustling Hitler: The Jewish Vaudevillian Who Fooled the Führer by Walter Shapiro.
“I have only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January… As for future in politics, well it’s nearly impossible for someone not in office to ever become a successful candidate for President. Right?”
— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in a late-night Twitter rant.
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
For most of the last decade, we’ve witnessed the Republican party coming apart. This year’s contentious GOP presidential primary has only widened the fault lines.
An interesting new strategy memo from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg argues that the party is actually facing a three-front civil war.
Donald Trump and his supporters blame the GOP establishment for allowing America to become more racially diverse.
“He is the skunk at the garden party with his overt racism and hostility to immigrants and Muslims. But GOP base voters are race-conscious and anti-immigrant, as they have made clear at the state level since Pete Wilson in 1994. They say they want a nominee who will fight against the growing immigrant diversity in the country. Donald Trump has captured the base’s anger with GOP leaders who’ve failed to slow illegal immigration and America’s growing multiculturalism.”
Ted Cruz and religious conservatives blame the GOP establishment for failing to slow the “liberal agenda.”
The Evangelical and religiously observant base of the party was stunned by the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage. They want their leaders to defend traditional marriage, make abortion illegal in the states, and deny protections to the LGBTQ community. It is on abortion where the GOP-controlled states have pressed the furthest against the national consensus. That is why Ted Cruz emerged as the 2nd strongest candidate and the only other candidate who could have plausibly been nominated by this Republican Party.”
Moderates blame the GOP establishment for no longer listening to them.
“The moderates are a stunning 31 percent of the party base, and they are heavily college-educated and socially liberal. They are conservatives on immigration, regulation, taxes and national security, but as a college-educated majority, they accept the science and urgency of addressing climate change. And most importantly, they are the one bloc that accepts the sexual revolution. That changes everything. Two-thirds say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and three-quarters say the party should accept gay marriage and move on.”
I’d argue that there’s also a fourth front being waged with the GOP establishment over foreign affairs and trade. Trump is leading that fight as well.
Overall, Greenberg provides a useful framework for understanding the current state of the Republican party.
Trump was able to win the nomination because he’s led the fight on two of these fronts with his positions against immigration and free trade. He’s also trusted by the moderate elements of the party who are not concerned about same-sex marriage, abortion and transgender bathrooms. Trump only seems out of step with religious conservatives but he nonetheless did well with that voting bloc in the primaries.
It’s truly Trump’s party now.
Jeb Bush told the Dutch news agency NRC Handelsblad that it’s “uncertain” whether the Republican Party will survive as an institution.
Said Bush: “Parties no longer stand for anything, but become a vehicle for the ambitions of their leaders. Politics becomes a personality show.”
He also blamed the media: “The press basically became his partner.”
“Recalling sunnier days of growth, low unemployment and budget surpluses under her husband, Hillary Clinton is telling Americans that Bill Clinton will be ‘in charge of revitalizing the economy’ if she wins the White House,” ABC News reports.
“What his work would be remains unclear: not a cabinet post, she indicated. But, as she has been saying for months, she expects him to play a leading role.”
“The situation is highly unusual: Not only would Clinton be the first president to have a “First Dude,” she’d also be the first to have a former president in the East Wing.”
“Most of Clinton’s best VP prospects are found in the upper chamber, since Democratic governors have been decimated in recent years and few House members have the proper profile,” MSNBC reports.
“But at least three of the likely Democratic nominee’s top potential choices – Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker – are senators from states with Republican governors, meaning they would almost certainly be replaced in Congress by a Republican, which could alter the balance of power in the Senate.”
“That may be enough to keep Clinton and her team focused on senators from states with Democratic governors, such as Virginia’s Tim Kaine or Minnesota’s Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, or non-senators, like Labor Secretary Tom Perez or HUD Secretary Julian Castro.”
Rick Klein: “What’s new in the anti-Trump playbook? Not much, at least so far as the first major wave of anti-Trump spending from Priorities USA, Hillary Clinton’s main super PAC. Two new ads, the start of a more than $100 million-promised blitz, use Trump’s own words about women to attack him among, yes, women. The quotes in the ads are more familiar to those who paid attention to the long primary campaign than those who are just tuning in.”
“But the fact of the ad push, while pro-Trump super PACs are still forming (and fighting for legitimacy), points to one Clinton advantage at this stage. Clinton allies have enough time, and are expecting enough resources, that they can try and fail a few times in efforts to define Trump. Trump forces can’t do the same – at least by traditional metrics. Trump, though, is already a master of this kind of asymmetrical warfare: He can use interviews, Tweets, and even facial expressions to push back as necessary.”
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.