Political Wire

Divide Re-Emerges as Democrats Seek New Leader

January 16, 2017 at 4:33 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Democratic fissures exposed in last year’s presidential primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have roared back to life, with party officials wary the split will hamper their ability to fight President-elect Donald Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

An example: “There are few major issues of substance that divide DNC members and party activists, but one key sticking point is Mr. Sanders’s refusal to share his fundraising list with the DNC. Not turning over the list, which raised more than $200 million from two million donors, echoes a complaint party members had with President Barack Obama, who didn’t share his supporter list with state Democratic parties until after he won re-election in 2012.”

Trump Is a Sore Winner

January 16, 2017 at 4:27 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Dana Milbank: “To Trump’s many self-assigned superlatives, he can now add another: the sorest winner. With charity for none and with malice toward all but his supporters, he has in the past two months set a new standard for gracelessness in victory.”

“The losers often have hard feelings after elections. But this much enmity from the winner is extraordinary… This explains Trump’s short honeymoon. His favorability rating jumped from 34 percent during the campaign to 44 percent in late November in a Quinnipiac University poll as Americans gave their new leader the benefit of the doubt. But that same poll showed his favorability back down to 37 percent. Views about his honesty, leadership and ability to unite the country dropped similarly.”

Clinton Foundation Shuts Down Clinton Global Initiative

January 16, 2017 at 1:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Clinton Global Initiative is coming to an end, due to plans to lay off its last group of employees in the next few months, the New York Observer reports.

“Clinton partisans defended the organization’s charitable work, and dismissed claims that it served as a means for the Clintons to sell off access, market themselves on the paid speech circuit, and elevate their brand as Hillary Clinton campaigned for the presidency.”

“But as soon as Clinton lost the election, many of the criticisms directed toward the Clinton Foundation were reaffirmed. Foreign governments began pulling out of annual donations, signaling the organization’s clout was predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather than its philanthropic work.”

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Rubio Still Undecided on Tillerson

January 16, 2017 at 12:33 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he has yet to decide whether to vote to confirm former Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson as President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Said Rubio: “We’re going to go through the transcripts of the hearing, which I’ve begun to do. We need to have a foreign policy that while always acting in the national interest of the United States is always rooted in our values as a nation.”

Crowley Will No Longer Take White House Post

January 16, 2017 at 10:30 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Monica Crowley told the Washington Times that she will relinquish the senior job she’d been poised to take in the Trump White House.

“Ms. Crowley, who had been tapped to be senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, had been dogged in recent weeks by questions about whether she lifted portions of her past written work from other writers. Her move seemed designed to keep that from becoming a distraction as the Trump team prepares to take office.”

Trump Expanding Scottish Resort Despite Pledge

January 16, 2017 at 9:45 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A multimillion-dollar expansion of Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort is proceeding despite a promise just days ago by his attorneys that ‘no new foreign deals will be made whatsoever’ by the president-elect’s businesses, in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest during his presidency,” the Huffington Post reports.

When Trump Can’t Deliver

January 16, 2017 at 9:13 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Larry Summers: “The new U.S. president will be operating on a very weak political foundation, is very unlikely to be able to deliver the results he has promised to key constituencies, and seems likely to take dangerous gambles in the international arena. This makes it probable that a cycle of growing disillusion, disappointment and disapproval will set in within a year.”

“Mr Trump will be the first new president in U.S. history with more measured public disapproval than approval. No outsider can know the validity of allegations regarding his campaign’s involvement with Russia, but the shadow of possible scandal is far more present in the pre-inaugural press than it was even before Richard Nixon’s second term in the White House. And the continued operation of the president-elect’s business interests by his family offers potential for at least the allegation of serious misconduct.”

Trump Again Says NATO Is Obsolete

January 16, 2017 at 8:51 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In comments that are likely to create fresh tensions with the United States’ closest European allies, President-elect Donald J. Trump described NATO as ‘obsolete’ in an interview published on Sunday and said other European nations would probably follow Britain’s lead by leaving the European Union,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump has made similar comments before. But the fact that he made them in a joint interview with two European publications — The Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper — and did so days before assuming the presidency alarmed European diplomats.”

Meanwhile, a Russian government spokesman told Sky News that Russia agrees with Trump that NATO is obsolete.

At Least 20 Lawmakers Will Skip Inauguration

January 16, 2017 at 8:42 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Wall Street Journal: “At least 20 lawmakers, all Democratic members of the House, have said they wouldn’t attend. Some are citing the president-elect’s past lewd comments about women and remarks about illegal immigrants; others, such as Mr. Lewis, cite accusations of Russian-backed hacking of political committees during the 2016 election.”

Quote of the Day

January 16, 2017 at 8:34 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“I think everybody has to acknowledge: Don’t underestimate the guy, because he’s going to be 45th president of the United States. The one thing I’ve said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that, as we go forward: Certain norms, certain institutional traditions don’t get eroded, because there’s a reason they’re in place.”

— President Obama, in an interview on 60 Minutes.

John Lewis, Donald Trump and the Meaning of Legitimacy

January 16, 2017 at 8:23 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

David Remnick: “John Lewis represents Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, one vote of four hundred and thirty-five. He is also the singular conscience of Capitol Hill. Lewis is a dismal institution’s griot, a historical actor and hero capable of telling the most complex and painful of American stories—the story of race. That is his job, his mission. With Dr. King and Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker long gone, Lewis remains nearly alone in his capacity to tell the story of that era as a direct witness and, because of all that he has seen and endured, to issue credible moral judgment.”

“Only a heedless few would reject that judgment out of hand, no matter how wounding. Who would think to call John Lewis ‘all talk, talk, talk—no action or results’? Who would have the impoverished language to dismiss the whole of John Lewis as ‘sad’? As it happens, the President-elect of the United States.”

Meanwhile, the AP reports that two of John Lewis’ books — his graphic novel trilogy, March and his 2015 memoir, Walking With the Wind — have sold out on Amazon.

Books Helped Obama Survive the White House

January 16, 2017 at 8:15 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Not since Lincoln has there been a president fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world — by reading and writing as Barack Obama,” the New York Times reports.

“Last Friday, seven days before his departure from the White House, Mr. Obama sat down in the Oval Office and talked about the indispensable role that books have played during his presidency and throughout his life — from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when ‘these worlds that were portable’ provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.”

“During his eight years in the White House — in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions — books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition.”

Laura Ingraham Mulls Senate Bid

January 16, 2017 at 8:09 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The queen of conservative talk radio, Laura Ingraham, is eyeing a Senate run in Virginia and a challenge to Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA),” the Washington Examiner reports.

“Knowledgeable sources said that several party insiders have approached the media giant to run and that she is considering it.”

A New Reality Awaits Journalists

January 16, 2017 at 8:01 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Margaret Sullivan: “To those who say let’s wait and see, or maybe it won’t be as bad as you think, or stay hopeful, I’m having none of it.”

“Journalists are in for the fight of their lives. And they are going to have to be better than ever before, just to do their jobs. They will need to work together, be prepared for legal persecution, toughen up for punishing attacks and figure out new ways to uncover and present the truth.”

Jack Shafer: “Instead of relying exclusively on the traditional skills of political reporting, the carriers of press cards ought to start thinking of covering Trump’s Washington like a war zone, where conflict follows conflict, where the fog prevents the collection of reliable information directly from the combatants, where the assignment is a matter of life or death.”

8 Billionaires Own the Same As Bottom Half

January 16, 2017 at 8:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Inequality is so stark that a small group of men own the same wealth as half the world, say campaigners ahead of the high-profile World Economic Forum in Davos,” Sky News reports.

“According to research by Oxfam, the eight billionaires, including Bill Gates who tops the list, have riches equivalent to the wealth of the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people.”

Trump Promises ‘Insurance for Everybody’

January 15, 2017 at 8:23 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President-elect Donald Trump told the Washington Post that “he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of ‘insurance for everybody,’ while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid.”

“Trump’s plan is likely to face questions from the right, following years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health-care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans.”

Trump Threatens GOP Lawmakers with Twitter

January 15, 2017 at 8:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “Trump said he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly and in unison in the coming weeks on other priorities as well, including enacting sweeping tax cuts and beginning the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

“Trump warned Republicans that if the party splinters or slows his agenda, he is ready to use the power of the presidency — and Twitter — to usher his legislation to passage.”

Said Trump: “The Congress can’t get cold feet because the people will not let that happen.”

Warren Leads Thousands In Defense of Obamacare

January 15, 2017 at 8:13 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“An overflow crowd of more than 6,000 people filled the area outside of Faneuil Hall on Sunday to protest Republican efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act,” Politico reports.

“Subfreezing temperatures and a stubborn wind did not deter the attendees, well-bundled and making muffled claps as they cheered on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and a laundry list of local, state and federal officials, health care providers and others as they vowed to fight for universal health care.”

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