Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told the Washington Post that Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) “didn’t have to resign.”
Said Cassidy: “There’s no due process for Franken. He decided to accept being drummed out… I’m not defending him. You just can’t help but observe what I’m saying is true.”
David Axelrod: “Strange principle is emerging: If you admit misconduct, you resign. But if you deny it, however compelling or voluminous the testimony against you, you continue in office-or on to office-with impunity?”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “spent more than $14,000 on government helicopters this summer to take himself and staff to and from official events near Washington, D.C., in order to accommodate his attendance at a swearing-in ceremony for his replacement in Congress and a horseback ride with Vice President Mike Pence,” Politico reports.
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball and author of the new book, Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit, joins Chris Riback on Political Wire Conversations.
Listen here:
Subscribe via iTunes or Google Play to get new episodes automatically downloaded to your phone.
“Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents,” CNN reports.
“The September 4 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race — two months after the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee were made public and one month before WikiLeaks began leaking the contents of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.”
”The individual was able to obtain the email addresses for Trump Jr. and his personal assistant, as well as an email that congressional investigators believe was for then-candidate Trump, although he rarely uses email.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “is barreling toward yet another health care showdown with her own party. But this time, she might not have the leverage to get what she wants,” Politico reports.
“Republicans who watched Collins lead the rebellion over the GOP’s Obamacare repeal effort just three months ago are playing tough on yet another high-stakes bill, wagering they can do without the Maine moderate’s swing vote and still claim a narrow year-end legislative win on tax reform.”
British prime minister Theresa May has struck a last-minute deal with the EU in a bid to move Brexit talks on to the next phase, the BBC reports.
“There will be no ‘hard border’ with Ireland; and EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the EU, will see their rights protected.”
“The European Commission president said it was a ‘breakthrough’ and he was confident EU leaders will approve it.”
“Let me say here and now that I regret very deeply the harm that I’ve done both to people I care about and people I don’t really care about all that much. I am sorry. I apologize. It was wrong. What I did was wrong. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. Boy, am I sorry.”
— Then-comedian Al Franken, in his 1999 book, Why Not Me?
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) “is hosting a re-election fundraiser in early January, according to an invitation obtained by CNN, stoking further intrigue about a Senate seat that’s being eyed by Mitt Romney.”
“An executive at a leading Russian social media company made several overtures to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 — including days before the November election — urging the candidate to create a page on the website to appeal to Russian Americans and Russians,” the Washington Post reports.
“The executive at Vkontakte, or VK, Russia’s equivalent to Facebook, emailed Donald Trump Jr. and social media director Dan Scavino in January and again in November of last year, offering to help promote Trump’s campaign to its nearly 100 million users, according to people familiar with the messages.”
Politico: “The New York senator has made sexual assault the focus of her political career. Now, the world has caught up with her.”
“I am seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate.”
— Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in an interview with the Daily Beast.
Playbook: “While House Democrats have toiled away in the minority, when it comes to government funding fights they have always been relevant because House Republicans haven’t been able to secure enough votes to pass stop-gap funding bills. That changed yesterday. Republicans stood together and passed the two-week bill without the help of Democrats.”
“Will it last? Doubtful. Conservative Republicans aren’t eager to vote for whatever funding bill comes next — they’re already freaking out about the budget cap deal. They will put up more of a fight when it comes to a massive package to keep government funded through 2018.”
“The British publicist who arranged the June 2016 meeting with Russians and Donald Trump Jr. sent multiple emails to a Russian participant and a member of Donald Trump’s inner circle later that summer, multiple sources told CNN, the first indication there was any follow-up after the meeting.”
“The emails raise new questions for congressional investigators about what was discussed at Trump Tower. Trump Jr. has for months contended that after being promised he would get dirt on Hillary Clinton, the brief meeting focused almost exclusively on the issue of Russian adoptions, saying there was no discussion with the participants after that session.”
With former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), he hands his party “a conceivable, if extremely narrow, path back to a Senate majority in 2018,” the New York Times reports.
“Democrats are defending 25 Senate seats next year, 10 of them in states that President Trump won. But if Mr. Bredesen can mount a strong campaign, Tennessee would join Nevada and Arizona as states where Republican-held Senate seats could be in jeopardy. Republicans currently have a two-seat majority.”
“A win by Doug Jones, a Democrat, in the Alabama special election on Tuesday would provide a wider path to the majority.”
“Some of President Trump’s wealthiest New York friends have launched a last-minute campaign to pressure him for changes to the GOP tax bill, telling the president personally that the current plan would drive up their taxes and hurt his home state,” the Washington Post reports.
“Specifically, they have raised concerns about new limitations on their ability to deduct state and local taxes.”
Said Trump: “There are very, very few people that aren’t benefiting by [the tax package], but there’s that tiny little sliver, and we’re going to try to take care of even that very small group of people that just through circumstances maybe don’t get the full benefit of what we’re doing.”
Axios plots data from the most recent Pew Research poll which finds President Trump’s approval falling across the board.
According to Reuters, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Mick Mulvaney is reportedly mulling whether to go ahead with a multi-million dollar penalty for alleged mortgage fraud by Wells Fargo.
A new Pew Research survey finds that just 32% of the public approves of the way President Trump is handling his job — a new low — while 63% disapprove.
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.