Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that he will support the Republican tax plan, The Hill reports.
Said McCain: “After careful thought and consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill. I believe this legislation, though far from perfect, would enhance American competitiveness, boost the economy, and provide long overdue tax relief for middle class families.”
A former elected official in New England who has requested anonymity tells Jezebel that Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) attempted to give her a “wet, open-mouthed kiss” onstage at an event in 2006, shortly before he ran for Senate.
The woman says the encounter left her “stunned and incredulous.”
Said the woman: “I reached out my hand to shake his. He took it and leaned toward me with his mouth open. I turned my head away from him and he landed a wet, open-mouthed kiss awkwardly on my cheek.”
Joe Scarborough said on Morning Joe that allies of President Trump questioned Trump’s mental state during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Said Scarborough: “People close to him during the campaign told me he has early stages of dementia.”
Ground News lets you compare how stories are covered across the political spectrum and quickly spot coverage you might otherwise miss.
Try Ground News for yourself. Political Wire readers get 40% off Ground News Vantage at ground.news/politicalwire.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said that she expects legislation to lower health-care premiums to pass Congress before senators take a final vote on a $1.5 trillion tax reform bill that would repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, The Hill reports.
“The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters, according to the White House plan. Mr. Cotton has signaled that he would accept the job if offered, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations before decisions are announced.”
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who has been accused of sexual misconduct by several former staffers, has been hospitalized for “a stress-related illness,” CBS News Detroit reports.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Put it all together, and the battle for control of the House looks something like a coin flip, with Democrats having a very real chance to net the 24 seats they need to win a majority. In fact, the big-picture indicators might suggest the Democrats should be favored to win the House. But we’re not willing to go that far, at least at the moment, for a few reasons.”
“The first is a usual but important caveat: The election is more than 11 months away and there’s time for things to change, even though one can just as easily imagine things getting worse for the GOP as opposed to better.”
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is “seriously” considering the 2020 presidential race, The Hill reports.
Said one McAuliffe friend: “He’s given me every indication that he’s taking it seriously. I don’t think he’s 100 percent decided that this is something he’s planning to do but it is something he’s seriously considering.”
While pitching the tax overhaul in Missouri, President Trump said he won’t benefit from the plan. But NBC News points out the president’s assertion just isn’t true.
“In fact, Trump and his family could save more than $1 billion under the House tax plan that passed two weeks ago, according to an NBC News analysis. And under the Senate plan, the wealthiest Americans, like Trump, would get nearly 62 percent of all of its benefits by 2027, while two-thirds of middle-class Americans would face a tax increase, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.”
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) said he is encouraging his colleagues to join him in blocking spending legislation if the legal status of “dreamers” isn’t resolved, the Washington Post reports.
“Durbin has repeatedly said in recent months that Congress needs to resolve the status of dreamers by the end of the year, but he is now the highest-ranking Democratic senator to raise the specter of a government shutdown sparked by an impasse over immigration… Durbin’s position is shared by at least four members of his caucus — Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).”
For members: A Government Shutdown Seems Likely
Ezra Klein: “We have grown too afraid of the consequences of impeachment and too complacent about the consequences of leaving an unfit president in office. If the worst happens, and Trump’s presidency results in calamity, we will have no excuse to make, no answer to give. This is an emergency. We should break the glass.”
“Impeachment is not a power we should take lightly; nor is it one we should treat as too explosive to use. There will be presidents who are neither criminals nor mental incompetents but who are wrong for the role, who pose a danger to the country and the world. It is a principle that sounds radical until you say it, at which point it sounds obvious: Being extremely bad at the job of president of the United States should be enough to get you fired.”
An Army veteran says Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) groped her in December 2003, telling CNN that while she was deployed in Kuwait, the Minnesota Democrat cupped her breast during a photo op.
Bret Stephens: “If you want to understand the ways in which Donald Trump’s presidency is systematically corrupting the American mind, I have a book recommendation for you. It’s about Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
“The book is Peter Pomerantsev’s Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible. It was published in 2014, and it brilliantly tells the story of the (Soviet-born) British author’s sojourn as a producer for Russian TV. As the title suggests, at its heart it’s the tale of the substitution of reality with ‘reality,’ of factual truth with interpretive possibility.”
“That’s also the central task of Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) “appeared to blame members of the LGBT community, liberals and socialists for the sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him,” The Hill reports.
Said Moore: “When I say they, who are ‘they?’ They’re liberals. They don’t hold conservative values. They are the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender who want to change our culture. They are socialists who want to change our way of life and put man above God and the government is our God. They’re the Washington establishment…who don’t want to lose their power.”
Ron Brownstein: “The baby boom is being evicted from the penthouse of American politics. And on the way out, it has decided to trash the place.”
“That’s probably the best way to understand the generational implications of the tax legislation Republicans are driving through Congress.”
“The House and Senate measures shower enormous benefits on households at the top of the economic ladder, a group that by all indications is older and whiter than the population overall. Then it hands the bill for those benefits largely to younger generations, who will pay through more federal debt; less spending on programs that could benefit them; and, eventually, higher taxes.”
“In pitching the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has said repeatedly that the plan will pay for itself through a surge of economic growth and that over 100 people in Treasury are ‘working around the clock on running scenarios for us,'” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. Yet, just one day before the full Senate prepares to vote on a sweeping tax rewrite, the administration has yet to produce the type of economic analysis that it is citing as a reason to pass the tax cut.”
Mike Allen: “Exhausted by the Trump presidency? Brace yourself: White House officials expect Trump to be even more outrageous and cocksure in coming months.”
“Officials tell us Trump seems more self-assured, more prone to confidently indulging wild conspiracies and fantasies, more quick-triggered to fight than he was during the Wild West of the first 100 days in office.”
“Imagine Trump if he signs a huge tax cut into law, which seems likely, amid soaring stocks and rising economic growth. Imagine if Roy Moore wins in Alabama, which seems likely, too. It surely won’t humble Trump — or hem him in. He’s like the Incredible Hulk, after the media and Mueller made him mad.”
Playbook: “Republican leadership seems intent on pushing the narrative that they are going to start a formal conference negotiation between the House and Senate bills. But some tell us it would be much easier if the House just swallowed the Senate’s legislation.”
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.