Donald Trump threatened to bring a woman that Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair with when he debates Hillary Clinton, The Hill reports.
Tweeted Trump: “If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!”
Chris Riback caught up with Jim Messina, President Obama’s campaign manager in 2012, in an airport lounge. The audio quality is sometimes spotty but Messina’s insights into the 2016 campaign are great.
Listen to the conversation here:
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Special thanks to the Cook Political Report for sponsoring this episode!
New York Times: “Philippe Reines, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and one of the most astute observers of her personal and political vulnerabilities, is playing Donald Trump in her mock debate sessions… His selection as the Trump stand-in means that Mrs. Clinton wants an opponent in her mock debates who knows her flaws and how to exploit them and who is fearless about getting under her skin the way that Mr. Trump might at their first debate on Monday night.”
Donald Trump’s campaign is planning for what it says will amount to $140 million worth of advertising from now until Election Day, the AP reports.
“The total, if executed, would include $100 million in television airtime and $40 million in digital ads… The plan represents a new approach for the billionaire businessman, who has repeatedly bragged in recent weeks about how much less he’s spent than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and seemed to rely heavily on free media coverage of his large rallies.”
A new Politico-Harvard poll shows 47% of Republicans surveyed said that trade deals have hurt their communities over the last 10 years, compared to only 24% of Democratic voters. Only 18% of Republicans surveyed said that trade deals helped, while 33% of Democrats believe free trade helps.
The poll also finds that 85% of Republicans say that free trade has cost the U.S. more jobs than it has created, compared to 54% of Democrats.
Politico: “At the time of his convention speech, there was compelling political logic for the ambitious firebrand to steer clear of Trump. Cruz appears likely to run for president again, and Trump, at the time, looked like was headed toward a blowout loss. Not to mention, Trump had essentially called Cruz’s wife unattractive and erroneously linked his father to JFK’s assassination.”
“Cruz’s allies believed if he played it right, he could emerge from the election as one of the last principled conservatives — the final bulwark against a candidate who violated many of the values conservatives hold dear.”
“But with Trump approaching Hillary Clinton in the polls, Cruz’s diss had become more of a liability: A narrow Trump loss might have been pinned on Cruz for keeping conservatives home on Election Day because they were following his lead.”
Washington Post: “Nobody knows for certain who will win on Nov. 8 — but one man is pretty sure: Professor Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984.”
“Lichtman’s prediction isn’t based on horse-race polls, shifting demographics or his own political opinions. Rather, he uses a system of true/false statements he calls the Keys to the White House to determine his predicted winner.”
“No chief executive at the nation’s 100 largest companies had donated to Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign through August, a sharp reversal from 2012, when nearly a third of the CEOs of Fortune 100 companies supported GOP nominee Mitt Romney,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Corey Lewandowski is set to be paid nearly half a million dollars by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by the end of the year, with almost a quarter of his compensation coming after the controversial political operative was ousted in June as campaign manager,” the Washington Post reports.
“U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president,” Yahoo News reports.
“The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election.”
Here are the latest state polls from the presidential race:
North Carolina: Clinton 44%, Trump 40% (Democracy Corps)
Pennsylvania: Clinton 46%, Trump 38% (Democracy Corps)
Ohio: Trump 41%, Clinton 39% (Democracy Corps)
Nevada: Clinton 42%, Trump 42% (Democracy Corps)
“The republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic.”
— Bruce Springsteen, in an interview with Rolling Stone, when asked to comment on Donald Trump.
“Multiple sources close to Ted Cruz say the Texas senator is expected indicate his support for Donald Trump as soon as Friday,” Politico reports.
“It is unclear whether Cruz will say only that he is voting for the Republican nominee, as other lawmakers have done, or offer a more full-throated endorsement, but the idea of throwing any support to Trump is controversial within Cruzworld.”
Update: Cruz made the announcement on Facebook.
“Russian intelligence agencies are trying to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, the top Democrats on the intelligence committee said,” according to NBC News.
“The lawmakers, part of the so-called ‘Gang of 8,’ members of Congress who are briefed on nearly all the nation’s intelligence secrets, went much further than President Barack Obama has been willing in engaging the question of Russian hacking into American political organizations.”
Prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) cell phone and other records, CNN reports.
The FBI and the New York Police Department have opened preliminary investigations of allegations that Weiner exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a purportedly underage girl.
A new SurveyMonkey poll finds that nearly half of all voters — 46 percent — think Donald Trump would use a nuclear weapon to attack ISIS or another foreign enemy.
Also interesting: “Sixty-five percent said that there would be race riots in major cities during a Trump administration, and 44 percent believe Trump would authorize internment camps for illegal immigrants.”
Top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills given immunity deal in FBI investigation into Clinton’s email server, the AP reports.
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.