U.S. marshals raided Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office “in search of evidence after a court-appointed special monitor said the agency had withheld hundreds of documents a federal judge had ordered to be turned over months ago,” the Arizona Republic reports.
‘Veterans for Trump’ Were Not Consulted
The GOP Is Powerless to Stop Donald Trump
Molly Ball: “Trump has the Republican Party by the throat. It cannot figure out how to get rid of him. The party elites, those snobs in D.C. who do not respect or understand the people out there in America, are tearing their hair out over the damage Trump is supposedly doing to the party.”
“Yet the party has no power over Trump. He has the money, he has the press, he has the voters. If he does not feel the GOP is treating him fairly, he is considering running as an independent instead. In that case, polls indicate he would take a chunk of votes from the Republican candidate, and Hillary Clinton would win by a large margin.”
“So the party has to be nice to him; it has to let him on the stage. The 20 percent of the party that loves Trump may be dumb or racist or angry or wrong, but the Republican Party cannot live without them. The GOP is damned if Trump stays and damned if he goes, and no one knows how the show will end.”
Trump Holds Commanding Lead in GOP Race
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds Donald Trump way ahead of the GOP presidential field with 28% support, followed by Jeb Bush at 14%, Scott Walker at 13%, Ben Carson at 7% and Rand Paul at 5%.
Key finding: “There is clearly a core group of registered voters who identify as Republicans that has coalesced around Trump’s tough talk and proposals. He is even more clearly in first place than he was two weeks ago”
Also interesting: “A separate YouGov poll completed Wednesday suggests a reason why the McCain controversy may not have affected Trump as much as some expected. Two out of three Republicans view McCain as a war hero. But fewer say they have a favorable opinion of him.”
Jindal Says Now Is Not Time for Gun Control Talk
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) “said any conversation about new gun restrictions isn’t appropriate at this moment — while families are grieving loved ones and others still lay in the hospital as a result of the Lafayette movie theater shooting,” the New Orleans Times-Picyaune reports.
Said Jindal: “I’m sure folks will try to score political points off this tragedy, as they have tried to do off previous tragedies. It hasn’t even been 24 hours. Let’s focus on these families.”
Wonk Wire: States with gun control laws have fewer gun deaths
Lee Hopes to Use Nuclear Option to Repeal Obamacare
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) announced that “he plans to use a complicated procedural maneuver known as the nuclear option to repeal the Affordable Care Act with just 51 votes,” the Washington Post reports.
“Democrats famously used the strategy in 2013 to break a Republican blockade of President Obama’s nominees to fill judicial openings. Now Lee wants to use the partisan procedure get rid of Obamacare.”
“It’s unclear whether Lee’s gambit will work — but if it does, there are likely 51 senators who would vote to repeal Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The issue is whether such language can get a vote on the Senate floor to begin with.”
Priebus Says Trump Won’t Run Third Party
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said he does not think Donald Trump will run as a third-party candidate, The Hill reports.
Said Priebus: “I don’t think he’s going to do that. I think he knows that if you’re going to beat Hillary Clinton — if Hillary Clinton is going to get beat, there’s only one party that’s going to beat her: It’s the Republican Party.”
Vitter Slips in Louisiana Governor’s Race
A new Market Insight poll in Louisiana finds John Bel Edwards (D) leading the gubernatorial jungle primary with 30%, followed by David Vitter (R) at 24%, Scott Angelle (R) at 14% and Jay Dardenne (R) at 12%.
Trump Bars Iowa Newspaper from Event
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has denied The Des Moines Register press credentials to gain access to a candidate event scheduled for Saturday, the Des Moines Register reports.
“The reason: an editorial published by the newspaper last Tuesday calling on Trump to quit the Republican race.”
“Register political columnist Kathie Obradovich was informed Friday that she had been denied a credential to the event, a ‘family picnic’ featuring Trump… Trump’s national campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told Obradovich in a phone call that the Register was being excluded from the event because of the editorial.”
U.S. Preparing to Release Israeli Spy
“The Obama administration is preparing to release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, according to U.S. officials, some of whom hope the move will smooth relations with Israel in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Such a move would end a decades long fight over Mr. Pollard, who was arrested on charges of spying for Israel in 1985 and later sentenced to life in prison. The case has long been a source of tension between the U.S. and Israel, which has argued that a life sentence for spying on behalf of a close U.S. partner is too harsh. For decades, Israel has sought Mr. Pollard’s early release only to be rejected by the U.S.”
The Trump Technique
Lexington: “The Trump technique involves confiding in unhappy Americans that they are victims of a plot—and a plot, what is more, that could be easily thwarted. In his telling, scheming foreign governments have outwitted a soft political elite in Washington and preyed on America’s openness and generosity. He is tapping into a political tradition with deep roots. The Know-Nothings are only one example. The ‘America First’ movement of the early 1940s accused decadent Europeans and well-connected Jews of conspiring to drag America into a new world war. In the 1960s the John Birch Society saw communist cunning at every turn.”
“To difficult questions Mr Trump offers appealingly simple solutions, starting with this most painful puzzle for conservatives: if America is the mightiest country in the world, how come it feels so weak? His answer goes beyond blaming Barack Obama and the Democrats. The fault, he insists, lies instead with the governing class in both parties, which has betrayed a great nation.”
So What Does Trump Want from Republicans?
The Economist: “You’d have to be astoundingly brazen to run for president, churning up toxic xenophobic sentiments, just to get the political leverage to win a huge tax break, or to build a casino or to stop somebody else’s casino. But Mr Trump is neither a meek nor public-spirited man. And, astonishingly enough, he may have actually succeeded in putting the Republican Party in a corner.”
“If cutting a sweet deal is what Mr Trump was aiming to do all along, we might have to admit that he is more than the attention-seeking buffoon he appears to be. It may be that he is a attention-seeking, buffoonish genius. In any case, Mr Trump has floated the possibility that he may try to wreck the Republican Party’s presidential chances unless it coughs up a little ‘fair’ treatment, whatever that means. If the GOP doesn’t think it can neutralize Mr Trump’s threat of a third-party run by utterly demolishing his reputation, then they’re going to have to consider a little fairness. Not a bad month’s work for Mr Trump.”
Court Says Perry Must Face Abuse of Power Charges
“An appeals court on Friday rejected one of the criminal counts against former Gov. Rick Perry but said he must face the other one in the abuse-of-power case against him,” the Houston Chronicle reports.
“Perry was indicted by a grand jury in 2014 after being accused of abusing his veto power to try to force out the Democratic Travis County district attorney in the wake of her messy drunken-driving arrest. The former governor, who is running for the GOP nomination for president, repeatedly failed in efforts get the indictment dismissed by state Judge Bert Richardson.”
The Latest on Wonk Wire
Clinton Used Private Email for Classified Information
“An internal government review found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent at least four emails from her personal account containing classified information during her time heading the State Department,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
In a letter to members of Congress, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community “concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains material from the intelligence community that should have been considered ‘secret’ at the time it was sent, the second-highest level of classification.”
The Most Dangerous Man in Politics
Rick Klein: “Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in politics today, with his unlimited funds, overall showmanship, and disregard for conventional political and even human rules of interaction, coupled with his threat to bolt the Republican Party if things don’t go his way. But in dragging the campaign show – 100-odd reporters following around the white baseball cap that came out of a 1980s golf pro shop – to the Texas-Mexico border, Trump looks like he got what he wanted yet again. The focus was on immigration and the border, not on disparaging comments about Sen. John McCain’s service, or even Trump calling anyone a ‘loser’ or a ‘dummy.’ If you needed yet another exhibit in Donald Trump’s capacity to dominate the media cycle – and more on his terms than not – the images from the border, white hat and all, should suffice for a while.”
Cruz Accuses McConnell of Lying to Him
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in a blistering floor speech accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of lying to him over a deal to vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, The Hill reports.
Said Cruz: “The majority looked at me and said ‘there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.”
He added: “Well, we now know that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment that he is willing to say thing that he knows are false. That has consequences for how this body operates,” he said. “If you or I cannot trust what the majority leader tells us, that will have consequences on other legislation, as well as on how this institution operates.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I’m the tortoise in the race. Slow and steady progress each and every day.”
— Jeb Bush, quoted by the Washington Post.
