“I’d love to see him on a Harley. So if he wants to come in and ride a Harley, I’ll get him hooked up.”
— Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), quoted by National Journal, inviting Jeb Bush to Iowa.
GOP Worried About Obamacare Ruling
“Senior Republicans who are worried they’ll be blamed for killing health insurance for millions of Americans have been busy assembling a range of options if the Supreme Court strikes down the law’s subsidies in 34 states,” Politico reports.
“But the GOP senators running for president — starting but not ending with firebrand Ted Cruz — threaten to stymie their leaders’ carefully hatched plans. Any whiff that the GOP’s Plan B is a continuation of Obamacare is bound to spark furious protests from the conservative base, putting pressure on the presidential hopefuls to respond. Cruz, for one, would press for a wholesale repeal of the law — or to allow states to opt out of Obamacare — if the high court provides the opening.”
Wonk Wire: More than 80% of Obamacare enrollees are satisfied
The Latest on Wonk Wire
Here’s what’s trending on Wonk Wire today:
- Americans Show No Confidence in Their Major Institutions
- Leaked Papal Encyclical Aligns Pope With Activists on Climate Change
- From Energy Crisis to Leader in Clean Energy
- Most Aren’t Paying Attention to Big Obamacare Case
- GOP Lawmakers Push Online Sales Tax Reform
- Study Shows How Government Funding Boosts Innovation
House Extends Deadline to Consider Trade Bill
The House “voted to extend the window for reconsidering a key part of trade legislation that Democrats defeated on Friday, leaving President Obama’s trade agenda in limbo,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The House voted 236-189 to extend through July 30 its time frame for reconsidering the component of trade legislation that would extend a program of assistance to workers who are determined to have lost their jobs because of production shifts overseas or import competition. Before Tuesday’s vote, lawmakers had only until midnight to reconsider the legislation.”
Is Trump Really Serious?
First Read: “We’ve had our doubts that Trump would ever get to this point, simply due to the requirement for actual presidential candidates to release their financial information. But the Washington Post reports that Trump will release a two-page summary showing assets of about $9 billion. Yet a little caveat here: This two-page summary will not be the actual financial-disclosure report that candidates are supposed to file to the Federal Election Commission within 30 days of becoming a candidate. (Trump could theoretically delay releasing this information for 120 days from today — by getting two 45-day extensions. And the penalty for submitting false information here is a no more than a year in jail or a $50,000 fine.) But you can’t take Trump’s candidacy seriously until he fills out the government financial-disclosure form.”
“Remember, we found out about Hillary’s paid speeches and Rubio’s liquidated IRA from their financial disclosures. They didn’t submit a one- or two-page summary. So if Trump is only submitting this summary, it actually is proof he isn’t that serious about this — it’s about trying to get into the debates but keeping up appearances in time for him to start a new season of The Apprentice in January. That said, he is one helluva promoter and he will get plenty of folks to bite as we will see over the next 48 hours.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico.
Trump Will Run for President
Donald Trump “launched his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running for the Oval Office,” CNN reports.
“Just over four years after he came closer than ever to launching a campaign before bowing out, Trump made his announcement at the lavish Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York… The 68-story tower venue Trump used Tuesday is more than just the backdrop to Trump’s presidential announcement, instead becoming a physical embodiment of what Trump is bringing to the table and the challenges he’ll face as he formally enters politics.”
Wall Street Journal: “After publicly toying with a presidential bid five times since 1988, Mr. Trump formally declared his candidacy for the first time at a skyscraper named for himself. Mr. Trump has built a larger-than-life profile as a reality-television personality and real-estate developer. Now he hopes to parlay his fame into a spot on the Republican presidential stage.”
Jeb Bush Has An Electability Problem
A new Reuters/Iposos poll finds Jeb Bush “starts his presidential bid with strong name recognition but only lukewarm support from the Republican moderates whose backing he will need to capture his party’s nomination.”
First Read: “Bush’s campaign kickoff event yesterday was a reminder that no one should dismiss his potential to win the GOP presidential nomination — it was enthusiastic, diverse, and perhaps the best-executed announcement to date in either party. But Jeb’s biggest challenge from now until the first Republican contests is convincing his party that he could win a straight “Clinton-vs.-Bush” contest. Right now, the polling doesn’t bear that out: Recent surveys (like CNN’s and Quinnipiac’s) show other Republicans performing better head-to-head against Hillary than Jeb does. The perception among some conservative opinion leaders doesn’t bear it out, either.”
Quote of the Day
“I don’t doubt President Obama’s sincerity when he claims that this trade deal is going to be tough, that it’s going to have unprecedented protections for workers, or for the environment. The problem is that we have heard nearly identical promises about trade agreements for more than 20 years now — from President Clinton, from President Bush and from President Obama himself.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), quoted by the Huffington Post.
Clinton Was For Trade Before She Was Against It
CNN has found 45 instances when Hillary Clinton “approvingly invoked the trade bill about which she is now expressing concerns.”
Trump Expected to Enter GOP Race
Donald Trump “is expected to launch his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running in the Oval Office,” CNN reports.
Bloomberg: “As with all things Trump, this will be a ridiculous, absurdist exercise in media manipulation that will, as always, work magnificently. Reporters will snort and snicker, but they will trudge over to the press conference anyway; Trump will say something outlandish and unreasonable; reporters will gleefully blast out every word of it (‘Trump Says Obama Is Cheering For ISIS!’); we will shake our heads, that crazy Trump, and then we will all talk about Trump for a few more news cycles, whether he runs for president or not. Donald Trump often appears to be living in a loopy, cartoon world of his own imagining. He is also the foremost expert in how to drive the public conversation in America today, the pioneer of human being as #brand. We’ve spent years mocking Trump. (The late Phil Hartman lampooned him on Saturday Night Live 25 years ago). But he’s still here.”
“Trump’s signature achievement is to make certain, no matter what, that we are constantly talking about Donald Trump.”
Sanders Drawing Large Crowds
“It’s the sort of problem many candidates would envy. Sen. Bernie Sanders is drawing large, ebullient crowds that are taxing an upstart presidential campaign that wasn’t expected to go very far,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“This Bernie boomlet is forcing the campaign to improvise. Aides have set up loudspeakers for people left outside Sanders events, and scrambled to find larger venues to accommodate unexpected crowds who relish his attacks on what he calls the ‘cocky billionaire class.'”
Sidney Blumenthal Emails Raise New Questions
“Emails that a longtime confidant to Hillary Clinton recently handed over to the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, raise new questions about whether the State Department and Mrs. Clinton have complied with a series of requests from the panel,” the New York Times reports.
“It is not clear whether the State Department possesses the emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Blumenthal and did not hand them over. It is also possible that Mrs. Clinton never provided them to the department and deleted them off the server that housed the personal account she used exclusively when she was secretary of state.”
House GOP and Obama Try to Revive Trade Deal
“Congressional Republican leaders and White House officials on Monday explored ways to resurrect trade legislation that stalled last week when House Democrats objected and dealt President Obama an embarrassing defeat at the hands of his own party,” the New York Times reports.
“In meetings at the Capitol and in telephone conversations with Mr. Obama and administration officials, lawmakers ticked through a list of complicated procedural options that could circumvent House Democratic opposition to granting the president the power to expedite trade deals.”
Washington Post: “No one is declaring the trade agenda dead, but as long as Clinton and Pelosi — two of the most influential voices with the party’s base — decline to help the president secure the votes, its prospects are pretty dim.”
Obama Holds Secret Party for 500 People
On Saturday, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, invited about 500 guests to a private party where Prince and Stevie Wonder entertained guests for two hours of dancing, the New York Times reports.
“While the party had been rumored for days, it was not mentioned on the president’s official schedule, and it managed to come off with almost no publicity. Until the White House news briefing on Monday afternoon, Twitter posts by attendees offered among the few public acknowledgments of the event and its highlights.”
Kirk Finally Apologizes for Comment
Four days after touching off a firestorm of criticism by describing a fellow senator as a “bro with no ho,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) apologized in a brief statement issued by his office, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Said Kirk: “I apologize to the people of Illinois for my inappropriate remarks last week.”
Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who is challenging Kirk for Senate, told the Chicago Sun Times: “I think every woman in Illinois needs to hear an apology from Senator Kirk personally.”
Clinton and Bush Have Similar Political Challenges
“While their visions for America couldn’t be more different, the dueling kickoff rallies of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush — coming just 52 hours apart after years of anticipation in both parties — served to underscore a striking fact: Their political problems are remarkably similar,” Politico reports.
“A central struggle for both is escaping their famous families — and their political operations have accordingly marketed the candidates around their first names only: Clinton’s logo is a squat blue “H” pierced by a red arrow, while Bush’s is a big red “Jeb” punctuated by an exclamation point. And while neither has created much distance from his or her family, both have inched away from their kins’ policy legacies.”
Jeb Bush Runs as a Political Outsider
Jeb Bush, “heir to one of American’s most successful political dynasties, sought to jump-start his presidential campaign Monday as a scrappy political outsider after failing in recent months to emerge as the undisputed front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Washington Post: “With his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, sitting in the front row, Jeb Bush directly confronted the family history that is both an asset and a liability. His father and brother, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, were not present, but he invoked them by saying that he met his first president the day he was born and his second when he was taken home from the hospital.”
Politico: 5 takeaways from Jeb’s announcement
