Although Hillary Clinton told News 12 Westchester that she is not running for president in 2020, the New York Times now reports that Clinton actually “wasn’t trying to be emphatic and close the door on running” and “was surprised by how definitively it played.”
Clinton is “bothered” that people expect her to definitively rule out another bid and that she’s “waiting at least to see the Mueller report” before she formally does so.
Hillary Clinton told News 12 Westchester that she won’t run for president in 2020, but vows she’s “not going anywhere.”
Washington Post: “The interaction between Sanders and Clinton — their first since they faced off in a sometimes-bitter 2016 Democratic primary — was frosty. While Clinton gave Cory Booker an effusive hug, the exchange with Sanders was brief; as he passed by quickly, she reached out and initiated a terse hello.”
“I’ve had so many guys who did business with him in real estate say you know he’d have a $15 million dollar profit from a real estate deal which he would call $150 million and then he would call everybody and beg them not to contradict the press because he was going to tell them it was 150 million not 15 million. That’s how he sees negotiations. So if he can put lipstick on a pig and he can say OK this is what we’re going to do with North Korea. And he keeps saying it over and over again and Fox News says it over and over again and other outlets say it over and over again. And the so-called mainstream media does their both sides ism. Well he said this but then somebody else says that he wins the news he wins the news cycle.”
— Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Tina Brown, on President Trump’s negotiating style.
Hillary Clinton has been telling friends she has not totally closed the door on a 2020 campaign, CNN reports.
“As recently as this week, she was telling people that look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying ‘look, I’m not closing the doors to this.'”
However, another close Clinton friend said that “it would surprise me greatly if she actually did it.”
Maureen Dowd: “I’m looking around Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it’s a depressing sight. It’s two-for-the-price-of-one in half the arena. The hockey rink is half curtained off, but even with that, organizers are scrambling at the last minute to cordon off more sections behind thick black curtains, they say due to a lack of sales. I paid $177 weeks in advance. (I passed on the pricey meet-and-greet option.) On the day of the event, some unsold tickets are slashed to single digits.”
“I get reassigned to another section as the Clintons’ audience space shrinks. But even with all the herding, I’m still looking at large swaths of empty seats — and I cringe at the thought that the Clintons will look out and see that, too.”
“President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James Comey,” the New York Times reports.
“The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power.”
“Hillary Clinton appeared to leave the door open to another presidential bid during comments made during a podcast taped over the weekend,” the Washington Post reports.
“Asked by Recode’s Kara Swisher about a 2020 bid, Clinton initially said ‘no’ and then paused, before saying ‘no’ again. But after Swisher noted the pause, Clinton didn’t sound so sure.”
Said Clinton: “Well, I’d like to be president. I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office in January of 2021, there’s going to be so much work to be done.”
Former Clinton aide Philippe Reines told Politico that he thinks it is “unlikely” that Hillary Clinton would mount a 2020 bid, but cautioned that it was not an impossibility.
Said Reines: “It’s somewhere between highly unlikely and zero, but it’s not zero.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hit back at Hillary Clinton after she said that Democrats “cannot be civil” with Republicans until they retake control, USA Today reports.
Said McConnell: “The far-left mob is not letting up. Earlier today, former Secretary of State Clinton sent this signal as clear as day. She told CNN exactly how she views millions of Americans who hold different political views from her own.”
“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.”
— Hillary Clinton, in an interview with CNN.
As part of an effort to “streamline” the social studies curriculum in public schools, the Texas Board of Education “voted Friday to adjust what students in every grade are required to learn in the classroom. Among the changes, board members approved the removal of several historical figures, including Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller, from the curriculum,” the Dallas Morning News reports.
“The board also voted to keep in the curriculum a reference to the ‘heroism’ of the defenders of the Alamo, which had been recommended for elimination, as well as Moses’ influence on the writing of the nation’s founding documents, multiple references to ‘Judeo-Christian’ values and a requirement that students explain how the ‘Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict’ in the Middle East.”
“President Trump asserted early Wednesday, without citing evidence, that Hillary Clinton’s emails were hacked by China, and he said the Justice Department and FBI risked losing their credibility if they did not look into the matter,” the Washington Post reports.
“A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment.”
“Hillary Clinton is stepping back into the limelight ahead of the November midterm elections, helping to raise money for the Democratic National Committee in a series of fundraisers,” NBC News reports.
“The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee will headline three events — in San Francisco, Chicago and New York — for the DNC this fall to boost the party’s chances to seize control of the U.S. House and Senate.”
This speech by Hillary Clinton the week before the 2016 presidential election is prescient.
Jennifer Palmieri: “I am not sure there is a word in the English language to describe how I felt when I read that Comey had occasionally used his personal Gmail account to conduct official business. I’d felt the same sense of outrage and helplessness when I heard members of the press lament the outsized attention Clinton’s emails got during the campaign.”
“I won’t re-litigate the coverage of Clinton’s emails here (and how I believe suspicion of the motivations of a woman seeking power is at the root of the email controversy), but I can’t help but wonder we don’t now distrust Comey’s the way people distrusted Clinton. (Hint: It has more to do with his gender and her ambitions than his email.)”
The Justice Department’s inspector general found that former FBI Director James Comey “deviated” from FBI and Justice Department procedures in handling the probe into Hillary Clinton, damaging the law enforcement agencies’ image of impartiality even though he wasn’t motivated by political bias, Bloomberg reports.
From the report: “While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.”
“I have never met Hillary Clinton, although I tried. When I became the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in January 2002, I asked my assistant to arrange an introduction to the state’s junior senator. After a number of attempts and multiple messages with Clinton’s office, we gave up. It wasn’t a big deal at the time, but I found it odd. To this day, I don’t know why the meeting never happened.”
— Former FBI Director James Comey, writing in A Higher Loyalty.
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.
"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.