“It has to go down as the biggest cover-up in the history of the United States. Nobody wants to touch it.”
— Recently-pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, quoted by the San Jose Mercury News, saying he plans on continuing a long-running investigation into Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: “To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies.”
“The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch. But more telling, Trump is also the first president to have publicly affirmed that his daughter is a ‘piece of ass.’ The mind seizes trying to imagine a black man extolling the virtues of sexual assault on tape (‘When you’re a star, they let you do it’), fending off multiple accusations of such assaults, immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings, exhorting his followers to violence, and then strolling into the White House.”
“Trump truly is something new — the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president. And so it will not suffice to say that Trump is a white man like all the others who rose to become president. He must be called by his rightful honorific — America’s first white president.”
Former President Obama “will re-emerge on the national scene this fall, though Democrats expect him to do so with caution,” The Hill reports.
“Aides will huddle with Obama in the coming weeks to plot out what shape the former president’s fall schedule will take. Advisers close to him say that while he will play an active role in helping his party rebuild, much of his work will be behind the scenes.”
“In recent months, Obama has played a larger behind the scenes role than was publicly known.”
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch used an email alias to conduct government business, the Daily Caller reports.
“Several of Lynch’s emails were included in 413 pages of DOJ documents provided to the conservative groups Judicial Watch and the American Center for Law and Justice. Both groups had filed lawsuits for records regarding Lynch’s controversial meeting with President Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport last June 27.”
“Using the pseudonym ‘Elizabeth Carlisle,’ Lynch corresponded with DOJ press officials to hammer out talking points in response to media requests about the meeting.”
New York Times: “Determined to dismantle his predecessor’s legacy, Mr. Trump in the space of a couple of hours Monday night reluctantly agreed to preserve President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and failed in his effort to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care program.”
“The back-to-back events underscored the challenge for a career developer whose main goal since taking office six months ago has been to raze what he sees as the poorly constructed edifices he inherited. Mr. Trump has gone a long way toward that objective through executive action, but as Tuesday dawned, he faced the reality that Mr. Obama’s most prominent domestic and international accomplishments both remained intact.”
“It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend. I feel like we sort of choked.”
— A senior Obama administration official, quoted by the Washington Post, on mishandling the Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential election.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that U.S. leadership was better under President Barack Obama than his successor, President Trump, The Guardian reports.
McCain was responding to a question asking if America’s stance on the global stage was better during the Obama administration: “As far as American leadership is concerned, yes.”
Barack Obama put out the follow statement on President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement:
A year and a half ago, the world came together in Paris around the first-ever global agreement to set the world on a low-carbon course and protect the world we leave to our children.
It was steady, principled American leadership on the world stage that made that achievement possible. It was bold American ambition that encouraged dozens of other nations to set their sights higher as well. And what made that leadership and ambition possible was America’s private innovation and public investment in growing industries like wind and solar – industries that created some of the fastest new streams of good-paying jobs in recent years, and contributed to the longest streak of job creation in our history.
Simply put, the private sector already chose a low-carbon future. And for the nations that committed themselves to that future, the Paris Agreement opened the floodgates for businesses, scientists, and engineers to unleash high-tech, low-carbon investment and innovation on an unprecedented scale.
The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created. I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the pack. But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.
First Read: “President Trump is expected to announce at 3:00 pm ET that he is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement (although perhaps with some exceptions — so maybe it’s not a full pullout)… And with that decision to withdraw, it’s hard not to conclude that the guiding philosophy of Trump’s first four months in office has been to rollback Barack Obama’s agenda — or do what Obama refused to do.”
“Yes, Trump campaigned on many of these positions (although the military action in Syria contradicted what he had said in the past on the issue). And yes, all new presidents who hail from a different political party typically break — in one way or another — from their predecessors. But what’s different about Trump’s breaks with Obama is that he really hasn’t outlined a better way forward… These anti-Obama actions have been mostly symbolic. But what’s been missing is a clear alternative — other than just going back to where things were before 2009.”
Former President Obama and former first lady Michelle purchased the home in Washington, DC that they have been renting, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned, closing on the $8.1 million purchase on Wednesday.
Said a spokesman: “Given that President and Mrs. Obama will be in Washington for at least another two-and-a-half years, it made sense for them to buy a home rather than continuing to rent property.”
“Barack Obama received a rock-star welcome in Berlin as he appeared at a public debate Thursday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he praised as one of his ‘favorite partners’ during his presidency,” the AP reports.
The Guardian estimated the crowd at “up to 100,000 people.”
Former President Obama told People that he hasn’t spoken to Hillary Clinton since “they saw each other on the Capitol steps at Trump’s inauguration.”
Chicago Sun Times: “That takes in spending for start-up construction, programming, staff and other operating expenses from 2015 to 2021… Obama is so confident of his fund-raising abilities that he intends to opt out of the National Archives and Records Administration system… Groundbreaking is expected sometime next year with the Center to open in 2022.”
Michelle Obama hit the paid-speaking circuit yesterday and spoke about leaving the White House, the Washington Post reports.
“She shared a story about her emotional final day at the White House. Her daughters were in tears as they said goodbye to the staff, and she felt herself choke up, too — but she resolved to keep her emotions hidden before the Inauguration Day cameras.”
Said Obama: “I didn’t want to have tears in my eyes because people would swear I was crying because of the new president.”
Former President Obama “made another $400,000 on Thursday when he appeared at the A&E Networks advertising upfront at The Pierre Hotel. He was interviewed over 90 minutes at the Midtown Manhattan event by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in front of the cable network’s advertisers,” the New York Post reports.
“Goodwin asked Obama how, while president, he handled frustrating moments. She mentioned Lincoln would write angry letters and then put them in a desk and not mail them.”
Responded Obama: “For starters, by not having a Twitter account.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama said she would never run for political office because she “wouldn’t ask my children to do this again,” CNN reports.
Said Obama: “It’s good to not have the weight of the world upon your shoulders.”
Former President Barack Obama will be paid $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference this September, the Washington Examiner reports.
Matthew Yglesias: “That’s so much cash, for so little work, that it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to turn it down… Indeed, to not take the money might be a problem for someone in Obama’s position. It would set a precedent… Which is exactly why he should have turned down the gig.”
New York Times: “Barack Obama’s extended post-presidential vacation is about to end. After spending weeks in French Polynesia — including time on the yacht of the movie mogul David Geffen along with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey — Mr. Obama will return to Chicago on Monday for his first public event as a former president.”
“His self-imposed silence since Inauguration Day will end with a series of events over the next four weeks. A Monday town hall-style meeting with students at the University of Chicago will be followed by an awards ceremony in Boston; a series of public remarks as well as private paid speeches in the United States and Europe; and an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
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.
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