Political Wire

Obama Gets a Midterm Do-Over

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“Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn’t during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national midterm elections when they already hold the White House,” the AP reports.

“Of course, he’s more popular than he was back then, and now it’s President Joe Biden, Obama’s former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke.”

“Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states Friday in Georgia, and he will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.”

Obama Said He Wasn’t Worried About One Trump Term

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“Barack Obama told reporters in his last days as president that he wasn’t worried about a single Donald Trump term, but was concerned about a ‘sustained period’ of political norms being undermined if he served two terms,” according to newly released documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

“Obama met with reporters three days before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 17, 2017, for an off-the-record conversation. A White House transcript of the meeting — which was never reported under the ground rules agreed upon by the journalists — was included in a cache of documents released by the Justice Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.”

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day

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“So for me, this day is not just about what has happened. It’s also about what could happen. Because a girl like me, she was never supposed to be up there next to Jacqueline Kennedy and Dolley Madison. She was never supposed to live in this house, and she definitely wasn’t supposed to serve as first lady.”

— Michelle Obama, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, at the unveiling of her White House portrait.

Biden to Host Obamas for Portrait Ceremony

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“President Joe Biden will host former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House in early September for the unveiling of their official White House portraits,” NBC News reports.

“The traditional East Room ceremony unveiling the Obamas’ portraits, usually a moment where the sitting president and first lady fête their immediate predecessors, was put off while then-President Donald Trump was in office given the bitter, estranged relationship between the two men.”

Obama Regrets Not Doing More to Stop Disinformation

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Former President Barack Obama railed against disinformation in a speech at Stanford University saying he regrets not combating its spread during his presidency.

Said Obama: “What does still nag at me though was my failure to fully appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories, despite having spent years being a target of disinformation myself.”

He added: “You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing, that citizens no longer know what to believe.”

Russia’s Aggression in 2015 Shaped Biden’s Actions

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“The former diplomats and defense officials who visited the U.S. Naval Observatory in early 2015 were seeking a receptive audience — and they found one in Vice President Joe Biden. Russia had taken over the Ukrainian territory of Crimea the previous year and fueled a bloody separatist uprising in the country’s east, and the officials urgently wanted President Barack Obama to send Ukraine advanced antitank missiles, called Javelins,” the Washington Post reports.

“Sure enough, Obama rejected the request, fearing that providing lethal aid to Ukraine would escalate tensions with Russia.”

“Now Biden, as president, is finally doing what he could not do then. He has provided Ukraine with more than $2 billion in security assistance since the start of his administration, including small arms, body armor and other munitions — including, of course, Javelins.”

Photos to Prove It

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After Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) tweeted that President Biden was “not all mentally there” and “brain dead,” former White House photographer Pete Souza responded:

“Hey Ronny, I didn’t know you were a liar when you sat next to me in the spare limousine, but I could tell you were often hung over on foreign trips. I have photos in the archive to prove it (since we preserved all Presidential records).”

Bezos Donates $100 Million to the Obama Foundation

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Jeff Bezos has given $100 million to the Obama Foundation, Puck reports.

“The gift, the largest single donation ever made to the Foundation, has no restrictions on its use. But it is very common, and increasingly controversial, for major donors to be granted some naming honor in return for a donation of that size, be it a Sackler wing of The Louvre or a Koch theater at Lincoln Center. In this instance, though, Bezos asked for the public plaza near the center to be named the John Lewis Plaza, after the late congressman and civil rights icon — part of an intentional strategy, the foundation said, to ‘change the paradigm around naming.'”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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