“President Trump was so bothered by his chief of staff’s coughing during an interview in the Oval Office with ABC News that he asked his top aide to leave the room,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “If you’re going to cough, please leave the room. You just can’t, you just can’t cough. Boy oh boy,”
Watch the video.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a sobering assessment of the prospects of the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying “one might argue” that the plan is “unexecutable” and it might not “gain traction,” the Washington Post reports.
He expressed his hope that the deal isn’t simply dismissed out of hand.
Said Pompeo: “It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, ‘It’s not particularly original, it doesn’t particularly work for me,’ that is, ‘It’s got two good things and nine bad things, I’m out,'”
Meanwhile, Politico reports Trump said Pompeo “may be right” in his raw assessment of the administration’s Middle East peace plan.
First Read: “Out of everything that took place over the Memorial Day weekend, this might have been the biggest political news.”
“President Trump once again sided with an authoritarian leader over allies – and also took aim at a domestic rival in the exact same breath. And even more significantly was the extent to which the political world, especially the conservative media, shrugged its shoulders.”
“And what continues to stand out from Trump’s remarks on North Korea/Biden is the lack of outrage, as well as the message it sends to other world leaders. That message: Trash my domestic political opponents, and I’ll say nice things about you.”
Attorney General William Barr joked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi about Democrats calling for his arrest, The Hill reports.
The exchange — which comes a week after the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt over subpoenas related to the Mueller report — took place as they were waiting for President Trump.
Said a bystander:
As those seated on the platform waited for the president’s arrival in an adjacent tent, Attorney General Barr approached Speaker Pelosi, shook her hand and said loudly, “Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?”
The Speaker, not missing a beat, smiled and indicated to the attorney general that the House sergeant-at-arms was present at the ceremony should an arrest be necessary. The attorney general chuckled and walked away.
“In a surprise twist that has put a China-U.S. trade accord in doubt, Beijing is considering pulling out of talks scheduled to begin this week after President Trump threatened to drastically ramp up U.S. tariffs,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Chinese officials have said Beijing wouldn’t bend to pressure tactics. By potentially scotching the trip, Beijing would be following up on its pledge to avoid negotiating under threat.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), “who has raised millions of dollars during his campaigns over the years, has indicated to associates in recent days that he will be opening his vast and powerful fundraising network exclusively to Joe Biden,” CNBC reports.
“Cuomo’s support could be a game-changer for Biden. While the former vice president has consistently led Democratic primary polls, he has been aggressively courting donors in a bid to catch up to an already crowded primary field that has a head start in the fundraising game. New York State Board of Elections data show Cuomo has raked in $100 million in campaign contributions since he first ran for governor in 2010. At least 80 percent of his backers have given him $10,000 or more.”
New York Times: “Mr. Buttigieg’s distinctive political passion appears to be storytelling, wrapping conventional liberalism in an earnest, youthful persona that Democrats might see as capable of winning over the middle of the country.”
“A Times review of Mr. Buttigieg’s writings, starting in college, found that rhetorical task to be a consistent preoccupation. As a student, Mr. Buttigieg, now 37 and the mayor of South Bend, Ind., habitually discussed Democrats’ challenges in terms of language and argument, rather than policy or ideology. Mr. Buttigieg urged liberals in his student columns to speak in terms of “effective political values,” and he recalled corresponding in college with the University of California, Berkeley, linguist George Lakoff, who in 2004 published a best seller about political communication.”
USA Today: 7 hurdles facing Buttigieg’s presidential campaigns.
Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser under President Obama, won’t be challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2020, the AP reports.
President Trump reiterated that the Republican party will now be the “party of great healthcare,” CBS News reports.
Said Trump: “I mean it 100 percent, I understand healthcare now, especially very well. A lot of people don’t understand it, we are going to be, the Republicans, the party of great healthcare. The Democrats have, they’ve let you down, they came up with Obamacare, it’s terrible.”
However, Republican leaders have privately told Trump to back off his efforts to have the law overturned in the courts.
“Why don’t you ask the women if they’d put a man on the ticket?”
— John Hickenlooper, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, after saying he would pick a woman as his vice presidential candidate.
“Remember how inspired we felt four months ago? How more Americans than ever before participated in a midterm election? How young people turned out to vote in record numbers, and how so many Americans cast their ballot for the first time in their lives? It’s time to do it again in 2019. There are no ‘off’ years when it comes to being a voter.”
— Michelle Obama, quoted by The Hill, in an email to supporters.
Facebook has removed several ads placed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign that called for the breakup of Facebook and other tech giants, Politico reports.
Washington Post: “Today, Schultz is seriously exploring an independent bid for president, promoting himself as a problem solver who can use his business experience to fix the nation’s politics. But his tenure with the Sonics was marred by conflict with star players, fraught negotiations with lawmakers and private outbursts at low-level employees, according to interviews with more than two dozen former Sonics employees, co-owners and players, as well as current and former Seattle city council members and Washington state lawmakers.”
“Alabama Republican Roy Moore, whose unsuccessful 2017 campaign for the U.S. Senate was marred by allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, said on Friday that he may again run for the Senate,” Reuters reports.
Said Moore: “I’m seriously considering it, I think that the 2017 Senate race was stolen.”
Jamelle Bouie: “A 2018 report on America’s future political demography found four realistic scenarios in which Democrats win the national popular vote but lose the Electoral College because of the geography of the electorate. The 2020 election could be the third time in six elections that the White House went to the loser of the popular vote.”
“That is why Electoral College reform deserves a prominent place in the national conversation, especially as the Democratic Party champions a host of pro-democracy reforms, such as public financing of elections and an end to gerrymandering.”
Test your own forecasts on our new interactive electoral vote map.
President Trump announced that he plans to speak at an Independence Day event at the Lincoln Memorial:
“We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C., on July 4th. It will be called ‘A Salute To America’ and will be held at the Lincoln Memorial. Major fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!”
“A new effort to let Iowans virtually caucus for president could expand participation in the 2020 Democratic caucuses by almost a third,” a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.
“The results show that 21 percent of Iowans say they will definitely or probably participate in the 2020 Democratic caucuses. Eight percent initially said they were unlikely to caucus for Democrats in person, but also say they would definitely or probably participate if they had the option to do so remotely.”
“At least three people have withdrawn from consideration to lead Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) nascent 2020 presidential campaign — and done so in part because of Klobuchar’s history of mistreating her staff,” the HuffPost reports.
“Klobuchar, who plans to make an announcement about a potential presidential bid on Sunday in Minneapolis, has spent the past several months positioning herself to run for president. She’s beloved in her state as a smart, funny and personable lawmaker and has gained national attention for her lines of questioning at high-profile hearings.”
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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