Donald Trump asks GOP chair Ronna McDaniel to serve a second term
President Donald Trump has asked Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to serve a second term. That’s according to a person familiar with the president’s decision. The decision comes as the president looks to build out his team for his re-election campaign. As head of the RNC, McDaniel leads the party’s fundraising and voter mobilization efforts. McDaniel has accepted Trump’s offer. The RNC will hold an official vote in January. The person familiar with Trump’s decision was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Axios first reported that the president had asked McDaniel to stay on. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Donald Trump says midterm elections are choice for country on taxes
President Donald Trump says the November elections are “a choice” for the country between Republicans who want to protect their signature tax cut law and Democrats who he says “want to end them and raise your taxes substantially.” In a Friday morning tweet, Trump says Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi “is going absolutely crazy” over the law. On Thursday, she called the notion that economic growth would cover the budgetary shortfall from the corporate and personal income tax cuts “nonsense” and “BS.” Republicans are pinning their midterm hopes on Americans believing the tax cuts benefit them, as they look to counter headwinds that threaten their congressional majorities. Trump is set to hold a roundtable discussion with Republican National Committee donors Friday. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
RNC: Spending on legal bills for Donald Trump Jr. nears $200K
The Republican National Committee has paid nearly $200,000 in legal fees for President Donald Trump‘s eldest son in connection with the Russia investigation, a committee official said Tuesday. More than $166,000 was paid to Donald Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas. Another $30,000 went to the law firm of Williams & Jenson, which helped prepare him for testimony. The RNC official insisted on anonymity to discuss financial information not yet made public. The RNC is expected to release its August spending totals Wednesday, but that report will not include the spending on Trump Jr.’s legal fees. Those figures will appear on the committee’s September report, the official said. Trump Jr.’s attorneys’ fees were paid for out of the “legal proceedings account,” a pre-existing account that high-dollar donors to the party knowingly contribute to. The payments were not taken from the party’s general fund and will not reduce party spending on political work, the official said. Trump Jr. recently testified in private to Senate investigators that he did not collude with Russia to damage Hillary Clinton‘s campaign against his father. Congressional investigators and Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller want to learn more about a June 2016 meeting Trump Jr. had at Trump Tower in New York with a Russian lawyer as part of their separate but broader inquiries into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia tried to influence the election to help Trump win. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president, also attended the June 2016 meeting. As of mid-July, Trump’s presidential campaign had spent almost $1 million on legal fees this year, according to a campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission. That included a $50,000 charge for Futerfas’ law firm. The payment was made shortly before news reports about the younger Trump’s Russia meeting. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Donald Trump’s fundraising prowess keeps Republican Party close
Republican senators are bucking President Donald Trump’s calls to revive the health care debate. And Trump just ousted his only top White House aide with deep links to the Republican Party. But the president and his party won’t be calling it quits anytime soon. They remain tightly linked by a force more powerful than politics or personal ties: cash. Trump’s fundraising prowess is the engine of the Republican National Committee and a lifeline for every Republican planning to rely on the party for financial help during next year’s congressional races. Leaning heavily on Trump’s appeal among small donors, the party has raised $75 million in the first six months of the year, more than double what the Democratic National Committee had raised by the same point in President Barack Obama’s first year. “The president is somebody who absolutely is an asset when it comes to fundraising,” RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said. Trump resonates with a base of Republicans who have been more willing this year than ever before to chip in. The party says it collected more cash online in the first six months of the year than in all of 2016. In late June, Trump played star and host of a fundraiser for his re-election campaign and the RNC. The event at the Trump International Hotel, just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, raised $10 million to be divided between Trump and the party, the kind of bounty usually reserved for the final months before an election. The fundraising numbers help explain why more Republicans — particularly those facing re-election next year — aren’t openly distancing themselves from a president whose approval rating hovers below 40 percent and whose White House has been wracked by public back-biting and legislative stumbles. And while Trump hasn’t hesitated to call out Republicans who defy him, he’s largely come to appreciate the permanence the RNC offers a White House that has had to quickly staff up from nothing — a task that hasn’t always gone smoothly. Trump’s dismissal last week of chief of staff Reince Priebus prompted a rush of concern from Republican lawmakers who’d gotten to know Priebus during his nearly six years as party chairman. Some wondered if Trump was losing his only link to the Republican Party. Yet the well-funded RNC has been reformatted for the Trump era. “The president likes the fact that the party is structured to help his agenda, and there’s not a question that this RNC is 100 percent loyal to him,” said Brian Ballard, one of the party’s lead fundraisers. “It’s not like the RNC he inherited as the party’s nominee; it’s his now.” Party employees have led communication at key points of the investigations into whether the Trump campaign had anything to do with Russian interference in the presidential election. And the RNC, realizing how important television is to this particular White House, has added employees to help book Trump proponents on cable shows. There are awkward GOP moments, to be sure. Just this week, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, in his new book, called out Trump for his “seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians.” Trump over the weekend on Twitter ridiculed Senate Republicans for not passing a health care bill, saying Democrats were laughing at them and they “look like fools.” McDaniel said the president has “every right” to engage with Republicans however he sees fit. “The American people put him in office to accomplish his agenda,” she said. She’s backed him up on Twitter: “I run into people every day who are hurting across the country under Obamacare,” she wrote recently. “Giving up is not an option.” Priebus and others at the RNC were squeamish about their presidential nominee at various points during the 2016 campaign, but few if any detractors remain at its headquarters on Capitol Hill, where the hallways are lined with portraits of Trump and blown-up snapshots of him. The RNC voted McDaniel in as party chair on Trump’s recommendation. As the Michigan GOP head, she’d been a staunch Trump supporter even as her uncle, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, expressed his own reservations about Trump during the campaign. Trump also tapped Bob Paduchik, his campaign’s Ohio director, to serve as a deputy to McDaniel. The two remain close, and Paduchik traveled with Trump last month for a rally in Youngstown. Trump’s family, including son Donald Trump Jr. and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, are involved in the RNC’s strategy and fundraising and have grown close to McDaniel. Longtime Trump friend Steve Wynn, a fellow billionaire businessman, is the party’s chief fundraiser; the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is among the RNC’s principal fundraisers. His campaign’s trusted data and digital director, Brad Parscale, joined the board of Data Trust, the party’s data vendor, which keeps its voter files up to date. Trump heaped praise on the RNC’s leadership team during the June fundraiser, calling them stars and winners. Bill Stepien, the White House’s political director, said relations between the party and the president are as good now as they were in the mid-2000s, when he worked at the RNC while George W. Bush was president. Stepien said the White House and the party have “a strong relationship” and that Trump’s aides view the RNC as an “essential component” of his success. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
After delay, RNC finally gives OK to funding for Alabama special election
The Republican National Committee has approved funding for the Alabama special election, likely to support incumbent U.S. Sen. Luther Strange. As reported by POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt, the long-delayed has recently become “a point of contention between Senate Republicans and the White House,” over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ old seat. Much of the problem seems to rest with the convoluted campaign finance rules which Isenstadt describes as “weeks of closed-door talks, inflamed tensions between Senate GOP leaders and the administration and touched on a central issue: how the insurgent-minded Trump White House will approach party primaries.” The approval allows the National Republican Senatorial Committee to spend more than $350,000 on the race to benefit Strange, facing a crowded 10-person field for the Aug. 15 Republican primary, which includes U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. A primary runoff, if necessary, will be Sept. 26; the general election is Dec. 12. Among those backing Strange are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, through two McConnell-aligned groups — the NRSC and Senate Leadership Fund. For the past few weeks, McConnell has lobbied to get RNC to approve the cash infusion, but foot dragging so frustrated the majority leader that he appealed directly to former RNC chair and current White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Strange also talked personally with President Donald Trump. Isenstadt writes that some close to McConnell thought the holdup could be due to bureaucratic disorganization — or the administration was intentionally staying out of the primary, giving a glimpse into how the White House might handle future political battles.
Donald Trump trashes media, cheers wins at $10 million fundraiser
Republican donors paid $35,000 apiece to hear familiar a message from President Donald Trump: The media, particularly CNN, keep trying to take him down, and yet Republicans just keep on winning elections. He noted with pride that his party had won four special elections this year. The president was whisked a few blocks from the White House to the Trump International Hotel, his name-branded Washington venue, for an evening of hobnobbing behind closed doors Wednesday with major party financiers, including Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn. One attendee stood out: Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, part of a small group of Republicans whose objections just a day earlier had doomed — at least for now — the Senate’s effort to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law. Trump did not single out Heller, but Wynn, the lead fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, gently jabbed him by urging all Republicans to come together to support the president’s agenda. Breaking with the tradition of his predecessor, Trump barred reporters from the event, despite an announcement earlier in the day that a pool of reporters would be allowed inside. Two people in the room, demanding anonymity to discuss a private event, relayed the messages given by Trump and Wynn. “It’s a political event, and they’ve chosen to keep that separate,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked why the event was closed to the media. Trump’s first re-election fundraiser comes some 40 months ahead of Election Day. Joined by first lady Melania Trump and top advisers, he held court for about two hours at an event attended by about 300 people that raised more than $10 million. The money is to be spread among Trump’s campaign, the RNC and other GOP entities. Security was tight at the hotel, where guests in long gowns and crisp suits began arriving around 5 p.m. But the event also drew critics. The president’s motorcade was greeted by dozens of protesters, who hoisted signs with slogans like “Health care, not tax cuts” and chanted “Shame! Shame!” Among the event’s guests: Longtime GOP fundraiser-turned television commentator Mica Mosbacher and Florida lobbyist and party financier Brian Ballard. The Trump International Hotel has become a place to see — and be seen — by current and former Trump staffers, lobbyists, journalist and tourists. Several Washington figures of considerable influence popped into the lobby even though they didn’t plan to attend the fundraiser in an adjacent ballroom. Trump’s decision to hold a fundraiser at his own hotel has raised issues about his continued financial interest in the companies he owns. Unlike previous presidents who have divested from their business holdings or interests before taking office, Trump moved his global business empire assets into a trust that he can take control of at any time. That means that when his properties — including his Washington hotel — do well, he stands to make money. Trump technically leases the hotel from the General Services Administration, and profits are supposed to go to an account of the corporate entity that holds the lease, Trump Old Post Office LLC. It remains unclear what might happen to any profits from the hotel after Trump leaves office, or whether they will be transferred to Trump at that time. Under campaign finance rules, neither the hotel nor the Trump Organization that operates it can donate the space for political fundraisers. It must be rented at fair-market value and paid for by the Trump campaign, the RNC or both. Although this was Trump’s first major-donor event, his re-election campaign has been steadily raising money since the day he was inaugurated, mostly through small donations and the sale of Trump-themed merchandise such as the ubiquitous, red “Make America Great Again” ball caps. The campaign raised about $7 million in the first three months of the year, according to Federal Election Commission reports. The RNC also is benefiting from the new president’s active campaigning, having raised about $62 million through the end of last month. The party has raised more online this year than it did in all of 2016 — a testament to Trump’s success in reaching small donors. Trump’s re-election money helps pay for his political rallies. He’s held five so far, and campaign director Michael Glassner says those events help keep him connected to his base of voters. The constant politicking, however, means it is challenging for government employees to avoid inappropriately crossing ethical lines. Some watchdog groups have flagged White House employee tweets that veer into campaign territory. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters says the employees work closely with lawyers to avoid pitfalls. Walters also says the White House takes care to make sure that Trump’s political events and travel — including the Wednesday fundraiser — are paid for by the campaign and other political entities. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
James Comey: Donald Trump administration spread ‘lies, plain and simple’
Former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump administration Thursday of spreading “lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing, in dramatic testimony that threatened to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency. As he opened his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with Trump, Comey disputed the Trump administration’s justification for his firing last month, declaring that the administration “defamed him and more importantly the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership. And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman, Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos. “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Comey said. “I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.” Comey made his comments as the packed hearing got underway, bringing Washington and parts of the country to a halt as all eyes were glued on televisions showing the hearing. He immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau’s Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties. Comey also said in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The Senate intelligence committee chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, asked Comey the key question about that encounter: “Do you sense that the president was trying to obstruct justice, or just seek a way for Mike Flynn to save face, given he had already been fired?” “I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,” Comey replied. “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning. But that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that’s an offense.” Later, in a startling disclosure, Comey revealed that after his firing he had tried to spur the appointment of a special counsel by giving one of his memos about Trump to a friend of his to leak to the press. “My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square, ” Comey said. The Republican National Committee and other White House allies worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Comey’s credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up the director’s testimony to Congress. Republicans and Trump’s own lawyer seized on Comey’s confirmation, in his written testimony, of Trump’s claim that Comey had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation. Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey’s claims that the president demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president’s legal team who demanded anonymity because of not being authorized to discuss legal strategy. The president has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Comey’s accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’” of the conversations. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey remarked at one point, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over any claims from the president. But it was a Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comey’s firing as one media leak followed another revealing Comey’s claims about Trump’s inappropriate interactions with him. Raising the Oval Office meeting where Comey says Trump asked him to pull back the Flynn probe, Feinstein asked: “Why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong,’?” “That’s a great question,” Comey said. “Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in.” Comey was also asked if he believed he was fired because of the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as well as Russia’s ties with Trump’s campaign. Graphic details opening exchange between James Comey and Senator Richard Burr. “Yes,” Comey said. “Because I’ve seen the president say so.” The hearing unfolded amid intense political interest, and within a remarkable political context as Comey delivered damaging testimony about the president who fired him, a president who won election only after Comey damaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the final days of the campaign. Clinton has blamed Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement that he was re-opening the email investigation for her defeat. She’s argued she was on track to a victory when Comey’s move raised fresh doubts about her. “If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton said last month. Many Democrats blame Comey for Clinton’s loss, leading Trump to apparently believe they would applaud him for firing Comey last month. The opposite was the case as the firing created an enormous political firestorm that has stalled Trump’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and taken over Washington. Under questioning Thursday, Comey strongly asserted the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election. “There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered,” Comey stated firmly. “That happened. It’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.” Trump has begrudgingly accepted the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia interfered with the election. But he has also suggested he doesn’t believe it,
Former FBI director James Comey says White House ‘defamed’ him and FBI
Former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump administration Thursday of spreading “lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing, in dramatic testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman and threatened to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency. Comey disputed the Trump administration’s justification for his firing, declaring the administration “defamed him and more importantly the FBI,” as he opened his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with Trump. Comey described discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos. “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Comey said. “I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.” Comey made his comments as the packed hearing got underway, bringing Washington and parts of the country to a halt as all eyes were glued on televisions showing the hearing. He immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties. Comey also testified in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Comey also confirmed Trump’s claim that he had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation. The Republican National Committee worked to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Comey’s credibility by pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up his testimony to Congress. And Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey’s claims that he demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president’s legal team who demanded anonymity because of not being authorized to discuss legal strategy. Trump has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Comey’s accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’” of the conversations. But it was a Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comey’s firing as one media leak followed another revealing Comey’s claims about Trump’s inappropriate interactions with him. Alluding to the Oval Office meeting where Comey says Trump asked him to pull back the Flynn probe, Feinstein asked: “Why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong,’?” “That’s a great question,” Comey said. “Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in.” Comey was also asked if he believed he was fired because of the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as well as Russia’s ties with Trump’s campaign. “Yes,” Comey said. “Because I’ve seen the president say so.” Comey described his concerns that Trump was trying to create a “patronage” relationship with him at a dinner where Trump asked him if he wanted to keep his job. “The statue of justice has a blindfold on because you’re not supposed to be peeking out to see whether your patron is pleased or not with what you’re doing,” Comey said. Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr is leading the committee’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election, which is proceeding even as a special counsel recently appointed by the Justice Department also investigates. “We will establish the facts separate from rampant speculation and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgment,” Burr said. “Only then will we be able to move forward and put this issue to rest.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
White House looks for ways to undermine James Comey’s credibility
With fired FBI Director James Comey’s highly anticipated congressional testimony just a day away, the White House and its allies are scrambling for ways to offset potential damage. Asked Tuesday about the testimony, President Donald Trump was tight-lipped: “I wish him luck,” he told reporters. Comey’s testimony Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee could expose new details regarding his discussions with Trump about the federal investigation into Russia’s election meddling. Comey could also bring up other aspects of his dealings with the Trump administration. On Tuesday evening a person familiar with the situation said Comey had told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he did not want to be left alone with Trump. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the comment was made because of concerns Comey had about Trump. It was not immediately clear when the conversation occurred. But The New York Times, which first reported the interaction with Sessions, said it came after Trump had asked Comey in February to end an FBI investigation into Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior declined to comment. He said Sessions “doesn’t believe it’s appropriate to respond to media inquiries on matters that may be related to ongoing investigations.” Trump’s White House and its allies are crafting a strategy aimed at undermining Comey’s credibility. Both White House officials and an outside group that backs Trump plan to hammer Comey in the coming days for misstatements he made about Democrat Hillary Clinton’s emails during his last appearance on Capitol Hill. An ad created by the pro-Trump Great America Alliance — a nonprofit “issues” group that isn’t required to disclose its donors — casts Comey as a “showboat” who was “consumed with election meddling” instead of focusing on combating terrorism. The 30-second spot is slated to run digitally on Wednesday and appear the next day on CNN and Fox News. The Republican National Committee has been preparing talking points ahead of the hearing, which will be aired live on multiple TV outlets. An RNC research email Monday issued a challenge to the lawmakers who will question Comey. There’s bipartisan agreement, the email says, that Comey “needs to answer a simple question about his conversations with President Trump: If you were so concerned, why didn’t you act on it or notify Congress?” Comey’s testimony marks his first public comments since he was abruptly ousted by Trump on May 9. Since then, Trump and Comey allies have traded competing narratives about their interactions. The president asserted that Comey told him three times that he was not personally under investigation, while the former director’s associates allege Trump asked Comey if he could back off an investigation into Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser because he misled the White House about his ties to Russia. Democrats have accused Trump of firing Comey to upend the FBI’s Russia probe, which focused in large part on whether campaign aides coordinated with Moscow to hack Democratic groups during the election. Days after Comey’s firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the federal investigation. The new revelation about Comey’s uneasiness with Trump brings to mind a posting last month by Comey friend Benjamin Wittes on his Lawfare blog, in which he said Comey “saw it as an ongoing task on his part to protect the rest of the Bureau from improper contacts and interferences from a group of people he did not regard as honorable.” Despite the mounting legal questions now shadowing the White House, Trump has needled Comey publicly. In a tweet days after the firing, he appeared to warn Comey that he might have recordings of their private discussions, something the White House has neither confirmed nor denied. White House officials appear eager to keep the president away from television and Twitter Thursday, though those efforts rarely succeed. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president plans to attend an infrastructure summit in the morning, then address the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference at 12:30 p.m. “The president’s got a full day on Thursday,” Spicer said. The White House had hoped to set up a “war room” stocked with Trump allies and top-flight lawyers to combat questions about the FBI and congressional investigations into possible ties between the campaign and Russia. However, that effort has largely stalled, both because of a lack of decision-making in the West Wing and concerns among some potential recruits about joining a White House under the cloud of investigation. “If there isn’t a strategy, a coherent, effective one, this is really going to put us all behind the eight ball. We need to start fighting back. And so far, I don’t see a lot of fight,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign aide. Still, Trump supporters say they are willing to step in to help the White House deflect any accusations from Comey. “If we feel he crosses a line, we’ll fire back,” said Ed Rollins, chief strategist of Great America PAC, the political arm of the group airing the Comey ad. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
GOP leaders dismiss James Comey firing as fleeting political drama
Chaos is President Donald Trump’s style, yet as long as the Republican delivers on health care, taxes and tapping a new FBI director as solid as his Supreme Court pick, GOP leaders say everything will be just fine. While Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey roiled Washington, Republicans who attended the national committee’s spring meeting outside San Diego this week defended the president’s actions and insisted that they would have little political impact on midterm elections next year. Even Trump’s Friday morning tweetstorm warning Comey that he had better hope there are no “tapes” of their private conversations and threatening to cancel White House media briefings failed to dent his support among several GOP leaders. Peter Goldberg, an Alaska committeeman, said Trump’s latest tweets about Comey are “just a distraction” and that reaction to the firing is like “a bee buzzing around your head. It’s going to go away. I think it’s going to disappear.” Goldberg, who grew up in New York, said he understood Trump’s style of governing. “Even during the campaign, some people might have thought of him as brash and I just thought of it as just an average New Yorker. It wasn’t bad, it’s just part of the culture where he was living.” Republicans said the issues that Trump campaigned on — repealing the Affordable Care Act, cutting taxes and boosting border security — would determine if the party keeps control of both houses of Congress. Trump addressed the crowd in a five-minute video, telling them their support will help Republicans keep control of the House next year and make gains in the Senate. “I’ll be going around to different states. I’ll be working hard for the people running for Congress and for the people running for the Senate. We could pick up a lot of seats, especially if it all keeps going like it’s going now,” the president said. Ron Nehring, a former committee member and former California Republican Party chairman, said Comey’s firing was far more important to journalists and Washington insiders than voters. “Every day that something unexpected comes up out of the White House, we see people freaking out and then outside of Washington it doesn’t really have that big of an impact,” he said. Dirk Haire, chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, said every president brings a new style. “President Trump’s style is chaos,” Haire said. “Would I personally like that? No, it would drive me nuts. That’s just the way he operates.” Among leading talk radio conservatives on Friday, criticism was directed at the news media for the use of anonymous sources on the story, not Trump. Laura Ingraham tweeted that the reporting was “false,” while Hugh Hewitt said Comey’s successor was what mattered. Hewitt did critique Trump’s suggestion that the White House cease holding briefings. Trump “needs more direct on-the-record” contact with the media, “not less,” Hewitt posted on Twitter. The harshest criticism came from conservative Erick Erickson, who described Trump as “self-immolating.” “The overwhelming majority of Trump voters will double down in their support of Trump,” Erickson wrote on his website Friday morning. “Many of us see this as unhinged, suspicious and headed toward impeachment-level.” At the RNC meeting, Kris Warner, a West Virginia committeeman, predicted that Comey’s successor will put to rest any voter misgivings about Trump’s handling of the FBI, holding up the president’s selection of Neil Gorsuch for a long-vacant seat on the Supreme Court as an example. “I expect nothing short of someone beyond reproach and (it) will be exactly what the country needs,” said Warner, a Trump delegate at last year’s party convention. “Look at his Supreme Court pick. Very impressed with that, and I would expect him to do the same with the FBI.” Party leaders said Trump was right to fire Comey, or at least that he had a right to do it. Kyle Hupfer, chairman of the Indiana Republican Party, said picking the FBI chief is a president’s prerogative, despite tradition that the post be held for 10 years regardless of who occupies the White House. He said backlash to Comey’s dismissal was “not resonating” with Indiana voters. David Bossie, a Maryland committeeman who was Trump’s deputy campaign manager during the final leg of last year’s race, conceded the news could have been better explained. “I think the White House communications shop needs to do a little better, and I think they’re going to get better at what they’re doing,” he said. “I think we had some mixed messages out there that didn’t help matters at all. But the president made the decision to fire Jim Comey. How that happened and the semantics of the timeline, people can debate over the next couple days.” On Thursday, about 300 protesters marched on the beach, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” They were kept a good distance from the iconic Hotel del Coronado, where some party members looked out from a patio bar. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Tea Party parallel? Liberals taking aim at their own party
Four days after Donald Trump‘s surprising White House victory, the liberal organization CREDO Action fired off a frantic warning to its 4.6 million anxious supporters. Their worry wasn’t the new president. It was his opposition. “Democratic leaders have been welcoming Trump,” the email said. “That’s not acceptable. Democratic leaders need to stand up and fight. Now.” Amid a national surge of anti-Trump protests, boycotts and actions, liberals have begun taking aim at a different target: Their own party. Over the past few weeks, activists have formed a number of organizations threatening a primary challenge to Democratic lawmakers who offer anything less than complete resistance to the Republican president. “We’re not interested in unity,” said Cenk Uygur, the founder of Justice Democrats, a new organization that’s pledged to replace “every establishment politician” in Congress. “We can’t beat the Republicans unless we have good, honest, uncorrupted candidates.” While party leaders have urged Democrats to keep their attacks focused on Trump, the liberal grass roots sees the fresh wave of opposition energy as an opportunity to push their party to the left and wrest power from longtime party stalwarts. The intraparty pressure is reminiscent of the tea party movement, where conservative activists defeated several centrist Republican incumbents. Their efforts reverberated through the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, forcing candidates to the right on economic issues. Like Uygur, many founders of the new groups are supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ presidential campaign, eager to continue their effort to remake the Democratic Party. Uygur’s group says they’ve already found 70 possible candidates who will refuse corporate campaign donations while running for Congress— challenging elected Democrats if needed. Those people are now going through candidate training. Democratic officials from more conservative states worry that those primary contests will result in the party holding even less power in Washington. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat likely to face a tough re-election fight in a state won overwhelmingly by Trump, said the effort will make Democrats a “super minority” in the Senate. A coalition named “WeWillReplaceYou” is urging Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to remove Manchin from his new role in the party leadership after Manchin expressed openness to working with Trump. “If you want to go ahead and beat me up in a primary then go ahead,” Manchin said. “All it does is take the resources from the general.” Even without primaries, the party faces a challenging political map in 2018. Republicans will be defending just eight Senate seats, while Democrats must hold 23 — plus two filled by independents who caucus with them. Ten of those races are in states Trump carried November. The activists say they’re willing to trade power for conviction. “I’d rather have 44 or 45 awesome Democrats who are lockstep together than 44 or 45 really awesome Democrats and three to four weak-kneed individuals who are going to dilute the party,” said Murshed Zaheed, CREDO’s political director. They point to a postelection shift among Democrats as a sign that their efforts are working. Initially, Schumer and even liberals such as Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren cautiously spoke of working with Trump on certain issues. After the wave of liberal fury, most Democrats have shifted into full opposition mode. “Democrats have a reflexive instinct to compromise,” said Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org, which has directed its members to protest at Democratic as well as Republican congressional offices. “At this moment of successive Trump crises, resistance rather than compromise is what the country needs.” Democratic leaders say the path to victory next year depends on a strong economic message, one that casts Trump as betraying the working-class voters who boosted him to victory. “What we have in common, whether you’re West Virginia or Massachusetts or Kansas is a commitment to economic opportunity,” said Tom Perez, the newly elected Democratic National Committee chairman. A memo this past week from Priorities USA gave Democrats a “10-point checklist” for criticizing Trump’s economic policies and conflicts of interest, saying the party cannot simply count on the president to remain “his own worst enemy.” Many of the most vulnerable Democratic senators avoided town halls meetings during the congressional recess last week, hoping to evade politically damaging confrontations. Party officials are trying to channel the new energy into more targeted electoral efforts. In the weeks after Election Day, the Ohio Democratic Party held a series of meetings across the state with new activists. Since then, they’ve teamed up with some organizations for events. “Our goal is to build good relationships so that come spring, summer of ’18 everyone moves to an election mindset,” said David Pepper, the state party chairman. Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee installed full-time organizers in 20 swing districts, with the goal of building stronger connections with activist groups. Their message: “We can’t add by subtracting,” said the committee chairman, Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico. That may be a hard sell for some of the new anti-Trump organizations. “Something the tea party was really smart about early on was not giving a big bear hug to the Republican National Committee,” said Ezra Levin, the executive director of the new anti-Trump group Indivisible. “Keeping the political parties at arm’s length is crucial to remaining an outside political force.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump rewards Michigan party chair with national role
President-elect Donald Trump wants Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel to be national party chairwoman, in part as a reward for the party carrying Michigan for the first time in 28 years. The choice of McDaniel to serve as Republican National Committee chairwoman was confirmed Tuesday night by a person familiar with Trump’s decision. The person asked for anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. The niece of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney also earned credit with Trump by faithfully supporting him after he won the party’s 2016 nod, despite sharp criticism from her famous uncle. “Ronna McDaniel, what a great job you and your people have done,” Trump told thousands at Deltaplex Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last Friday. “I was very impressed with you. She didn’t sleep for six months!” Trump’s decision also marks a key victory for outgoing RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. As Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff, Priebus, who guided the at times unwieldy Trump through the general election, supported McDaniel as his replacement. Other Trump loyalists were urging him to name Nick Ayers, a close adviser to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. While Trump’s team has said there’s no outright power struggle, Trump’s deliberations over secretary of state were seen as an indicator of influence between Priebus and senior adviser Steve Bannon. Priebus was seen as supporting Mitt Romney to become Trump’s secretary of state. On Tuesday, Trump named Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his choice for the nation’s top diplomat. McDaniel would seem to validate Priebus’ performance as the chairman who turned around the financially strapped committee and ended its presidential losing streak. McDaniel would probably maintain the strategy of early spending in states, digital data and local party infrastructure, RNC insiders said. “They said a Republican could never win Michigan,” McDaniel told the audience in Grand Rapids Friday. “I knew better. You knew better and Donald Trump knew better.” For her work in Michigan, part of a swath of northern states that had eluded Republicans since the 1980s, McDaniel is the right call, said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committeeman from Mississippi. Trump defied decades of precedent by also carrying Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — once-powerful, working-class Democratic states where manufacturing in smaller cities has declined. McDaniel, 43, would face immediate pressure to hold onto control of Congress in 2018. “I think she can help us hold a lot of these Rust Belt Democrats who voted for Donald Trump with good leadership and execution,” said Barbour. “Plus, she was willing to step out and support our nominee when her very famous uncle was doing the opposite. Now, that’s leadership.” Trump’s choices for RNC chairman and other party leadership positions carry immense sway with its members, who will vote on the team early next year. Should the committee approve Trump’s recommendation, McDaniel would become the second woman to be elected RNC chairman, and the first in 40 years. That’s a good sign for the party and Trump, said Michigan Republican Bob LaBrant, considering the 2005 recordings of Trump making sexually degrading remarks that were released during the campaign. “That sends a signal we need to send right now,” said LaBrant, former political director for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. “And Ronna is the right one to carry the message.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
