Tolerating Scandal

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Oppo is part of the story.But scandal does not cut the way it used to.

Erin Doherty at POLITICO:

Americans are largely tolerant of scandals among politicians. But nobody is more willing to stick by an embattled candidate than a MAGA voter.

The POLITICO Poll finds President Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters are the most loyal of any group of voters — with majorities saying they would stick by GOP candidates confronted with an array of scandals, from a DUI conviction or accepting lobbyist gifts to more serious accusations including domestic violence, sexual assault and antisemitic social media posts.

Two-thirds of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say they would continue supporting a GOP candidate accused of sexual assault — 13 percentage points higher than the share of Trump 2024 voters writ large, which include those who do not identify as MAGA. By comparison, 40 percent of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 would continue backing a Democratic candidate accused of sexual assault.

This article is part of an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas.


Seventy-two percent of MAGA Trump voters say they would stick with a GOP candidate accused of domestic violence, more than 10 percentage points higher than the overall share of Trump 2024 voters who would back a GOP candidate (61 percent). Thirty-nine percent of Harris voters say they’d stick with a Democrat accused of domestic violence.

Epstein Keeps Festering

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.

Joshua Partlow and Mariana Alfaro at WP:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Sunday backed off his claim that President Donald Trump was an FBI informant in the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

While Trump has said that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, his members-only club in Florida, he has also recently called the latest demands for the release of more information on the Epstein case a “Democrat hoax that never ends.”

Last week, Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill that Trump cares deeply about the crimes Epstein committed and said that Trump “was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”

On Sunday, his office released a statement modifying that claim.

“The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator,” the statement from Johnson’s office read.

 Emily Brooks and Mike Lillis  at The Hill:

The debate will resume immediately this week, since an Oversight panel subpoena gave the Epstein estate a Monday deadline to deliver a host of documents that could shed light on the elite associations maintained by the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in 2019 in a jail cell where he was awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking.

The list of records sought by the committee includes Epstein’s will, the travel logs for his private plane, anything resembling a client list, and a notorious “birthday book” assembled by Maxwell when Epstein turned 50 in 2003. That leather-bound volume reportedly contains a lewd note written by Trump when he was still a private citizen in New York, which the president has denied.

 

Rudy and the Pardons

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Zoë Richards at NBC:

A woman who said she worked for Rudy Giuliani during the last two years of the Trump administration alleged in a wide-ranging lawsuit that Giuliani, the former president’s personal attorney, discussed selling presidential pardons and detailed plans to overturn the 2020 election results.

In a 70-page complaint filed in state court in New York on Monday, Noelle Dunphy said that after Giuliani hired her in January 2019 he sexually assaulted and harassed her, refused to pay her wages and often made "sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks," adding that she had recordings of numerous interactions with him.

Dunphy, who is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages, said Giuliani had hired her for $1 million a year in addition to expenses and pro bono legal representation for a domestic abuse case against a former partner. But after she was hired, Dunphy alleged, Giuliani kept her employment “secret” and paid her only about $12,000 and reimbursed some of her business expenses, owing her $1,988,000 in unpaid wages. She said she was fired in January 2021.

Giuliani denied the allegations through a spokesperson.

Trump Loses Again

Our most recent book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and Trump's disregard for law.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at NYT:

When Alvin L. Bragg secured the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump, it galvanized Trump supporters. Allies of his Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, mark that indictment as the moment that Mr. Trump sped away from his nearest opponent in the polls.

Nobody around Mr. Trump is making a prediction publicly or privately that there will be a similar effect after a jury on Tuesday in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

The price that Mr. Trump was ordered by the jury to pay his accuser, Ms. Carroll, was $5 million, in a verdict he has promised to appeal. But whether he pays any political price at all is unclear. Mr. Trump was said to be furious about the verdict, and questioning the various decisions that were made by his team in the defense. Far from letting up on Ms. Carroll, his team plans to aggressively attack her claims and tether her to Democrats.

...

One of the most damaging aspects of the trial for Mr. Trump was his videotaped deposition. People close to him acknowledge the comments were a self-inflicted wound, and are aware Democrats in particular may put them in television ads where independent and suburban voters whom Mr. Trump long ago alienated would see them.

 

Trump defends his comments from the “Access Hollywood” tape in his taped deposition:

Trump: “Historically, that’s true with stars…If you look over the last million years, I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.” pic.twitter.com/FqtTVFF2oE

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) May 5, 2023

Larry Elder, the Oppo Gold Mine

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the impact of social issues.  It also discusses state elections. The biggest off-off-year election is the CA recall. 

 James Rainey at LAT:

Within 24 hours of Donald Trump riding down that golden escalator into the heart of America’s political consciousness, Larry Elder once recalled, he had the reality TV star pegged as the next president. He urged his radio audience: “We ought to get behind him.”

Two years into the Trump presidency, Elder sounded rhapsodic about the choice he and other Americans made. “The election of Donald Trump in 2016, in my opinion, was divine intervention,” he told an audience of conservatives gathered at a Rancho Palos Verdes resort in 2019. “It was a miracle. He is almost God-sent.”

Elder sounds decidedly more guarded about Trump these days, as the longtime Los Angeles radio host leads 45 other challengers in the race to replace Gavin Newsom, should Californians vote to recall the governor on Sept. 14.

Brie Stimson at Fox News:

Larry Elder, a gubernatorial candidate in California’s Gavin Newsom recall election, said he would replace U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, with a Republican – if Elder becomes governor and Feinstein were to step down during his term.

"God forbid Gov. Elder should replace Dianne Feinstein who nobody’s seen in weeks," Elder told Mark Levin on his radio show Friday. "I'm told she has a worse mental condition than even Joe Biden. They're afraid I'm would replace her with a Republican — which I most certainly would do and that would be an earthquake in Washington D.C."

 Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck at CNN:

Larry Elder, a radio talk show host and the top Republican candidate in California's recall election, disclosed in 2011 episodes of his radio show that he had twice been accused of sexual harassment and forcefully denied the allegations.

In one instance, Elder recounted that, while he worked in private practice as an attorney in the 1980s, his employee accused him of hitting on her. Elder then defended himself by implying the woman was too unattractive for him to sexually harass.

"This woman who tried to break the contract, not to compete and then accused me of hitting on her," Elder said in one episode. "That's how, that's how she put it. If you had seen her, you would know that the picture would be a complete defense. I'm just saying."

Elder later said the claim, made while he owned and operated a legal executive search firm in the 1980s, was false and said the woman backed down when he threatened to sue her for defamation.

Cuomo's Fall

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state elections. Yesterday, sexual harassment allegations forced the resignation of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer at WP:

Cuomo’s decision Tuesday to step down from office was not driven by a sense of penance or contrition, aides said, but rather by a recognition that his fate was set.

After governing New York with an iron fist for more than than a decade — and amassing an enviable list of achievements along the way — he had few allies willing to stand by him. Politically isolated, he faced the prospect of being expelled from the governor’s mansion by the state legislature and banned from running for state office again.

“He didn’t want to be the second governor in the history of New York state to be impeached. And he knew he’d be impeached,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, who had talked to some of the governor’s staffers.

Cuomo didn’t even try to call to plead his case with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, with some people close to him saying it would be a futile effort. Over the past week, his advisers determined that he had fewer than a dozen supporters left in the Assembly. Several thought he would certainly be convicted in the Senate and urged him to consider resigning. “We had no chance there,” said one adviser, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

...

 “If you are going to come at the king, you best not miss. If you are going to bully everyone, you best not slip,” said Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who investigated Cuomo and then became an object of the governor’s angry fixation. 

Andrew Cuomo in Trouble

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state elections.

From the NYS Attorney General:

We, the investigators appointed to conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, conclude that the Governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law. Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women. Our investigation revealed that the Governor’s sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other State employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail and members of the public. We also conclude that the Executive Chamber’s culture—one filled with fear and intimidation, while at the same time normalizing the Governor’s frequent flirtations and gender-based comments—contributed to the conditions that allowed the sexual harassment to occur and persist. That culture also influenced the improper and inadequate ways in which the Executive Chamber has responded to allegations of harassment.

Katie Glueck at NYT:

Lawmakers who had previously been fearful of publicly criticizing Mr. Cuomo, aware of his capacity for retribution, are now calling for his resignation. Elected officials who represent core Cuomo constituencies — including Black voters and white suburban voters — have increasingly urged him to step aside. Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee whom Mr. Cuomo was eager to embrace earlier this summer, encouraged the Assembly to “move forward with impeachment proceedings if the governor will not resign,” and top labor leaders are increasingly breaking with the governor.

Most significantly, President Biden — a longtime friend of Mr. Cuomo’s — and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long been close with the Cuomo family, for the first time on Tuesday urged him to step aside.

 

Bad Debate for Bloomberg

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under way.

At the Las Vegas debate, Hallie Jackson asked Bloomberg about sexual harassment suits that ended in nondisclosure agreements.  Like Trump, he answered by talking about all the opportunities that he had provided for women.  Jackson then turned to Warren, who had been critical of Bloomberg on this point.

WARREN: Yes, I have. And I hope you heard what his defense was. "I've been nice to some women." That just doesn't cut it. The mayor has to stand on his record. And what we need to know is exactly what's lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace. So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story? (APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: We have a very few nondisclosure agreements.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: Let me finish.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told. And let me just -- and let me -- there's agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that's up to them. They signed those agreements, and we'll live with it.

BIDEN: Come on.

WARREN: So, wait, when you say it is up to -- I just want to be clear. Some is how many? And -- and when you -- and when you say they signed them and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is they allege, that's now OK with you? You're releasing them on television tonight? Is that right? (APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: Senator...

WARREN: Is that right, tonight?

BLOOMBERG: Senator, the company and somebody else, in this case -- a man or a woman or it could be more than that, they decided when they made an agreement they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody's interests.

BIDEN: Come on.

BLOOMBERG: They signed the agreements and that's what we're going to live with.
(CROSSTALK)

BUTTIGIEG: You could release them now.

WARREN: I'm sorry. No, the question is...

BLOOMBERG: I heard your question.

WARREN: ... are the women bound by being muzzled by you and you could release them from that immediately? Because, understand, this is not just a question of the mayor's character. This is also a question about electability. We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. (APPLAUSE) That's not what we do as Democrats.

JACKSON: Mr. Vice President?

BIDEN: Look, let's get something straight here. It's easy. All the mayor has to do is say, "You are released from the nondisclosure agreement," period.(APPLAUSE)

...
BLOOMBERG: I've said we're not going to get -- to end these agreements because they were made consensually and they have every right to expect that they will stay private.
(AUDIENCE BOOS)

But how many people were watching?  And will they remember? Also note:

Situations from NH debate & NV debate could not be more different. In NH- an unprecedented 45% of voters said they might change their minds the weekend of the primary but here in NV, 3/4s of all ballots were cast before last night's debate. Little room for debate effects.

— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer 📈🔭🍌 (@RachelBitecofer) February 20, 2020

Biden Is Not a Great Candidate

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the early stages of the 2016 campaign, when many candidates were unknowns.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. We are now in the early stages of the 2020 race.

Barney Frank on Joe Biden, 2015:

“Joe is his own worst enemy. He’s a very bright guy, very good values. But he just — he can’t keep his mouth shut or his hands to himself.”

 Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns at NYT:

Mr. Biden has faced accusations from multiple women who came forward to complain that his penchant for close physical contact made them feel uneasy. Rival Democrats demanded that he account for his treatment of the women, and President Trump lobbed taunts that offered a preview of how he might attack Mr. Biden in a 2020 general election.

It was a multiday crisis that seemed entirely foreseeable, given that Mr. Biden’s physical touching occurred over many years, often in public. But despite almost five decades in the political arena, Mr. Biden, 76, did not have an agile, fully staffed campaign in place to confront it.

He issued three statements and one online video attempting to explain his conduct, only to joke about the issue in a speech to a union conference Friday. Afterward, he gave an ambivalent response to reporters who asked if he was sorry, acknowledging that he would have to change his behavior but apologizing only for the fact that he “didn’t understand more” about the implications of his conduct.

Mr. Biden showed no evident regret about his wait-and-wait-some-more strategy, explaining coyly that he would “give everybody else their day, then I get a shot.”
But Mr. Biden’s eventual announcement now seems fated to fall in the shadow of the recent allegations and the progressive concerns he has so far declined to address. Far from remaining above the fray, Mr. Biden will enter the campaign as bruised as any of the 16 other candidates already in the race.

“

Random Moments on Twitter

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

 Harley Rouda

Harley Rouda is running against 'Putin's favorite congressman' who calls climate change a fraud pic.twitter.com/NycRQsIigC

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 18, 2018

Jason Lewis

After we reached out to GOP Rep. Jason Lewis’ campaign about the audio mocking women who were traumatized by unwanted touching/kissing, we got a letter threatening legal action if we used the audio. We are still embedding it in the article under fair use: https://t.co/UhLZggTdxq

— 💀andrew👻kaczynski🎃 (@KFILE) October 19, 2018

French Hill

Worth noting this ad comes from a group whose treasurer is a guy with no connection to French Hill's campaign who has a history of running provocative content just for attention and making money in the process https://t.co/Yg9qDusb60

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 18, 2018

Stormy Days

 In Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of  scandal.  

At The Guardian, Lloyd Green reviews the Stormy Daniels memoir and reflect on Kavanaugh"

Kavanaugh is finding out that allegations of attempted rape can put a crimp in one’s ambitions, and that what happens at Georgetown Prep or the DC suburbs doesn’t always stay there.

Just as Trump vouched for Rob Porter, his allegedly wife-beating ex-White House staff secretary, the president is weighing in for Kavanaugh and, for added measure, directly attacking the credibility of Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s purported victim. This is not exactly the narrative Republicans need, hurtling toward the midterms. When Senate seats in Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona are in play, the party has a huge problem.

The latest polls depict an unloved Kavanaugh. Reuters-Ipsos shows the public opposing his confirmation 36-31 while Wall Street Journal/NBC News pegs the gap at 38-34, a historic approval deficit for a would-be supreme court justice. Even Harriet Miers, George W Bush’s failed pick for the high court, saw her numbers above water.

The outcome of this standoff remains to be seen. For the moment, Daniels is one person with an unvarnished narrative.

Kavanaugh and the Midterms

In Defying the Odds, we discuss how the issue of Supreme Court nominations affected the 2016 race.

Susan Page at USA Today:

More Americans oppose than support the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Public Affairs Poll finds, an unprecedented level of disapproval for a nominee to the nation's high court.

Amid allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, those surveyed say by 40 percent to 31 percent that the Senate shouldn't vote to approve his nomination, the first time a plurality of Americans have opposed a Supreme Court nominee since polling on the issue began. Nonetheless, they also are inclined to believe he will, in the end, be confirmed: Just 11 percent predict he won't; 45 percent say he will.

The findings underscore the serious political stakes – and the potential for blowback in the midterm elections now little more than six weeks away.

From Gallup:

 Support for Prior Supreme Court Nominees, Final Survey, 1987-2018

Would you like to see the Senate vote in favor of […] serving on the Supreme Court, or not?

	Vote in favor	Not vote in favor	Margin
	%	%	pct. pts.
Brett Kavanaugh	39	42	-3
Neil Gorsuch	45	32	+13
Merrick Garland	52	29	+23
Elena Kagan	46	36	+10
Sonia Sotomayor	55	36	+19
Samuel Alito	54	30	+24
Harriet Miers	42	43	-1
John Roberts	60	26	+34
Ruth Bader Ginsburg	53	14	+39
Clarence Thomas	58	30	+28
Robert Bork	38	35	+3
Reading for Kavanaugh is latest. Gallup did not measure support for the nominations of Anthony Kennedy, David Souter or Stephen Breyer. Gallup measured support for Neil Gorsuch, Merrick Garland and Ruth Bader Ginsburg just once, shortly after each was first nominated.
Gallup

Trump and the Decline of Conservatism

In  Defying the Odds, we explain that Trump has renounced the conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

Mona Charen at CPAC:

I’m disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extra-marital affairs, who brag about mistreating women. And because he happens to have an “R” after his name, we look the other way — we don’t complain. This is a party that was ready to endorse Roy Moore for the Senate in the state of Alabama even though he was a credibly accused child molester. You cannot claim that you stand for women and put up with that.

Security guards had to protect her as she exited.

She then wrote in NYT:

I spoke to a hostile audience for the sake of every person who has watched this spectacle of mendacity in disbelief and misery for the past two years. Just hearing the words you know are true can serve as ballast, steadying your mind when so much seems unreal.

For traditional conservatives, the past two years have felt like a Twilight Zone episode. Politicians, activists and intellectuals have succumbed with numbing regularity, betraying every principle they once claimed to uphold. But there remains a vigorous remnant of dissenters. I hear from them. There were even some at CPAC.

A substantial number of people applauded. And as I was hustled out of the building by security, various supporters gave me the thumbs up sign.

Just before I reached the exit, a woman approached me and called my name. “That was so brave!” she told me.

She was one of my fellow panelists. I hope she’s encouraged. I am.

Richard Brookhiser at NRO:

[W]hether from design, or simply because it is the way things work, Trump’s conservative admirers have had to abandon and contradict what they once professed to hold most dear.

The most egregious example is the religious Right. The religious Right is the latest version of an old model of American politics, variously incarnated by Puritans, abolitionists, and William Jennings Bryan. It, like its predecessors, has argued that America and individual Americans need to have a godly or at least moral character to thrive. Now the religious Right adores a thrice-married cad and casual liar. But it is not alone. Historians and psychologists of the martial virtues salute the bone-spurred draft-dodger whose Khe Sanh was not catching the clap. Cultural critics who deplored academic fads and slipshod aesthetics explicate a man who has never read a book, not even the ones he has signed. Followers of Harry Jaffa, the most important Lincoln scholar of the last 60 years, rally round a Republican who does not know why the Civil War happened. Straussians, after leaving the cave, find themselves in Mar-a-Lago. Econocons put their money on a serial bankrupt.

Admiring Trump is different from voting for him, or working with him. Politics is calculation; “to live,” Whittaker Chambers told Buckley, who quoted it ever after, “is to maneuver.” But to admire Trump is to trade your principles for his, which are that winning — which means Trump winning — is all.

In three years (maybe seven), Donald Trump will no longer be president. But conservatives who bent the knee will still be writing and thinking. How will it be possible to take them seriously?

 Max Boot at WP:

The career of Dinesh D’Souza is indicative of the downward trajectory of conservatism. He made his name with a well-regarded 1991 book denouncing political correctness and championing liberal education. Then he wrote a widely panned 1995 book claiming that racism was no more, and it was all downhill from there. In 2014 he pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws. Now, as the Daily Beast notes, he has become a conspiratorial crank who has suggested that the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was staged by liberals, that Barack Obama is a “gay Muslim” and Michelle Obama is a man and that Adolf Hitler, who sent 50,000 homosexuals to prison, “was NOT anti-gay.” He managed to sink even lower last week by mocking stunned Parkland school-shooting survivors after the Florida legislature defeated a bill to ban assault weapons: “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs.”

Sexual-Harassing RNC Finance Chair Steps Down

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character. 

RNC Press release, January 31, 2017:

“I am proud to have Steve Wynn on board as RNC Finance Chairman,” said Chairwoman McDaniel. “His incredible career has been marked not just by extraordinary business success, but meaningful relationships with his employees, guests, and Americans of all backgrounds."

If the DNC truly stands up for women like they say they do, then returning Weinstein's dirty money should be a no-brainer.

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) October 6, 2017

WSJ, January 26, 2018:

"[D]ozens of people The Wall Street Journal interviewed who have worked at Mr. Wynn’s casinos told of behavior that cumulatively would amount to a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Wynn. Some described him pressuring employees to perform sex acts."

NYT January 27, 2018:

 Stephen Wynn, the billionaire casino mogul and prominent political donor, has stepped down as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, following a report that he engaged in a yearslong pattern of sexual misconduct with his casino employees.

Mr. Wynn, who had been selected for the committee position by President Trump, was facing growing calls to step aside in the wake of a detailed investigative report in The Wall Street Journal on Friday that said Mr. Wynn had frequently demanded naked massages from female employees, and sometimes pressured them for sexual intercourse or to perform sex acts on him.

\In a statement on Saturday, the committee’s chairwoman, Ronna Romney McDaniel, said, “Today I accepted Steve Wynn’s resignation as Republican National Committee finance chair.” The committee had remained silent until Ms. McDaniel first spoke to Mr. Trump, who has a longstanding friendship with his fellow casino mogul.

Congress Exempts Itself from Rules on Sexual Harassment

Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Elise Viebeck report at The Washington Post: 

Congress makes its own rules about the handling of sexual complaints against members and staff, passing laws exempting it from practices that apply to other employers.

The result is a culture in which some lawmakers suspect harassment is rampant. Yet victims are unlikely to come forward, according to attorneys who represent them.

Under a law in place since 1995, accusers may file lawsuits only if they first agree to go through months of counseling and mediation. A special congressional office is charged with trying to resolve the cases out of court.

When settlements do occur, members do not pay them from their own office funds, a requirement in other federal agencies. Instead, the confidential payments come out of a special U.S. Treasury fund.

Madison in Federalist 57:  If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

The Sexual Harrasser in the White House

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of sexual harassment and other scandals.

Karen Tumulty, Mark Berman and Jenna Johnson at WP:

Almost a year after New Yorker Jessica Leeds and other women stepped forward with harrowing accounts of being sexually assaulted by a powerful man, another scandal with similar elements exploded.

Only this time, the punishment was swift and devastating.

“It is hard to reconcile that Harvey Weinstein could be brought down with this, and [President] Trump just continues to be the Teflon Don,” said Leeds, who claims she was groped 30 years ago on a plane by the man whose presence she cannot escape now that he sits in the Oval Office.

In Florida, Melinda McGillivray was having much the same reaction.

“What pisses me off is that the guy is president,” McGillivray, who a year ago went public with allegations that Trump grabbed her at Mar-a-Lago in 2003 when she was 23. “It’s that simple.”

Leeds and McGillivray were among the 11 women who came forward in the 2016 campaign to accuse the then-Republican presidential candidate of unwanted touching or kissing. Trump called the charges “pure fiction” and referred to the women as “horrible, horrible liars.”

Nuclear Trumplosion

John Avlon writes at The Daily Beast:

Mark down the date: October 7, 2016, is when Donald Trump lost the presidency.

I’m usually reluctant to play the pundit-prediction game but Independent and Republican women aren’t going to bounce back from this one. Not when the GOP nominee is caught on tape talking about hitting on a married woman “with big phony tits” “like a bitch” and how part of his M.O. is “grabbing pussy” because “when you’re a star” “you can do anything.”

This entire campaign has been an exercise of the electorate being slowly simmered in a pot of boiling water, losing our sense of outrage amid a steady of onslaught insults and lies. But sex and cruelty resonates in a way that financial scandals or demagoguery just don’t.

 Two years after the married woman, Nancy O'Dell, rebuffed his sexual advances, Trump tried to fire her from the MissUSA pageant.

Leigh Ann Caldwell reports at NBC:

Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah is just one of a handful of Utah politicians who released strong statements against Trump. Chaffetz, who had previously endorsed Trump, said Friday night that the latest reveal on Trump has caused him to draw the line. He said he withdraws his endorsement.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has never come out in support of Trump but went further than he has publicly before saying on Facebook that Trump is a "distraction" and that "it's time for him to step aside."

The current governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, said he "will not vote for Trump" and former Gov. Jon Huntsman, who just endorsed Trump last week, rescinded his endorsement and told the Salt Lake City Tribune that "the time has come for Governor Pence to lead the ticket."

Filner

What he says:

What he means:

Cain Is Out

CBS reports:

The suspension of Herman Cain's presidential bid on Saturday intensifies the seeming two-man race for the Republican nomination between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

With exactly one month left before the nation's first nominating contest in Iowa -- and some important holidays in between -- Cain's departure gives Gingrich a golden opportunity to lock up his status as the authentic conservative that many GOP voters are looking for. If this year's volatile primary race has shown anything, it's that Republicans are desperately searching for an alternative to Romney, whom voters fear may be too moderate, and Gingrich is the latest candidate to challenge the former Massachusetts governor in the polls.

That said, it's not a sure bet that Cain's exit will transfer to more consolidated support for Gingrich. Romney may not be the conservative favorite, but polls show he's convinced voters he's a competent and competitive contender -- and given Gingrich's numerous flaws, he may not withstand an effective head-to-head match up with the former governor.

Video from ABC News:

Scathing View of Cain

Jonathan Martin writes at Politico:

Herman Cain is in the midst of “reassessing” whether to continue his 2012 bid, but its legacy is already settled: His campaign will go down as one of the most hapless and bumbling operations in modern presidential politics, setting a new standard for how to turn damaging press coverage into something far worse.

The botched responses to allegations of marital infidelity, sexual impropriety and his own gaffes — not to mention the puzzling strategic decisions — have, in the eyes of many veteran strategists, reached record levels of ineptitude.

It’s an operation that has repeatedly contradicted its own candidate, leveled baseless charges and put Cain in difficult political spots with little apparent forethought.

The chain of events following a woman’s claim Monday that she had a 13-year affair with the Republican presidential hopeful provides the freshest evidence. Campaign manager Mark Block confirmed to ABC News Tuesday that Cain is “reassessing whether to stay in the race,” while spokesman J.D. Gordon told ABC the opposite: that Cain is simply reassessing campaign strategy, such as “what states we visit, what interviews we do, how we allocate resources – things like that.”