Leaders Under Fire From Their Parties

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Robert Birsel at Newsweek:

Seven Democratic senators and one Democrat-aligned independent voted with Republicans on Sunday to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the deal, which failed to address the key Democratic demand of extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expiring on January 1.

Schumer was being criticized for failing to get Democrats to fall into line, underscoring growing tensions within the party over legislative strategy and leadership as it prepares for the run-up to midterm elections next year.

Alexander Willis at Raw Story:

An Arizona Democrat who was elected to Congress in September but still hasn’t been sworn into office is gaining new support from Republican lawmakers as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces growing scrutiny over an alleged attempt to block the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“We're all hoping that Speaker Johnson is going to read the tea leaves and get to work, swear me in so we don't have to go seek judicial support in him doing his job, but that's where we are,” Adelita Grijalva, who won her election on Sept. 23 and has since launched a lawsuit to force her swearing in, told MSNBC Saturday.

Grijalva and others have accused Johnson of delaying her swearing in to avoid the passage of a discharge petition that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The petition, which currently has 217 signatures, needs 218 signatures to force the House to vote on the matter — and Grijalva has pledged to sign it.

Grijalva told MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that a growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined her cause, however, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who told CNN recently that Grijalva “should be sworn in.”

 

Shutdown, Obamacare, and the Debt

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.  Americans are noticing.

Chris Stirwalt at The Hill:

Two big data points in the headlines this week: 1) The average cost of a family health insurance plan will be $27,000 for coverage next year and 2) The federal debt grew faster than any time other than the pandemic and surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday.

...

Democrats have already won the shutdown. Whether it ends today or on Nov. 1, when the open enrollment period for health insurance begins in most places, the shutdown will have dramatically increased the pressure on Republicans over rising health costs. The GOP has already agreed to extend enhanced ObamaCare subsidies, but is insisting the vote will come after the government is reopened, not as a condition for reopening it.

...

Which is all a long way of saying that in that way, Democrats have already won the shutdown. Whether it ends today or on Nov. 1, when the open enrollment period for health insurance begins in most places, the shutdown will have dramatically increased the pressure on Republicans over rising health costs. The GOP has already agreed to extend enhanced ObamaCare subsidies, but is insisting the vote will come after the government is reopened, not as a condition for reopening it.

Either way, when they do, Republicans will be acceding to Democrats’ demands to have the government provide more subsidies to offset the consequences of a cost spiral that itself is partly caused by … subsidies.

So Washington’s response to those two big new numbers this week will most assuredly make them both worse.

Shutdown Cliffs and SNAP

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The looming expiration of ACA subsidies could affect the 2026 midterm.

So could the SNAP cliff.   Helena Bottemiller Evich at Food Fix:

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday outside the White House that SNAP will run out of funds: “We’re going to run out of money in two weeks. So you’re talking about millions and millions of vulnerable families, of hungry families, that are not going to have access to these programs because of this shutdown.”

The Trump administration was able to find a fix for WIC, but that program needs somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 million per month to operate. SNAP is on a whole different level, with monthly costs more like $8 billion per month. That’s real money, even for USDA, which has more spending leeway (and frankly slush funds) than many federal agencies.

Anti-hunger advocates are raising alarms about all of this right now.

“USDA must ensure that funding is available for SNAP so that participants continue to receive benefits as they have done during previous shutdowns,” said Crystal FitzSimons, president of Food Research & Action Center (FRAC). “Just as the administration has found ways to protect its other priorities during this shutdown, it must also act with the same urgency to protect SNAP. USDA should utilize its contingency reserves and any additional funding sources to ensure that benefits are not disrupted.”

Contingency funds: There is a SNAP contingency fund to help bridge the gap during debacles like this — and let’s be clear, this is a debacle — but I’m hearing conflicting things about how much is available in that pot. Multiple sources told me it’s around $6 billion. But some in Washington are worried the fund is lower than that, closer to $4 billion. Either way, it’s short of the more than $8 billion USDA probably needs for November benefits.

Lots of beneficiaries live in Republican states:

 

Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump's Big Mouth

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its incompetence sometimes compounds the harm it does, but it sometimes tempers it.

MIA MCCARTHY, CALEN RAZOR and BENJAMIN GUGGENHEIM  at POLITICO:

One week into the shutdown, Republicans are trying to stay on message — but President Donald Trump is making that difficult.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to show Democrats there’s no daylight inside the GOP: Republicans will only negotiate a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies once the government is back open.

But Trump is causing major headaches by going off script, Dasha Burns and Jordain Carney report. On Monday, Trump pointed to health care negotiations with Democrats that didn’t appear to exist, but would have contradicted Johnson and Thune’s red line about no ACA talks until the shutdown ends.

On Tuesday, the White House further complicated matters by sending a memo stating some federal workers might not receive backpay after the shutdown’s over. Republicans scrambled to refute that message. After all, Trump himself signed legislation in 2019 guaranteeing all federal workers would be paid following a shutdown — and many Republicans voted for it.

Erica Orden at POLITICO:

President Donald Trump is deploying the Justice Department to punish and prosecute his perceived enemies and advance his political agenda. But his color commentary — and that of senior members of his administration — about the cases is threatening to derail them in court.

Public comments by Trump and high-ranking officials including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have already become flashpoints in high-profile cases. Judges overseeing criminal proceedings against Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was illegally deported by the Trump administration, have warned the administration to stop making remarks that could prevent the defendants from having fair trials, or have suggested they may already have violated rules against doing so.

In two other criminal cases — against former FBI Director James Comey and against alleged Charlie Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson — remarks by Trump and others are all but certain to show up in court filings as the defendants argue their cases should be thrown out. The defense lawyers in all four cases would need to convince the judges that the comments prevent their clients from receiving a fair trial because potential jurors have been prejudiced.

And as the Justice Department, at Trump’s urging, pursues the potential prosecution of Trump foes Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), John Bolton, John Brennan and others, Trump’s tendency to proclaim the guilt of an unconvicted defendant or publicly pressure prosecutors to bring charges will likely continue to create significant legal headaches.

Shutdown Politics

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

Eleanor Mueller, Burgess Everett, and Shelby Talcott at Semafor:

President Donald Trump’s budget guru wants to use a shutdown to slash the federal government in the same vein as Elon Musk’s now-quiet Department of Government Efficiency.

But even pro-DOGE Republicans are warning Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to go slow.

“Russ is less politically in tune than the president,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a member of the Senate DOGE Caucus. “We, as Republicans, have never had so much moral high ground on a government funding bill in our lives. … I just don’t see why we would squander it, which I think is the risk of being aggressive with executive power in this moment.”

 Less than 24 hours into a government shutdown, some of the same political faultlines are reappearing in the GOP after billionaire Elon Musk launched the administration’s effort to streamline the federal government. This time, amid the added chaos of a shutdown with little end in sight, Republicans have to be mindful to not overplay their hand in the broader funding talks with their opponents.

Trump embracing Project 2025 (after distancing himself during campaign) and vowing to implement deep cuts envisioned by Russ Vought amid shutdown. pic.twitter.com/JjZEqNd7lk

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 2, 2025

 

Washington Post:

How concerned are Americans about the partial shutdown of the federal government and whom do they blame for causing it? The Washington Post texted a nationally representative sample of 1,010 people on Wednesday to ask.

The Post’s poll found significantly more Americans blame President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats, though many say they are not sure. People express moderate concern about the shutdown’s impact at this early stage, with “somewhat concerned” the most common answer. A large majority support Democrats’ call to extend federal health insurance subsidies in general, though just under half support the party demanding this if it extends the government shutdown.

Trump Tuesday

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

Hegseth insisted that generals and admirals fly in from all over the world to hear lectures from him and Trump.  Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

As comical as many of Trump’s comments were, the president’s nakedly partisan appeal to U.S. military officers was a violation of every standard of American civil-military relations, and exactly what George Washington feared could happen with an unscrupulous commander in chief. The most ominous part of his speech came when he told the military officers that they would be part of the solution to domestic threats, fighting the “enemy from within.” He added, almost as a kind of trollish afterthought, that he’d told Hegseth, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military—National Guard, but military—because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor.”

This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called “boob bait for the Bubbas” and that George Orwell might have called “prolefeed.” It’s one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump’s rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.

But American officers have never had to contend with a president like Trump. Plenty of presidents behaved badly and suffered mental and emotional setbacks: John F. Kennedy cavorted with secretaries in the White House pool, Lyndon Johnson unleashed foul-mouthed tirades on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Nixon fell into depression and paranoia, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden wrestled with the indignities of age. But the officer corps knew that presidents were basically normal men surrounded by other normal men and women, and that the American constitutional system would insulate the military from any mad orders that might emerge from the Oval Office.

Aaron Pellish at Politico:

President Donald Trump posted another deepfake AI-generated video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday hours before the federal government is expected to shut down, further signaling the significant divide between the two parties.

On Monday, Trump posted a vulgar AI-generated video of Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking outside the White House. The video portrayed Jeffries wearing a mustache and a sombrero while mariachi music plays in the background.


Jeffries condemned the deepfake as “bigotry” in a social media response and called it a “disgusting video” in an MSNBC interview later Monday evening.

On Tuesday, Trump shared a clip of Jeffries’ MSNBC interview criticizing the original video, again adding an AI-generated mustache and sombrero. The latest video features four depictions of the president playing mariachi music as Jeffries speaks.

Trump’s repeated antagonization of Jeffries sets the tone for what may be difficult and drawn-out negotiations over a government-funding solution as lawmakers on both sides continue to dig into their positions.

 

Trump's Solution to Funding Stalemate: Post Racist Video

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

Kit Maher at CNN:

As the US government barrels toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump shared a racist video on social media, which appears to be AI-generated, depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.

Jeffries and Schumer met with Trump just hours before at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.

In the video, Schumer is depicted as arguing for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare” because minority voters hate Democrats and they could use the votes in the next election.

As mariachi music plays in the background of the video, the fake Schumer voice says, “There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.”

This is real. pic.twitter.com/MSANoEbFCP

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) September 30, 2025

Schumer Agonistes

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

Lulu Garcia-Navarro at NYT:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing the biggest revolt from Democrats in years, but in a conversation with The Interview after his crucial vote supporting a Republican federal spending bill this past week, he tried to brush off questions about whether he should step aside. Democratic officials appeared stunned when Schumer did an about-face on the spending bill, arguing that the choice was the lesser of two evils. Schumer defended his decision in the second part of our wide-ranging interview, even as questions over his leadership by senior party officials continued.

...

Schumer said that he made a “very, very difficult” decision to support the Republican bill in order to avert a government shutdown that, he said, President Trump and Elon Musk wanted. He called Trump and Musk “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists.”

They want to shutter “agency after agency,” he said, which would create a situation far worse than the Republican bill. He continued:

Two days from now in a shutdown, they could say, well, food stamps for kids is not essential. It’s gone. All veterans offices in rural areas are gone. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. They’re not essential. We’re cutting them back. So it’d be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown is much worse than any other damage that they could do.

Isn’t this just — Wait, let me just finish, Lulu. It can last forever. There is no off ramp. One of the Republican senators told us: We go to a shutdown, it’s going to be there for six months, nine months, a year. And by then, their goal of destroying the federal government would be gone. And finally, one final point here, and that is that right now under the C.R., you can go to court and contest an executive order to shut something down. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power.

On 3/11, Jake Lahut Leah Feiger Vittoria Elliott reported at Wired:

As President Donald Trump has been trying to keep House Republicans in line over a continuing resolution to keep the government open through the fall, Elon Musk has expressed a desire for a government shutdown, four sources familiar with his position tell WIRED.

Sources also tell WIRED that Musk has wanted a government shutdown—an aim that runs contrary to the White House’s stated desire to avoid one—in part because it would potentially make it easier to eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, essentially achieving a permanent shutdown. The sources, whom WIRED has granted anonymity, specifically asked to be described generically because information about Musk’s support for a shutdown is closely held.

“A shutdown has been his preference,” says one Republican familiar with the situation, referring to Musk. “I think he’s boxed in there by the president. I think it would be really hard for him to get around that.”

A second Republican who had heard about Musk’s desire for a government shutdown tells WIRED that the billionaire’s goal is for the continuing resolution—a spending bill to temporarily fund the government—to tank, if only to achieve a brief government shutdown.

“You know none of this is about saving money, right?” says a third Republican familiar with the behind-the-scenes push from Musk. “It’s all about destroying a liberal power base.”

 

 

Motion to Vacate

Our 2020 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.  

 Aileen Graef, CNN:

Rep. Matt Gaetz is planning to attempt to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the role this week after the House leader worked with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown on Saturday.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” the Florida Republican said he intends to file a motion to vacate this week, which would force a vote on whether McCarthy will keep his job.

“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January and since then he’s been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said Sunday. “This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we set up is a last straw.”

I think the play here is that Democrats en masse vote present on the motion to vacate. That way, it's not Dems keeping McCarthy as much as Rs not having the votes to remove. Just need a majority of Rs then. https://t.co/ZY0Zc4MNrf

— Jacob Smith @jacobfhsmith_ on Threads (@jacobfhsmith) May 23, 2023

Looming Shutdown

Our 2020 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.  Disarray threatens the GOP's tenuous grip on the House.

Katherine Tully-McManus and Adam Cancryn:

There is little optimism in most quarters for a last-minute rescue plan. And Republicans are feeling a keen sense of apprehension that their party will suffer badly should a shutdown transpire.

“We always get the blame,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior appropriator. “Name one time that we’ve shut the government down and we haven’t got the blame.”

 Liz Brown-Kaiser at NBC:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Tuesday that shutdowns are a political liability for his party as Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government open.

At his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon, McConnell, R-Ky., made it very clear that he’s “not a fan of government shutdowns.”

“I’ve seen a few of them over the years. They never have produced a policy change and they’ve always been a loser for Republicans politically,” he said. 

And a White House statement, with a state-by-state breakdown of the number of women and children at risk of losing critical nutrition assistance under an Extreme Republican Shutdown:

With less than one week before the end of the fiscal year, extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with peoples’ lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown that would have damaging impacts across the country—including putting vital nutrition assistance at risk for nearly 7 million women and children who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—a program that serves nearly half of babies born in this country.
 
During an Extreme Republican Shutdown, women and children who count on WIC would soon start being turned away at grocery store counters, with a federal contingency fund drying up after just a few days and many states left with limited WIC funds to operate the program.

 

 

Kevin's Gate

Our 2020 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.  Disarray threatens the GOP's tenuous grip on the House.

Kimberly Leonard at Politico:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is gunning for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, attacking the embattled GOP leader from the right and aligning himself with insurgent conservatives in Congress who are threatening a government shutdown.

What started as a private strategy session last week between DeSantis and House hardliners has now erupted into a frontal attack on McCarthy. On Monday, DeSantis ridiculed McCarthy’s record on government spending and accused him of being complicit in running up a massive federal debt balance. On Tuesday, the governor’s campaign sent out an email admonishing McCarthy all over again while urging House Republicans to buck the speaker in the current government funding negotiations.

  Melanie Zanona, Haley Talbot and Manu Raju, CNN:

Tensions are flaring inside the House Republican conference as it barrels toward a government shutdown, with the infighting spilling out into public view and growing increasingly nasty.

“This is stupidity,” New York Rep. Mike Lawler said of GOP hardliners’ demands on spending, prompting the Republican freshman to privately float a new plan to work with Democrats and force a vote keeping the government open past September 30.

At the center of much of the drama: Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, attacking Speaker Kevin McCarthy in personal terms. But he’s also engaged in social media spats with fellow hardline conservatives who helped broker a House GOP plan to fund the government first revealed on Sunday evening.

Rep. Byron Donalds, also a Florida Republican, shot back at Gaetz’s criticism of the plan, writing on social media: “Matt, tell the people the truth. … What’s your plan to get the votes to defund Jack Smith? You’ll need more than tweets and hot takes!!”

Rep. Chip Roy, a conservative from Texas who helped reach the deal, also slammed hardliners’ opposition, saying on a conservative radio show: “I don’t know whether we’ll have the votes or not, because I’ve got a lot of conservative friends who like to beat their chests and thump around going, ‘Oh, this isn’t pure enough.’ “

Defeat, Then Blunder

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's management style.

Robert Costa et al. at WP:

After three weeks of pained negotiations to keep the federal government open, President Trump almost blew the whole thing up again on Thursday.

Headed for another defeat on his signature promise to make Mexico pay for a southern border wall, the president was frustrated after a briefing by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and others on details of the final deal to avoid a shutdown, according to officials involved in the discussions. Trump threatened not to sign the legislation, the officials said, putting the government on the brink of another damaging shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on the phone with Trump at least three times during the course of the nerve-racking day, pressing him to stay the course and asserting that Democrats had actually lost the spending fight, two people familiar with the conversations said.

“We thought he was good to go all morning, and then suddenly it’s like everything is off the rails,” said one senior Republican aide.

By midafternoon, however, Trump was back on board — agreeing to sign the legislation with the caveat that he would also declare a national emergency in an attempt to use existing government funds to pay for wall construction. It was an option that Republican leaders had urged him to avoid but eventually accepted as necessary to escape the corner in which Trump — and his party — were trapped. McConnell promised Trump he would encourage others to support the emergency in a bid to get the president to sign, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Trump refused to sign the bill Thursday until the White House Counsel’s Office convinced him it would not preclude him from declaring a national emergency, two senior administration officials said. The president is expected to declare the emergency and sign the bill Friday morning, a senior White House official said.

Though White House officials insisted Thursday that Trump was acting in a defiant and assertive way, few Republicans, including the president’s closest allies, were pleased with the ending: $1.375 billion for fencing and other expenditures, plus an emergency gambit that many conservatives view as an executive overreach.

Policy Failures

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's management style.

CBO reports on the shutdown:

As a result of reduced economic activity, CBO estimates, real (that is, inflation adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2018 was reduced by $3 billion (in 2019 dollars) in relation to what it would have been otherwise. (Such references are in calendar years or quarters unless this report specifies otherwise.) In the first quarter of 2019, the level of real GDP is estimated to be $8 billion lower than it would have been—an effect reflecting both the five-week partial shutdown and the resumption in economic activity once funding resumed.

From the National Association of Business Economists:

 “After a year of robust capital spending, business investment has cooled a bit, and expectations for the next three months slackened similarly,” added NABE President Kevin Swift, CBE, chief economist, American Chemistry Council. “Indeed, the capex story is really a tale of two cities. Fewer firms increased capital spending compared to the October survey responses, but the cutback appeared to be concentrated more in structures than in information and communication technology investments. “A large majority of respondents—84%—indicate that one year after its passage, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans,” continued Swift.

From the Energy Information Administration:

 EIA estimates that total 2018 U.S. coal production was 755 million short tons (MMst), 20 MMst less than in 2017 and 36% less than in the previous decade. In 2018, coal prices rose in three of the five major coal-producing regions, particularly the Northern and Central Appalachian regions. Although U.S. coal exports increased by about 10 MMst in 2018, volumes were not great enough to offset the decline in U.S. coal consumption, resulting in declining coal production

A Bad Day for Trump

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss public perceptions of Trump.  After yesterday's cave-in on the shutdown and the arrest of Roger Stone, those perceptions are probably not going to turn positive right now.

At Axios, Mike Allen explains why yesterday was a very bad day for Trump.

As Jonathan Swan puts it: He blinks; he disappoints the people who still love him; he gets no credit for reopening the government, given he already took credit for the shutdown; and we’re back where we started after 35 days of pointlessness.The shutdown not only wasted a month of Trump's presidency, but it accelerates a months-long losing streak:

Trump is being outfoxed and outplayed by Speaker Pelosi:

• He ended the shutdown without getting anything obvious in return, after caving earlier in the week to her refusal to hold the State of the Union address in the House chamber.
• "Pelosi 2, Trump 0," a senior administration official instantly texted me.
• Drudge's banner, with a Trump pic: "WALLED IN."
• Swan tweeted: "A former White House official texts me, unsolicited: 'Trump looks pathetic...he just ceded his presidency to Nancy Pelosi.'"
• Maggie Haberman tweeted: "Not only did Trump alienate moderates with a shutdown, he upset his core 35 percent by caving — and, most significantly for 2020, did it all as Democrats held together on a major issue fight."

Yesterday's indictment of Roger Stone references "senior Trump Campaign officials," "a senior Trump campaign official" and "a high-ranking member of the Trump Campaign":

• A "senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional [WikiLeaks] releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton Campaign."

The midterm results left Trump weaker in battleground states than many people in his orbit seem to realize.

• As Jim VandeHei and I pointed out in November: "[A]ll the big trends are working against Trump and the GOP."

January 25 Is Off to a Bad Start for Trump

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. 

The FBI arrested Roger Stone this morning.

The indictment.

Devlin Barrett, Rosalind S. Helderman, John Wagner and Manuel Roig-Franzia at WP:

Stone was charged with seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements and one count of witness tampering. After the early morning arrest at his home, he appeared briefly in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., wearing a blue polo shirt, jeans, and steel cuffs on his wrists and ankles. The judge ordered him released on a $250,000 bond.

...

With Stone’s indictment, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has struck deep inside Trump’s inner circle, charging a long-standing friend of the president. The court filing charges Stone sought to gather information about hacked emails at the direction of an unidentified senior Trump campaign official, and then engaged in extensive efforts to keep secret the details of those efforts.

Trump is reportedly about to cave on a short-term CR. AP reports:.

Intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and widespread disruptions across the federal government instilled new urgency Friday into efforts by President Donald Trump and Congress to bring a resolution to the 35-day partial shutdown.

The world's busiest airport — Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — was experiencing long security wait times, a warning sign the week before it expects 150,000 out-of-town visitors for the Super Bowl.

LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were both experiencing at least 90-minute delays in takeoffs Friday.

...
In an embarrassment to Trump, the Democratic proposal got two more votes Thursday than the GOP plan, even though Republicans control the chamber 53-47. Six Republicans backed the Democratic plan, including freshman Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who's clashed periodically with the president.

The Senate first rejected a Republican plan reopening the government through September and giving Trump the $5.7 billion he's demanded for building segments of that wall, a project that he'd long promised Mexico would finance. The 50-47 vote for the measure fell 10 shy of the 60 votes needed to succeed.

Minutes later, senators voted 52-44 for a Democratic alternative that sought to open padlocked agencies through Feb. 8 with no wall money. That was eight votes short. It was aimed at giving bargainers time to seek an accord while getting paychecks to government workers who are either working without pay or being forced to stay home

Trump Impact: A Lump of Coal

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House.  Those divides, however, are now working against him. Despite reports of robust economic growth, Trump's approval rating is sagging and key indicators are breaking bad.

Jim Tankersley at NYT:

The partial government shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the United States economy than previously estimated, the White House acknowledged on Tuesday, as President Trump’s economists doubled projections of how much economic growth is being lost each week the standoff with Democrats continues.

The revised estimates from the Council of Economic Advisers show that the shutdown, now in its fourth week, is beginning to have real economic consequences. The analysis, and other projections from outside the White House, suggests that the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction.

...
 Mr. Hassett said on Tuesday that the administration now calculates that the shutdown reduces quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points for every week that it lasts — the cumulative effect of lost work from contractors and furloughed federal employees who are not getting paid and who are investing and spending less as a result. That means that the economy has already lost nearly half a percentage point of growth from the four-week shutdown. (Last year, economic growth for the first quarter totaled 2.2 percent.)

Scott DiSavino at Reuters:

 More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump’s first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama’s first term, despite the Republican’s efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states.

In total, more than 23,400 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired generation were shut in 2017-2018 versus 14,900 MW in 2009-2012, according to data from Reuters and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Trump has tried to roll back rules on climate change and the environment adopted during the Obama administration to fulfill pledges to voters in states like West Virginia and Wyoming.

But the second highest year for coal shutdowns was in Trump’s second year, 2018, at around 14,500 megawatts, following a peak at about 17,700 megawatts in 2015 under Obama.

One megawatt can power about 1,000 U.S. homes.

The number of U.S. coal plants has continued to decline every year since coal capacity peaked at just over 317,400 MW in 2011, and is expected to keep falling as consumers demand power from cleaner and less expensive sources of energy.

Stephen Gandel at Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump and the Republicans’ tax cut is proving to be vastly more generous for corporate America, and vastly more expensive for taxpayers, than expected. Worse, the Trump Slump is erasing the bump the stock market received from the tax cuts. And evidence is mounting that the promised economic boost isn’t materializing. The administration’s signature political achievement is being eclipsed by disarray over trade, immigration and a government shutdown.

First, the headline number: $600 billion, at least. That’s how much more than expected I estimate the companies in the S&P 500 are on pace to save. It is also how much more the tax cut is likely to add to the national debt if it runs as planned for 10 years. The total savings for all of corporate America will be well into the 13 figures.

In late 2017, soon before Congress passed the tax cut — which reduced the U.S. corporate rate to a flat 21 percent from a previous marginal rate that topped out at 35 percent — the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated it would cost $1.4 trillion over 10 years. White House officials criticized that estimate as being too high. In fact, it wasn’t nearly high enough. My current estimate, now that companies have completed 2018, is nearly $2 trillion, and that’s just for the S&P 500. That’s nearly $400 billion more than I calculated in May. And the actual bill could rise even more while the lasting benefits are still pretty questionable.

Shutdown and the Base

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's management style.

 Grace Sparks, at CNN:

During the longest government shutdown in US history, President Donald Trump has been losing support among those who may be his strongest supporters -- white Americans who don't have college degrees.

Among this group, only 45% said they approved of the job Trump is doing as President, according to a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS. That is the lowest level of support among this subgroup by 1 percentage point in CNN's surveys and a dip from a poll conducted in early December, before the partial shutdown, when 54% of whites without college degrees approved of his job as President and 39% disapproved.

The dip is notable since among whites who hold college degrees, Trump's ratings are largely unchanged in the last month and remain sharply negative -- 64% disapprove and 32% approve.

This trend is backed up by a new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday. Approval for the President remained somewhat stable between its mid-December poll and now among whites without college degrees (down from 56% to 53%), but disapproval increased from 37% to 43%. That is going from a net 19% positive approval to a net 10% for Trump, a 9-point loss.

Domenico Montanaro at NPR:

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds Trump's approval rating down and his disapproval rating up from a month ago. He currently stands at 39 percent approve, 53 disapprove — a 7-point net change from December when his rating was 42 percent approve, 49 percent disapprove.

And the movement has come from within key portions of his base. He is:

• Down significantly among suburban men, a net-positive approval rating of 51-to-39 percent to a net-negative of 42 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove. That's a net change of down 18 percentage points;
• Down a net of 13 points among white evangelicals, from 73-to-17 percent approve to 66-to-23 percent approve;
• Down a net of 10 points among Republicans, from 90-to-7 percent approve to 83-to-10 percent;
• Down marginally among white men without a college degree, from 56-to-34 percent approve to 50-to-35 percent approve, a net change downward of 7 points.

"First time in our Nation’s history that servicemembers in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid..."

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's management style.

From Admiral Karl L. Schultz, Commandant, US Coast Guard:

To the Men and Women of the United States Coast Guard,

Today you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled mid-month paycheck. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in our Nation’s history that  servicemembers in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid during a lapse in government appropriations.

Your senior leadership, including Secretary Nielsen, remains fully engaged and we will maintain a steady flow of communications to keep you updated on developments.

I recognize the anxiety and uncertainty this situation places on you and your family, and we are working closely with service organizations on your behalf. To this end, I am encouraged to share that Coast Guard Mutual Assistance (CGMA) has received a $15 million donation from USAA to support our people in need. In partnership with CGMA, the American Red Cross will assist in the distribution of these funds to our military and civilian workforce requiring assistance.

I am grateful for the outpouring of support across the country, particularly in local communities, for our men and women. It is a direct reflection of the American public’s sentiment towards their United States Coast Guard; they recognize the sacrifice that you and your family make in service to your country.

It is also not lost on me that our dedicated civilians are already adjusting to a missed paycheck—we are confronting this challenge together.

The strength of our Service has, and always will be, our people. You have proven time and again the ability to rise above adversity. Stay the course, stand the watch, and serve with pride. You are not, and will not, be forgotten.

Semper Paratus,
Admiral Karl L. Schultz
Commandant

Shutdown Update 1-15-19

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's management style.

AFP news agency

✔@AFP

US President Trump serves fast food in the State Dining Room of the White House at a ceremony honoring the Clemson Tigers, College Football Playoffs National Champions.

The White House chefs are furloughed due to the government shutdown, Trump told the team

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5:24 PM - Jan 14, 2019

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I've almost entirely stopped noting the president's spelling issues, but: hamberders pic.twitter.com/nLYWyHkzT0

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 15, 2019

Eric Wolff at Politico:

The 24-day-old shutdown is hobbling enforcement efforts throughout the federal government — halting power plant and oil well inspections, slowing financial fraud probes and tax audits, thwarting plane crash investigations and even delaying a probe into Facebook's privacy practices.

Jeff Martin and David Koenig at AP:

The number of airport security screeners failing to show up for work around the country is soaring as the partial government shutdown goes into its fourth week.

No-shows among screeners jumped Sunday and again Monday, when the Transportation Security Administration reported a national absence rate of 7.6 percent compared with 3.2 percent on a comparable day a year ago. Monday marked the first business day after screeners did not receive a paycheck for the first time since the shutdown began.

A Monday release from Quinnipiac University:

American voters support 63 - 30 percent a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for the Wall, according to a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today. Every party, gender, education, age and racial group supports this idea except Republicans, who are opposed 52 - 39 percent.

...

President Trump's TV address to the nation last week was "mostly misleading," 49 percent of American voters say, while 32 percent say it was "mostly accurate."

Voters are divided on the response by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as 38 percent found it "mostly accurate" and 39 percent found it "mostly misleading."

American voters believed Pelosi/Schumer more than Trump 46 - 36 percent, including 48 - 33 percent among independent voters.

Only 2 percent of voters say the TV address changed their mind, while 89 percent say it did not change their mind aboutbuilding the Wall. 

Jonathan Swan at Axios:

President Trump chastised his new chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, over his handling of shutdown talks, creating an awkward scene in front of congressional leaders of both parties, according to two sources who were present.

Behind the scenes: The encounter came near the end of a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Jan. 4, these sources said. Trump had spent the meeting restating his demand for $5.7 billion for his wall. (Vice President Pence, at Trump's behest, had previously asked the Democrats for just $2.5 billion.)

• Mulvaney inserted himself into the conversation and tried to negotiate a compromise sum of money, according to the sources in the room. Mulvaney said "that if Dems weren't OK with $5.7 [billion] and the president wasn't OK with $1.3 [the Democratic offer] ... he was trying to say we should find a middle ground," one of the sources said, paraphrasing Mulvaney's remarks.
• "Trump cut him off ... 'You just fucked it all up, Mick,'" the source recalled Trump saying. "It was kind of weird."
• Another source who was in the room confirmed the account. That source said their impression was that Trump was irritated at Mulvaney's negotiating style. "As a negotiator, Trump was resetting," the source said. "Mick was not reading the room or the president."

Ronald Brownstein@RonBrownstein

After an election in which GOP was swept in the suburbs, new @CNN poll shows 63% of college+ whites oppose #borderwwall, 63% mostly blame Trump for shutdown & 64% disapprove of his job performance. A reminder that Trump's base-first politics, abetted by GOP, carries real costs

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12:23 PM - Jan 13, 2019

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