Trump gives divided Dems something to rally around - 22 minutes read


Trump gives divided Dems something to rally around

DEMOCRATS have spent the last week divided. The party's leadership has been publicly warring with a few progressives over tactics and style. Then, this morning President DONALD TRUMP suggested some Democratic lawmakers “go back and help fix” countries they came from, finally giving the hobbled party something to rally around.

-- THE THREAD: “So interesting to see ‘Progressive Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly..........and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how.......it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

-- NOTE: One assumes he’s talking about Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Three of the four of them were born in the United States. Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Speaker NANCY PELOSI’S response: “When tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again. Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power. … I reject ’s xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation. Rather than attack Members of Congress, he should work with us for humane immigration policy that reflects American values. Stop the raids -- #FamiliesBelongTogether!”

OTHER THAN DISDAIN FOR THE PRESIDENT, Democrats are splitting and splintering internally.

WAPO: “House Democrats’ racially charged infighting escalates,” by Colby Itkowitz, Dave Weigel and Mike DeBonis: “An all-out racially charged fight within the House Democratic Caucus escalated Saturday when an African American freshman lawmaker said the party doesn’t need ‘any more black voices that don’t want to be a black voice.’

“Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) made those comments during a speech at the liberal Netroots Nation conference where she, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) appeared after a week-long clash with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her allies.” WaPo

NBC’S CHUCK TODD asked SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT.) if PELOSI is being too tough on AOC. SANDERS: “I think a little bit. You cannot ignore the young people of this country, who are passionate about economic and racial and social and environmental justice. You gotta bring them in, not alienate them.”

NYT’S MAUREEN DOWD: “Scaling Wokeback Mountain”: “In the age of Trump, there is no more stupid proposition than that Nancy Pelosi is the problem. If A.O.C. and her Pygmalions and acolytes decide that burning down the House is more important than deposing Trump, they will be left with a racist backward president and the emotional satisfaction of their own purity.” NYT

REP. BEN RAY LUJAN (D-N.M.) stuck up for PELOSI, speaking to CHRIS WALLACE on “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: “This week the speaker was very clear that if the members have a difference of opinion or if they have questions of even the speaker then they should take the time to sit down and talk. And that’s been my approach all along. I think it’s something that I’ve learned from my predecessors and colleagues -- and even Speaker Pelosi. And look, as a person of color, as the highest ranking Hispanic in Congress, I can tell you that Nancy Pelosi has lifted up my voice to make sure that I’ve had opportunities and to make sure my voice has been heard, as well.”

-- “Top Ocasio-Cortez Aide Becomes a Symbol of Democratic Division,” by NYT’s Catie Edmondson: “After graduating from Harvard, [Saikat] Chakrabarti worked for a year as a technology associate at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and then moved to Silicon Valley to help found the technology company Stripe. He is presumed to be rich, but has not filed a financial disclosure form, leadership aides say.” NYT

Speaker NANCY PELOSI and Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN spoke for 12 minutes last night about a debt limit and spending cap deal. The talks have been productive, Hill sources tell us. Pelosi sent Mnuchin a letter about veteran funding -- a bipartisan priority. The letter

NBC NEWS/WSJ POLL … NBC’S MARK MURRAY: “Trump trails Biden, Warren and Sanders”: “Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the president by 9 points among registered voters, 51 percent to 42 percent — outside of the poll’s margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points.

“Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is ahead of Trump by 7 points, 50 percent to 43 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), holds a 5-point advantage, 48 percent to 43 percent. And Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), is ahead by just 1 point, 45 percent to 44 percent — a jump ball.” NBC

THE SWEEP … “Immigration-Enforcement Raids Begin in New York,” by WSJ’s Jim Carlton and Corinne Ramey: “Federal immigration authorities attempted raids in at least two neighborhoods in New York City on Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter, a day prior to when President Trump had said [ICE] agents would begin national roundups of people illegally in the U.S. In New York City, ICE agents went to residences in the Harlem section of Manhattan and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood … The agents were rejected by people at the residences because they didn’t have warrants, but plan to return at least to Sunset Park [on Sunday].” WSJ

KEN CUCCINELLI on the scene VP MIKE PENCE saw in Texas, speaking to JON KARL on ABC’S “THIS WEEK”: “Well, because Congress has let it happen. It’s that simple. Look at just the supplemental appropriation last month. It was overwhelmingly focused on children -- and all of us prioritize care for children. And in one month we went from about 2,500 kids in overcrowded -- being in CBP detention facilities down to about 300-some-odd with only a handful of those past the 72 hour metric that is when we try to ship kids out of -- of Border Patrol custody. So when Congress provides the professionals at the border what they need, success happens, success being measured as avoiding overcrowding.”

HMM -- “Former Southwest Key leader who ran migrant child shelters for U.S. government earned $3.6 million in 2017,” by WaPo’s Maria Sacchetti: “The former leader of a nonprofit organization that shelters migrant children for the U.S. government resigned this year after it was publicly disclosed that he earned nearly $1.5 million in 2016. New tax records obtained by The Washington Post indicate he earned more than double that — $3.6 million — in total compensation in 2017.

“Juan Sanchez, founder of Southwest Key Programs, the Texas-based nonprofit that houses thousands of children and teens for the Department of Health and Human Services, left his job on April 1 amid outrage over his compensation and business dealings. ... Southwest Key has an annual contract of approximately $460 million a year to shelter children, and federal records show the nonprofit has collected more than $1.1 billion since 2014.” WaPo

INTERESTING … BILL DE BLASIO laid a marker on the USMCA to JAKE TAPPER on CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”: BDB: “You’re about to see in the next weeks Democrats are going to decide who we are. And the question is going to be the new NAFTA treaty. And if Democrats are complicit with Republicans in passing a NAFTA treaty -- it’s got a different name, but it’s still NAFTA. It’s even worse in some ways. It gives even more power to corporations this time.

“If Democrats are so scared to stand up and be progressive and be strong that they can’t say out of hand, no NAFTA, no way, a lot of people in this country, a lot of working people, are going to look at that, a lot of middle-class people are going to look at that and say, I can’t tell one party from the other.”

BARRY LATEST -- “Gulf Coast keeps guard up as Barry continues drenching,” by AP’s Sarah Blake Morgan and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans: “Weakened but still potent, Barry inundated the Gulf Coast as it continued its slow advance Sunday morning, bringing fresh fears of flash flooding to Mississippi’s capital city even as it appeared unlikely to deluge New Orleans. In Mississippi, up to 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain had already fallen in the Jackson area before dawn Sunday — and more was on the way. That prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning for the city and some of its suburbs. …

“Forecasters warned of a continued threat of storm surge and heavy rains as the center of the storm slowly trudged inland and rain bands along its back half moved onshore. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday parts of south-central Louisiana could still have rainfall totals of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters), with isolated pockets of up to 20 inches (50 centimeters).” AP

KNOWING MAYOR PETE -- “Pete Buttigieg’s Life in the Closet: And why it took him until he was 33 to come out,” by NYT’s Jeremy Peters: “The closet that Pete Buttigieg built for himself in the late 1990s and 2000s was a lot like the ones that other gay men of his age and ambition hid inside. He dated women, deepened his voice and furtively looked at MySpace and Friendster profiles of guys who had come out — all while wondering when it might be safe for him to do so too. ...

“More than most people his age — even more than most of the ambitious young men and women he competed against at Harvard — he possessed a remarkably strong drive for perfection. He went on to become a Rhodes scholar, work on a presidential campaign, join the military and be elected mayor all before he turned 30. After being deployed with the Navy to Afghanistan in 2014, he said he realized he could die having never been in love, and he resolved to change that. He finally came out in 2015, when he was 33.” NYT

BOSTON GLOBE: “For some young N.H. voters, Joe Biden doesn’t share their progressive values,” by Aidan Ryan

THE PRESIDENT’S SUNDAY … TRUMP has no events scheduled. He is at his country club in Virginia this morning.

VALLEY TALK -- “Facial Recognition Tech Is Growing Stronger, Thanks to Your Face,” by NYT’s Cade Metz in San Francisco: “Dozens of databases of people’s faces are being compiled without their knowledge by companies and researchers, with many of the images then being shared around the world, in what has become a vast ecosystem fueling the spread of facial recognition technology.

“The databases are pulled together with images from social networks, photo websites, dating services like OkCupid and cameras placed in restaurants and on college quads. While there is no precise count of the data sets, privacy activists have pinpointed repositories that were built by Microsoft, Stanford University and others, with one holding over 10 million images while another had more than two million.” NYT

FOR YOUR RADAR -- “‘We’re Almost Extinct’: China’s Investigative Journalists Are Silenced Under Xi,” by NYT’s Javier C. Hernández: “China’s investigative reporters once provided rare voices of accountability and criticism in a society tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party, exposing scandals about babies sickened by tainted formula and blood-selling schemes backed by the government.

“But under President Xi Jinping, such journalists have all but disappeared, as the authorities have harassed and imprisoned dozens of reporters and as news outlets have cut back on in-depth reporting. One of the most glaring consequences of Mr. Xi’s revival of strongman politics is that the Chinese press is now almost entirely devoid of critical reporting, filled instead with upbeat portrayals of life in China under Mr. Xi.” NYT

-- “The Guilty Pleasures of Mansion Porn,” by The Atlantic’s Andrew Ferguson: “Each week, The Wall Street Journal offers its readers the choice between envy and schadenfreude.” The Atlantic

-- “How To Build Something That Lasts 10,000 Years,”by Alexander Rose in BBC: “Alexander Rose and a team of engineers at The Long Now Foundation are building a clock in the Texan desert that will last for 10,000 years. He explains what he's learnt about designing for extreme longevity.” BBC

-- “Behold, the Millennial Nuns,” by Eve Fairbanks in HuffPost Highline: “More and more young women are being called to the religious life, after 50 straight years of decline. What on earth is going on?” HuffPost (hat tip: Longform.org)

-- “Doctors couldn’t explain why an acclaimed ballet dancer was ill. Finally, she’s resurrecting her career,” by CNN’s Emily Dixon: “What [Katie] Morgan initially believed would be a few months of recovery became a nine-year ordeal: of doctors who dismissed her, of surrendering a dream, of personal turmoil and a life repeatedly upended. And, now, as she prepares to return to ballet on her own terms, a rebirth, one worthy of the swans and spirits and sleeping beauties she’d danced on stage.” CNN

-- “New Coke Didn’t Fail. It Was Murdered,” by Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy – per Longreads.com’s description: “Coca Cola introduced New Coke in 1985 and then, after a populist backlash from Americans decrying that their freedom of choice had been trampled upon, reintroduced Classic Coke after two months. What the company didn’t see at first was that the backlash was led by a man who thought he could parlay all this silly outrage — over a soft drink — into some cash.” Mother Jones

-- “Canada’s Got ‘A Guy,’” by Susan Berfield and Kristine Owram in Bloomberg Businessweek: “Canopy’s Bruce Linton is your friendly Canadian weed CEO. His $15 billion company is ready whenever America is.” Bloomberg Businessweek

-- “Out of Toon,” by Soraya Roberts in Longreads: “Political cartoons don’t make a huge chunk of change, but they do change the culture. If only that were as valuable to the media as money.” Longreads

-- “Last Woman Standing,” by NY Mag’s Irin Carmon: “Belittled by Viacom and CBS executives and insulted by her own father, Shari Redstone now sits atop a $30 billion media empire.” NY Mag

-- “The Fight for the Future of YouTube,” by Neima Jahromi in The New Yorker: “The video giant’s recent travails underscore a basic question: How ‘neutral’ should social-media platforms try to be?” The New Yorker

-- “A former UK officer was convicted of rape on a Tinder date, but his victim says trauma is a ‘life sentence,’” by CNN’s Emanuella Grinberg in Maryville, Tenn.: “[Kaitlin] Hurley had the feeling that no matter how much time he served, it wouldn’t be enough to make her whole again, she said. The attack not only derailed her dreams of being a missionary nurse, it had eroded her faith and her trust in humanity, she said. ‘I’m serving a life sentence in recovery,’ she said. ‘Nothing can make me the person I once was.’” CNN

-- “The Young Hands That Feed Us,” by Karen Coates and Valeria Fernandez in Pacific Standard Magazine: “An estimated 524,000 children work unimaginably long hours in America’s grueling agricultural fields, and it’s all perfectly legal.” Pacific Standard (h/t Longreads.com)

-- “Raising the American Weakling,” by Tom Vanderbilt in Nautilus Magazine – per ALDaily.com’s description: “The Great Awakening. For centuries, humans have been growing weaker. Was Rousseau right to lament this, or is there an upside to our enfeeblement?” Nautilus

SPOTTED: Morgan Ortagus, Sam Vinograd and Morgan Hitzig at the JLo concert in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night -- the show was interrupted by the blackout -- Instapics ... Rodell Mollineau running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Pic

WEEKEND WEDDINGS -- “Mary Ourisman, Peter Dawkins” – NYT: “Mrs. Dawkins, 73, was the United States ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean from 2006 to 2009. She also was a fund-raiser in Washington, and is an emerita regent of the Smithsonian Institution and an emerita trustee of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. ... General Dawkins, 81, is a senior adviser to Virtu Financial, a New York trading technology company.” With a pic: NYT

-- “Olivia Whalen, Brian Wynne” -- NYT: “Ms. Whalen, 29, is the assistant director for admissions and recruitment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She received a master’s degree in liberal arts from Harvard in May. ... Mr. Wynne, 29, is a political adviser to Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican; the groom works in Boston and managed the governor’s re-election campaign in 2018.” With a pic: NYT

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): José Andrés turned 5-0. He celebrated at the beach in Southern Spain with his family (h/t Jorge Guajardo)

BIRTHDAYS: Former New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is 6-0 ... former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) is 52 ... Martha Coakley is 66 ... Brent Bozell, Media Research Center president … Matthew Shay, National Retail Federation president and CEO … Gail Ross ... James Capalino is 69 ... POLITICO’s Eliana Johnson and Mary Lee ... James Davis ... Google’s Brian Gregory is 29 ... Rhonda Foxx, COS for Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) … David Goodman … Ammon Simon ... POLITICO’s Daniel Strauss (h/t Sabrina Rodriguez) … Mike Panetta, Beekeeper Group partner, is 48 ... Julie Wood ... ABC News’ Devin Dwyer ... “Hardball” producer Nkechi Nneji … France turns 230 years old on its Bastille Day ... POLITICO Europe’s Matthew Karnitschnig ... Ted Goodman, comms director for Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.), is 28 …

… NYT’s Matina Stevis-Gridneff ... WSJ’s Nicole Friedman … Axios’ Caitlin Owens … Dalton Dismukes … CNN’s Caroline Kelly ... Jordan Sekulow is 37 ... Elizabeth Bennett ... Marggie Graves … Corey Solow ... former Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) is 71 ... Kip Talley ... Sarah Ruane … Edelman’s Elysia Sivak ... Warren Fried ... Zeina Awad ... Richard Seline is 6-0 ... Kiernan Majerus-Collins ... Nate Bermel ... Edda Collins Coleman ... Mike Casey, president of Tigercomm, is 55 ... LinkedIn’s Dan Horowitz (h/t Jon Haber) ... Jeffrey de Hart ... Pam Dearden … Phil Rosenthal … Heather Colburn (h/t Teresa Vilmain)

Source: Politico

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