We begin today’s roundup with analysis of today’s special election in Georgia from Patricia Murphy at The Daily Beast:
Democratic activists have worked tirelessly to make the race a referendum on Trump, who won the solidly Republican district by just a single point in November. Although he made important gains among white, working-class voters, the highly educated, suburban Sixth is just the sort of place where Trump showed the greatest weakness across the country. If any territory will prove fertile ground for Democrats looking to pick up House seats with anti-Trump sentiments, both parties know GA-6 fits the mold.
Elena Schneider at Politico outlines what to watch out for in today’s election:
Early voting soared ahead of Election Day, with more than 140,000 voters casting their ballots early, some before embarking on summer vacations. Total turnout in the April primary topped 192,000, and 2014 midterm levels (about 210,000 voters) are not far beyond. [...]
Trump won the district by under 2 points in November, and he is no more popular there now. That is the single biggest factor that made this race a nationally watched battleground, and Democrats are hoping the same backlash in affluent suburbs will help them in districts from California to Virginia next year.
Paul Waldman:
Despite the efforts of the nation's hard-working hot-take writers, the outcome of this election will not determine the fate of either the Republican or Democratic parties, either this year, next year, or in 2020. Not that every vote in Congress doesn't matter, but the political upheavals of the next few years are unlikely to be changed in profound ways depending on whether Democrat Jon Ossoff or Republican Karen Handel prevails in what is sure to be a close election.
Nevertheless, the Georgia special election contains an important lesson. It's an exaggerated version of something we should expect and even embrace for 2018 and 2020: the nationalized local election. Yes, it's because there aren't hundreds of other races happening at the same time (though there's also a special election going on in South Carolina, which you've probably heard nothing about). That fact, and the closeness of the contest, has pulled attention and dollars to Georgia with a relentless gravitational tug. But even if we can't expect that every House race will rouse the whole country's interest, it's absolutely appropriate for voters to treat it like a referendum not only on President Trump, but on the national Democratic and Republican parties.
Ari Berman looks at Handel’s history of voter suppression:
Let’s start with the purge. Weeks before the 2008 election, thousands of registered voters in Georgia had their citizenship challenged by the state, a policy spearheaded by Handel. One of them was Jose Morales, a student at Kennesaw State University, a legal permanent resident since he was a toddler who became a US citizen in November 2007. After filling out a voter registration form in September 2008, Morales received a letter from Cherokee County telling him that he must provide evidence of his citizenship in court or would be kept off the voter rolls.
Morales drove 30 minutes from his home in Kennesaw to the Cherokee County Elections office in Canton, to give the clerk a copy of his passport. He was told that was sufficient evidence to prove his citizenship and received a copy of his voting card a week later. But a month before the election, on October 7, 2008, he received another letter saying he was still not qualified to vote and had to appear again before the Cherokee County Elections office to prove his citizenship again or else he would be purged from the rolls.
Greg Sargeant analyzes Trump’s legal team and their specious defense of Trump:
And so, investigators will likely try to determine whether Trump indicated in that meeting that he’d already made his decision, and indicated to them his reason for it, in effect enlisting them in an effort to create a cover story for the firing. Thus, Sekulow’s spin itself serves as a reminder that Trump’s conduct leading up to the firing of Comey will likely be examined. It’s hard to imagine this meeting not coming under scrutiny.
David Graham adds:
Trump and his team can’t decide whether or not the president is under investigation. They can’t decide whether media reports about the investigation are fake news, or whether they justify the president firing off missives from his turbocharged Twitter account. They can’t decide whether Trump fired FBI Director James Comey of his own volition or on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. They can’t decide whether Trump welcomes the investigation as a chance to clear his name or disdains it as a kangaroo court.
Scott Bixby at The Daily Beast writes about the shameful lack of transparency at the White House:
On Monday, reporters were barred from broadcasting live video or audio during the afternoon White House press briefing, the second briefing at which journalists were explicitly banned from making audio broadcasts since the previous Thursday. Press secretary Sean Spicer, flanked by counselor Kellyanne Conway and former Apprentice agitator-turned-communications liaison Omarosa Manigault, explained that the president’s appearance earlier with the president of Panama was enough for the whole class to share.
Spicer’s decision to ban live broadcasting of the press briefing is the latest in a series of attempts to curtail transparency and visibility at the White House. Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders have collectively briefed reporters only seven times in all of June, including Monday and last Thursday’s no-broadcast gaggles. The length of those briefings have gone down, as well, averaging only 27 minutes per briefing this month.
White House reporters, for their part, appeared visibly chafed by the newest restrictions in the briefing room.
Michael Tomasky writes about Newt Gingrich’s epic hypocrisy in a brutal takedown:
[D]umping this kind of toxic waste on our political system has been what he’s done for most of his adult lifetime... The Gingrich of the past week who takes great umbrage at the idea that anyone could object to his linking Kathy Griffin and Shakespeare in the Park to the Democrats to Hodgkinson is the same Gingrich who back in 1994 blamed a woman drowning her two sons on the Democratic Party. [...]
[N]ow he obviously wants to go out as the last intellectual bag man for the most unprincipled president the country has ever had. Unless he moves off to Vatican City to be with his ambassador wife, who will direct America’s relationship with the Holy See for President Trump after having admitted in court that she conducted a six-year affair with Newt while he was still married to someone else. We should be so lucky.
I’d imagine there’s some Berlusconi cable news channel that would be happy to have him. And maybe he’d get invited to some of Silvio’s Bunga Bunga parties to meet wife number four while lecturing Italians about the culture war.
Over at CNN, Dan Merica and Lauren Fox write about the tax cut for the rich/health insurance bill that is being drafted in secret:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats see Trump's words as an opening to undercut Republican support for the heretofore private bill.
According to multiple Democratic aides, Schumer and other Democrats will use Trump's remarks -- which were largely overshadowed by the shooting of a congressman and four others last week at an Alexandria baseball practice -- during Senate floor speeches, on social media and at press events throughout the week.
The hope is that the attacks will not only rally Democratic support, but most importantly sow doubt among Republicans who are considering going out on a limb for Trump.
Schumer and Democrats will cast the bill's cuts to health care, the increase to premiums on older Americans and cutting preexisting conditions as "mean," using Trump's work against him in an effort to deny him a key legislative achievement.
On a final note, don’t miss this important piece by Douglas Lute at Politico about Trump’s lack of staffing of our country’s national security posts:
[T]he administration has been slow to nominate candidates who then face a multi-step process: in-depth personal vetting, investigations before being granted a security clearance and in many cases confirmation by the Senate. As candidates are drawn mostly from outside conventional policy circles, they will never have experienced this rigorous process, resulting in further delays. Today, the team is set at the very top, but not the supporting cast. There is simply no substitute for getting the team in place, and soon.