DESPITE WHAT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WANTS, the idea of a large-scale, celebratory 2020 political convention is a fantasy.
— IF YOU’RE A COMPANY, a law firm or a lobby shop, why would you ever consider putting any money behind a political convention this year? Would you want your logo anywhere near Jacksonville, Fla., or Milwaukee during Covid-19? Would you want your executives anywhere close to a gathering that has a chance to be a super-spreading event? Would you throw a party? You’d have to be nuts.
— SENATORS are saying “no thanks.” FIVE SENATE REPUBLICANS taking a pass on the RNC convention this summer: SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine), per CBS’ CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS; LISA MURKOWSKI (R-Alaska), per CBS’ ELEANOR WATSON; MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah), per WaPo’s MICHAEL SCHERER and JOSH DAWSEY. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa) and LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-Tenn.) previously bowed out.
— TV NETWORKS are vowing to stay away.
— READ MARC CAPUTO and GARY FINEOUT on this topic: “Trump’s convention bash upended by Florida’s coronavirus crisis.” Perhaps most importantly: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally, refused to say on Tuesday whether he would lift a rule mandating that indoor gatherings stay under 50 percent capacity — which would hold the Jacksonville convention to 7,500 people.”
AGAIN — the mostly maskless White House wants to act like this is over. Their representatives stick out like sore thumbs around town — maskless on the Hill, etc. — but the rest of America disagrees, and reality indicates otherwise.
QUOTE OF THE DAY … New Hampshire GOP Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU on attending the president’s Saturday rally in his state, via CNN: “I’m going to go and greet the president as the governor. I will not be in the crowd of thousands of people, I’m not going to put myself in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people, if that’s your question specifically. I try to — unfortunately, you know, I have to be extra cautious as the governor, I try to be extra cautious for myself, my family.”
AMERICA now has 3 MILLION reported Covid cases.
WAPO/ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.: “Florida invited the nation to its reopening — then it became a new coronavirus epicenter,” by Cleve Wootson Jr., Isaac Stanley-Becker and Lori Rozsa: “Hospital leaders, lawmakers, physicians, epidemiologists, advocates and others familiar with the state’s response said a false sense of security set in when grim predictions about the virus’s spread in Florida did not come to pass in March and April. [Gov. Ron] DeSantis declared victory, attending a laudatory news conference at the White House with President Trump. The editor of National Review wrote an editorial titled ‘Where does Ron DeSantis go to get his apology?’
“But observers maintain the state then failed to prepare for a surge of the virus, which struck as residents were seeking refuge in air-conditioned indoor spaces, where the virus is believed to be most easily transmitted.”
ARIZONA REPUBLIC: “Arizona has highest percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in the US. Here’s what it means,” by Alison Steinbach and Rachel Leingang: “One in four COVID-19 tests in Arizona is coming back positive, the highest percentage in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University, and an indicator that there isn’t enough testing to keep up with the new coronavirus’ spread in the state. Arizona’s COVID-19 metrics have been moving in the wrong direction for more than a month.”
Good Wednesday morning.
POSTED OVERNIGHT … FORBES: “Kanye West Says He’s Done With Trump — Opens Up About White House Bid, Damaging Biden And Everything In Between,” by Randall Lane: “Kanye West’s Fourth of July declaration, via Tweet, that he was running for president lit the internet on fire, even as pundits were trying to discern how serious he was. Over the course of four rambling hours of interviews on Tuesday, the billionaire rapper turned sneaker mogul revealed: That he’s running for president in 2020 under a new banner — the Birthday Party — with guidance from Elon Musk and an obscure vice presidential candidate he’s already chosen. ‘Like anything I’ve ever done in my life,’ says West, ‘I’m doing to win.’
“That he no longer supports President Trump. ‘I am taking the red hat off, with this interview.’ That he’s ok with siphoning off Black votes from the Democratic nominee, thus helping Trump. ‘I’m not denying it, I just told you. To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy.’ That he’s never voted in his life. That he was sick with Covid-19 in February. That he’s suspicious of a coronavirus vaccine, terming vaccines ‘the mark of the beast.’
“That he believes ‘Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.’ That he envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther.”
— WE’LL KEEP OUR EYES PEELED for KANYE filing the paperwork for this run, which will have to include a financial disclosure form.
— ALSO, PUBLIC RECORDS seem to indicate he has voted. A man named KANYE WEST with the same birthday as the rapper voted on Nov. 4, 2014, in New York, according to public records.
TOP 22 HIGHEST-PAID WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS, at $183,000, per the annual White House salary report: Avi Berkowitz, Pat Cipollone, Kellyanne Conway, Emma Doyle, John Eisenberg, Alyssa Farah, Kayleigh McEnany, Stephanie Grisham, Hope Hicks, Larry Kudlow, Nick Luna, Derek Lyons, Johnny McEntee, Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, Kristan Nevins, Robert O’Brien, Matthew Pottinger, Brooke Rollins, Dan Scavino and Amy Swonger.
NYT, A1: “The Inside Story of Why Mary Trump Wrote a Tell-All Memoir,” by Alan Feuer, Michael Rothfeld and Maggie Haberman: “The book makes a number of allegations that Ms. Trump depicts as family secrets, among them a claim that a young Donald Trump paid someone to take his SAT, the standardized test used for college admissions. It also alleges that Mr. Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former federal judge, considered him ‘a clown’ who had ‘no principles’ and that the Trump family left Fred Trump Jr. unattended at a hospital on the night that he died.
“In her book, Ms. Trump seeks to explain how Donald Trump’s position in one of New York’s wealthiest and most infamous real-estate empires helped him acquire what Ms. Trump has referred to as ‘twisted behaviors’ — attributes like seeing other people in ‘monetary terms’ and practicing ‘cheating as a way of life.’
“Ms. Trump, a clinical psychologist, calls her grandfather — the president’s father, Fred Trump Sr. — a ‘sociopath’ who damaged his children. His father’s behavior, she concludes, led the president to adopt bullying and other aggressive behaviors to mask his own insecurities. While several close associates of Mr. Trump have published exposés of him and his time in office, Mary Trump, who is 55 and lives on Long Island in New York, is the first member of the family to have broken ranks by writing a book.”
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP — WSJ: “No Americans Are Known to Have Died in Russian Bounty Scheme, U.S. General Says,” by Nancy Youssef: “A top U.S. military official confirmed Tuesday that U.S. intelligence assessed that Russia had offered to pay Taliban militants to kill American service members, but said there was no evidence the proposed payment scheme resulted in any U.S. troop deaths.
“‘I found it very worrisome,’ Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, in charge of U.S. Central Command, said of the intelligence. ‘I didn’t find that there was a causative link there.’ Gen. McKenzie’s public comments to a group of reporters while traveling in Qatar were the first by a top military official regarding the intelligence. Central Command is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
“According to the classified assessment, Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency paid members of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement to carry out lethal attacks on U.S. troops in that country. Russia has denied the existence of the arrangement.”
— THIS LINES UP with the point many administration officials have made privately: Russia is paying the Taliban, but not explicitly ordering them to kill Americans.
DRIVING TODAY: SUPREME COURT rulings will be announced at 10 a.m. … Mexican President ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR will be at the White House all day.
— SABRINA RODRÍGUEZ: “Why Mexico’s president is buddies with Trump despite years of insults”: “López Obrador, a lifelong populist and face of Mexico’s left, actually has a lot in common with Trump. They’ve built a relationship based on their respect for each other’s nationalist, authoritarian tendencies and their ability to stay out of each other’s way on domestic issues.”
SWAMP READ — THEO MEYER and DEBRA KAHN: “Trump vowed to ‘drain the swamp.’ But lobbyists are having a field day”: “On a February morning in 2018, representatives of several California water agencies arrived at a meeting at the Interior Department’s austere Washington headquarters to discuss a long-sought goal: weakening the Endangered Species Act so more water could be diverted for farming. Less than three months later, one of the Interior officials at the meeting, Jason Larrabee, stepped down from his government post. Word reached one of the water agencies he’d met with that he was ‘considering various offers from lobbying shops in D.C.,’ as one lawyer put it. …
“Larrabee is one of at least 82 former Trump administration officials who have registered as lobbyists, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosure filings. Many more former administration officials have gone to work at lobbying firms or in government affairs roles in corporate America but have not registered as lobbyists. The mass migration to K Street highlights how little effect President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to ‘drain the swamp’ has had on Washington’s revolving door 3½ years into his presidency.
“As Trump prepared to sign his administration’s ethics pledge in 2017, he joked that ‘most of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work’ on K Street. Yet one of the people standing behind him — then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus — is now the chairman of a lobbying firm that’s hired several other former White House aides, two of whom have registered as lobbyists.
“Rick Dearborn, who served as a White House deputy chief of staff, is now a lobbyist for clients such as MetLife and Verizon. Chiefs of staff from Vice President Mike Pence’s office, the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Health and Human Services Department, the Transportation Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Environmental Protection Agency have all been absorbed by the influence industry, though not all of them have registered as lobbyists.” POLITICO
OOF FOR THE GOP … CNN: “Democrats hold $30 million ad advantage in battle for Senate control,” by Manu Raju, Alex Rogers and David Wright: “In 12 races that will determine the next Senate majority, Democrats have spent roughly $30 million more on the airwaves than their Republican counterparts, according to a CNN review of data from Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis. In total, Democrats — including campaigns and outside groups — have spent $109 million on television, radio and digital advertisements, compared with $79 million for Republicans since the beginning of the election cycle last year, the records show.”
… AND THIS: “Trump’s attacks on mail voting are turning Republicans off absentee ballots,” by WaPo’s Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey: “President Trump’s relentless attacks on the security of mail voting are driving suspicion among GOP voters toward absentee ballots — a dynamic alarming Republican strategists, who say it could undercut their own candidates, including Trump himself.
“In several primaries this spring, Democratic voters have embraced mail ballots in far larger numbers than Republicans during a campaign season defined by the coronavirus pandemic. And when they urge their supporters to vote by mail, GOP campaigns around the country are hearing from more and more Republican voters who say they do not trust absentee ballots, according to multiple strategists. In one particularly vivid example, a group of Michigan voters held a public burning of their absentee ballot applications last month.
“The growing Republican antagonism toward voting by mail comes even as the Trump campaign is launching a major absentee-ballot program in every competitive state, according to multiple campaign advisers — a delicate balancing act, considering what one strategist described as the president’s ‘imprecision’ on the subject.” WaPo
DOWN BALLOT — “Kennedy defeats Norcross-backed Harrison in New Jersey’s 2nd District House race,” by Matt Friedman: “Amy Kennedy, a former school teacher and member of one of the nation’s most famous political dynasties, defeated political science professor Brigid Harrison on Tuesday to win the Democratic nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd District — a victory for the state’s progressives and Gov. Phil Murphy and a stunning blow to the powerful but beleaguered South Jersey Democratic machine.” POLITICO … Listen to Anna’s Women Rule podcast with Kennedy
TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY — The president will participate in the arrival of López Obrador at 2 p.m. in the West Wing lobby. They will hold a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office at 2:05 p.m. followed by an expanded bilateral meeting in the Cabinet Room at 2:35 p.m. Trump will sign a joint declaration with López Obrador at 3:35 p.m. in the Rose Garden.
TRUMP will participate in the arrival of López Obrador at 6:30 p.m. in the South Portico. They will deliver a joint press statement at 6:35 p.m. in the Cross Hall. Afterward, they will have a working dinner in the East Room.
SCOTUS WATCH — “Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized last month after injuring his head in a fall,” by WaPo’s Robert Barnes: “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suffered a fall at a Maryland country club last month that required an overnight stay in the hospital, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night.
“The 65-year-old chief justice was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the June 21 incident at the Chevy Chase Club, which was serious enough to require sutures. He stayed at the hospital overnight for observation and was released the next morning. Roberts has twice experienced seizures, in 1993 and in 2007, but Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said doctors ruled out that possibility in the latest incident. Doctors believe he was dehydrated, she said.
“Roberts did not publicly disclose the matter, and the court’s confirmation came in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post, which received a tip.” WaPo
ON THE WORLD STAGE … WSJ: “Trump Moves to Pull U.S. Out of World Health Organization in Midst of Covid-19 Pandemic,” by Drew Hinshaw and Stephanie Armour: “The U.S. has formally notified the World Health Organization it will withdraw from the United Nations agency over President Trump’s criticism of its ties to China, a move critics say will hamper the international fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and sap the U.S. of global influence.
“The U.S. State Department sent notice to the U.N. on July 6 it would end its 72-year-old membership in the WHO. ‘The President has been clear that the WHO needs to get its act together,’ a department spokesman said. ‘That starts with demonstrating significant progress and the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks with transparency and accountability.’
“The exit won’t take effect until next July, leaving it contingent on Mr. Trump’s re-election. His rival for the White House, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said Tuesday the U.S. would remain a member if he wins.”
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION — “Arrival of new conflict chief at USAID ratchets up internal tensions,” by Nahal Toosi and Daniel Lippman: “The arrival of a new political appointee is spawning confusion and concern at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where earlier staff changes have already led to serious internal tensions.
“Pete Marocco, who to date has held positions or details at the departments of Defense, State and Commerce under President Donald Trump, has now joined the aid agency, a USAID spokesperson confirmed. His transfer from the Pentagon to the aid agency, which manages roughly $20 billion in foreign aid each year, is being greeted with all the excitement of a root canal.
“Marocco left a bitter trail at the Pentagon and in Foggy Bottom, dogged by criticism that he created a toxic work environment by undermining and mistreating career staffers. POLITICO spoke to seven U.S. government officials worried about Marocco’s move to yet another agency, including three who reached out to a reporter independently and two who worked with him directly.” POLITICO
Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at [email protected].
TRANSITION — Rob Noel has left his job as a speechwriter for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to launch Washington Writers Network, a speechwriting and op-ed agency for freelance writers.
STAFFING UP — THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN has added several new aides to its press shop. Alexa Henning is director of media affairs, after serving as assistant comms director and director of broadcast media at the White House. Thea McDonald is a deputy national press secretary, joining from the National Space Council. USDA alum Audra Weeks is a deputy press secretary. And Sam Dubke and Posie Paoletta are press assistants.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Eric Wilson, chief digital officer for America Rising, and Rachael Dean Wilson, head of external affairs at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, welcomed Winifred Adeline Wilson on July 1. Pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Amanda Coyne, speechwriter and senior adviser for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). How she got her start in politics: “Early in my reporting career in Alaska, I decided to do a day-in-the-life feature of a little-known politician from Wasilla — Sarah Palin. The day ended at the annual Alaska Republican Party picnic, where a Palin supporter, brandishing a Palin campaign sign, decided to at long last confront the ‘old guard’ for all of their sundry infractions. Shouting and shoving ensued. One of the supporters, a 90-year-old woman, thwapped the lawyer for the Alaska GOP on the head with one of the signs. I was hooked.” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Steve Holland of Reuters … Anthony Romero is 55 … Neil Newhouse, partner and co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies … Nick Simpson, SVP of public affairs at the Consumer Bankers Association … Jim Miklaszewski is 71 … Eve Samborn McCool, co-founder and chief strategist at Assemble (h/t dad Randall Samborn) … Dan Rosenthal, managing principal at Albright Stonebridge Group … Robert Henline … Howard Gutman, managing director at the Gutman Group, is 64 … Kelley Hudak, VP at Cassidy & Associates, is 31 … Geoff Garin, Democratic strategist and president of Hart Research … Andrew Kauders, managing director at Cogent Strategies … Eva Barboni (h/ts Jon Haber) … Marianne Williamson is 68 … Michael Lewan …
… Andy Flick, COS for Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) … Bill Hinkle, editorial producer at CNN … Molly Spaeth, who started this week as a comms manager in Amazon’s D.C. office, is 31 (h/t husband Brian Principato) … Kirk McPike … Ted Baker is 82 … Robb LaKritz … Dean Garfield … Amy Sennett … Laura Zapata … Maddie James is 27 … Ron Kampeas is 6-0 … Adrienne Donato … Erik Huey, president of Platinum Advisors … Michael Gareth Johnson … WSJ’s Doug Belkin is 52 … NYT’s Lara Jakes … Uber’s Anna Uhls … Anna Quindlen is 67 … former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) is 78 … Tina Urbanski … Susie Landau … Cramer Williams … Bret Coulson … Stephanie Berhane … Laura Davis … Patrick Dillon … Greg Pellegrino is 55 … Amichai Stein … Daniel Mintz … Jeff Dunetz
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