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MEETING
ITEM: President Biden and Speaker McCarthy to confab Wednesday amidst debt ceiling and spending debates.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: McCarthy has no idea what he is doing – he will say anything because he stands for nothing but kowtowing to the extreme base of his party.
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Biden has no idea what he is doing – he will say anything because he stands for nothing but kowtowing to the extreme base of his party
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Read the transcript of McCarthy on “Face the Nation” on Sunday and decide for yourself if he’s ready to play 3D chess this week – and ask yourself who else will be on the room at the White House on Wednesday with the two leader, because that may matter most. Also read Politico on Senator Schumer’s point of view, which is predicated on forcing House Republicans to name their spending cuts, a strategy the White House is on board for — and for which McCarthy has no ready answer.
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DOUBTING
ITEM: Bloomberg is the latest press outfit to write a “Trump candidacy troubled” piece, complete with expert quotes from Democrats, academics, and anti-Trump Republicans.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: I hope Trump wins the Republican nomination but he can’t and, if he did, he mathematically could not win a general election.
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Trump can’t win the Republican nomination. OR Trump will definitely be the Republican nominee.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: You need to read what Halperin wrote about Trump on Sunday, and remember that there are going to be a lot of twists and turns in 2023 and, until we know who is actually running for the party nominations, it isn’t smart to make any definitive statements about who can and can’t win, either the nominations or the general.
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REJECTING
ITEM: Charles Gasparino’s perfect distillation of what the Republican money class thinks about Trump ’24 – they don’t want it and can’t believe it might happen.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: They helped create Trump and now they are reaping what they sowed.
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Rich people no longer dominate the Republican Party – unless you count Trump and Hannity.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Go ask this group how their behavior in 2016, moving from Jeb to Marco to Kasich, worked out.
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WAITING
ITEM: Gasparino also writes this:
In recent meetings with Wall Street C-suite executives and other donors, the Florida governor has clearly indicated he’s ready to run for president, worried that he might miss his window of opportunity if he waits. He also has suggested some hesitancy about getting into a nasty primary battle with Trump, I am told.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: DeSantis is like a slightly smarter, equally craven Trump.
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: DeSantis is like a way smarter, more electable Trump.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Nothing DeSantis does in the context of private conversations or the Florida legislative session in the next four months will tell us anything about what kind of presidential candidate he will actually be.
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HIDING
ITEM: Jonathan Turley on the new focus of the right – the tag team effort by Biden World and the University of Delaware to keep Amtrak Joe’s Senate papers under lock and key.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Where are Jared Kushner’s papers?
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Anything Joe Biden is hiding is as sordid and incriminating as Hunter’s laptop.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: The Justice Department has to decide what to do about the beach house and this trove of documents, but House Republicans are going to go hard at both, risking over-conspiracy theorizing and under delivering – or perhaps hitting a 2024 home run.
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DENYING
ITEM: The Wall Street Journal:
The Justice Department told top Senate Intelligence Committee lawmakers that providing nonpublic information to the panel about the classified material that ended up in the personal possession of two presidents could complicate the ongoing investigations into the incidents.
Members of the committee from both parties have been pressing the Biden administration to turn over the classified documents found at President Biden’s private home and former office and former President Donald Trump’s residence. Intelligence officials have so far declined to do so, citing the appointment of special counsels who are looking into the discoveries of the documents.
“Disclosing nonpublic information about ongoing investigations could violate statutory requirements or court orders, reveal road maps of our investigations, and interfere with the Department’s ability to gather facts, interview witnesses, and bring criminal prosecutions where warranted,” Carlos Uriarte, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, wrote in a letter that was sent on Saturday to committee Chairman Mark Warner (D., Va.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), the panel’s vice chairman. The letter was also distributed to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Maintaining confidentiality also safeguards the legal rights, personal safety, and privacy interests of individuals implicated by, or who assist in, our investigations,” Mr. Uriarte added. A copy of the letter was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
He said the Justice Department is working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to allow for the sharing of information with the committee in a way that won’t undermine the investigations. Prosecutors involved in the investigations into the Trump and Biden documents are also “actively working to enable sharing information” with lawmakers, Mr. Uriarte wrote.
WHAT THAT BLUE LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: As I always say, the integrity of investigations must be preserved.
WHAT THAT RED LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: As I always say, the corruption of the Deep State must be exposed.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Until we know the nature of the documents with classified markings that Biden had, we can’t know how deep the controversy will go for him – and how high the probability is that what he did will make Mar-a-Lago indictment of Trump politically untenable.
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ESSENTIAL READING
* Politico on the DeSantis inner circle.