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The Memo: Trump’s 2024 campaign stumbles out of the gate

Former President Trump’s campaign to win back the White House in 2024 has stumbled right out of the gate.

Trump launched his campaign with a Nov. 15 speech at Mar-a-Lago. Nothing has gone right for him, then or since. 

Instead, the setbacks — in less than three weeks — have been numerous.

Trump has spent much of the last week defending himself over his dinner at his Florida resort with two notorious antisemites: Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes.

Even figures who are supportive of Trump express horror at the episode as well as more general discontent.

A 2020 Trump campaign adviser who asked for anonymity to speak candidly lamented “a disaster of a dinner” and expressed exasperation with an “inept” and “lazy” campaign launch overall.

The former adviser noted not only the missteps but also a curious lack of urgency or excitement. Trump has not held a single rally or public event since his Mar-a-Lago speech, for example.

There are plenty of other problems too.

The GOP’s disappointing midterm results deprived Trump of the tailwind he otherwise hoped to enjoy.

His launch speech itself was widely panned as lacking energy and focus, with even Fox News pulling away from live coverage in favor of in-studio analysis.

The failure of a “red wave” to materialize has emboldened Trump’s internal critics in the GOP to argue more forcefully that he is an electoral liability.

Meanwhile, his legal problems have deepened.

On Thursday, a federal appellate court delivered an adverse ruling for the former president in a case pertaining to the sensitive documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago in August.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit undid an earlier judge’s decision to appoint a special master to evaluate Trump’s claims of privilege. In plain terms, the new verdict lifts a roadblock for prosecutors, allowing them to use any of the 13,000 documents seized rather than wait for them to be reviewed.

Separately, Attorney General Merrick Garland last month appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to lead the investigation into Mar-a-Lago and the separate probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Trump also appears to be losing his ability to intimidate would-be political rivals. 

Any hope that his announcement would dissuade other candidates from entering the race was misplaced.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have all made clear they are mulling White House runs.

The specter of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stalks Trump more ominously than anyone else. 

To the chagrin of Trump and his closest allies, DeSantis came out of the midterms greatly strengthened, winning reelection in the Sunshine State by almost 20 points.

Trump critics, who had become accustomed to thinking of the former president as a prohibitive favorite for the GOP nomination even a few months ago, are very happy with how things have played out since then.

“I just think that the act is worn out,” said Rick Tyler, a GOP strategist who has long been critical of Trump. “There is a reason that a circus moves from town to town. It’s because after a while everybody has seen the acts.”

Tyler also took comfort from the willingness of other candidates to publicly entertain the nation of entering the race.

“I don’t think anybody is intimidated,” he said. “I think it is an open field.”

Still, Trump loyalists — even those who acknowledge the early days of the 2024 campaign have not gone well — think predictions of the former president’s imminent demise are far overblown.

One source in Trump’s orbit contended that there was never any intention to freeze the field by announcing so early, given that the former president would likely be aided rather than hindered by a multicandidate field.

“I want more people in this race, not less,” the source said. “If he has three opponents, he wins. If he has seven, he walks right in. If it’s one-on-one and it’s Ron DeSantis, I get a little worried.”

Even that source acknowledged, however, that Trump, along with GOP congressional leaders, has “questions to answer” about the party’s midterm performance. 

The person also expressed concern about how a two-year primary campaign might work, even if the most recent controversies soon fade.

“This too will pass, just like the midterms will pass. But because we are in a two-year campaign, it is hard to predict what is best to do. These guys [on the Trump campaign] are trying to write new chapters of the campaign manual that have never been written before.”

Trump’s circle of official advisers, unofficial aides and longtime friends is still as turbulent and factional as ever, too. Criticisms are already being aimed at top campaign aides like Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita and Brian Jack, even as allies spring to their defense.

For all that, Trump still leads most polls of likely 2024 Republican candidates, often by a wide margin. He has an enormous fundraising base. And a significant share of the GOP electorate will be with him whatever happens.

But Trump no longer looks close to inevitable as the 2024 GOP nominee.

Critics, even in conservative circles, wonder if his early campaign declaration may come to be seen as a grave tactical error in itself.

“It allows him to blow himself up before the others would even have to announce,” said one such Republican critic, strategist Susan Del Percio. 

“If you’re another candidate, even getting in by March or April of 2023 would be deemed early. The amount of trouble Trump can get himself in by then is immeasurable.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage

Source: TEST FEED1

Republican flips northern California congressional seat

Correction: John Duarte is projected to win the race in California’s 13th congressional district.

Republican nominee John Duarte is projected to win the race in California’s 13th congressional district, beating his Democratic opponent, state Assemblyman Adam Gray.

The Associated Press called the race at 10:06 p.m. Friday.

Duarte, a farmer and businessman, will take over a seat long held by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) who was forced to run in the 12th district due to the state’s redistricting. 

The district has not elected a Republican since 1974 and Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 42 percent to 24 percent with more than 21 percent identifying with no party preference. 

Despite the political party makeup, the race was considered to be one of the more competitive in the country this year and Duarte’s win is one of several seats key to Republicans gaining control of the House.

Duarte, who runs a family-owned nursery in a largely agricultural area of the state, became known in conservative circles for taking on the federal government over water regulations. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Three signs from today’s jobs report that suggest inflation will stay high

Friday’s jobs report showed the buzzing U.S. economy is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, suggesting rising prices are here to stay despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to contain them.

The U.S. added 263,000 jobs in November, according to the federal jobs report released Friday, far more than the 200,000-job gain economists expected to see. The jobless rate also held even at 3.7 percent, just 0.2 percentage points above its level in February 2020.

This is not bad news if you are looking to get a different or new job, but it is bad news for policymakers worried about inflation — a huge political issue for both parties.

It comes days after Fed chief Jerome Powell signaled the central bank would like to reduce its interest rate hikes, raising red flags over whether that will change. Stocks initially fell in the news before rallying before the close. The S&P 500 Index ended down just a tenth of a point for the day.

Here are three points of data in the report that suggest inflation is not cooling and that will complicate the Fed’s plans on interest rates.

The new report showed rapid job gains

The U.S. had added an average of 392,000 jobs per month since the start of the year. While that’s slower than the 562,000-per-month average gain in 2021, job growth is still far faster than the 178,000 average monthly gain in 2019.

A strong job market does not necessarily push inflation higher on its own and it is possible for the U.S. to still see strong job creation without high inflation. Inflation remained below the Fed’s target of 2 percent even as the U.S. saw the unemployment rate drop to 3.5 percent in 2019.  

But many of the forces powering rapid job gains, including resilient consumer spending, could also be pushing consumer prices higher. 

“The labor market looks a lot like it’s normalizing from the pandemic and reopening shocks, and not necessarily in a way that leads to recession,” said Preston Mui, economist at research non-profit Employ America, in a Friday analysis.

“However, we have yet to see the full effects of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases, and we should be on the lookout for signs of further deterioration in the coming months.”

The report found wages are rising faster

The main way the Fed fights inflation is by raising interest in a way that raising costs for households, leaving them with less money to spend on goods and services. That’s harder if American paychecks keep growing at a rapid pace.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.6 percent in November—much faster than the 0.3 percent wage growth expected by economists last month—for an annual gain of 5.1 percent. The Labor Department also revised September and October wage growth higher, after initial reports showed wage growth falling toward a more sustainable pace.

“The biggest news in this release is large upward revisions in wage growth for September and October and a big number for November,” Jason Furman, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) under former President Obama, said on Twitter.

“This is the second time this year we’ve seen [revisions] like this dashing the hopes that maybe nominal [wage] growth was cooling,” he continued.

It may seem odd to want people to make less money if they’re having trouble keeping up with rising prices. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell asserted Wednesday that it will be impossible for businesses to stop raising prices at rapid rates until the costs of paying and recruiting workers stabilize.

For that reason, Powell said, the Fed would keep trying to reduce the number of open jobs and employers’ need for new workers—two key forces behind fast wage growth. Without many jobs to choose from, workers will eventually need to settle for lower wages than they might have been able to secure in a hotter economy.

“To be clear, strong wage growth is a good thing,” Powell said in remarks at The Brookings Institution.

“But for wage growth to be sustainable, it needs to be consistent with 2 percent inflation,” he continued, referring to the Fed’s target for annual inflation.

The report shows the overall workforce remains stagnant

The U.S. workforce is still down roughly 3.5 million workers from its pre-pandemic size and has shown little progress toward filling that hole.

The labor force participation rate and employment-population ratio have each budged little since the start of the year, even as a historically strong labor market and rapid wage growth propelled millions of Americans into better jobs. 

Economists are not yet sure why more workers haven’t re-entered the labor force, though they generally blame a combination of early retirements during the pandemic, lingering effects from COVID-19 infections and a steep decline in immigration.

“Given the increase in wages, one would think that workers would be drawn into the labor market. But that is not happening in the current economic expansion,” explained Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at audit and tax firm RSM, in an analysis.

“The combined long-term demographic trends of an aging workforce and lower immigration, along with the impact of the pandemic, are causing an acceleration of structural change in the labor force.”

Those changes have left businesses struggling to fill open jobs, boosting wages to stay adequately staffed, and raising prices to compensate.

Source: TEST FEED1

Harris communications director set to leave post

Jamal Simmons, Vice President Harris’s communications director, will soon leave his position, a source familiar with the matter told The Hill on Friday.

Simmons’s wife accepted a position in New York and their family will move there “in the near future,” according to an email from Harris’s chief of staff, Lorraine Voles, that was obtained by The Hill.

Simmons, a longtime Democratic communications aide, joined Harris’s staff early this year after a rocky first year for the vice president, which included a rash of negative headlines and departures of senior communications staff.

“I knew Jamal has young children and was concerned about time away from them, but I also knew he could help me steady the ship. Because of his deep respect for the Vice President, he agreed to come on board for a year,” Voles said.

Politico first reported on Simmons’s departure, including a statement from him that said it “has been an honor and a privilege” to work for Harris.

Simmons, a Michigan native, previously worked at Hill.TV. He was an aide to former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark and former Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.).

Voles said in her email she is “working with the Communications team to determine next organizational steps.”

Source: TEST FEED1

DNC panel votes to make South Carolina first nominating state instead of Iowa

The rulemaking arm of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted on Friday to make South Carolina the first voting state in the party’s presidential nominating calendar, The Associated Press reported.

South Carolina will replace the starting-gun spot held for decades by Iowa after that state’s caucus suffered technical problems in 2020.

The shift would also fulfill long-standing requests from within the party to have a more diverse state in the leadoff position.

New Hampshire and Nevada would vote the week after South Carolina in the new calendar, followed by Georgia and Michigan. The full DNC will vote on the calendar early next year, according to USA Today.

The vote comes after President Biden endorsed the shake-up to the nominating calendar on Thursday. In a letter to the DNC, Biden emphasized that the leadoff state — which tends to have an outsized influence on which candidates remain in the race — should reflect the diversity of the country.

“Too often over the past fifty years, candidates have dropped out or had their candidacies marginalized by the press and pundits because of poor performances in small states early in the process before voters of color cast a vote,” Biden said.

He also urged the DNC to move away from caucuses in general, calling them “inherently anti-participatory.”

Biden’s own 2020 campaign for the White House kicked into a higher gear after he won the South Carolina primary, following disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Even as Friday’s vote brings Democrats one step closer to giving South Carolina the first-in-the-nation position, Iowa and New Hampshire have argued that their states mandate they go first. The New Hampshire Democratic Party, whose state typically holds the second spot in the calendar, hit back at the proposal on Wednesday.

“The DNC did not give New Hampshire the first-in-the-nation primary and it is not theirs to take away,” said Chairman Ray Buckley.

—Updated at 4:46 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Top Republican accuses Biden administration of ‘unlawful’ stonewalling of Afghanistan oversight

The ranking Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is accusing top Biden administration officials of violating the law by stonewalling oversight efforts of U.S. assistance in Afghanistan, in a letter exclusively obtained by The Hill. 

The letter serves as an opening salvo for how Republicans, when they take control of the House in January, are planning to investigate the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. 

Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the top Republican on the foreign affairs panel and its likely next chairman, sent a letter to the State Department, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) criticizing the agencies for refusing to comply with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). 

“The State Department, Treasury, and USAID’s refusal to comply with SIGAR’s requests is unlawful and unacceptable,” McCaul wrote. “I urge you in the strongest terms to promptly ensure that the entities which you lead end this obstruction and return to full compliance with SIGAR’s oversight before congressional action becomes necessary.” 

The ranking member cited a SIGAR report published in October that stated several U.S. government agencies had not cooperated with its efforts at oversight, and a letter from the SIGAR Inspector General to the committee in June, that USAID and the Treasury Department “refused to cooperate with SIGAR in any capacity.” 

McCaul’s letter, dated Dec. 1, was sent to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power. 

McCaul gave the top Biden officials a two-week deadline to provide all materials related to the agencies’ “refusal to comply with any SIGAR request since August 16, 2021,” citing the date the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan fled Kabul as the Taliban took control of the city. 

The letter pushes back on varying assertions provided by the three agencies to SIGAR, when responding to the investigator’s requests, as falling outside the realm of its mandate to document U.S. reconstruction efforts. 

McCaul cites that the State Department and USAID legal counsel wrote to SIGAR in July that its requests for information were unrelated to reconstruction and exceeded the scope of its jurisdiction, saying that the U.S had stopped providing funds for the purpose of reconstruction in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. 

McCaul also cites State Department and USAID arguments that SIGAR inquiries are unnecessary and duplicative because other inspectors general and Congress are conducting oversight efforts, calling the reasoning “not only legally irrelevant, but substantively misleading.”

“SIGAR coordinates and deconflicts its work with the Inspectors General for the State Department and USAID, including through the OIG Afghanistan Project Coordination Group, which meets every six weeks,” he wrote, adding: “SIGAR stands distinct from other Inspectors General in its cross-jurisdictional authority to audit across agencies and its longstanding expertise in Afghanistan oversight. Cutting SIGAR out would fundamentally weaken Afghanistan-related oversight.”

SIGAR was established in 2008 to provide independent and objective oversight to how U.S. funds were being used in reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The oversight office continued publishing its quarterly reports even after the U.S. ended its 20-year presence in Afghanistan.  

“The State Department and USAID do not have the authority to determine the scope of SIGAR’s jurisdiction or evade it on the grounds that they no longer deem their programs ‘reconstruction,’” McCaul wrote in the letter.  

Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized President Biden and his officials for the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan, which unfolded over a chaotic two weeks in August 2021. 

At that time, hundreds of thousands of people swarmed Kabul’s main airport to escape the country following the Taliban’s takeover and establishment of a strict, Islamist rule that has since worked to erase women from public life and wiped out the more than two decades of democracy-building the U.S. and allies worked to construct.  

The U.S. spent an estimated $2.2 trillion over the course of its 20-year presence in Afghanistan, which began with an invasion in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

While more than 150,000 people were evacuated over the two-week period in August, a suicide bombing at the airport killed 13 U.S. soldiers and 150 Afghans, and injured scores of others. Hundreds of Americans were left behind when the U.S. ended its evacuation on August 31, and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked alongside American security forces faced uncertainty, either stranded in Afghanistan or in limbo outside the country.  

Republicans have homed in on holding the Biden administration accountable for the Afghanistan pullout. House GOP lawmakers will inherit subpoena power when they take majority control in January and are likely to exercise it for interviews with Biden officials and documents related to the effort.  

McCaul’s letter follows a request sent in October for the State Department to preserve all documents related to the pullout from Afghanistan.  

The State Department in December 2021 appointed former acting Secretary of State Dan Smith to lead a review of U.S. operations in Afghanistan that will cover the period between January 2020 and August 2021. A State Department spokesperson told The Hill at the time that the final report will be classified but that the agency would “be as transparent as possible.” 

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told The Hill on Friday that Smith’s review is ongoing.

“Colleagues across the administration are in the process now of extracting key lessons from that time in Afghanistan,” he said.

“Of course, we want to be as transparent as possible, but we will always do so consistent with classification and safeguarding of sensitive information, this process is ongoing so I don’t have anything additional to offer at this time,” he continued.

Price added that State Department officials “have engaged regularly with members of Congress since and of course well before the withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of last year.” 

“State Department officials have taken part in dozens, if not more, of hearings and briefings with members and their staff, I’m certain that will continue in the months to come,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Teenage canvasser for Warnock shot in Georgia

A canvasser for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) has been injured after being shot in Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday evening. 

The canvasser, a 15-year-old boy, was campaigning for Warnock’s upcoming runoff election when shots were fired from behind a closed door of one of the residences in the 500 block of Hartridge Street. The shooting took place around 5:35 p.m. on Thursday.

The teen was struck in the leg and transported to Memorial Medical Center to be treated for nonlife-threatening injuries.

Police have identified 42-year-old Jimmy Paiz as the shooting suspect. 

According to the police website, Paiz was booked into the Chatham County jail on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.

The department added that the case is still under investigation, but at this point, the shooting does not appear to be politically motivated.

“I am saddened to learn about this incident. I am praying for the victim and their family and wish them a full recovery,” Warnock said in a statement to The Hill.

Warnock is embroiled in a highly watched Senate runoff campaign against GOP candidate Herschel Walker. The two candidates remain neck and neck as Dec. 6, the day of the election, approaches.

The outcome of the election could lead to Democrats expanding their control of the upper chamber or Republicans maintaining a 50-50 seat tie, with Vice President Harris serving as the tiebreaker for Democrats.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden fires back at Holocaust denialism

President Biden on Friday issued an apparent repudiation of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who recently denied the Holocaust and has for weeks been making other antisemitic comments, as well as of “political leaders” who amplify such voices, a reference to former President Trump.

“I just want to make a few things clear,” Biden wrote in a tweet. “The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides.”

The president’s remarks come a day after Ye went on an antisemitic rant during an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars, including praise for Nazis and Adolf Hitler.

“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” Ye said on Thursday while wearing a hooded mask during an hours-long interview on the far-right program. “Also Hitler was born Christian.”

The rapper and fashion mogul later on Thursday posted a photo to his Twitter account showing a swastika intertwined with a Star of David, a post that led to his account being suspended — again. Ye has had his social media accounts suspended on previous occasions for posts containing offensive materiel.

Ye has for weeks sparked controversy with comments criticizing Jewish people generally and his promotion of conspiracy theories about what he has falsely said is “Jewish” control of Hollywood, the music industry and politics.

The rapper, who has been making a series of appearances in far-right media over the last several days, attended a dinner last week with Trump and brought the white nationalist Nick Fuentes as a guest. Trump has said he was not aware of Fuentes views before hosting him at Mar-a-Lago.

The dinner with Ye and Fuentes has led to several elected Republicans criticizing Trump, who last month announced he would run for president in 2024.

The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned Ye’s remarks on Thursday, saying the Infowars episode was “a disgusting triumvirate of conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers & antisemites.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden signs bill to avert rail shutdown

President Biden on Friday signed a bill that will avert a rail strike, just days before the deadline for an agreement to have been reached and amid fears that such a halt in railroad operations would cripple the U.S. economy.

The bill implements the labor agreement between freight rail carriers and unionized workers, which Biden backed in September. His administration at the time was largely praised for helping broker a deal.

Senators voted 80 to 15 on Thursday on the House-passed bill, with several Democrats voting against the measure because it didn’t include a sick leave provision. Biden, who touts himself as the most pro-labor president in U.S. history, has said that he supports increasing paid leave accommodations for rail workers, but that it should be addressed separately from the bill.

“I know this was a tough vote for members of both parties. It was tough for me, but it was the right thing to do at the moment. To save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption, and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays,” Biden said on Friday. 

He called the paid increase in the bill “historic,” but vowed to keep working for increased sick leave.  

“That fight isn’t over. I didn’t commit we would stop just because we couldn’t get it in this bill,” he said. 

Biden also said after the bill passed on Thursday that he shares in the reluctance by unions and some Democrats to override the union ratification process, but reiterated that the impacts of a rail strike on the U.S. economy would be too severe.

“Congress’ decisive action ensures that we will avoid the impending, devastating economic consequences for workers, families, and communities across the country,” he said in a statement, adding that lawmakers “spared this country a Christmas catastrophe in our grocery stores, in our workplaces, and in our communities.”

Biden on Monday called on Congress to immediately adopt the tentative agreement, without any modifications with the Dec. 9 deadline to reach an agreement looming.

The deal provides rail workers with 24 percent raises over five years and makes it easier for workers to miss time for medical appointments, but a sticking point was that the deal did not include more than one day of paid sick leave.

The Senate rejected a proposal to provide rail workers additional sick leave on Thursday, after the House narrowly passed the proposal on Wednesday.

Since the deal was struck in September, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had been in regular touch with labor leaders and management but saw no path to resolve the dispute at the bargaining table. The secretaries recommended that the administration seek congressional action to solve the issue.

Walsh and Buttigieg went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to brief Democrats before the bill was passed.

Source: TEST FEED1