More Storms Ahead

The Campaign Trail:  The Pennsylvania 18 special election between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb takes place tomorrow.  This is the seat that became available when the last guy to hold it, a married anti-abortion advocate, was pushed out after it became known that he’d tried to convince his girlfriend to get an abortion.  Trump won this district by 20 points so Saccone was supposed to be a shoo in but Lamb is proving to be a serious competitor, in part because the gun friendly, middle of the road former marine is somewhat of a model candidate and in part because Saccone is proving to be an inept campaigner but mostly because Trump has lost some of his allure.  To bolster Saccone, Trump who has been privately bashing Saccone for being weak, held a rally on his behalf on Saturday.  During the rally Trump bragged about his accomplishments, sticking mostly to his usual themes, he cited the booming economy, overstated the percentage of women who had voted for him during the 2016 election, and attacked his usual targets including “Pocahontas” Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Maxine Waters for being “a very low IQ individual” because whenever possible it’s always good to double down on an African American woman.  He also had a few nice things to say about Kim Jong Un who may turn out to be his new bestie, but bashed Chuck Todd of Meet the Press, calling him a piece of sh-t,  because when you are bashing a black woman it’s also good to go after a Jewish broadcaster, particularly on the same weekend that your other bestie, Putin, blamed Russian election interference on those same Jews.  Todd avoided directly referencing Trump’s slur against him on his Sunday morning show but did ask Treasury Secretary Mnuchin if he thought that such remarks were presidential.  The ever loyal and obsequious Mnuchin again proved how he’s managed to stay in Trump’s good graces for so long while other cabinet members have fallen to the wayside by jumping to Trump’s defense saying “he’s using these vulgarities in the context of a campaign rally and obviously there were a lot of funny moments on that rally.” Todd didn’t seem all that impressed with either Trump or Mnuchin but did express concern about how you explain such behavior to children.  As to the purported reason for the rally, Trump who used the opportunity to launch his 2020 campaign and his new campaign motto, “Keep America Great!,” managed to squeeze in one or two nice things in support of Saccone who needs all the help he can get.  Depending on which poll you look at Saccone is either up by three or down by three, pretty much a statistical tie. The election is largely symbolic, whoever wins will have to run again in November in a redrawn district.  Some say that by making the race close Lamb has already won, but a real Democratic victory as opposed to one of those “but we closed the gap” moments would be a whole lot nicer than another close race.

Will They or Won’t They:  Trump’s meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un is still not a done deal and seems to be provoking a lot of concern and back and forth within the White House, even when considering that this crowd is not known for its consistency.  On Friday, Press Secretary Huckabee Sanders walked back the North Korea meeting plans saying "We've accepted the invitation to talk based on them following through on concrete actions on the promises they've made." Later in the day, Trump walked back Sanders by tweeting “The deal with North Korea is very much in the making and will, be if completed, a very good one for the World.  Time and place to be determined.”  As to those promises, no one really knows if North Korea has really committed to halt nuclear tests and missile launches in the run up to a meeting, nor does anyone really know if denuclearization is really on the table because no one in the White House has actually had a direct conversation with the North Koreans.  At this point, Trump is relying on a message delivered to him by South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, who really wants to see the meeting take place and who may just be telling both sides what they want to hear in order to push a meeting forward.  For his part Moon was stunned, happy but stunned, by how quickly Trump jumped on his suggestion.  That said there is nothing to worry about because CIA Director Pompeo says that to the extent the meeting really takes place, Trump won’t be alone and that the US will go in with our “eyes wide open,”  assuming we have enough eyes.  Right now the White House is scurrying to find relevant experts to accompany Trump to any meeting.  

The Stormy Chronicles:  Although the White House continues to assert that Trump never had a relationship with Stormy Daniels, the multi named adult movie star who may or may not have some really compromising pictures and/or emails, the Trump team is doing their best to prevent her from speaking directly to the press and are trying to put the kibosh on an already filmed interview with 60 Minutes newest correspondent and misogyny expert, Ronan Farrow.  Although best might not be the right adjective to describe Michael Cohen’s actions and legal skills.  Cohen, who now has his own lawyer, has again embellished his explanation for how the $130,000 of hush money made it to Stormy.  He now says that "the funds were taken from my home-equity line and transferred internally to my LLC account in the same bank.”  If Cohen wasn’t so busy trying to explain away the Stormy debacle, he’d probably have a line of potential clients storming his office, it’s not easy to find a lawyer so willing to “give” so much money away on your behalf.  Cohen’s questionable claims aside, whether or not Trump had an affair with Stormy is really only a problem for Trump and Melania, the religious right doesn’t seem to care and the rest of us pretty much know that Trump is a serial philanderer.  The financial angle is the key reason that this story has taken on a life of its own.  Payments made to influence the outcome of an election are a bigly problem, large payments are an even biglier one, both are violations of campaign laws.  Special Counsel Mueller may or may not be focusing on the financial angle, but he is most certainly looking at blackmail potential, especially considering the assertions about Trump’s Russian dalliance in the Steele Dossier.  How many other Stormy women are out there and how many of them are named Natasha?   As to Trump, though he is confident that there was “no collusion” and “no obstruction” the New York Times reports that he’s been interviewing more lawyers and has spent some quality time with Emmet Flood, the impeachment expert who represented Bill Clinton back when he faced similar problems.  Trump responded to the Times article by saying that “the Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job.” He went on to call Maggie Haberman, the reporter who wrote the story a “Hilary flunky.”  Flunky or not, Maggie Haberman is Trump’s go to person whenever he wants to leak his version of events to the press.  Another Nor’easter is expected tomorrow and that’s not including the storm clouds over Washington.