POLITICO
Warning signs mount for Trump reelection bid
‘They haven’t gotten his job approval over 50 percent, like Reagan,’ says one GOP pollster.
By STEVEN SHEPARD 11/23/2018 08:09 AM EST
Donald and Melania Trump
President Donald Trump has argued that many voters who support him did not vote in the midterm elections because his name was not on the ballot. | AP Photo/Susan Walsh
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Donald Trump insists the GOP’s midterm election shellacking had nothing to do with him. Things will be different, he says, when his name is actually on the ballot in 2020.
While it’s true that most presidents who see their party suffer major losses in their first midterm election get reelected anyway, Trump isn’t most presidents — and there are lots of blaring-red warning lights in this month’s election results for his bid for a second term.
Unlike most of his predecessors, he’s been persistently unpopular, with approval ratings mired in the 40-percent range — so far, he’s the only president in the modern era whose job approval ratings have never been over 50 percent, according to Gallup.
Some of Democrats’ biggest gains came in the states that powered Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And while a president’s base has stayed home in previous midterm elections, leading to losses, the record turnout in this year’s races suggests 2018 was more like a 2016 re-run than Trump voters standing on the sidelines.
Thus far, even Trump loyalists in the party haven’t seen the president expand his electoral base beyond core Republicans.
“This is now the party of Donald Trump. I read articles saying the Republican Party has merged with the Trump coalition — they have no choice. Trump voters own the Republican Party. That’s consolidated,” said John McLaughlin, who was part of the team of pollsters working on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “The bad part is they haven’t broadened [his coalition]. They haven’t gotten his job approval over 50 percent, like Reagan. We haven’t done that.”
Republicans have taken solace in the examples of recent presidents who saw their party drubbed in their first midterm, only to win a resounding reelection victory two years later.
Barack Obama’s Democratic Party lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats in 2010, but Obama defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012. Republicans flipped both the House, where they netted 52 seats, and Senate in 1994, but Bill Clinton slaughtered former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) in 1996. Ronald Reagan’s GOP lost 26 House seats in 1982 — and picked up a seat in the Senate — but Reagan nearly swept the Electoral College against former Vice President Walter Mondale two years later, winning a 49-state landslide.
Reagan’s example has been a balm for some Republicans, especially given the similarities in the House-Senate split decisions — Republicans gained at least one Senate seat this year, pending the results of next week’s special-election runoff in Mississippi. But in order to repeat his feat, Trump’s approval rating would have to rise to heretofore-unseen levels: Reagan was in the low-40s around the 1982 midterms and improved to 58 percent in the Gallup poll immediately before the 1984 election.
Throughout the campaign, even the most optimistic Republican pollsters were modeling a turnout rate far higher than in previous midterm elections. And that’s borne out in the election results: As of Thursday, more than 111.7 million votes had been counted in House elections nationwide, according to the Cook Political Report.
Estimates are that the final count will be around 113 million — a lot closer to the 129.8 million votes that were cast in House races in the presidential year of 2016 than 2014’s paltry turnout of 79 million votes.
Republicans made gains in 2010 because — in large part — the coalition that elected then-President Barack Obama didn’t come out to vote in his midterms. Turnout dropped from 120.7 million in 2008, to 86.9 million in 2010.
“All the data indicated that voters were really pumped [this year] — that there was an excitement and energy that we didn’t really see in 2010 and 2012,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who worked for Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. “What you see in this election is not only can Democrats turn their votes out, but Trump demonstrated an extraordinary ability to turn his votes out, too.”
Trump has argued, however, that many voters who support him stayed home on Election Day.
“I didn’t run. I wasn’t running. My name wasn’t on the ballot,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday,” in an interview recorded last week. “There are many people that think, ‘I don’t like Congress,’ that like me a lot. I get it all the time: ‘Sir, I will never vote unless you were on the ballot.’ I get it all the time.
“People are saying, ‘Sir, I will never vote unless you’re on the ballot. I say, ‘No, no, go and vote,’” he added. “As much as I try and convince people to go vote, I’m not on the ballot.”
There were some bright spots in the wreckage for Republicans who, besides expanding their slim Senate majority also held Florida’s governorship and ousted Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by the narrowest of margins. They retained the governorship in Ohio, though Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won reelection. Iowa GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds also won a full term, but Democrats beat two of the state’s three Republican members of Congress.
But the biggest advances for Democrats were made in the three states that put Trump over the top in the Electoral College in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats won the governorships in all three — wresting away an open seat in Michigan and defeating two-term incumbent Scott Walker in Wisconsin, while holding Pennsylvania. Democratic incumbent senators in all three won reelection without breaking much of a sweat.
Democrats also won six more House elections across Michigan and Pennsylvania than they had captured in 2016, helped in large part by a new congressional map in Pennsylvania.
“There’s simply no evidence that those states are crying out for more Trump,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who worked for then-Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.
The map could expand beyond those three states, too. Mellman added that the Florida results were “essentially a tie,” and Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema’s victory in Arizona — she’s the first Democrat to win a Senate race there since 1988 — is a sign that the state “is likely to be a significant battleground” in 2020.
Pollsters from both parties say Trump’s chances of recovering depend, in part, on improving his approval rating, which he’s thus far failed to do. In the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, 45 percent of registered voters approved of the job Trump is doing as president — equal to his performance in two separate exit polls of 2018 voters, and consistent with the past year, when his approval rating has ranged between 40 and 47 percent.
“Trump’s approval rating has been historically very low,” said Mellman. “Other presidents have been as well, but their approval ratings have been more malleable. His is sort of stuck.”
Lynn Vavreck, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and a member of the advisory board for the American National Election Studies, said she’s skeptical public opinion of Trump will change markedly in the next two years.
“It’s so divided by partisanship,” said Vavreck. “Republicans approve of him, and Democrats don’t. And that’s pretty much the floor and the ceiling. There’s not a lot of room for movement, unless Republicans turn on him, or Democrats learn to like him. I don’t see either of things happening.”
But pollsters and experts also urge caution against assuming the die is cast against Trump. Presidents typically see their party lose seats in their first midterms, and most presidents get reelected.
“It [usually] borders on the foolish to draw a straight line from the midterms to the next general,” Mellman said.
In 2020, not only can the president run against the new House Democratic majority — he’ll have an opponent with whom to contrast himself.
“Be careful of extrapolating 2018 success into what it means for 2020 because it just doesn’t fit,” Newhouse said. “2018 was more of a referendum on President Trump. 2020 is going to be more of a choice. And Trump does much better in a choice battle when he has someone to run against.”
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Donald Trump Donald Trump 2020
What probably underlies the resiliency of this administration is the rising realization on most levels that policy considerations have eclipsed personalities, and even though the perception of Trump has emerged mixed between street shyster and snake oil salesman, there is appeal for many of this approach , even from the point of view of comic relief.
In fact, there may be the emergence of public attitude that trump is becoming a kind of folk hero, able to stand up against unadmirable and hostile elements
Latest news:
Trump Foundation lawsuit: New York state judge rejects Trump claim that he can't be sued because he is president
Published 9 Hours Ago Updated 6 Hours Ago
CNBC.com
A New York Supreme Court judge on Friday denied a request from President Donald Trump and his family members to dismiss a lawsuit against them and the Trump Foundation.
In her ruling, Justice Saliann Scarpulla shot down an argument from the Trump family's attorneys that the case should be dismissed because the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution suggests "a sitting president may not be sued."
The suit from New York state Attorney General Barbara Underwood alleges that the charitable foundation violated state and federal laws for "more than a decade."
In this April, 2010 file photo, Donald Trump, left, chairman and CEO of the Trump Organization, cuts the ribbon with his children Eric, Ivanka, and Donald Trump, Jr. right, at the opening of the Trump SoHo New York.
Mark Lennihan | AP
In this April, 2010 file photo, Donald Trump, left, chairman and CEO of the Trump Organization, cuts the ribbon with his children Eric, Ivanka, and Donald Trump, Jr. right, at the opening of the Trump SoHo New York.
A New York judge on Friday denied a request from President Donald Trump and his family members to dismiss a lawsuit against them and the Trump Foundation alleging that the charitable foundation violated state and federal laws for "more than a decade."
In her ruling, Justice Saliann Scarpulla of the New York state Supreme Court shot down an argument from the Trump family's attorneys that the case should be dismissed because the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution suggests "a sitting president may not be sued."
Scarpulla also rejected Trump's argument that the state court lacked jurisdiction over the president in this case. While the Constitution prohibits state courts from exercising "direct control" in a way that interferes with federal officers' duties, Scaruplla wrote: "Here, the allegations raised in the Petition do not involve any action taken by Mr. Trump as president and any potential remedy would not affect Mr. Trump's official federal duties."
Scarpulla noted that the defendants "have failed to cite a single case in which any court has dismissed a civil action against a sitting president on Supremacy Clause grounds, where, as here, the action is based on the president's unofficial acts."
"I find that I have jurisdiction over Mr. Trump and deny Respondents' motion to dismiss the petition against him on jurisdictional grounds," she wrote.
New York state Attorney General Barbara Underwood praised Scarpulla's decision.
"As we detailed in our petition earlier this year, the Trump Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump's business and political interests. There are rules that govern private foundations — and we intend to enforce them, no matter who runs the foundation. We welcome Justice Scarpulla's decision, which allows our suit to move forward," Underwood said in a statement.
A lawyer for the Trump Foundation, in a statement to CNBC, said: "The decision means only that the case goes forward. As we have maintained throughout, all of the money raised by the Foundation went to charitable causes to assist those most in need. As a result, we remain confident in the ultimate outcome of these proceedings"
The White House did not immediately responded to CNBC's requests for comment on Scarpulla's decision.
The judge's ruling could bolster other legal actions against Trump in New York and other states. Those include a complaint by former ''Apprentice'' contestant Summer Zervos, who is one of a dozen or so women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Zervos, who has been pursuing a defamation case against the president, claimed that Trump forced himself on her in 2007. Trump has denied the claims.
The Trump Foundation suit, filed by Underwood in Manhattan state Supreme Court, alleged that Trump had misused the Trump Foundation "for his own personal benefit."
The "pattern" of illegality, Underwood's office wrote, included "improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations or to implement even elementary corporate formalities required by law."
After Underwood first filed the suit in June, Trump had vented rage on Twitter against "the sleazy New York Democrats."
--CNBC's Mike Calia contributed to this report.
© 2018 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Division of NBCUniversal
Example of moderate to extreme views developing :
The Trump Impeachment
UncategorizedUnfit To Lead
WHOA: Former Reagan Budget Chief Tells FOX News that Trump is a ‘Madman’ Who is ‘Out to Lunch’
By News Corpse / Daily Kos (11/23/2018) - November 23, 2018951
CBC News / YouTube Donald Trump talks possible impeachment
It isn’t often that Fox News broadcasts anything that is remotely critical of Donald Trump. That would be contrary to the mission of the State TV cable network. And it is even less common that the criticism would come from a devout conservative whose credentials reach back to the hallowed administration of Ronald Reagan.
However, that’s precisely what happened on Black Friday morning as former Reagan budget chief, David Stockman, sat down for an interview with confirmed Trump-fluffing Fox Business host, Charles Payne. The interview began innocently enough with Payne acknowledging the recent stock market decline which continued on Friday. But Payne was not prepared for Stockman’s response (video below):
Payne: How far down do we go from here?
Stockman: I have no idea but I know the foundation is not stable. We’ve got a perfect storm of a madman in the White House, who’s pursuing trade wars, border wars, a fiscal policy that is totally out to lunch, and attacking the fed.”
Whereupon, Payne interrupted Stockman and diverted him from a discussion about how badly Trump is managing the economy to some absurd speculations about an imaginary war between the U.S. and China. Clearly, Payne wasn’t going to allow Stockman to educate the willfully ignorant Fox News audience about Trump’s foolish economic agenda. Payne thought it would be better to fear monger about a war that no sane analyst is predicting. And it went downhill from there:
Payne: It’s kinda harsh for you to call President Trump a madman.
Stockman: Oh, absolutely he is.
Payne: Because he’s fighting back against unfair trade, intellectual property theft, a country that’s building man-made militarized islands […] You don’t think that we should be pushing back against China?
Stockman: No. China is not a threat to us whatsoever. If they want to waste their money on sandcastles in the South China Sea, be our guest. […] China’s economy is a house of cards. They’ve got forty trillion of debt. It is the biggest speculative building spree in history. Without our export markets, without 4,000 Walmarts and everything else in America, their economy would collapse. They don’t dare threaten us.
So Payne successfully sidetracked the conversation from Stockman’s initial commentary that Trump is a “madman” who is “out to lunch” with regard to the economy. But only to get walloped by Stockman’s astute insight into the weakness of China’s position in relation to the U.S. Which exposes another of Trump’s painfully misguided assessments of the world order.
For a bona fide acolyte of St. Reagan to rip apart a Trump/Fox News narrative like that, it can only bode ill for Fox’s efforts to keep the Deplorables in line ideologically. They must be having hemorrhages trying to reconcile these notions and decide whether to believe the Reagan guy or the stuttering Fox News host. Now that’s entertainment.
Robert Burnett
Trump has never been back from lunch. He’s cuckoo…cuckoo!
The abstractions slowly coalesce:
George Papadopoulos tweets offer at Comey: Testify publicly and I’ll withdraw my request for immunity
Sonam Sheth Nov 24, 2018, 4:45 PM
George Papadopoulos
Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.Yuri Gripas/Reuters
George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign, called for former FBI director James Comey to publicly testify about the FBI's purported mishandling of the Russia investigation.
Papadopoulos' tweets came after House Republicans subpoenaed Comey and former attorney general Loretta Lynch to appear before lawmakers in a closed-door session.
But Comey has already been pushing for an open hearing.
Papadopoulos earlier wanted immunity to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, but said Saturday that he'll withdraw his request if Comey testifies publicly.
George Papadopoulos, the former foreign-policy aide to President Donald Trump's campaign who pleaded guilty in the Russia investigation last year, took to Twitter on Saturday to call for the former FBI director, James Comey, to testify publicly about the FBI's purported mishandling of the Russia probe.
"If Jim Comey wants to testify in public and tell America who/why in Trump's advisory board was under FISA; who Joseph Mifsud is; if the FBI had any role in my dealings with Charles Tawil; and explain the UK and Australia's surveillance role," he tweeted, "that would be good for the country."
But Comey has been asking to testify publicly from the start.
Earlier this week, House Republicans - who will be a minority in the lower chamber of Congress come January - made a last-minute push to subpoena Comey and former attorney general Loretta Lynch.
Comey acknowledged the news Thursday, tweeting, "Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans. I'm still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a 'closed door' thing because I've seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Let's have a hearing and invite everyone to see."
Democrats have also called for an open hearing, though Republicans are pushing for a closed-door session as they continue their investigation into whether the FBI allowed anti-Trump bias to affect its handling of the ongoing Russia investigation.
James Comey
James Comey.Win McNamee/Getty
Papadopoulos, meanwhile, reportedly wanted immunity in exchange for testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Legal experts said the request indicated the former Trump aide may be worried his testimony could implicate him in a crime.
Read more: George Papadopoulos dumped by his own lawyers as the former Trump aide embarks on a 'self-defeating gambit'
But Papadopoulos backed away from his request Saturday.
"If Jim Comey agrees to answer the below questions in a public testimony, I will agree to testify to the senate without immunity," Papadopoulos tweeted. "It's a win-win for the country. America first."
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI last year and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. At his sentencing hearing in September, he expressed remorse for his actions, saying he was "grateful" for the opportunity to help the investigation and had "nothing but respect for the Court and the legal process."
But the former Trump aide soon adopted a very different tone.
After his sentencing hearing, Papadopoulos tweeted that the FBI's investigation was "the biggest case of entrapment!" The next day, Papadopoulos said he was considering withdrawing his guilty plea because he believed he was framed.
Several days later, he tweeted that he had been sentenced "while having exculpatory evidence hidden from me."
He added that if he had known that at the time, he never would have pleaded guilty. And on November 9, Papadopoulos tweeted that his "biggest regret" was pleading guilty.
He has since deleted those tweets.
Read more: Mueller used George Papadopoulos' own tweets against him in a new court filing
Robert Mueller.Alex Wong/Getty Images
Papadopoulos hired new lawyers in September as he and his wife took to Twitter and the media to promote the unfounded theory that he was entrapped by the FBI, who he said wanted to "infiltrate" and "sabotage" the Trump campaign.
Earlier this month, Papadopoulos' former defense lawyers filed a motion pulling out from representing him.
DOJ veterans pointed out that it's unusual for lawyers to file paperwork to formally withdraw from a case.
Elie Honig, a former prosecutor from the Southern District of New York who specialized in organized-crime cases, said it was likely that Papadopoulos' "lawyers are trying to disassociate with him because of the conspiracy theories he's spreading, or perhaps they told him to knock it off, and he's not listening."
If Papadopoulos is seriously considering withdrawing his guilty plea, he would have to show a judge he was somehow misled or coerced into pleading guilty, and that the plea was not fully voluntary. On a practical level, that would set a defendant up to argue that his lawyers didn't explain the full terms of the plea correctly or lied to him.
In that case, Papadopoulos' lawyers may also have withdrawn because they'd no longer be able to represent him due to a conflict of interest.
Withdrawing a guilty plea is extraordinarily difficult. And if Papadopoulos does succeed, he may find himself in deeper trouble than he was in before because his indictment would resurface and he would not have the option of pleading guilty with an agreement to cooperate.
SEE ALSO: Mueller used George Papadopoulos' own tweets against him in a new court filing
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