Monday in California at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, former Obama White House chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Democrats needed to “take a chill pill” and prepare for a long-term build up of the party. Emanuel said, “2016, now Democrats are in the lowest level since 1928 in the House of Representatives and the lowest level since 1925 in the state houses. Not really good.” adding,”It is hard to image it getting lower.” He explained “You got to go out and create a farm team. In ’06 and ’08 everybody goes, ‘Oh that’s when we took back the House.’ You know I got a lot of crap for recruiting Iraq War vets, football players, sheriffs, business people. I said well they are running in Republican districts. I wanted to take cultural issues off the table and I wanted to present economic issues. We as Democrats like to walk around ideally — No you got to be ruthless enough. We recruited people who matched the district. If you’re running in a Republican district, you got to get at somebody who can win in a Republican district. Winning is everything. You don’t win, you can’t make
Author: Pam Key
Dem Rep Lieu: Trump’s Pathological Lies ‘a Danger’ to the Republic
Monday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said President Donald Trump “lies pathologically,” and that he added leads to “authoritarianism, and therefore he was “a danger” to the republic. Lieu said, “Let me say that we have a problem here in America. Our president lies pathologically. He has a staff lie pathologically and then he attacks the free press, he attacks the judiciary and this is what starts authoritarianism. Donald Trump is a danger to republic and we need to wake up and understand the harms that he’s causing our country.” He added, “I read Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. I hope lots of people read it and they can determine for themselves whether there are some mental issues. As an observer who is not a doctor, I think there are some issues there because, again, our president lies pathologically. He has a disconnection from the truth that is highly disturbing and we can’t have that person making decisions on things like nuclear weapons and we need to wake up and really start looking at this issue.” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Spicer: Judge Who Blocked Trump Travel Ban Went ‘Rogue’
Monday on “Fox & Friends,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said U.S. District Court Judge James Robart went “rogue” with his Friday ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. Spicer said, “The law is very clear that the president has broad powers to keep this country safe and to limit access to people that could come into this country and do us harm. He utilized that power in a very legal, constitutional manner to ensure that we are safe, our people are safe, our country is safe, our institutions are safe. And it’s somewhat sad to see a judge go rogue like this.” (h/t Politico) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Dem Rep Waters: Trump ‘Investigation’ Underway; Evidence Not Required for Impeachment
Monday on CNN’s “Newsroom,” when asked about her comments last week stating that her “greatest desire” would be to impeach President Donald Trump, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said investigations had “already started” and that some of the investigation leads to the “possibility of impeachment.” Partial transcript as follows: BALDWIN: You are making news today saying Donald Trump’s actions are leading himself to possible impeachment. Explain to me why you are going there two weeks into his presidency. WATERS: First of all, just let me say these are not normal times. We have a president who is creating chaos and division. So many questions about his conflict of interest. Lies about whether or not he separated himself from the businesses he claimed he would separate himself from. Not showing his tax returns. Putting his arms around Putin, defending Putin, working with the Kremlin. I want to know, and a lot of people want to know was there collusion between Putin and the Kremlin and this president as they hacked our DNC and our DCCC and some of us. We want to know how deep does that go. BALDWIN: Congresswoman, what’s the evidence. forgive me for jumping in, but what is the evidence
Panetta: Trump Cannot Govern Through Executive Order
On this weekend’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” former CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and declared he could not govern as president “through executive orders.” Panetta said, “I think that problem here is that the president needed to take the time to really look at that executive order, to vet it properly. Instead, they rushed it out very quickly. It had problems. Even they recognized the problem in implementing this—it created more trouble than dealing with the problem he was facing. You can do this right. We can protect this country, we have protected this country. We have not had another 9/11 attack in this country because we have had developed good counter terrorism operations.” “We have developed strong vetting approaches,” he continued. “We have to do is to increase the vetting process to strengthen it, provide money and manpower to get it done right. That is the way you deal with protecting this country. You don’t deal with it by implementing some kind of across the board bans that very frankly, raised a lot of legal issues that he now dealing with. You cannot govern in
Conway: Dems Have Time to ‘Cry and Weep’ at Airports But Not Vote on Trump Nominations
Sunday on Fox News Channel’s’“Media Buzz,” White House aide Kellyanne Conway criticized Democratic politicians that “have time to go and cry and weep at the airports” to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order, but not the time to vote on Trump’s cabinet nominees. Conway said, “The Democrats want to go on the record, they have time to go and cry and weep at the airport protesting something that they’ve completely bastardized as to what it is and what its intent and what its effect is, this immigration order and yet they don’t have time to give a fair hearing, an up-or-down vote on these nominees?” Conway asked. “You want to vote against, vote against. But at least give people a hearing and the decency of a vote.” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
WaPo’s Ruth Marcus: Trump ‘Doesn’t Understand the Role of America’
Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus said President Donald Trump did not have an “understanding” of the role of courts” and added that he didn’t “understand the role of America.” Marcus said, “I think there there is a lot of fallout here. Mike talked about how you can’t run the government by improv, and Vice President Pence talked about Washington niceties. These aren’t just Washington niceties, they are questions about whether you can run this government. And there is lasting damage here in his relationships with congress, in his relationship with the country, which saw these terrible stories of people needing medical treatment being denied, in the relationship with his court, in his relationship with the world.” “And a more fundamentally, the lesson of the week to me is that we have a president who fundamentally is not understanding the role of courts, this tweet about so-called judges was not just, you know, something that we should ignore, and he doesn’t understand the role of America as it has historically been in the world as a beacon of hope and welcoming place for refugees,” she added. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Tavis Smiley: Rush to Normalize a ‘Racist, Sexist’ Trump Presidency Troubling
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” talk show host and political commentator Tavis Smiley said he was troubled by “the rush to normalize” President Donald Trump’s “racist, sexist, classist campaign” and now his the normalization of the Muslim ban. Partial transcript as follows: SMILEY: But what troubles me, Chuck, is that we, too many of us, that is, rushed to normalize a racist, sexist, classist campaign that he ran to win this office. And now we seem to be rushing to normalize a Supreme Court process that trampled on the Constitution just a year ago. But now it’s just — so now we’re into this conversation about how should Democrats handle this. We’re normalizing this too fast. We’re normalizing a Muslim ban. We’re normalizing a religious test. We’re normalizing all the things that we’ve been talking about here today, Alex. And it troubles me, what this ultimately means for the future of this democracy if we continue in this town and beyond to normalize this kind of unrepentant behavior. CASTELLANOS: I think we have to put Tavis down as undecided here on some of these issues. Look, I think the criticism of Trump as a racist campaign is way beyond
Paul Ryan on Obama’s Iran Deal: ‘A Lot of That Toothpaste Is Already Out of the Tube’
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said of the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, “a lot of that toothpaste is already out of the tube,” so now “the key” was to “rigorously enforce” the deal. Partial transcript as follows: TODD: Would you like to see the beginnings of trying to get out of the nuclear deal ? RYAN: A lot of that toothpaste is already out of the tube. I never supported the deal in the first place. I thought it was a huge mistake. But the multilateral sanctions are done. So– TODD: Done meaning you’re not going to be able to put that back together– SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to go back and reconstitute the multilateral sanctions that were in place. TODD: Should we try, though? RYAN: So, I don’t think we– I think we should expend our effort where it can pay off the most. And that’s why I think what they’re doing now does make a lot of sense. So I think the key is to rigorously enforce this deal. But also, remember, they’re testing ballistic missiles. They’re still the largest state sponsor of terrorism
Pence: Iran Would Do Well Not to ‘Test’ Trump Administration, ‘We’re Watching’
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Vice President Mike Pence said Iran would “do well,” not to test President Donald Trump’s resolve. Partial transcript as follows: STEPHANOPOULOS: President took executive action on Iran yesterday. Imposed those new sanctions. And we saw General Flynn say, “Iran is on notice.” What does that mean, exactly? PENCE: It means, We’re watching. STEPHANOPOULOS: What are we watching for? PENCE: It means there’s– Iran would do well to look at the calendar and realize there’s a new president in the Oval Office. And Iran would do well not to test the resolve of this new president. STEPHANOPOULOS: What would testing the resolve be? PENCE: Well, we– the– the ballistic missile tests that were done in the last week were in direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with limiting them in that regard. That’s the reason why the president took the decisive action that he took to impose economic sanctions on their supply chain for their missile program. But also, let’s recognize that, the Houthi rebels in Yemen are fully subsidized by Iran. And the attack that the Houthis leveled using Iranian arms against a Saudi Arabian– ship this last week, all represent the kind