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“These are challenging times in the United States of America. We have a hater in the White House: the birther in chief, the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
— Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), quoted by the HuffPost, referencing the leader of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.
“My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow ‘project’ were hypothetical and not based on conversations with the President. My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions. The point is that the proposal was in the earliest stage and did not advance beyond a free non-binding letter of intent.”
— Rudy Giuliani, walking back his statement from Sunday suggesting President Trump continued discussions on a Trump Tower Moscow deal through the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times reports.
20
“With a second U.S.-North Korea nuclear summit looming in February, researchers have discovered a secret ballistic missile base in North Korea — one of as many as 20 undisclosed missile sites in the country,” NBC News reports. “The Kim regime has never disclosed the existence of the Sino-ri Missile Operating Base to the outside world. Ballistic missiles are the primary delivery mechanism for North Korean nuclear warheads.”
2
President Trump “made a brief appearance Monday at Washington’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, honoring the civil rights icon with a wreath on the federal holiday bearing his name,” Politico reports. “The president, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, spent roughly two minutes at the memorial.”
“The whole thing felt like “Game of Thrones,” but with the characters from “Veep.”
– Cliff Sims, former Trump communications aide, describing his time at the White House in his book, Team of Vipers
59%
A new poll from The Hill and Harris X found that 59 percent of registered voters supported imposing a 70 percent tax rate on every dollar over the 10 millionth a person earns in a year. (Tax rates that apply only to income over a certain threshold are called marginal tax rates.) The idea even received bipartisan support: 71 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republicans said they were in favor.
58%
A new Pew Research survey finds “that a growing share of Americans say they trust what Trump says less than what previous presidents said while they were in office. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say they trust what Trump says less than previous presidents, up from 54% last June and 51% in February 2017, shortly after he took office.” … “The public also continues to fault the ethical standards of top administration officials. Just 39% rate their ethical standards as excellent or good, while 59% say they are not good or poor.”
“The longest government shutdown in U.S. history will scar the federal bureaucracy and U.S. economy long after the doors are unlocked and workers return. The feds will struggle to dig out of a backlog of hiring and training that’s essential to pushing out tax refunds, protecting U.S. borders and guiding air traffic. Government contractors are expected to jack up prices on everything from helicopters to IT support, growing wise to an administration that doesn’t pay its bills for weeks on end.”
“If you’re a one-term Congress member, so what? You can make 10 years worth of change in one term if you’re not afraid.”
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in a new video urging activists to run for office and challenge incumbent Democrats.
66%
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds that voters are aware of the partial government shutdown, and have some concerns about it—but feel little impact from it. “Nearly 3 of 4 voters (74%) say they understand the causes of the partial government shutdown either ‘very well’ (37%) or ‘somewhat well’ (37%). Roughly the same number of voters, 79%, categorize the ongoing shutdown as a ‘crisis’ or ‘problem,’ as reflected in last week’s poll. Despite this, when asked about the extent to which they are personally impacted by the shutdown, a majority of voters (66%) say there is ‘not much’ or “no” impact on them or their families.”
