The Full Belmonte, 8/17/2022
Liz Cheney lost her seat but gained something else: She is now the undisputed leader of the Trump opposition. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
“SCOOP: CHENEY’S NEXT MOVE — Rep. LIZ CHENEY is wasting no time beginning the next phase of her bid to prevent DONALD TRUMP’s return to office.
‘In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president,’ Cheney spokesperson JEREMY ADLER tells Playbook exclusively.
The new group, which will serve as Cheney’s primary political vehicle as she considers whether to run for president in 2024, does not have an official name yet. An informed guess: The Great Task, which was the name of Cheney’s final ad of the campaign. The phrase is from the last sentence of the Gettysburg Address, and Cheney also referenced it in her concession speech from Jackson, Wyo., last night.
WHAT SHE LOST VS. WHAT SHE GAINED — Cheney lost her seat but gained something else: She is now the undisputed leader of the Trump opposition.
The competition wasn’t very stiff.
Top Democrats, including President JOE BIDEN, are still hesitant to focus exclusively on Trump, despite believing that he represents a unique threat to American democracy.
Never Trump Republicans, like former Ohio Gov. JOHN KASICH, have struggled to remain relevant out of office when their main platform is a cable news panel.
Trump’s potential 2024 challengers, like Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS, are content emulating the former president but are too afraid to directly criticize him. (Only former New Jersey Gov. CHRIS CHRISTIE saw a political opportunity in the fact that his party’s presidential frontrunner is in the middle of an Espionage Act criminal investigation.)
GOP critics of Trump, like South Dakota Rep. DUSTY JOHNSON, who survived primaries this year did so by downplaying their anti-Trumpism. (‘Don’t run away from the electorate,’ Johnson told us in June.)
Cheney has stepped into this anti-Trump vacuum.
First, with her prominence and aggressiveness on the Jan. 6 committee, where she has reliably taken the most hawkish positions on process debates about the investigation (Subpoena KEVIN MCCARTHY? Yes! ) and how hard to lean into accusations of lawbreaking by Trump (Criminal referrals to DOJ? Hell yes! ).
Then, by leveraging the national attention that her Wyoming primary received. She raised nearly $14 million for the race — and didn’t spend much of it. When we were reporting in Wyoming earlier this year, there were glimmers of the campaign she might have run, one in which she downplayed Trump (like Johnson did in South Dakota) and emphasized local issues and her popular family name. (The high school stadium in Casper, where her parents DICK and LYNNE grew up, is named Cheney Field.)” Read more at POLITICO
Cheney speaks at Mead Ranch in Jackson, Wyo. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo
“CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican adversary in Congress, was defeated in a GOP primary Tuesday, falling to a rival backed by the former president in a rout that reinforced his grip on the party’s base.
The third-term congresswoman and her allies entered the day downbeat about her prospects, aware that Trump’s backing gave Harriet Hageman considerable lift in the state where he won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign. Cheney was already looking ahead to a political future beyond Capitol Hill that could include a 2024 presidential run, potentially putting her on another collision course with Trump.
Cheney described her loss as the beginning of a new chapter in her political career as she addressed a small collection of supporters, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, on the edge of a vast field flanked by mountains and bales of hay.
‘Our work is far from over,’ she said Tuesday evening, evoking Abraham Lincoln, who also lost congressional elections before ascending to the presidency and preserving the union.
The results — and the roughly 30-point margin — were a powerful reminder of the GOP’s rapid shift to the right. A party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father now belongs to Trump, animated by his populist appeal and, above all, his denial of defeat in the 2020 election.” Read more at AP News
“Donald Trump just claimed one of his most coveted scalps: that of Liz Cheney, the House representative from Wyoming who is the highest-profile Republican to reject his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Cheney was particularly loathsome to Trump for her role as the vice chair of the Congressional committee investigating the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. She repeatedly called the former president a threat to American democracy, for failing to concede defeat to Joe Biden and for encouraging the rioters.
While expected, her landslide loss late yesterday in the Republican state primary to a Trump-backed candidate emphasizes his grip on the party and success in transforming it from conservative to populist.
Eight of the 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot have been defeated in primaries or announced their retirements. Of the 270 candidates for international, federal, state, local and political positions Trump has endorsed since leaving office, 216 have won or advanced to the general election — almost a third ran unopposed — and 17 have lost.
Now the party’s most immediate target is to win control of at least one house of Congress in November’s midterm elections. Trump’s most avid supporters are also anticipating that he will make another run for the White House in two years.
In her concession speech, Cheney vowed to keep confronting Trump head on.
In the meantime, the former president faces a myriad of legal cases over everything from his taxes to his handling of classified documents and his role in the insurrection. While last week’s FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home rallied Republican support, the possibility of criminal charges loom.
Winning the Republican nomination isn’t yet a lock, if he seeks it. A lot is still in play before anyone casts a ballot in 2024.” — Bill Faries and Karl Maier Read more at Bloomberg
Cheney swears in witnesses at a hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
“In Wyoming’s Republican primary for secretary of state, the office that oversees elections, the winner was Chuck Gray, a state legislator whom Trump endorsed. Gray, like Trump, has falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.
In Alaska, Sarah Palin, the state’s former governor whom Trump endorsed, and two rivals — Mary Peltola, a Democrat, and Nick Begich, a Republican — advanced to the November election for Alaska’s open House seat to replace Don Young, who died in March.
Alaska also held a Senate primary, but its results are unlikely to matter much. The state uses open primaries in which the top four vote getters advance to the general election. Both the incumbent — Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial for the Capitol attack — and Trump’s preferred candidate, Kelly Tshibaka, advanced. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, which may favor a moderate like Murkowski.
Here are the latest vote counts from Alaska and Wyoming.
Trump’s 2022 record
The 2022 primary schedule is winding down, with only six states yet to hold elections, including Florida next week. The full picture of Trump’s influence is becoming clear.
He has become the rare defeated president to wield enormous sway over his party, with the ability to end careers (like Cheney’s, perhaps) and to turn once-obscure candidates into winners. Trump even persuaded other top Republicans, like Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Ted Cruz, to endorse Cheney’s opponent.
But Trump’s influence is not complete. The success rate of his endorsements in competitive elections hovers around 80 percent, and some incumbents (like Murkowski, perhaps) have proven strong enough to overcome his criticism of them.
The Times’s Maggie Haberman notes that Trump sometimes makes endorsements without thinking them through, including in multicandidate races with more than one candidate who supports his agenda. ‘Trump tends to treat politics like a scoreboard, as opposed to a strategic effort,’ Maggie said.
This chart, by our colleague Ashley Wu, summarizes Trump’s record in the 2022 primaries so far.
Data up to Aug. 15. Based on initial endorsements and excludes uncontested candidates and Trump-endorsed incumbents. | The New York Times
Trump’s biggest successes include races in which he has helped defeat incumbents who defied him, including four of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over Jan. 6. Trump has also transformed some campaigns without an incumbent, allowing his endorsee to win a crowded field. Examples include J.D. Vance in the Ohio Senate primary; Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate primary; and Kari Lake in the Arizona governor primary.
If anything, our chart above understates Trump’s influence, because it does not include officials who resigned partly out of a fear that a more Trump-friendly candidate might beat them. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Senate seats, as well as those in Missouri and North Carolina, seem to be examples. The senators who chose not to run for election in these states — like Rob Portman in Ohio — were not even regular Trump critics. They instead tended to be establishment Republicans who tried to avoid talking about him.
Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, four also did not run for re-election. Overall, only two still have a chance to remain in Congress next year.
With all this said, Trump is not omnipotent. The races where his endorsed candidates have lost this year tend to fall into one of two categories: Either his chosen candidates were facing incumbents with a strong enough connection to voters to survive, or the Trump-backed candidates seemed too flawed to win.
Georgia falls into the first category. There, both Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, survived primary challengers despite their refusal to help Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 election result.
The Alabama senate race falls into the second category. Mo Brooks, a House member involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was struggling so much that Trump withdrew his endorsement late in the campaign and later switched to Katie Britt, who already seemed on course to win. Other Trump endorsees who lost their races include Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who has been accused of insider trading and sexual misconduct; and Charles Herbster, a candidate for Nebraska governor whom multiple women accused of groping.
Trump endorsed Tim Michels, left, who won the Republican primary for governor in Wisconsin.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
The bottom line
Even if Trump does not become the Republican presidential nominee again, he continues to shape the Republican Party. He has helped push out of Congress some of the Republicans who have voted for bipartisan legislation this year. He has also pushed out some of those who have called out his lies about his election and criticized his encouragement of the Jan. 6 rioters.
In their place are candidates who have signaled they might be willing to commit election fraud to keep Democrats from taking office, regardless of the vote count.
‘These primary fights aren’t between the ‘pro-Trump’ wing versus the ‘anti- or Never-Trump’ wing of the G.O.P.,’ Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report has written, referring to most races. ‘In both style and substance, the current G.O.P. remains Trump’s party.’
For more: Cheney is a victim of conservative cancel culture, Stephanie Muravchik and Jon Shields write in Times Opinion. And Jonathan Martin and Blake Hounshell explain how Cheney thinks about her place in history.” Read more at New York Times
Biden handing the pen to Senator Joe Manchin.Doug Mills/The New York Times
“President Biden signed the Democrats’ climate, health and tax bill into law. (The Upshot has a breakdown of its programs.)
Afterward, Biden handed the pen to Joe Manchin, whose reversal allowed Democrats to pass the bill. (Biden’s expression attracted attention on social media.)” Read more at New York Times
Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., was searched by FBI agents earlier this month.
PHOTO: MARCO BELLO/REUTERS
A judge will hear arguments Thursday on whether to unseal the affidavit behind the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
“The document would provide more detail about the government’s probe, such as what evidence, including witnesses, it has collected and why investigators believe that a crime may have been committed. The Justice Department says this would compromise its investigation. The former president in a social-media post pushed for the affidavit's release. Media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, have asked to unseal it.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A top Trump lawyer tried to help the National Archives retrieve White House documents from Mar-a-Lago, but Trump resisted. ‘It’s not theirs, it’s mine,’ several advisers say he told them.” Read more at New York Times
“The White House says a new type of Covid-19 vaccine specially designed to protect against the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants will be available next month. If the shots meet FDA standards, they will likely be available in early to mid-September, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said on Tuesday. The Biden administration is currently trying to ‘get out of the acute emergency phase’ where the US government is buying the vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests. ‘My hope is that in 2023, you're going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products,’ Jha said. ‘Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead,’ he added. Separately, first lady Dr. Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms, her spokesperson said Tuesday.” Read more at CNN
Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border.Caitlin Ochs/Reuters
A buoy sits high and dry on cracked earth previously under the waters of Lake Mead near Boulder City, Nev., earlier this summer. Photo: John Locher/AP
“Facing an unprecedented Tier 2 shortage, the U.S. government will force Arizona, Nevada and Mexico to reduce their use of water from the Colorado River, Axios' Jacob Knutson reports.
Why it matters: More than 40 million people across seven U.S. states and at least 22 tribal nations rely on the river for drinking water, agriculture and recreation.
So do the Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora.
The bottom line: Human-caused climate change and chronic overuse has sent the Colorado River and its reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to historic lows.” Read more at Axios
A drought is devastating the U.S. cotton harvest.
“Agricultural forecasters expect farmers to walk away from more than 40% of the 12.5 million acres they sowed with the crop and harvest the smallest area since Reconstruction. (In 1868, yields per acre were less than a fifth of what they are today, but the market for cotton was vastly smaller.) December cotton futures rose for the sixth straight trading session to close at $1.169 a pound. Last week, futures gained about 13%, the sharpest weekly climb since March 2011.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Hearing aids should get cheaper and possibly even better due to a long-awaited rule change that the FDA announced Tuesday. Instead of getting a prescription, visiting a hearing health professional and having a custom fitting, people with mild to moderate hearing loss will be able to buy hearing aids directly from a store or online. This move will make hearing aids much more widely available across the country, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said. Data shows about 1 in 8 people in the US ages 12 and older has hearing loss in both ears, and the rate increases significantly with age. About a quarter of people 65 to 74 have hearing loss, and that goes up to 50% around age 75. But only about 16% of the tens of millions of people with hearing loss use a hearing aid. The FDA estimates people could see over-the-counter hearing aids on the market as early as October.” Read more at CNN
FILE - Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, on Nov. 19, 2020. Giuliani is scheduled to appear in an Atlanta courthouse on Aug. 17, 2022, to testify before a special grand jury in an investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the 2020 election in Georgia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
“ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to appear in an Atlanta courthouse to testify before a special grand jury that is investigating attempts by former President Donald Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.
It’s unclear how much the former New York mayor and attorney for Trump will be willing to say now that his lawyers have been informed he’s a target of the investigation. Questioning will take place behind closed doors Wednesday because the special grand jury proceedings are secret.
Yet Giuliani’s appearance is another high-profile step in a rapidly escalating investigation that has ensnared several Trump allies and brought heightened scrutiny to the desperate and ultimately failed efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. It’s one of several investigations into Trump’s actions in office as he lays the groundwork for another run at the White House in 2024.” Read more at AP News
Photos courtesy Justice Department
This $57,000 Pokémon card was paid for with COVID fraud.
Its buyer, Vinath Oudomsine, pleaded guilty to fraud and sentenced to three years in prison.
Why it matters: Federal investigators face ‘one of the largest frauds in American history’ that feasted on $5 trillion in COVID-era stimulus, reports The New York Times' David Fahrenthold.
That includes ‘billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people, including at least one amateur who boasted of his criminal activity on YouTube.’
A staggering $100 billion total wouldn't surprise Pandemic Response Accountability Committee chairman Michael Horowitz, he told The Times.
Federal investigators are wading through hundreds of thousands of tips, with 450 convictions to this point.
‘There are years and years and years of work ahead of us,’ Justice Department chief pandemic prosecutor Kevin Chambers told The Times.
The bottom line: Many smaller fraudsters may go unpunished because it costs more to investigate than the government would recover.
The SBA has ‘ample evidence of people fraudulently obtaining $10,000 advance grants,’ The Times notes.” Read more at Axios
Whether George W. Bush’s ranch retreats, Barack Obama’s rounds of golf, Donald Trump’s executive time, or Joe Biden’s extended public absences, it’s become common to accuse U.S. leaders of shirking responsibility.
That’s not the problem for Scott Morrison, Australia’s former prime minister, who was revealed on Tuesday to have secretly taken on five ministerial posts— health, finance, treasury, home affairs and resources—for two years before he was deposed in elections last May.
Morrison reportedly held the roles in tandem with his cabinet colleagues, with some ministers unaware they were sharing positions. The news has sent shockwaves through Australian politics raising questions of overreach, accountability, and transparency at the highest levels of Australia’s government.
Morrison attempted to excuse himself on Tuesday, saying his moves were necessary at a time of increased uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic and in the event that members became incapacitated.
Morrison’s maneuvers are all the more bizarre for the actions (or lack thereof) taken while multi-tasking. ‘The word used by everybody here was: weird,’ Anne Twomey, a constitutional law expert at the University of Sydney, told Foreign Policy, citing the fact that Morrison appeared to have acted on his powers only once—vetoing a mining deal.
‘On the one hand, you could say he did it because he had delusions of grandeur and all the rest of it, but if he was wanting to become a dictator, he didn’t actually exercise the power. So what was the point of it? It’s a complete mystery to everyone.’
And although the episode has made Morrison a figure of fun in the media and online, the fact he was able to do it at all has set off alarm bells for the country’s democracy. ‘It is a big deal because we don’t want a precedent like this. He may not have misused it on this occasion but someone will use it as a precedent next time and they may well misuse it,’ Twomey said.
Luckily for Morrison, his actions aren’t illegal. In keeping with its British foundations, Australia’s parliament runs on the Westminster system, where precedent and tradition are usually the biggest guardrails.
And as the officials found in the movie Airbud, there’s no rule against a dog playing basketball. In Morrison’s case, there’s no rule against secretly standing in for almost a quarter of your cabinet.
Those loose rules also mean there’s no way to reprimand Morrison in parliament or among his constituents. MPs can’t be recalled, and all lawmakers can do is issue a rhetorical censure.
Instead the battle plays out in the media. Prime Minister Tony Albanese has led a chorus of criticism, accusing Morrison of an ‘unprecedented trashing of our democracy’ by shielding his moves from the Australian public.
New Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, whose department oversees Australia’s intelligence apparatus, took the criticism a step further by saying that Morrison’s actions made Australia more vulnerable, citing a recent shooting incident at Canberra airport.
‘What would have happened on that day if there had been two ministers for home affairs, two people with the same powers, having different views on how such a situation should have been handled? What would have happened if we had a significant terrorist attack during the time we had two ministers of home affairs?’ O’Neil said.
How Australia seeks to rein in the prime minister’s power in future remains unclear. Australia’s constitution is notoriously difficult to alter, so lawmakers will have to play around the edges if they wish to avoid a repeat offense. One solution Twomey recommends is a public register that the government must update each time a ministerial appointment is made, adding an additional layer of transparency to cabinet choices.
Such is the level of disapproval expressed by politicians across the political divide, Twomey is confident stricter safeguards will be put in place in the wake of the revelations. ‘The reaction to this is very strong at the political level on both sides, even though about half the community is still mystified as to why anyone cares.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“War strategy | For weeks, Ukrainian forces have methodically targeted supply lines of Russian troops occupying the strategically important southern city of Kherson. Yet a large-scale offensive to retake it may not be close. Outgunned despite supplies of new weapons from its US and European allies, Ukraine’s military has so far focused on a policy of attrition, blowing up bridges to isolate and wear down Russian forces.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Crimea attacked. An ammunition depot in Russian-controlled Crimea was the site of several explosions on Tuesday, in another suspected attack from Ukrainian forces. No casualties have been reported, but the blasts forced the evacuation of 2,000 people from a nearby village and slowed train traffic. Like last week’s attack on a Russian airbase in Crimea, Ukraine has not taken public responsibility for the attack.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Odinga’s rejection. Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga criticized the naming of William Ruto as the victor of last Tuesday’s election as a ‘travesty’ and vowed to fight the result in the courts. Odinga’s comments come as four out of the country’s seven election commissioners disavowed the result announced by chair Wafula Chebukati on Monday, which gave Ruto 50.8 percent of the vote. While dismissing the final tally, Odinga has also called for calm and warned his supporters against violence.” Read more at Foreign Policy
Odinga arrives at the Azimio La Umoja party headquarters yesterday. Photographer: Michele Spatari/Bloomberg
“Thailand’s biggest opposition party vowed to raise living standards as it unveiled a large list of candidates in its bid to end more than eight years of military-backed rule in general elections expected early next year.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president said Wednesday his government has no plans to pursue its own nuclear deterrent and called instead for more diplomacy in the face of growing North Korean nuclear weapons capabilities, even as the North test-fired two suspected cruise missiles.
The launches were detected from North Korea’s western coast hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol used a news conference to urge Pyongyang to return to diplomacy aimed at exchanging denuclearization steps for economic benefits.
South Korea’s military, which didn’t reveal the launches until after Yoon’s remarks, provided no immediate flight details about the North’s weapons, including how they moved or how far they traveled.
Yoon’s office said his national security director, Kim Sung-han, discussed the launch with other senior officials before Yoon addressed reporters and that they reviewed the South’s military readiness. Tensions could further rise as the United States and South Korea kick off their biggest combined training in years next week to counter the North Korean threat. The North describes such drills as invasion rehearsals and has often responded to them with missile tests or other provocations.” Read more at AP News
“Russia’s economy. Russia’s economic contraction in 2022 is predicted to be less severe than expected, according to projections from the country’s economic ministry on Tuesday. Russia’s GDP is expected to fall by 4.2 percent this year as sanctions continue to bite. Russia is also expected to post a reduced GDP in 2023, with a 2.7 percent contraction projected. Writing in Foreign Policy last month, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian explained why Russia’s economy is on much shakier ground than it appears.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Monday, Scotland became the first country to make period products free.” [Vox} Read more at Time / Eloise Barry
“The CDC says dogs are at risk of contracting monkeypox after the first human-to-dog transmission was reported in Paris.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / Lateshia Beachum
“Another LIV related lawsuit: Former PGA Tour golfer Patrick Reed is suing the Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee for defamation. PGA Tour stars, including Tiger Woods, are meeting to discuss the rebel venture.” Read more at New York Times
“The NBA won't play on Election Day, choosing to promote ‘nonpartisan civic engagement’ by encouraging voting in the midterms. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: Wolfgang Petersen made big Hollywood hits, but he’s best remembered for the harrowing 1981 German war film ‘Das Boot.’ He died at 81.” Read more at New York Times