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Morning Consult Washington will be off Monday for Labor Day. Publication will resume Tuesday.
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Week in Review
2020
- Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign raised $365 million in August, more than doubling President Donald Trump’s campaign’s record $165 million set in July and the $193 million raised by Barack Obama in September 2008. Trump’s campaign has not yet announced its August haul, but at the beginning of last month, it had a slight cash advantage over the Democratic nominee and the Democratic National Committee.
- Trump suggested people who vote by mail also try to vote in person on Election Day to stress-test the security of elections systems. Voting twice in one election is illegal, and would constitute the kind of fraud Trump and Republicans have said without evidence is rampant in American elections.
- Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, backed by progressive heavyweights, beat Rep. Joe Kennedy in a Democratic primary, marking the first-ever loss for the dynastic family in the Bay State. Other Massachusetts incumbents fended off primary challengers, including House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, who easily defeated Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse.
- A new Morning Consult poll showed Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, the country’s most vulnerable Republican incumbent, trailing his Democratic rival, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, 39 percent to 48 percent, including a 29-point deficit among independent voters who make up a large share of the state’s electorate.
- Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company will prohibit political advertisements in the week before the November elections in steps meant to avoid misinformation campaigns and the potential for civil unrest. The announcement came after Facebook and Twitter said the Internet Research Agency, a Russian government-backed group that interfered in the 2016 election, has been meddling in the 2020 contest.
- The Commission on Presidential Debates announced the moderators for the fall debates. The three presidential debates will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, Steve Scully of C-SPAN and Kristen Welker of NBC News, while the vice presidential debate will be handled by Susan Page of USA Today.
The Trump administration
- Four people with firsthand knowledge said Trump called Americans who died in war “losers” and “suckers,” and scoffed at including wounded veterans in a military parade because spectators might feel uncomfortable. Trump denied the report, some of which was also confirmed by Fox News and The Associated Press, and the White House and his campaign rolled out a number of current and former officials to refute it.
- The Department of Homeland Security in early July withheld the distribution of a report warning of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of Biden, according to documents. A draft of the document was submitted for review on July 7, but was never sent to federal, state and local law enforcement partners.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told governors to prepare for a coronavirus vaccine to be ready for distribution by Nov. 1, according to a letter dated Aug. 27. Health experts have raised concerns that the speed of the COVID-19 vaccine’s development could be based on electoral politics rather than science, despite statements from the head of the Food and Drug Administration, who has said his agency would not cut corners in evaluating the drug’s safety.
- The Trump administration said the United States will not join a global consortium to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved. More than 170 other countries are in talks to participate.
- Using quarantine powers, an administration official said the CDC plans to temporarily halt evictions of consumers earning no more than $99,000. The unilateral action from the Trump administration comes after it has been unable to reach an agreement with Capitol Hill on coronavirus relief legislation.
- A federal appeals court granted Trump another delay in providing his tax returns to a prosecutor in New York, pushing the deadline back at least a month and perhaps longer if the president appeals to the Supreme Court.
- Trump defended Kyle Rittenhouse, his 17-year-old supporter who has been accused of killing two people and injuring another at a protest in Kenosha, Wis., and appeared to express sympathy for police officers who kill unarmed civilians, saying they sometimes “choke” when making split-second decisions. The remarks came ahead of his trip to Kenosha and after Biden traveled to Pennsylvania, where he delivered a speech calling Trump a “toxic presence” who has encouraged violence, and said people who loot and set fires should be prosecuted.
- Trump issued a memo directing the federal government to find ways to cut funding to cities controlled by Democrats who he’s accused of abdicating their duties and allowing “anarchy” amid protests against racism in policing. Democrats called the move a distraction that rests on dubious legal grounds.
- Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and adviser of Melania Trump, said she made recordings of her conversations with the first lady to protect herself from questions about the costs of Trump’s inauguration, which she helped produce. The comments in a television interview came after Wolkoff, who’s selling a new book, told a newspaper that the first lady used private email accounts while at the White House — something government officials have been criticized for doing.
- In a 9-2 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit court rejected former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn’s motion to have his criminal case thrown out immediately. The Trump administration moved in May to dismiss the case against Flynn for lying to federal investigators, but the legal wrangling means the case is likely to drag on for months.
Congress
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reached an informal agreement to pass a clean continuing resolution to extend government funding past the Sept. 30 deadline. The move, meant to avoid controversy and a potential shutdown, would not include any changes to current funding levels.
- Mnuchin told a House committee that a new stimulus measure is needed to help the economy recover from the coronavirus, but a phone call with Pelosi yielded no results, according to the California Democrat.
- House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) indicated he would consider a subpoena to compel the testimony of National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe after the top intelligence official said his office would no longer provide Congress with in-person briefings on election security, opting instead for written briefings. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Ratcliffe had committed to providing in-person briefings on election security to his panel.
- A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit narrowly ruled that the House lacks authority to ask courts to enforce a subpoena against an official from the executive branch, dismissing a lawsuit to compel former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Pelosi said the House would ask the full appeals court to overturn the ruling.
- The Congressional Budget Office said the ratio of U.S. debt compared to the size of the economy has reached the highest level (98 percent) since World War II, and is expected to reach or exceed 100 percent of the gross domestic product in the next fiscal year.
- A report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found that over $1 billion in funds from the Paycheck Protection Program went to companies that “double dipped” and received multiple loans.
- Pelosi accused the owner of a San Francisco salon of setting her up after she was videotaped not wearing a face mask while getting her hair washed there in an apparent violation of local coronavirus restrictions, drawing jeers from Republicans who accused her of hypocrisy.
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What’s Ahead
- The House is not in session this week. Senate Republicans are aiming to put a $1 trillion coronavirus relief measure on the floor as soon as this week, but Democrats in the chamber, who are pushing for a larger package, may block the move.
- Government funding expires on Sept. 30.
- The Justice Department is expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google as soon as this month despite concerns from some career lawyers that the case was not ready, according to sources.
- Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge Elliott Broidy, a longtime Republican fundraiser who raised millions for Trump and the Republican Party, in connection with efforts to influence Trump administration officials on behalf Malaysian and Chinese interests, according to sources familiar with the matter. One Broidy associate pleaded guilty last month to taking part in a “back-channel lobbying campaign,” and the sources said Broidy could reach a plea deal with the Justice Department.
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Events Calendar (All Times Local)
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Morning Consult Washington Top Reads
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