memeorandum: Trump claims he'll protect Iowa's first-in-the-nation status (Myah Ward/Politico)

9:40 AM ET, February 4, 2020

Top Items:

This Is The Buzzy Democratic Firm That Botched The Iowa Caucuses — Shadow, a Democratic digital firm, created the app that was supposed to deliver quicker caucus results. — The tech arm of ACRONYM, a Democratic digital nonprofit group that has rapidly expanded in recent years …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, The Intercept, CNBC, Bleeding Heartland, The Guardian, Reason, NPR and Associated Press, more at Techmeme »

Clare Malone / FiveThirtyEight:

That Last, Unreleased Des Moines Register Poll Of Iowa Really Did Show Biden In Fourth — If you're the sort of person who was glued to political Twitter on Saturday night — and God help you if you are — you would have seen a mass freak-out when it was announced that that the Des Moines Register …

Discussion: The Federalist, NBC News, Townhall, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Redstate, Twitchy, Des Moines Register and The Guardian, more at Mediagazer »

Tom Perez:

How We Prepared for 2020 — Tonight, our party's presidential nominating process officially kicks off in Iowa. Today, I'm reflecting on the three years we've spent preparing for this moment, the changes we've made to make sure we are ready. I'm proud of the historic reforms we passed …

Discussion: PJ Media Home and Twitchy

New York Times:

‘A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down — Unexplained “inconsistencies” in results, heated conference calls and firm denials of hacking left the contest in a strange state of almost suspended animation. — DES MOINES — Sean Bagniewski had seen the problems coming.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Shero and Vox

New York Times:

App Used to Tabulate Votes Is Said to Have Been Inadequately Tested — The state Democratic Party commissioned a new app to tabulate caucus results. It did not appear to go as planned. — DES MOINES — The app that the Iowa Democratic Party commissioned to tabulate and report results …

Discussion: Vox, Fortune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, National Review, Daily Kos, Common Dreams, The Verge, The Gateway Pundit, Vanity Fair, Fox News, Bloomberg, Instapundit and Mediaite

BuzzFeed News:

The Iowa Caucus Results Are Still Delayed And Campaigns Are Angry — The Iowa Democratic Party is delaying releasing the results of Monday night's Iowa caucus because of reporting inconsistencies, infuriating campaigns eager to move on with the election. — “We found inconsistencies …

Discussion: New York Times, Mediaite, Slate and Talking Points Memo

New York Times:

Iowa Caucus Results 2020: Live — Iowa Democratic officials say a delay in results is largely because of a “quality control” effort. Read more. — 51m ago — Candidate Votes S.D.E.s* Pct. Pledged delegates Del. — 1,811 — 1,636 — 1,553 — View all candidates

Discussion: Redstate, TalkLeft and Mother Jones

Wall Street Journal:

Trump Campaign Ejects Bloomberg News Reporter From Iowa News Conference — President Trump's re-election campaign escorted a Bloomberg News reporter from an event in Iowa, following a pledge no longer to approve credentials for the news organization. — Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs …

Discussion: Raw Story and Breitbart, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:

'It's a total meltdown': Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results — DES MOINES, Iowa — A technical meltdown in Iowa Monday night set off bedlam in the critical first contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, triggering competing claims of victory and stoking doubts …

Discussion: Power Line, New York Times, Spectator USA, Fox News, One America News Network and Associated Press

Amanda Carpenter / The Bulwark:

Democrats Did the Russians' Work for Them — Iowa Democrats brought this conspiracy theory on themselves. — The Iowa Democratic party had one job: tally the results for the party's first-in-nation caucus. It's almost unbelievable the Democrats could fail to perform what has been, in previous years, an exceedingly trivial task.

Discussion: The Dispatch, The Guardian, New York Times, Raw Story and The Atlantic

John Podhoretz / New York Post:

Iowa caucus mess nothing compared to intra-Democratic Party chaos on the horizon — The Iowa caucuses reveal not only a Democratic Party deliriously incompetent at handling a vote tally — this from the folks who have been screaming about voting fraud and irregularities for years …

Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:
R.I.P. the ‘First-In-the-Nation’ Iowa Caucuses (1972-2020)

Discussion: Daily Kos, New York Times, HuffPost and The Atlantic

Tyler Olson / Fox News:
App used in Iowa Democratic caucus fiasco linked to ex-Clinton campaign staffers

Discussion: The Guardian, Damian J. Penny, Instapundit and New York Times

Myah Ward / Politico:
Trump claims he'll protect Iowa's first-in-the-nation status

Discussion: ABC News, The Hill and Political Wire

Colby Itkowitz / Washington Post:
Iowa caucuses 2020 live updates: Iowa Democratic Party promises results ‘as soon as possible today’

Discussion: National Review, Vox, Slate and WHOTV

John F. Harris / Politico:
The winner is ... no one — “Iowa,” a smiling Pete Buttigieg said …

Discussion: The Hill and Breitbart

Zachary B. Wolf / CNN: The Iowa caucuses just died forever

Jonathan Easley / The Hill: Frustration, questions as delays hamper Iowa caucuses

ABC News:
Iowa caucuses fail to declare Democratic winner after major snafu with reporting results

Discussion: Big League Politics, Politico, The Boston Globe, Associated Press, Vox, The Hill, The Bulwark, Breitbart, Townhall, New York Times and WHOTV

Wall Street Journal:
Iowa Caucus Results Delayed by Apparent App Issue

Discussion: Townhall, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Redstate, Mother Jones and Vox

New York Times:
The 1,600 Volunteers Who Were Supposed to Make the Iowa Caucuses Run Smoothly

Discussion: Twitchy

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:
‘It kind of failed us’: With eyes of the world on Iowa, another hiccup in American democracy

Discussion: Vox, Associated Press and Raw Story

Tim Alberta / Politico: The death of Iowa — DES MOINES — There can be no doubting it now …

Daniel Arkin / NBC News:
Iowa entrance poll: Most Dems care more about beating Trump than issues

Discussion: Axios, CNN, Associated Press, The Hill and Washington Times

NBC News:
Results for Iowa caucuses delayed as state Democratic Party finds ‘inconsistencies’

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Spectator USA, The Verge and Axios

Associated Press:
Democratic caucus results delayed by mobile app issues

Discussion: The Hill, PBS NewsHour, Breitbart, One America News Network and Associated Press

Axios:
The Iowa caucus ends in a meltdown thanks to app's “coding issue”

Discussion: The Hill, Disrn and Politico

Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Iowa Democratic vote-reporting meltdown hands opening to Trump

Discussion: The Capitolist and WHOTV

Tobias Hoonhout / National Review:
Biden Campaign Demands Iowa Dems Explain ‘Acute Failures’ in Caucus Results Reporting

Discussion: Redstate, Instapundit and WHOTV

Joseph Simonson / Washington Examiner:
Iowa caucuses delays revive concerns and conspiracy theories of Bernie Sanders supporters

Discussion: Townhall, NBC News, JONATHAN TURLEY, Real Clear Politics and Axios

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed News:
This Iowa Poll Was Never Published. It's Still Influencing What You Read.

Discussion: Des Moines Register, more at Mediagazer »

David Enrich / New York Times:

The Money Behind Trump's Money — The inside story of the president and Deutsche Bank, his lender of last resort. — One Day in early 2017, Mike Offit went to the Yale Club in Manhattan for a lunch hosted by a group called Business Executives for National Security.

Discussion: Political Wire and Raw Story

Sarah Blaskey / Miami Herald:

As others stand at attention for anthem, Trump fidgets, points, pretend-conducts the band — President Donald Trump has repeatedly said all Americans should “stand proudly” during the national anthem, and publicly chastises those who don't as disrespectful of the troops.

Discussion: NBC News, The Hill, Raw Story, Mediaite, HuffPost, POLITICUSUSA, New York Post, Washington Post, The Independent, The Daily Caller, Daily Kos, WFLA-TV, Page Six and The Root

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Iowa Might Have Screwed Up The Whole Nomination Process — In trying to build a forecast model of the Democratic primaries, we literally had to think about the entire process from start (Iowa) to finish (the Virgin Islands on June 6). Actually, we had to do more than that.

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“It's Payback Time”: With Acquittal Certain, Trump Plots Revenge on Bolton, Impeachment Enemies — Trump, says a source, wants Bolton to be criminally investigated for possibly mishandling classified information. Romney, Schiff, and Nadler are also... BY - GABRIEL SHERMAN — Person of Interest

Discussion: Raw Story, Balloon Juice, Talking Points Memo, POLITICUSUSA and Letters from an American

George Prayias / The Rush Limbaugh Show:

Rush Shares His Cancer Diagnosis — RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this... This day has been one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me because I've known this moment was coming in the program today. Now, I'm sure that you all know by now, I really don't like talking about myself …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, The Gateway Pundit, Power Line, Disrn and Maggie's Farm

David Matthews / New York Daily News:
Rush Limbaugh denied health risks of smoking years before lung cancer diagnosis: 'I would like a medal …

Discussion: NB Blog, Fox News and No More Mister Nice Blog

Brian Stelter / CNN:

White House excludes CNN from annual pre-SOTU lunch with news anchors — New York (CNN Business)President Donald Trump's targeting of CNN is moving to yet another arena: The annual presidential lunch with television network anchors. — CNN anchors are being excluded from Tuesday's lunch, three sources said on Monday night.

Discussion: Mediaite and The Daily Caller, more at Mediagazer »

Daniel Bice / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

‘An unacceptable and upsetting environment’: 2020 Democratic Host Committee under investigation — The two top officials overseeing Milwaukee's host committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention were sidelined Monday amid allegations of a toxic work culture.

Ryan Devereaux / The Intercept:

Federal Judge Reverses Conviction of Border Volunteers, Challenging Government's “Gruesome Logic” — A federal judge in Tucson, Arizona, reversed the conviction of four humanitarian aid volunteers on religious freedom grounds Monday, ruling that the government had embraced a “gruesome logic” …

Jamelle Bouie / New York Times:

The Racism at the Heart of Trump's ‘Travel Ban’ — Adding Nigeria to the expanded list of excluded countries just makes it more obvious. — It's happening a little bit out of public consciousness — swamped by impeachment, the coronavirus and the Democratic presidential race …

Discussion: Slate

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Bloomberg says he hopes Sanders changes — Mike Bloomberg tells me he'd support Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump if those were his two options, but that people should understand Sanders at this moment is “so far to the left it's not practical” and that “what he wants to do would never get through Congress.”

Discussion: The Hill and Political Wire