memeorandum: What Biden Really Needs From a VP Pick (Amy Walter/The Cook Political Report)

12:45 PM ET, August 7, 2020

Top Items:

House can sue to force former White House counsel Donald McGahn to comply with subpoena — House Democrats can sue to force President Trump's former White House counsel Donald McGahn to comply with a congressional subpoena, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Political Wire

Associated Press:

Appeals court revives House lawsuit for McGahn's testimony — WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday revived House Democrats' lawsuit to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to appear before a congressional committee, but left other legal issues unresolved …

Discussion: Axios

CNN:
House can subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify, appeals court rules

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA

Lawrence Hurley / Reuters:
U.S. appeals court rules against Trump over subpoena for ex-White House lawyer

Discussion: Politico

Madeline Holcombe / CNN:

Georgia student suspended after posting a photo of a crowded school hallway says it was ‘good and necessary trouble’ — (CNN)A viral photo showing students in a Georgia high school crowded in hallways and with few visible masks resulted in the sophomore who posted it being suspended, she said.

Discussion: Scripting News, The American Independent and Slate

New York Times:
‘The Photo Does Not Look Good’: Georgia School's Crowded Halls Go Viral

Discussion: Daily Kos, Patterico's Pontifications, Mediaite, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Mother Jones, Raw Story, New York Post, WAVY-TV, The Hill, BuzzFeed News and The Week

Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:

Trump Blew Up More Than Just TikTok and WeChat — The latest executive orders targeting China could be deep and damaging. Brace for impact. — U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to ban dealings with ByteDance Ltd., owner of video-sharing sensation TikTok, appears to codify what his administration has already been warning.

Discussion: The Federalist, Public Pool, The Diplomat and NPR, more at Techmeme »

TikTok:

Statement on the Administration's Executive Order — TikTok is a community full of creativity and passion, a home that brings joy to families and meaningful careers to creators. And we are building this platform for the long term. TikTok will be here for many years to come.

Discussion: Politico, Bloomberg, National Review, Axios, The Daily Caller, Public Pool, TheBlaze, CNBC, Pandaily, New York Times, The Indian Express, The Verge, Financial Times, BuzzFeed News, UPI, AppleInsider and New York Post, more at Techmeme »

Nikki Carvajal / CNN:
Trump issues executive order banning TikTok from operating in 45 days if it's not sold by Chinese parent company

Discussion: The Atlantic, The US Sun and Althouse

Evan Semones / Politico:
Trump issues executive orders against TikTok and WeChat

Discussion: Fox News, The Hill, The Verge, One America News Network, Axios and Breitbart, more at Techmeme »

Nellie Bowles / New York Times:

Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren't So Sure — What is it like when a city abandons a neighborhood and the police vanish? Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone. — SEATTLE — Faizel Khan was being told …

Discussion: Twitchy and Instapundit

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

Trump's desperate attacks are revealing the scam Republicans have been pulling for years — Unless something dramatic happens, President Trump will lose in November, taking a good number of Republican enablers with him. The Pew Research Center reported on Thursday: “Trump's rating …

Discussion: CNN, Raw Story, The Daily Beast and The Guardian

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: The politics of walking away — DRIVING THE DAY — THERE ARE LOTS OF POLITICAL CALCULATIONS in legislative negotiations: what to give away when, what to ask for, where to hold the meeting and what aide to bring in tow, for example. — PERHAPS NOTHING IS MORE TRICKY than deciding when — and how — to walk away.

Discussion: Reuters, Axios, Bloomberg, Progress Pond and Daily Kos

Alayna Treene / Axios:
Trump floats executive action even if stimulus deal is reached

Discussion: Politico, Reuters, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington Post

David Siders / Politico:

Donald Trump is losing the culture wars — The culture wars aren't working for Donald Trump. — His law-and-order rhetoric isn't registering with suburban voters. One of his leading evangelical supporters, Jerry Falwell Jr., was just photographed with his zipper down.

Discussion: Raw Story, TheBlaze, Queerty and Washington Post

USA Today:
The National Rifle Association faces its worst nightmare: accountability

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA and NPR

Michael Stratford / Politico:
Top GOP lawmaker calls on Falwell to resign as Liberty University president

Discussion: IJR, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, Mediaite, POLITICUSUSA and The Hill

Politico:

Who made the cut — or got axed — for coveted Democratic convention speaking slots — Bernie Sanders and John Kasich will share a night in the spotlight, and both Clintons are slated to have prominent speaking roles at the all-virtual Democratic National Convention in less than two weeks …

Discussion: National Review, Common Dreams, POLITICUSUSA and The Daily Beast

Holly Otterbein / Politico: Over 300 DNC delegates, members urge Biden to pick Bass for VP

Axios:

U.S. sanctions Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam — The Treasury Department on Friday placed sanctions on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, following months of tension as she has allowed continued overreach by Beijing to subvert Hong Kong's autonomy. — Why it matters: It's the toughest sanction yet imposed …

Discussion: Associated Press, Politico and One America News Network

U.S. Department of the Treasury: Treasury Sanctions Individuals for Undermining Hong Kong's Autonomy

David Whitley / Orlando Sentinel:
China gets the NBA to shut up and dribble | Commentary

Discussion: Twitchy

Ryan Cooper / The Week:

The case against American truck bloat — When I was growing up in rural Colorado, my family had a classic work truck: a 1980 F-150 with the famous 300 cubic inch inline six-cylinder engine. It was often my task to fetch a load of sand for mixing concrete, or landscaping soil, or lumber for some project.

David Brooks / New York Times:

Where Do Republicans Go From Here? — The party looks brain-dead at every spot Trump touches. But off in the corners, there's a lot of intellectual ferment. — Jonathan V. Last thinks President Trump is here forever. Last, an editor at The Bulwark, a conservative site that's been hostile to Trump …

Andrew Marra / Palm Beach Post:

Health directors told to keep quiet as Fla. leaders pressed to reopen classrooms — “I don't think any of us are in a position to balk the governor,” one director said. — As Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed this summer for schools to reopen, state leaders told school boards they would need Health …

Discussion: The Week, Political Wire and Eschaton

Erik Larson / Bloomberg:

Trump Fails to Stall Rape Accuser's Lawsuit; Deposition Looms — President Donald Trump can't stall a defamation lawsuit filed by a New York advice columnist who claims he raped her two decades ago, a judge ruled, allowing the two sides to start digging for evidence.

Priscilla DeGregory / New York Post: Judge rules Trump can't postpone E. Jean Carroll's defamation case

Amy Walter / The Cook Political Report:

What Biden Really Needs From a VP Pick — We are in an incredibly volatile time and a stable political environment. President Trump's political standing, while still weak, seems to have stabilized. Yet, at the same time we don't seem to be making any real progress in getting the COVID-19 crisis under control.

Discussion: Pew Research Center

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:

“Mr. President, What Are Your Priorities?” Is Not a Tough Question — Trump is running for reëlection, but, unlike four years ago, he can't even say why. — It was not supposed to be a trick question, or even all that tricky. For any other candidate, it would have been the softest of softballs, the slowest of pitches.

Jim Sciutto / CNN:

Trump advisers hesitated to give military options and warned adversaries over fears he might start a war — Washington (CNN)Amid escalating tensions with both North Korea and Iran, President Donald Trump's advisers hesitated to give him military options fearing the President might accidentally …

Discussion: Amazon.com, The Hill and Raw Story

Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Iranians get SMS barrage offering millions for info on U.S. election hacking

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones — Anomaly Six has ties to military, intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users — WASHINGTON—A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense …

more at Techmeme »

Neal Rothschild / Axios:

Right-wing media defanged as anti-Biden storylines disintegrate — The three biggest anti-Joe Biden storylines in right-wing media over the last year have either fizzled or are getting less online traction than they used to, according to data from NewsWhip provided exclusively to Axios.

Discussion: Raw Story

NBC News:

Biden tries to clarify remarks suggesting lack of diversity in the Black community — WASHINGTON — Joe Biden on Thursday night attempted to clarify remarks he made earlier in the day in which he suggested that the Black community in the U.S. lacks diversity when compared with Hispanics.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, Townhall, Politico, The Daily Beast, POLITICUSUSA and Althouse

BBC:
US election 2020: Trump says opponent Biden will ‘hurt God’

Discussion: Axios, The Daily Caller, Just The News and POLITICUSUSA

Greg Olear / PREVAIL:

The Great Escape: Donald John Trump's Exit Strategy — Where does the President go from here? — 1 hr — THAT SOUND YOU HEAR is the death rattle of a presidency. — A thousand Americans are dying of the novel coronavirus every day. Volume Five of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report is due for release any day now.

Tom Jackman / Washington Post:

Released from jail at height of pandemic, Alexandria rape suspect allegedly killed his accuser — Ibrahim Bouaichi then shot himself as police closed in Wednesday, leaving him in critical condition — The incident in Karla Dominguez's apartment last October was violent, and it was not consensual …

Michael Kranish / Washington Post:

Trump long has relied on nondisclosure deals to prevent criticism. That strategy may be unraveling. — For decades, Donald Trump has relied on broadly worded nondisclosure agreements as a powerful weapon against anyone who would say something critical of him.

New York Times:

A Season of Grief and Release: 5 Months of the Virus — A photographic timeline of a historic half-year. — The restaurant was empty, save for two other tables. Spoons slid through our dessert, split three ways. We were anxious but determined to enjoy it, somehow.

Discussion: alicublog

Hannah Knowles / Washington Post:

‘We cannot stop people’: 250,000 are expected at a South Dakota motorcycle rally — Health officials are still warning against even small gatherings, and states with relatively low spread of the coronavirus are ordering visitors from hot spots to self-quarantine.

Jonathan D. Salant / New Jersey Online:

Here's how much money Trump's N.J. golf clubs took in last year — President Donald Trump's three New Jersey golf clubs generated nearly $30 million in revenue last year, according to his personal financial disclosure forms — The revenues at Bedminster, Colts Neck and Pine Hill rose by $3.2 million to $29.8 million in 2019.