Sunday: O'Rourke, Hurd, Scott, Sanders
President Trump abruptly pulled his nomination of Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to be Director of National Intelligence on Friday after Dan Coats announced his resignation last week.
"Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people," Mr. Trump told reporters tweeted, blaming the "LameStream Media" for treating Rep. Ratcliffe unfairly. Ratcliffe was under scrutiny for allegedly exaggerating his resume and being under qualified for the position.
As the president left for his golf club in Bedminster Friday, he told reporters that Sue Gordon, the number 2 intelligence official, will be considered for the acting role once Coats leaves on August 15.
And in a series of tweets on Thursday, the president announced that barring a trade deal, the U.S. will impose an additional 10% tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods starting Sept. 1. Products that could be impacted: apparel, footwear, toys and cellphones.
This comes as U.S. and Chinese trade officials ended their most recent negotiations on Wednesday with few signs of progress, but agreed to reconvene in September.
On Friday, President Trump continued to target Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, after an individual attempted to break into the congressman's home last weekend.
"Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!" the president tweeted.
The president was criticized for tweeting last week about Cummings and Baltimore— calling the city "rat and rodent infested" and saying "no human being would want to live there."
And in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, health care took center stage at both nights of this week's debates, and so did divisions within the Democratic party.
Two high-profile progressives — Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — defended their "Medicare-for-all" single-payer health care plans while the more moderate candidates cast their proposals as unrealistic and too extreme.
Looking ahead to the next debate in September, eight candidates have already qualified-- filling the requirement to reach 2% in four polls recognized by the Democratic National Committee and acquire donations from 130,000 unique donors.
This is a much tougher threshold to meet than the first two debates, which required candidates to only poll at 1% and acquire 65,000 donors.
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, @HurdOnTheHill, will join us in his first network TV interview since announcing he will not seek reelection in 2020.
We'll talk to Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, @SenatorTimScott.
We'll hear from 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, @BernieSanders, and Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, @MichaelBennet.
And as always, we'll turn to our panel for some perspective on the week that was:
- Amy Walter (@amyewalter) of Cook Political Report, The Takeaway
- Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) of The Atlantic
- David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura), of the Washington Post
- Susan Page (@SusanPage) of USA Today
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