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Rattled by Donald Trumps tumultuous first five months in office, the Republican Party breathed a collective sigh of relief Tuesday after a much-needed special election victory in Georgia. The White House also exhaled: After Republican Karen Handel was declared the victor in a race billed as a referendum on the new president, Trump fired off a series of celebratory tweets.

Well, the Special Elections are over and those that want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN are 5 and O! All the Fake News, all the money spent = 0, wrote Trump.

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In the run-up to the Georgia race, Republicans worried that a loss could be the harbinger of a 2018 train-wreck. There were fears that a Handel loss could ripple across the political landscape, spurring GOP retirements, dampening candidate recruitment, and turbo-charging Democrats looking to bounce back following the soul-crushing 2016 election.

The contest, the most expensive House race ever, was viewed by many as the first major strength test of the Democratic resistance to Trump. In the final days before the election, several White House aides said they didnt know if Handel would be able to fend off Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old filmmaker and former congressional aide who became a cause celebre among liberals nationwide.

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But she did, and the presidents supporters viewed the outcome as proof that Trump continues to connect with voters.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an informal Trump adviser and a past occupant of the Georgia seat, contended that the handful of special elections this year revealed that voters were tuning out the Russia scandal that has consumed Washington. He argued that the political establishment, much as it did during the 2016 campaign, continued to underestimate the connection many Americans felt with the president.

He may be resonating with people in a way that some dont get, Gingrich said. Maybe theres a whole new conversation taking place in a way that none of us understand.

It would be a mistake to say Republicans are in the clear. With Trump confronting an expanding federal probe into his 2016 campaigns ties to Russia, party strategists concede they are still facing serious headwinds in their efforts to retain the House majority in 2018.

And Tuesdays results werent entirely rosy. Handels win disguised the fact that the party only narrowly held onto a Republican-oriented Georgia seat, and barely won another race Tuesday for a conservative South Carolina seat that few thought would be competitive. Both outcomes could easily be interpreted as warning signs for the GOP.

Still, given the national spotlight on Georgia, Republicans breathed easier after the race was called for Handel.

The Democrats threw the kitchen sink at this deal and theyve come up empty again. They havent won an election all year, and they probably wont until November in New Jersey, said Scott Reed, the chief political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent more than $1 million on ads boosting Handel.

On Tuesday evening, Trump, who previously traveled to Georgia to appear with the Republican candidate, weighed in with four tweets highlighting Handels performance and one congratulating Ralph Norman in South Carolina. A text message sent to Trump supporters noted that Democrats lose again (0-4). Total disarray. The MAGA Mandate is stronger than ever.

Handels win could have immediate implications for her party, possibly helping to dissuade veteran lawmakers some of whom have been spooked by Trumps underwater approval ratings - from foregoing reelection bids. Hoping to nudge along Republican retirements, Democrats have been recruiting challengers to longtime GOP House members like California Reps. Ed Royce and Dana Rohrabacher and New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, who havent faced serious challenges in recent years but are likely to in 2018. The approach is similar to the one Republicans used with success in 2010, the year the GOP recaptured the House majority.

The Georgia outcome could also give a boost to Republican recruiting, which stalled as the political environment worsened for the party. Several blue-chip GOP recruits, including Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy and Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks, had announced they would not be running for Senate choosing to run for reelection to safe House seats rather than pursue Senate seats in an uncertain environment. Now, as Republicans try to convince other House members to run for Senate, including Fred Upton in Michigan and Luke Messer in Indiana, the Georgia outcome could offer reassurance.

For Republicans confronting the hurdle of running in areas where Trump is unpopular, Handels campaign seemed to offer a template for how to run. In a suburban Atlanta district filled with upper income and highly educated voters, Handel managed to win over Republican voters who had cooled on Trump. In days leading up to the election, one GOP poll found that Trumps approval rating in the district had plummeted to 45 percent.

Handel maneuvered carefully, declaring her support for the president without fully embracing him. She had Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to the district, but chose to hold private fundraisers with them rather than public rallies. On the trail, Handel said that she wouldnt be an extension of the White House.

Rather than talking about Trump, Handel focused her fire on Ossoff, casting him as a liberal and tying him to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a reviled figure in conservative districts like the one he was running in.

But the biggest source of relief for Republicans was the revelation that the partys base hasnt abandoned the president.

While Trump has failed to follow through on many of his big-ticket campaign promises, polling continues to show that most bedrock Republicans approve of the job he is doing. That dynamic played out in Georgia where, confronting a mammoth Democratic turnout operation and an energized liberal base, GOP voters turned out in droves.

Whats still unclear is whether the Georgia win will encourage GOP lawmakers to get behind Trumps troubled legislative agenda. The president has vowed to pass health care and tax reform and an infrastructure package yet all three face high hurdles on Capitol Hill.

As they digested Tuesdays results, Republicans cautioned that electoral peril still lies ahead they pointed out that special elections like the one in Georgia are often poor indicators of the political environment.

In the leadup to the 2010 election, for example, Republicans fell short in a special election for an upstate New York congressional seat the party had held since Reconstruction. At the time, operatives and analysts duly issued doomsday predictions. When the midterms arrived, Republicans captured 63 seats and the House majority.

Republicans continue to see plenty of reason for concern. They note that historical trends arent favorable, either. During a closed-door meeting with lawmakers last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan reminded the GOP conference that midterms are traditionally unkind for the party in power during a presidents first term.

I dont care who the Republican president is, we know the history of midterm elections, said Vin Weber, a former GOP congressman and longtime party strategist. Regardless of the president, were going to see a substantially more energized Democratic base next year. The question is, do we lose the majority or come close to losing the majority?

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Trump spikes the ball after Georgia election win - Politico

(DES MOINES, Iowa) Iowa independents who helped Donald Trump win the presidency see last year's tough-talking candidate as a thin-skinned chief executive and wish he'd show more grace.

Unaffiliated voters make up the largest percentage of the electorate in the Midwest state that backed Trump in 2016, after lifting Democrat Barack Obama to the White House in party caucuses and two straight elections. Ahead of Trump's visit to Iowa on Wednesday several independents who voted for Trump expressed frustration with the President.

It's not just his famous tweetstorms. It's what they represent: a president distracted by investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and a court battle over his executive order barring refugees from majority-Muslim countries at the expense of tangible health care legislation and new tax policy.

"He's so sidetracked," said Chris Hungerford, a 47-year-old home-business owner from Marshalltown. "He gets off track on things he should just let go."

And when he does spout off, he appears to lack constraint, said Scott Scherer, a 48-year-old chiropractor from Guttenberg, in northeast Iowa.

"Engage your brain before you engage your mouth," Scherer advised, especially on matters pertaining to investigations. "Shut up. Just shut up, and let the investigation run its course."

Scherer said he would vote again for Trump, but pauses a long time before declining to answer when asked if he approves of the job the president is doing.

Cody Marsh isn't sure about voting for Trump a second time. The 32-year-old power-line technician from Tabor, in western Iowa, says, "It's 50-50."

"People don't take him seriously," he said.

Unaffiliated, or "no party" voters as they are known in Iowa, make up 36 percent of the electorate, compared with 33 percent who register Republican and 31 percent registered Democrat. Self-identified independents in Iowa voted for Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton by a 13-percentage-point margin last year, according to exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and television networks

They helped him capture 51.8 percent of the overall vote against Clinton.

Nationally, exit polls showed independents tilted toward Trump over Clinton by about a 4-percentage-point margin in November, but an AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about two-thirds of them disapprove of how he's handling his job as president.

In North Carolina, Republican pollster Paul Shumaker says he has seen internal polling that has warning signs for his state, where Trump prevailed last year. Independent voters are becoming frustrated with Trump, especially for failing so far to deliver on long-promised household economic issues such as health care, said Shumaker, an adviser to Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

Inaction on health care and any notable decline in the economy will hurt Trump's ability to improve his numbers with independents, with broad implications for the midterm elections next year, Shumaker said. At stake in 2018 will be majority control of the House. A favorable map and more Democrats up for re-election make the GOP more likely to add to its numbers in the Senate.

"How the president and members of Congress move forward and address the kitchen-table issues facing the American voters will determine the outcome of the 2018 elections," he said.

In Iowa on Wednesday, Trump will be rallying his Republican base in Cedar Rapids.

Earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence attended Republican Sen. Joni Ernst's annual fundraiser, where he talked about job growth and low unemployment since the start of the year, although economists see much of it as a continuation of Obama policies.

Trump has only been in office five months.

It's a message the Republican establishment is clinging to, especially those looking ahead to 2018.

Gov. Kim Reynolds, installed last month to succeed new U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, said last week of Iowa voters: "I think they are confident that President Trump and this administration are doing the job that they said that they would do, going out there and making America great again."

But Trump has to worry about people like Richard Sternberg, a 68-year-old retired high school guidance counselor from Roland, in central Iowa, who voted for Trump. But is Sternberg satisfied? "Not completely."

He is bothered by Trump's proposed cut to vocational education, an economic lift for some in rural areas.

"We, especially in Iowa, need those two-year technically trained people," Sternberg said.

More broadly, Trump needs to act more "presidential," he said.

"Trump speaks before he thinks," Sternberg said. "He doesn't seem to realize what the president says in the form of direct communication or Twitter carries great weight and can be misconstrued if not carefully crafted."

Original post:
President Trump Is Returning to Iowa, Where He May Find Remorseful Independent Voters - TIME

President Donald Trump is expected to make an announcement in the coming days on whether any recordings exist of his private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey, potentially bringing to an end one of the central mysteries of the ongoing probe that has consumed his White House .

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that he expects an announcement "this week" on the possibility of tapes. The president fired Comey in May and then tweeted that the lawman, who was overseeing the investigation into possible contacts between Trump's campaign and Russian officials, "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press."

Trump and his aides have since then steadfastly refused to clarify that extraordinary if ambiguous warning. The president last month told reporters that "I'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the near future" but offered no hints as to whether the tapes exists, except saying that some journalists would "be very disappointed" to find out the answer.

The House intelligence committee has asked White House counsel Don McGahn to provide an answer to the question about tapes by Friday. Under a post-Watergate law, the Presidential Records Act, recordings made by presidents belong to the people and can eventually be made public. Destroying them would be a crime.

Comey testified before the Senate that Trump asked for his loyalty and asked for him to drop the probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Some have raised the possibility that Trump's request constituted obstruction of justice, but the president has yet to produce the tapes that could theoretically clear his name.

The investigation was originally launched to look into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has at times cast doubt on that conclusion, and Spicer said Tuesday that he has yet to discuss with the president whether he believes that Moscow was behind the election interference.

"I have not sat down and talked to him about that specific thing," Spicer said.

America's top intelligence officials have concluded that Russia undoubtedly interfered in America's 2016 presidential campaign. Characterizing it as the "high-confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community," Comey testified that there is no doubt that the Russians meddled "with "purpose," ''sophistication" and technology. Trump, meanwhile, has dismissed investigations into the meddling and potential collusion with his campaign associates as a "witch hunt."

Robert Mueller, the special counsel now overseeing the investigation, met Tuesday with the leaders of the House Intelligence committee. Reps. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., issued a brief statement confirming the meeting but providing no details about their discussion.

Mueller is slated to meet Wednesday with top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including the chairman, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and the top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. He'll also meet with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

One reason for the Capitol Hill meetings is to ensure there is no conflict between Mueller's probe and the work of the congressional committees.

Read the rest here:
President Trump Expected to Reveal This Week If Secret Comey Tapes Exist - Fortune

Donald Trump is stooping to new lows. He evidently has no reservations about making himself, the sitting U.S. President, into the Saudis chief global lobbyist.

That Trump bought the Saudi line about the Qataris funding terrorism is very telling.

Both countries, respectively, support Wahhabist or Salafist insurgencies in various places, but that is not what the Saudis find objectionable.

The Saudis try to distract from their own actions

There is no question about the Saudis longstanding willingness to fund and arm specific terrorist groups as needed, mainly to advance allied autocracies and send young hotheads abroad, often to the West.

The Qataris pursue a different approach in the terrorism financing business.

They tend to make longer-term investments in other religious or ideological factions. And yes, these do pose an existential threat to Saudi interests.

For that reason, it is fully comprehensible why the Saudis would want to direct attention to Qatar.

What is not comprehensible is that President Trump has fallen for that very transparent act of distraction.

Trump worries about regime change too

At the same time, it is important to recognize that to be horrified by regime change is something that Donald Trump immediately gets and a fear he instinctively shars with the Saudis. No wonder he regards them as soulmates.

As is the case with the Saudi monarchy itself, Trumps entire political being is based on the conviction that anybody who dares stand in his way in any fashion is guilty of lse majest, if not worse.

That is why he had no qualms about taking sides in the bataille royale.

Europe as collateral damage: So what?

Trump also had no problems with the fact that the fallout of an actual Saudi-Qatar war is bound to go far beyond the Gulf region and the wider Middle East. It would definitely, quite literally, hit European capitals and cities.

As Mr. Trump has made plain in his pompous appearance at NATO headquarters, he is not one to worry much about the U.S.s NATO allies.

In his disturbed mind, he might even think that the Europeans who still owe him billions of dollars basically deserve a hit. So why worry? Any avenue taken to make them come to their senses is welcome.

The fallout from absolving the Saudis

Trumps sycophantic support notwithstanding, the real damage of his words is not just that Trump absolves the Saudis of any of their own responsibility for terror.

What is widely overlooked in that regard is that Trumps full-scale blessing has effectively killed the however hesitant move toward domestic reform in Saudi Arabia.

Given the deteriorating economic regime, the Saudi royals were getting ready to reform themselves, not least because, under President Obama, they no longer had reflexive U.S. backing.

Now that the Saudis arent just back in favor in Washington, but get to run Trumps table, who in Riyadh is to worry about reforms other than cosmetic ones?

Continued here:
Qatar et al.: Donald Trump as a Saudi lobbyist - Salon

Brian Klaas, Opinion contributor 3:18 a.m. ET June 21, 2017

President Trump in the Cabinet Room on June 13, 2017.(Photo: Susan Walsh, AP)

The United States government is suffering from a new phenomenon: the Trump Brain Drain. For the first time in memory, the American government is havingdifficulty recruitingthe best and the brightest at thehighest levelsof power.

Qualified public servants areturning downplum government jobs because they don't want to be exposed to the risks of serving in President Trump'sWhite House. West Wing power-brokers are lawyering up (even Trumps lawyer hashireda lawyer). A special counsel is reportedly investigating the president himself for possibly obstructing justice.

The reputational risk of working for Trumps administration is enormous, and it's not just because of the endless spiralingscandals. There's alsothe now routineTrumpian ritual of sacrificing his staff on his altar of self-sabotage.We all know the drill: Sean Spicer or Sarah Huckabee Sanders or another sacrificial lamb offers up a flimsy lie to protect Trump. (He fired Comey because he was toohard on HillaryClinton!) Trump repays the favor by contradicting his staff almost immediately on Twitter or TV. (I fired him because of the Russia thing.)

Yet working for this president has become a bewildering exercise in trying to figure out whats worse: paying exorbitant legal fees, being tossed under the proverbial bus by your boss, orrisking becoming a national punchline (we almost feel sorry for you, Sean). The loyalty that Trump infamously demands from subordinates is clearly not a two-way street.

At least there are job perks. Build your CV with the unique experience of being subpoenaed by Congress. Practice your leader worship skills as youre forced to proclaimyour fawning admiration for Trump during a public Cabinet meeting. And if those dont entice you, who wouldnt jump at the chance to work for a beleaguered president withrecord low approval ratings, a hot temper, and a stalled legislative agenda?

The United States is less safe and government is less effective when top talent must think twice about serving the president.

It's a witch hunt for Trump, whos acting like a witch

Conservatives should love the Trump presidency, but he makes it hard

Less than five months into the Trump presidency, there is a record number of vacancies. Of 558 key presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation, only43 have beenfilled(less than 8% of the total). And before you echo the frequently tweeted but incorrect Trump accusation that this is due to Democrat "OBSTRUCTIONISTS, remember that405of the 558 positionsdont even have a nominee yet. This snails pace of selecting peoplewhich involves getting them to agree to serveis unprecedented in modern history.

When the post of FBI director opened up (through, shall we say, questionable means), at least fivededicated public servants publicly withdrew from consideration.Several seasoned veterans pulled themselves out of therunningto replace Michael Flynn as national security adviser. EvenKellyanne Conways husbandwithdrewfrom consideration for a powerful Justice Department role (perhaps he had learned some alternative factslife inside the Trump administration from a well-placed counselor?).

The Trump Brain Drain is sapping talent beyond the White House, too. Six cyber security executives toldReutersthat Trumps caustic attacks on intelligence agencies had provoked a marked surge in skilled hackers and cyber talent leaving government agencies to pursue careers in the private sector.Even lawyers, who used to flock to Trump like moths to a litigious orange flame, are now staying away. Four different law firmsdeclinedto represent Trump not only because they feared that Trump wont listen to their legal advice but also because working with Trump wouldkill recruitmentfor their firms the trickle-down economics of the Trump Brain Drain in action.

Of course, there are many, many excellent and experienced public servants in the Trump administration (Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security AdviserH.R. McMasterand Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao spring to mind). But Trumps top day-to-day advisers are no dream team. We must call an unqualified spade an unqualified spade.

POLICING THE USA:Alook atrace, justice, media

Donald Trump's business ties explain a lot of his dictator worship

There's hardly anyone on Trump's senior staff who hasushered abill through Congress. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former Republican Party chairman, has never held elective officeand came to his job withvirtually no experienceat the federal level. Two of Trumps top advisers now some of the most influential people in the world arewoefully unqualified relatives. And former Breitbart chief Steve Bannon has as much business being in the Oval Office as Russian ambassadorSergey Kislyak, yet here we are.

It gets worse. You could start a joke by saying A neurosurgeon and a wedding planner walked into a bar but there's a real-world punchline. Last week, Trumpappointedhis familyswedding planner to run federal housingin New York. Her boss, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, is an impressive neurosurgeon, but its hard to see how operating on brains is a relevant qualification for his post.

In other words, Trumps hiring decisions are compounding the recruitment brain drain because many people he selects are unprepared for their roles. Unless he changes his ways, his presidency will continue to languish from the one-two punch of his own incompetence and the governments inability to recruit top talent.

Brian Klaas is a fellow in comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author ofThe Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy. Follow him on Twitter@brianklaas.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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The Donald Trump hiring crisis means America's got no talent - USA TODAY