Cotton mentions Biden calling Russia our greatest adversary and how Obama dismissed Romney when he said same.
“He said, the 80s called, and they want their foreign policy back. I guess the 80s called and they want their Democratic presidential candidate back.”
Cotton didn’t mention Hunter Biden, but one of the questions to former gov/ambassador to China Branstad is about it. Branstad says he doesn’t know the details, criticizes media outlets for suppressing allegations when they didn’t do that with Trump allegations.
Interesting moment when Branstad - ambassador to China for three years - hands the mic to Cotton to break down the intellectual property theft issue, which he does as a lot of heads nod
“The Biden family is beginning to rival the Clinton family in being able to cash in on their name.” Cotton says Biden should clear up allegations “just as the president did on multiple occasions.”
“If he wins, it’s not going away.”
Sat down with Cotton after the breakfast. Couple interesting points:
- He emphasizes Biden’s immigration plan as a closing issue for Rs — amnesty would be transformative, fast
- He’s been hitting Biden on China for a while and is skeptical Hunter is the best way into issue
Deleted this tweet in thread because I thought I'd made a typo: Cotton referred to the Riot Act. But then I listened again and he mentioned both the Riot Act *and* RICO. So I shouldn't have deleted anything. Lesson: Either never tweet, or always tweet.
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I'm at a Nikki Haley "Indian Voices for Trump" event, where @opinionbazaar is introducing some pro-Trump arguments I've not heard outside this setting: Trump "never once interjected himself into the Kashmir issue," and if Trump loses, China is more likely to go to war w India.
Folks...
Haley's shorthand history of herself and Trump (understandably!) leaves out her 2016 criticism of him. She says she first interacted w him after her 2010 primary win: "He had sent a support check, it came in a big white envelope with gold trim, and it said: You’re a winner."
Interested to see if polls move at all bc of SCOTUS. What people forget is that Trump had a ton of slack with GOP voters in 2018 - he gained in final weeks bc loyal Republicans came home, partly bc of SCOTUS. His problem now: he's fully consolidated that base and it's not enough.
Without third parties (Greens aren't even on MI/PA ballot) and an unpopular opponent, getting every Republican vote in the Midwest still leaves Trump short. Stuff could happen in the fight that moves votes, but there wasn't a pro-Trump majority waiting around for a court fight.
I emphasize this because both liberals and conservatives tend to over-rate how conservative the electorate is; Trump won, ipso facto Republicans win when there's a vacancy. Trump had a very specific problem with reliable GOP voters that he's fixed for this year.
Two minutes into Trump's speech here: "If Biden wins, China wins. If Biden wins, the mob wins. If Biden wins, the rioters, arsonists, and flag burners win. But don't worry about it, because he's not going to win."
Trump drops a "Barack Hussein Obama" reference as he recounts his final Michigan rally in 2016. Also, a few minutes of praise for John James, which both parties are always happy to see.
Trump attacks Biden's pledge to let in more refugees: "He's promised to flood your state with refugees from terrorist hotspots like Syria and Yemen." (There are tons of Yemeni refugees in MI already.)
This has actually happened *twice* in MA since 2018 - weak left-wing candidates didn't back out of the race so the strongest left-wing candidate got clipped by a moderate who got less than 23% of vote.
The problem in MA04 wasn't so much Leckey (the Sanders wing candidate) taking voters from Mermel (the Pressley-backed candidate). It was two eventual Mermel endorsers waiting too late to drop out and a no-chance candidate (Linos) siphoning suburban left votes away.
My take after spending some time in the district was that Linos was decisive. She bit into Mermel's Brookline base and her "lead with the science" message was tailor-made for getting Women's March-y suburban voters, even though she had a weak campaign.
The reference to "eliminating air travel" reflects just how good the right is at *consistent* messaging. The Green New Deal FAQ of February 2019 now lives on the website of the Heartland Foundation, a climate skeptic think tank. heartland.org/publications-r…
It's all based on an ironic line about what the GND *wouldn't* do - net zero emissions, not no emissions whatsoever, bc "in 10 years, because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast."
This hasn't really damaged Democrats bc "my opponent will ban cows" sounds/is bonkers. But one snarky staffer put that sentence in and it's been used to club Democrats over the head for 17 months.