President Trump's staff is scrambling to figure out the best way to present his first 100 days in office as the symbolic marker approaches with few major accomplishments to show for it, Politico reports. "One hundred days is the marker, and we've got essentially two-and-a-half weeks to turn everything around," one White House official said, calling the work ahead "monumental."
Thirty members of Trump's staff huddled last week to brainstorm how to approach the president's first 100 days, which will be complete on April 29. "Staffers, including counselor Kellyanne Conway, were broken into three groups, complete with whiteboards, markers, and giant butcher-block-type paper to brainstorm lists of early successes," Politico writes. One aide who attended said: "It made me feel like I was back in 5th grade."
Another attendee described the session as an attempted "rebranding" for the president, who has been plagued by shakeups, legal blockades, and legislative setbacks, including the high-profile collapse of a repeal and replacement of ObamaCare. The communications team reportedly settled on promoting accomplishments such as "prosperity," including backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, "accountability," including restrictions on lobbying, and "safety/security," such as the mostly approved-of strike on Syria.
On Monday, Reuters additionally described the successful appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch as "the biggest triumph so far for the new administration" while Politico points out the victory still "required the Senate rewriting its own rules to overcome Democratic opposition." Read more about how President Trump's team is considering painting his first 100 days in office at Politico. Jeva Lange
At this point in the 2020 presidential race, you'd probably rather be Democratic nominee Joe Biden than President Trump. "Polls are getting worse and worse for Trump," showing him tied in Texas and drowning in must-win Pennsylvania, John Harris and Daniel Lippman write at Politico. "Still, journalists just can't bring themselves to count him out." That's one reason Trump's advisers still see "gleams of hope," Annie Karni reports at The New York Times.
Trump's "internal numbers over the past three weeks have stabilized after the double whammy of the first presidential debate" and his "subsequent hospitalization for the coronavirus," Karni reports. And Biden isn't "breaking decisively into a double-digit lead" in places like Wisconsin and Arizona, "leaving open the possibility that the race will tighten on Election Day, when in-person ballots come in." Thursday's debate also gives Trump one last chance to reset the race. And, of course, Trump proved everyone wrong in 2016.
Despite Trump's constant feuding with the press, including individuals like CBS's Lesley Stahl and Thursday's moderator Kristen Welker, "by historical standards, Trump's press coverage is actually favorable," Politico's Harris and Lippman argue. Thanks to the ghosts of 2016, self-doubting journalists and political professionals are "giving generous allowance for the possibility that things aren't as bad as they seem for the incumbent, and that he may yet have another surprise in store for anyone who thinks that conventional dynamics of politics apply to him."
That's a big gift, says veteran GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg. It "helps Trump because he can hold out a sliver of hope for his supporters so they don't give up the ship. Nobody likes a loser; you're not going to admit you're a loser."
A comeback isn't impossible, "but if Trump loses, the biggest factor won't be COVID-19 or the economic meltdown or the social unrest," Tim Alberta argues at Politico Magazine. "It will be his unlikability." Pollsters and journalists have long "fixated on the question of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with — a window into how personality translates into political success," he explains. But Trump is "like the drunk at the bar, he won't shut up. Whatever appeal his unfiltered thoughts once held has now worn off. Americans are tired of having beers with Trump. His own supporters are tired of having beers with Trump," and it's probably too late to change that. Peter Weber
The Supreme Court late Wednesday lifted an injunction put in place by a federal judge, allowing Alabama to ban curbside voting in counties that wanted to allow it this election. The court's five conservative justices did not give a reason for their decision, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in a dissent she would have left the injunction in place to allow people with disabilities or other risk factors to vote from their cars during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court's two other liberal justices signed on to her dissent.
"The Alabama dispute is the latest in a flurry of election-related fights to reach the justices in recent weeks," including a 4-4 deadlocked decision Monday that allowed Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day for three days after the election, Politico reports. "The series of decisions suggests the high court, in its current configuration after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, is poised to block election-related changes ordered by federal courts, while allowing state officials to make adjustments even without clear buy-in from the state legislature."
Democrats lost another voting rights battle on Wednesday when the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a state law that makes it harder for county officials to process absentee ballot requests with information missing, Reuters notes. "Opinion polls suggest a larger share of Democrats will cast absentee ballots — which include those returned by mail — than will Republicans." Peter Weber