| | | |  | BY RENUKA RAYASAM | Presented by Uber | BREAKING — Donald Trump Jr. tested positive for Covid earlier this week and is quarantining privately. The news broke seven hours after Andrew Giuliani, a special assistant to President Donald Trump and the son of Rudy Giuliani, announced he had tested positive for coronavirus.
| 
| THE GOP’S CONCESSION STAND — Trump dropped his final federal lawsuit in Michigan on Thursday, but he continues to baselessly claim that he won the election. “I won, by the way,” he said today. Trump’s refusal to concede may become a story Republicans continue to tell after he leaves the White House in January, chief political correspondent Tim Alberta told the Nightly today. Very few Republican officeholders have joined Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah to condemn Trump’s actions. The middle-of-the-road position in the party right now is the one taken by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Trump is just exercising his valid legal rights. Figuring out how to describe Trump’s exit from the White House will be tricky for Republicans in years ahead, Tim suggested. “Anyone who hopes to have a future in this party, it’s simple,” he said. “You gotta be very careful with what you say that contradicts the president.” Watch to see if Tim can break down the GOP’s response to Trump’s election challenges in 3 minutes or less. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Our Tyler Weyant noticed that Gabrielle Union liked a tweet on political outreach in last night’s viral Verzuz event (more in Parting Words below). While our greatest wish is that her and Dwyane Wade were inspired to chat about political engagement, we’d also love for her to talk with us about celebrity activism. Reach out at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @renurayasam .
| |
A message from Uber: CA voters & app workers voted overwhelmingly to protect workers’ flexibility and provide new benefits. Time for other states to follow, see how here. | | | | | WHY LATINOS DRIFTED TRUMP-WARD — Trump lost the presidency but showed Republicans a way to win in the culture wars with working-class Hispanics, Marc Caputo writes. While Joe Biden still won Latino voters overall, Trump improved his margins in 80 of the nation’s 99 majority-Hispanic counties. And he did better than he did in 2016 with Latinos in exit polls of each of the top 10 battleground states, a POLITICO review of election data found. Trump’s gains weren’t limited to Miami’s Cuban-Americans or borderland Tejanos. Although Florida and Texas stood out for their notable shift, Puerto Ricans as far away as Philadelphia and Mexican Americans in Milwaukee drifted Trump-ward, too. No factor was as salient as Trump’s blue-collar appeal for Latinos. “Most Latinos identify first as working-class Americans, and Trump spoke to that,” said Josh Zaragoza, a top Democratic data specialist in Arizona, adding that Hispanic men in particular “are very entrepreneurial. Their economic language is more aligned with the way Republicans speak: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, owning your own business.” But Trump also improved his showing among Latinos by scaling back some of his immigration rhetoric and engaging in a sustained bilingual social media and TV ad campaign that courted Latinos based on place of origin, gender and religion.
| |
| | DON'T MISS NEW EPISODES OF GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded in 2020 amid a global pandemic. Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | | | MACHINE BREAKDOWN — The longest-serving state legislative leader in American history is losing his grip on power as a federal investigation pounds his allies and lackluster election results undermine his influence, Illinois Playbook author Shia Kapos writes. Democrats began to publicly turn on Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan over the summer, after an inquiry into influence peddling by a local electric utility company came to light. The revolt against Madigan accelerated this week, and by Thursday enough legislators had fled Madigan to deny him his title in January, potentially stripping him of the post he’s largely held since 1983. Earlier this week, federal prosecutors charged one of Madigan’s confidants and three former ComEd executives in an alleged scheme to give no-work jobs and internships to Madigan allies in exchange for favorable legislation. Madigan has not been charged, but he was quickly identified as “Public Official A” in federal documents because the official is described as the Illinois speaker, a position only two people have held in nearly 40 years.
| | CAN THEY CHANGE THE RESULTS? Short answer: No. Long answer: Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch episode. Campaigns reporter Zach Montellaro breaks down the convoluted Electoral College process between now and Dec. 14, when the results become official, and why there’s virtually nothing that could change the fact that Biden is the president-elect.
| | | | | 
Matt Wuerker | Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, to go with cake and party hats, Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam, a Scorpio like Biden, reached out to astrologer Susan Miller to learn what astrology tells us to expect from the president-elect. It’s Joe Biden’s birthday today, which will make him the sixth Scorpio president in the country’s history and the first Scorpio in the White House in more than 150 years. (Hillary Clinton and Michael Dukakis were also Scorps; both lost to Geminis.) I reached out to Miller because she’s wildly popular, but also because she predicted, in her monthly horoscope, the day a good friend would meet her husband. They’re both Libras, and she told Libras they should force themselves to go out that night because a chance encounter would change their lives. Still, I’m not Nancy Reagan. I even got married, I think, during Mercury Retrograde, which is a big no-no in Susan Miller’s world. But Miller’s predictions are like comfort food: hard to resist even if they aren’t good for us. She said she’s a political junkie, and she was prepared with Biden’s chart when I reached her at her New York home this afternoon. First, however, she had a few observations on other matters, ranging from when Trump will finally concede — there’s a new moon in Sagittarius on Dec. 14, which also happens to be when the Electoral College casts their votes — to how Amy Coney Barrett will vote on the Supreme Court. (Barrett is an Aquarius, so don’t tell her what to do.) Miller said she would try not to let her political bias affect her reading of Biden’s chart. He’s a Scorpio with Sagittarius rising which means, she said, he is intuitive, discreet, private, looks for the truth and is good at raising money. His moon is in Taurus which means that he is a quiet, patient builder — if they say they are going to do something, they do it. His Sun, Mercury and Venus are in the 12th house, which means he is strategic: good at directing things behind the scenes. His Jupiter is in the house of money, which means he will be focused on jobs and the working person. But what about Biden’s pledge to bridge the country’s political divides? It turns out that won’t happen until 2022 when Pluto will be in the same position (in America’s chart) where it was during the American Revolution. “I’m actually surprised that Mitch McConnell is acting the way he is,” Miller said. “He’s a Pisces. That surprised me. Usually Pisces are flexible.”
| |
A message from Uber: In order to raise the standard for independent work for all, government and business need to work together. That’s why Uber created our Working Together Priorities, which can help people who earn through app-based work receive more security, protection, and transparency. This work is already underway in California, where voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 22. | | | | | SCOTT ADDS TO CONGRESS COVID CONCERNS — Sen. Rick Scott tested positive for Covid-19, the second senator to contract the virus this week . In a statement today, the Florida Republican said he’d previously tested negative before receiving a positive diagnosis this morning. Scott, who will chair the GOP Senate campaign arm, has been isolating for the past week after encountering an individual infected with coronavirus. “I am feeling good and experiencing very mild symptoms,” Scott said. “I will be working from home in Naples until it is safe for me to return to Washington, D.C. I want to remind everyone to be careful and do the right things to protect yourselves and others.“
| | Nightly asks you: What are your plans for Thanksgiving this year during the spike in Covid-19 cases? Submit your answers in our form, and we’ll use select responses in next Wednesday’s edition.
| |
| | TRACK THE TRANSITION, SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: As states certify their election results, President-elect Biden is building an administration. The staffing decisions made in the coming days, weeks, and months will send clear-cut signals about his administration’s agenda and priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to what could be one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Stay in the know, subscribe today. | | | | | | | UP-PILL BATTLE — Trump unveiled a plan today to link government payments for medicines to lower prices paid abroad and another to eliminate rebates, in a last-ditch effort to deliver on a 2016 campaign promise to slash drug prices, health care reporter Sarah Owermohle writes. The unusual scramble to release the sweeping drug pricing rules just two months before his presidential term ends comes after Trump expressed frustration with pharmaceutical companies that he believes slow-walked positive coronavirus vaccine news, three sources familiar with the discussion told POLITICO this week. Today is also the last day the administration can release a rule that could be finalized before Biden assumes office. Trump first raised the prospect of linking prices to an international index as one of a slew of ambitious proposals to lower drug prices. The idea raised drug companies’ hackles and divided the GOP. The plan would tie Medicare payments for 50 costly medicines administered in the doctor’s office — including pricey therapies for cancer and rheumatoid arthritis — based on a “blending formula” that includes the lowest adjusted international price for the product among a group of OECD countries with similar GDPs to the U.S. The policy would exempt some providers, including hospitals for children, cancer patients and critical care, plus rural health clinics, federally qualified health centers and Indian Health Service facilities.
| | PENTAGON PULLS BACK — The Defense Department will impose new Covid restrictions next week for the thousands of people who work in the Pentagon, a move that comes as officials race to contain a potential outbreak in the building’s senior civilian ranks, defense reporter Lara Seligman writes. The decision to move to a higher health protection status next Thursday was made earlier in the week and not in response to the news on Thursday that Anthony Tata , the temporary Pentagon policy chief, had tested positive for the virus, Chief Management Officer Lisa Hershman told POLITICO today. Rather, the change was driven by the recent spike in coronavirus cases in the Washington region. As part of the move to raise the Pentagon’s health protection level from “Bravo” to “Bravo Plus,” the building will go down from 80 to 60 percent maximum occupancy. Officials expect the actual occupancy of the building to be much lower in the coming weeks; the Pentagon has not been above 50 percent occupancy since the early days of the pandemic. In addition, the Pentagon will double the number of temperature checks on workers entering the building.
| 
People look at the newly revealed Macy’s Herald Square holiday windows in New York City. This year's windows look to give thanks to the city and those who worked on the frontlines of the pandemic, including first responders and essential workers. | Getty Images | | | | |
907,332 The number of people TSA officers nationwide screened at airport checkpoints on Thursday, according to an agency spokesperson. One week earlier, TSA screened 866,679 individuals, an increase of more than 40,000 people, or nearly 5 percent. |
| | | PLANET TRUMP — In the Weekend Wrap, Matt Wuerker takes us through the latest in political comedy and cartoons, most of which revolved around Trump, his “nebula of nebulous counternarratives about the election” and his refusal to concede.
| 
| | | CULTURE VERZUZ POLITICS — Campaigns reporter Maya King emails Nightly: If Georgia is the heart of today’s political universe, Atlanta is the heartbeat. Any politico or hip-hop fan would agree. And more than 2 million of them logged on to Instagram on Thursday evening to witness a moment sure to go down in hip-hop history: Two of the South’s most highly regarded rap artists, Gucci Mane and Jeezy, set aside a 15-year feud to play their greatest hits on the wildly popular Verzuz webcast series. While an Instagram Live rap battle is not the first place most would think to go for political messaging, in Georgia — a state Biden won by fewer than 15,000 votes — it’s prime real estate. So it was fitting that Stacey Abrams would open the evening via a video call to Magic City, the famed Atlanta strip club hosting the event. Abrams set the tone for a night that was as political as it wasn’t. Referring to the event as the “Verzuz to end all Verzuz”, she lauded both Gucci Mane and Jeezy for their work in getting formerly incarcerated people registered to vote and underlining the high stakes of January’s Senate runoff elections. Minutes before, Georgia announced that it had completed its statewide audit and confirmed Biden’s victory in the state. “Can you wipe my record clean?” Gucci Mane asked Abrams jokingly. She responded saying that was a job for the governor — adding, “We’ll have to think about that later.” After her remarks, voting groups like When We All Vote, the New Georgia Project and the NAACP flooded social media and the event’s comments section with calls to register to vote and head to the polls. The political messages mixed with viewers’ compliments to the DJ and remarks about the room’s gaudy furniture. Abrams is not the first political figure to join such an event. Kamala Harris made a cameo appearance during Brandy and Monica’s Verzuz in September, with a similar reminder to viewers to register and vote. Verzuz, the brainchild of producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, has offered its loyal fan base — comprised mainly of hip-hop and R&B aficionados — a respite from the news cycle during a year that has been particularly difficult for African Americans. These greatest hit-style revues started in March and take place on Instagram every three to four weeks, bringing artists like Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle or Monica and Brandy to a socially distanced space to play their music and reflect on their careers. Last night’s event reached 1.8 million livestreamers, a record for the platform, and points to its influence on pop culture at a time when live in-person concerts are no longer an option. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
|
| | Follow us on Twitter | | | FOLLOW US
| | |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.