Somebody’s been doing some oppo research on the Donald…
Donald Trump sent Nancy Pelosi warm wishes when she was sworn in as House Speaker in January 2007, praising her as “the best” in a personal note.
Trump, who’s now mulling a Republican run for president, penned the note on a copy of a New York Times article that chronicled Pelosi’s swearing-in, and wrote, “Nancy — you’re the best. Congrats. Donald,” according to sources familiar with the missive.
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Trump, now a registered Republican, is a former independent and former registered Democrat. And the Pelosi note is a reminder that he has a past political history of supporting both sides of the aisle.Trump confirmed to POLITICO he wrote the note, but said it was “because I want her to do great, and I want this country to be great, and I [didn’t] want her to fail as Speaker. And I like her.”
His past campaign contributions run the spectrum of American politics, including prominent Democrats and Republicans. However, two in particular from the recent past jump out at me. First, this $50,000 donation to American Crossroads, the conservative 527 group, made on October 6, 2010 (screengrab from FEC electronic records):
The second is this $50,000 donation to Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral campaign in Chicago, made just before Christmas of last year, but after the big Republican wins in the 2010 midterms (screengrab from Illinois State Board of Elections electronic records):
You’ll recall Emanuel’s previous job was as chief of staff to President Obama – the man Trump would be running against if he commits to the 2012 presidential race. If Trump decides to jump into the 2012 Republican sweepstakes, I assume this is an issue that will come up from other campaigns.
Former DNC chairman Howard Dean spoke at Carnegie Mellon University a few days ago and blasted Republicans, the Tea Party, and Fox News. The speech was videotaped and uploaded to YouTube by The Blaze.
Dean on the Tea Party movement:
“I mean the Tea Party, it’s not a coincidence the Tea Party is all over 55 and white, right? This is the shrinking minority, ever-shrinking. And the shrinkier they get, the madder they get, which is why they’ve gotten so off the deep end. So you know… I mean, I don’t want to say all we’ve got to do is wait, wait out the change. We can’t do that. But the idea you’re going to suddenly change some right-wing guy who for his own, who can’t keep himself together without saying that Obama is a socialist, you’re not going to do that. That’s a deep problem that you can’t fix.”
On the right and left wings of American politics, past and present:
“Hillary Clinton talked a few years ago, and was made fun of, of course, about some of you may remember this, a vast right-wing conspiracy. And she was only wrong in one way. It’s not a conspiracy. When you do things in the open, you can’t call it a conspiracy. [flash] But this notion of the right wing desire to run things differently is threatening to the country. [flash] Not that the right wing is bad or the left wing is bad. I grew up in an era when the left wing was as awful as the right wing is today. They were burning down buildings. Their cause may have been a cause that I was sympathetic with, we shouldn’t be in Vietnam. They were doing appalling things that they had no business doing, just as the right is doing today.”
His comments on Fox News and media bias:
“We’ll start with Fox because that’s the easy one. There’s a difference between Fox and MSNBC. They’re both biased. The New York Times is biased. The Wall Street Journal is biased. The New York Post is biased. Newspapers are biased. The Pittsburgh Post is biased, or is it the Tribune, I forget. Which one is the right wing paper here? OK. [flash] Bias is not the problem. It’s something that makes us mad, but it’s not the problem. It’s when you become a propaganda outlet. What Fox News is not says, is often not true, and they know it’s not true, and they say it anyway. It is not a news organization. It is a very expensive, incredibly well funded right wing propaganda organization. The definition of propaganda is you take something with a small kernel of truth to it, you add, you twist, and you make it into a story. The death panels is a perfect example [flash]I forgive Sarah Palin for doing this. I mean I don’t think she’s going to be President of the United States, and politicians can say things and anybody can say anything they want. But I don’t forgive a supposed news organization who put that out every single day knowing it was a lie. [flash] In this country, people who listen to Fox because they prefer to be angry at the left, just like we listen to NBC, MSNBC, because we like what they’re telling us. The truth is the facts on MSNBC are true, and when they’re not true, I mean you may not like the spin, the kind of nasty smarmy stuff that people say about other people. They’re not nice, I’m saying. I go on those shows sometimes. They’re usually nice to me, but they go on because I’m not nice to the Republicans. But if they make a mistake and get the facts wrong, they correct it the next day. [flash] Look, I’m a professional media hater, right? I’m a politician. I never got a break from the media. The scream speech, right? They dressed it all up. Anybody in the room at the scream, anybody that was in Iowa at the scream speech, nobody here? Well, it was very different. It didn’t quite sound the way it did by the time Fox got done with it. So I have every reason to dislike them.”
Watch Dean’s comments (the comments about Fox News and media bias begin at 1:18):
FYI, I asked Howard Dean about Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment about a year and a half ago. Here’s his response as I reported for CNN:
“About euthanasia, they’re just totally erroneous. She just made that up. Just like the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she supposedly didn’t support. There’s nothing like euthanasia in the bill. I practiced medicine for a long time, and of course you have to have end of life discussions – the patients want that. There’s nothing… euthanasia’s not in this bill.”
Palin is now a paid commentator for Fox News. I’ve reached out to Fox News and Dean for comment, will update this post if I hear anything.
H/T Mediaite.
Update: I’ve gotten no response from Fox News yet, but Greta Van Susteren wrote the following on her blog:
It is sort of weird….but it seems that Howard Dean can’t get Fox News Channel out of his mind. Every time I see him quoted (or maybe not every time), he is taking a swipe at Fox. First, he needs to understand Fox is not why he lost Iowa in 2004. Even the “Dean scream” is not why ( the scream occurred AFTER he lost… and came in 3rd.) Second, his constant swipes makes him look like he is afraid of Fox – he makes his cracks but has turned down all our (ON THE RECORD AT 10pm) requests that he be a guest. Third, while he is highly critical of Fox he has not explained his recent remark that a government shutdown would be good for the Democrats (seemingly wanting a shutdown for political reasons at the expense of what is good for the country.)
I am actually curious what ideas he has for the country. We need ideas….he might want to focus on ideas instead of old grudges.
“The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.” – Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on AIG bonuses.
The Hill is reporting that one RNC member is calling on Michael Steele to step down as chairman barely a month into his tenure.
Josh Marshall has a few background details on the RNC member, who is one out of only three African Americans on the national committee.
From a PR standpoint, the past few weeks have been a series of self-inflicted gaffes for Michael Steele, culminating with his apology to Rush Limbaugh, which was politically embarrassing for him and the party at large. Add to this the fact that his campaign expenses from the 2006 Maryland Senate race are now in question, and you have some nervous Republicans with preliminary stages of buyer’s remorse.
My friend and former colleague John Mercurio makes a good argument for why Bobby Jindal won’t even run for the GOP nomination in 2012.
Louisiana chooses its governors in off years, which means Jindal, who has already announced plans to seek a second term, will likely have his name on a state ballot in November 2011. That’s just a few short months before Iowa caucusgoers will cast the first votes of the 2012 primaries. Other Republican candidates already will have spent months participating in a dizzying round of televised debates and town-hall forums. (Remember how Fred Thompson was widely panned for joining the 2008 race too late? He announced in September 2007.)
The prospect of Jindal seeking both offices in 2011 would require political contortions the likes of which even he would be hard-pressed to perform. Imagine him urging Louisiana voters, still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to support his re-election so he can spend the next year as an absentee governor, traveling the country as a presidential candidate. He could deny charges, likely to come from all corners, that he’s using his re-election bid as a launching pad for the White House. But if he reverses course after November and runs for president, he would face the impossible task of assembling a last-minute national organization at the same time he’s suffering a fatal blow to his credibility.
Elsewhere, the Bobby Jindal/Kenneth the Page comparisons have gone viral. Check out this clip:
Jindal should consider himself fortunate that Jack McBrayer (the actor who plays Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock) doesn’t bear an uncanny physical resemblance to him. Otherwise, Jindal would be getting the full Tina Fey/Sarah Palin treatment. On the other hand, Ben Smith pointed out the new Facebook group calling for Kal Penn (of Harold and Kumar fame) to play Bobby Jindal on SNL.
Update: Andrew Sullivan nails it — “All that really happened here is that Jindal – stylistically and substantively – had the worst debut on national television of anyone since Palin’s encounter with Katie Couric.”
Icepicks and Nukes 