Feb.17
Political News, Now.
Hillary Clinton, Privately, Seeks the Favor of Elizabeth Warren
Hillary Rodham Clinton held a private meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren in December, seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential senator and to grapple with issues raised by a restive Democratic left, such as income inequality.
The two met at the Northwest Washington home of the Clintons, without aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation.
Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and productive.” Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.
The conversation occurred at a moment when Ms. Warren’s clout had become increasingly evident. After the November election, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, appointed Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts freshman, to a leadership role in the Senate; she led a high-profile effort to strip a spending bill of rules sought by large banks; and a patchwork of liberal groups began a movement to draft her into the presidential race.
Ms. Warren has repeatedly said she is not running for president, and she has taken no steps that would indicate otherwise. Still, she is intent on pushing a robust populist agenda, and her confidants have suggested that she would use her Senate perch during the 2016 campaign to nudge Mrs. Clinton to embrace causes like curtailing the power of large financial institutions.
The get-together highlighted an early challenge for Mrs. Clinton, who as the Democrats’ leading contender for 2016 has all but cleared the field for her party’s primary. She is intent on developing an economic platform that can speak to her party’s populist wing and excite working class voters without alienating allies in the business community.
That Mrs. Clinton reached out to Ms. Warren suggested that she was aware of how much the debate over economic issues had shifted even during the relatively short time she was away from domestic politics while serving as secretary of state.
Mrs. Clinton was often criticized by the right as a doctrinaire liberal during her husband’s presidency and, as a presidential candidate, ultimately ran as more of an economic populist than Mr. Obama did. But she is now seen by some on the left as insufficiently tough on Wall Street. That perception, denounced by allies as unfair, has stuck, in part, because of her husband’s policies and because of the lucrative speaking fees she has collected from financial firms and private equity groups since she left the State Department in early 2013.
Some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, frustrated by the attention and adulation generated by Ms. Warren, noted Tuesday that the two actually hold similar positions on a range of economic issues, though Ms. Warren’s rhetoric has been more fiery. Mrs. Clinton, hoping to delay formally starting her candidacy for as long as possible, has refrained from detailed discussions of economic policy. In recent weeks, though, she has become more vocal, using Twitter to offer support for the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, for instance.
The one-on-one meeting also represented a step toward relationship building for two women who do not know each other well. And for Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles. It may also indicate that Mrs. Clinton, who was criticized for running an extremely guarded campaign in 2008, has learned from her mistakes and will reach out more regularly.
Aides to Mrs. Clinton did not respond to requests for comment about the meeting, and aides to Ms. Warren could not be reached.
The meeting in December fell two months after a more awkward encounter: Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Warren crossed paths at a Massachusetts rally for Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee for governor there last year. At that event, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly described Ms. Warren as a champion against special interests and big banks; Ms. Warren, in turn, barely acknowledged Mrs. Clinton, who was the featured guest.
Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appeared eager to keep a close eye on Ms. Warren; Bill Clinton has appeared sensitive to her oblique criticism of his deregulation of financial institutions. Beyond policy differences, the Clintons are anxious to demonstrate that they, like Ms. Warren, appreciate the economic difficulties many Americans are facing.
The December meeting recalled another private session between Mrs. Clinton and a Democratic upstart: In 2005, shortly after he was sworn in to the Senate, Barack Obama paid a visit to Mrs. Clinton in her Senate office. In that instance, though, it was Mr. Obama who was seeking counsel.
More Posts
Verbatim: Obama Remains Confident on Immigration
This is not the first time where a lower court judge has blocked something or attempted to block something that ultimately is going to be lawful, and I’m confident that it is well within my authority.”
– President Obama, after a federal judge in Texas ordered a halt to the president’s executive actions on immigration, according to a pool report.
Warren Backers Call Clinton Meeting Good News
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s coterie of progressive supporters expressed support for her private meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling it a potential win for economic populism.
“It is positive news that Hillary Clinton is meeting with Elizabeth Warren and other progressives – and it will be even more positive news if economic populist thinkers are appointed to her inner circle,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
The Times reported on Tuesday that Mrs. Clinton held a private, one-on-one meeting with Ms. Warren in December and sought the senator’s policy ideas.
Mr. Green said in a statement that Democrats would be better positioned to win the general election in 2016 if they campaigned on Ms. Warren’s economic message of expanding Social Security benefits and reigning in big banks.
Ms. Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has said repeatedly that she has no plans to run for president next year.
Ted Strickland, Former Ohio Governor, Weighs a Senate Run
Ted Strickland, a former governor of Ohio, is beginning to raise money ahead of a possible challenge to Senator Rob Portman in 2016.
“Ted Strickland is very seriously looking at a run for the U.S. Senate and is raising money as he explores his options,” Dennis Willard, a spokesman for Mr. Strickland, confirmed to First Draft. The Youngstown Vindicator first reported the fund-raising news.
And in an interview on Tuesday with The Cincinnati Inquirer, Mr. Strickland said he was leaving his position at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based liberal advocacy group.
As a Strickland campaign looks more and more likely, Republicans are already on the offensive. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Ohio Republican Party have both been sending out news releases attacking Mr. Strickland.
First Draft Focus: Ashton Carter Sworn In as Defense Chief
Sarah Palin as Punch Line on ‘Saturday Night Live’ Special
Sarah Palin in 2016?
Even she thinks that’s a joke.
The former vice-presidential candidate made her final transition to pure celebrity and political punch line on Sunday night, when Lorne Michaels’s “Saturday Night Live” celebrated its 40th birthday with a comic extravaganza that became NBC Entertainment’s top-rated show in more than a decade.
“I’m just curious, Jerry, how much do you think Lorne Michaels would pay me if I were to run in 2016?” Ms. Palin asked, standing up in the audience to joke with Jerry Seinfeld, who was onstage in the legendary Studio 8H. She then threw in a hypothetical about another Republican headliner with big hair sitting a few rows back. “What if I were to choose Donald Trump as my running mate?”
Looking less hockey mom than Hollywood vamp, Ms. Palin wore a short, sparkly white dress with arm cut-outs and black bondage heels. Even though John McCain’s 2008 strategists still fume about her shopping sprees on the trail, Ms. Palin told US Weekly – after Twitter monitors called her out – that she borrowed her dress, red-soled shoes and fur purse from her daughter Bristol’s closet.
The dress was so slinky it nearly caused a wardrobe malfunction. Ms. Palin had to wear the battery pack underneath the sheath on her back with her microphone hooked to the top. The NBC technician who came to take off the battery and mic during the commercial break had a hard time reaching them, so the unfazed Ms. Palin stood in the aisle, yanking up and down her mini as she tried to slither out of the equipment.
Ms. Palin, joshing about her ’16 prospects in the studio where she once lampooned herself as “Caribou Barbie,” walked onstage past her doppelganger Tina Fey and did a rap skit with a very pregnant Amy Poehler, was only one of the surreal moments Sunday night. Yet the anniversary show, which the serene Mr. Michaels admitted was “a nightmare” to produce, went off without a hitch – against all odds and egos.
Not only did Mr. Michaels get Keith Richards to introduce Paul McCartney for a song during the show, but at the glamorous Champagne-and-sliders after-party at the Plaza Hotel, where Ms. Palin held court in one corner and Ms. Fey and Ms. Poehler mingled elsewhere, Taylor Swift popped up to do backup for Mr. McCartney singing “I Saw Her Standing There.” And because he’s a player, not a hater, Sir Paul plucked his bass and did backup for Ms. Swift on “Shake It Off.”
As the “Foxcatcher” director Bennett Miller noted, it was a night that captured cascading generations of magic (and misses) in comedy and music. “Can you imagine the world,” he mused, looking down at the stage full of “S.N.L.” veterans, “if none of the people in this room had ever existed?”
Obama’s Sunny Weekend With the Boys (and Susan Rice)
President Obama spent Presidents’ Day weekend in Palm Springs, Calif., away from the ice and snow.
He went golfing.
And that’s all we know.
Reporters got a glimpse of the president jogging down the Air Force One steps at Palm Springs International Airport on Saturday morning, his sleeves rolled up in the 82-degree weather. They didn’t see him again until after Air Force One took off for Washington on Monday.
On rare occasions, journalists have been carted out to watch Mr. Obama on the course, but not this time. They waited nearby for more than seven hours for the president to finish his game.
It was mostly a boys’ weekend out, with the exception of Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser. While Saturday may have been Valentine’s Day, Michelle Obama did not make the trip.
The White House moved up the president’s departure by an hour and five minutes because of worries about the weather in Washington. No word on how many holes the president sacrificed to the schedule change.
Today in Politics
Judge’s Ruling Stops Obama’s Immigration Actions, for Now
Good Tuesday morning from Washington, where President Obamareturns from the 80-degree weather of Palm Springs, Calif., to a snow-covered capital, the White House convenes an antiterrorism summit meeting, and Ashton B. Carter is being sworn in as defense secretary. In New York, Sarah Palin proves at the “Saturday Night Live” anniversary show that she can give as well as take a joke in (borrowed) style. We lead with breaking news from Texas in the fight over Mr. Obama’s immigration initiatives.
President Obama‘s immigration efforts have been temporarily held up by a Federal District Court ruling that stops the administration from carrying out plans that would offer work permits and protection from deportation to as many as five million immigrants.
The judge, Andrew S. Hanen, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled on Monday on the side of 26 states that have sued to oppose the president’s initiatives.
As our colleague Julia Preston reports, Judge Hanen, an outspoken critic of the administration on immigration policy, found that the states had satisfied the minimum legal requirements to bring their lawsuit. He said the Obama administration had failed to comply with basic administrative procedures for putting such a sweeping program into effect.
The states opposing the action, including Texas, had argued that the administration’s approach to immigration had already been costly. Judge Hanen agreed, writing, “The court finds that the government’s failure to secure the border has exacerbated illegal immigration into this country.”
Some legal scholars predicted the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit would quickly suspend the Judge Hanen’s ruling.
Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard law professor, told Ms. Preston that “federal supremacy with respect to immigration matters makes the states a kind of interloper in disputes between the president and Congress.”
“They don’t have any right of their own,” he said.
The ruling could have an immediate effect on the president’s plans: The first of the new immigration programs was scheduled to start receiving applications on Wednesday.
– Steve Kenny
Stay tuned throughout the day @NYTpolitics for First Draft updates
Snow Day in Washington: A Few Inches Lead to a Government Flurry
Boston may be digging out of nearly seven feet of snow, but in Washington, predictions of about seven inches are enough to force the federal government to close its offices on Tuesday.
As of Monday night, the Office of Personnel Management’s website was carrying the following message for employees: “Status: Federal offices are closed — Emergency and telework-ready employees must follow their agency’s policies.”
If you live in a city not buried in snow, your federal government remains open for business.
– Michael D. Shear
Urgency Prevails as Leaders Gather for Terrorism Summit Meeting
The White House is to convene a three-day summit meeting on Tuesday aimed at combating violent extremism, even as terrorism surges overseas. (The meeting was still on schedule as of Monday night, despite the weather in Washington.)
Leaders from more than 60 nations are gathering in the hopes of finding ways to stop extremist groups from recruiting members. President Obama will speak twice, first to a group of mostly American officials on Wednesday, and then to the foreign officials on Thursday.
Mr. Obama proposed the meeting months ago, but the talks are accompanied by a sense of urgency after fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen and brutal killings by the Islamic State. Officials said the summit meeting would include discussions about how community leaders can use social media to counter the extremists’ online recruitment efforts.
The phrase “Islamic extremism” is not likely to come up much, even though Mr. Obama and administration officials have been criticized in recent weeks for refusing to use it. Officials on Monday again emphasized that violent extremism was not confined to Muslim groups.
But officials said that they would not shy away from mentioning groups like the Islamic State that claim to be acting based on an interpretation of Islam.
“They are not making any secret of that, and neither are we,” one official said.
– Michael D. Shear
Rubio Makes Room for Iowa on His Travel Calendar
Senator Marco Rubio hasn’t been seen in Iowa as much as other potential Republican presidential candidates who have been racking up frequent-flier miles on trips to Des Moines.
But with a book-signing trip last week and with an appearance scheduled in early March at the Iowa Ag Summit, Mr. Rubio clearly has the state on his mind.
He swooped into Des Moines on Friday for a couple of “media hits” (his words) and a signing at a bookstore to promote his policy manifesto “American Dreams.”
Mr. Rubio, Florida’s junior senator, said he would decide soon about a presidential race.
Less well known than other potential candidates, and drawing no better than 3 percent support in a recent Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, he was nonetheless popular with the 100 or so buyers who lined up in a suburban Des Moines store as he signed copies of his book.
He stood at a table in shirt sleeves, and buyers were ushered to his side by an aide wearing a blue polo shirt embroidered with the words “Marco Rubio American Dreams Book Tour.”
The senator drew each customer into unhurried conversation. “Do you have family back in Minneapolis?” he inquired of one woman. “How long were you dating before you got engaged?” he asked a man. He compared workouts with a fitness instructor. “Eighty percent capacity for 10 minutes is better than running for 40 minutes,” he said.
More than once he joked that “American Dreams” was “good for insomniacs.”
– Trip Gabriel
What We’re Watching Today
At 8 a.m., Ashton B. Carter is to arrive at the Pentagon for his first day at the office as defense secretary. His official swearing-in is three hours later in a White House ceremony hosted by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will talk about overhauling the criminal justice system in a speech at the Washington Press Club.
Our Favorites From Today’s Times
The United States is redoubling efforts to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda.
Many Wisconsin residents suspect that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to higher education are intended to win national conservative support in anticipation of a presidential race.
A Russian cybersecurity firm says the United States has found a way to permanently embed surveillance and sabotage tools in computers and networks it has targeted in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and other countries.
Some of the nonprofit insurance cooperatives created under the Affordable Care Act are struggling.
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
The Oregonian in Portland looks forward to developments this week in the scandal involving former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
Hillary Rodham Clinton should not be considered the favorite to win the presidency next year, according to National Journal.
In The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza says Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is not a longshot to win the Republican presidential nomination.
The New Yorker uses the 50th anniversary of Medicare to detail how it was conceived and passed Congress.
Like the morning briefing? Get it delivered to your inbox.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered