The Commentariat -- April 3, 2019
Late Morning Update:
Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena to compel the Justice Department to hand over special counsel Robert Mueller's full report [with no redactions] to Congress. The committee voted 24-17 to approve a resolution authorizing subpoenas for Mueller's report, including accompanying exhibits and other attachments, as well as its underlying evidence at a business meeting Wednesday morning. The Justice Department did not comply with an April 2 deadline set by six Democrats chairing committees in the House for sending the full Mueller report to Congress."
All the Best People, Ctd. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General is reviewing allegations that acting secretary David Bernhardt may have violated his ethics pledge by weighing in on issues affecting a former client, the office confirmed Tuesday. The move comes as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is preparing to vote Thursday on whether to confirm Bernhardt as the next interior secretary, after which his nomination is expected to advance to the Senate floor. At least two outside groups and two Democratic senators asked the agency watchdog to look into Bernhardt's effort to weaken protections for imperiled fish species and to expand California farmers' access to water, even though he once lobbied on behalf of a massive agricultural water district that stood to benefit from the changes."
Oink Oink. Be Careful What You Eat. Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration plans to shift much of the power and responsibility for food safety inspections in hog plants to the pork industry as early as May, cutting the number of federal inspectors by about 40 percent and replacing them with plant employees. Under the proposed new inspection system, the responsibility for identifying diseased and contaminated pork would be shared with plant employees, whose training would be at the discretion of plant owners. There would be no limits on slaughter-line speeds. The new pork inspection system would accelerate the federal government's move toward delegating inspections to the livestock industry. During the Obama administration, poultry plant owners were given more power over safety inspections, although that administration canceled plans to increase line speeds. The Trump administration in September allowed some poultry plants to increase line speeds." Mrs. McC: Come back, Upton Sinclair.
Doha Madani of NBC News: "A Tennessee social justice center that has hosted iconic civil rights leaders was destroyed in a fire and a 'white power' symbol was found on the site, the center said. The symbol, which officials did not describe but said was connected to the white power movement, was discovered after the main office was completely destroyed in a fire last week, the Highlander Research and Education Center said in a news release Tuesday. It was spray-painted on the parking lot connected to the main office. No one was hurt in Friday's blaze."
Amy Russo of the Huffington Post: "... former FBI Director James Comey said he remains troubled by his potential role in the rise of Donald Trump, questioning the impact of the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. In October 2016, just one month before Election Day, Comey reopened a probe into then-candidate Clinton's use of a private server to conduct government business when she was secretary of state, meaning she may have violated security regulations. The scandal tarnished her reputation and indelibly marked her campaign.... Two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI stood by its previous conclusion that Clinton committed no criminal acts. 'I hope we had no impact ... but all it does is increase the pain," he [said].... [BUT WAIT!] 'It doesn't change how I think about the decision.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Get that? Hope I didn't, but if I did, I still did the right thing.
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"The Party of Health Care"? Never Mind. Eileen Sullivan & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump announced that Republicans would not present a health care overhaul proposal until after the 2020 election, punting on coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, which the administration is currently fighting in court to invalidate. The issue now will dominate presidential campaigns in the months leading up to the 2020 election.... It was not immediately clear on Tuesday what the Trump administration would do if courts ruled in favor of abolishing the health care system established by President Barack Obama. Last week, the Trump administration broadened its war on the health care law by arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be invalidated." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The "plan," as usual, is to invalidate ObamaCare & replace it with nothing. This has been the plan all along, but this seems to be the most overt declaration of that intention since the 2018 elections. ...
... Update: McConnell Burst a Trump Bubble. John Wagner & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "President Trump abandoned plans to press for a vote on a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act ahead of next year's elections following a conversation with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday. McConnell told reporters that he and Trump had 'a good conversation' Monday afternoon in which he said that Senate Republicans had no intention of trying to overhaul President Obama's signature health-care law during a campaign season-- a move many in the GOP saw as politically perilous, given that the issue helped Democrats in last year's midterm elections. 'I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,' McConnell said, also pointing out the difficulty in crafting a bill that could pass the Democratic-led House. 'We don't have a misunderstanding about that.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... BUT. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate thinks the "plan" is actually a conscious "strategy": "Donald Trump is now hoping that his kryptonite -- the courts -- will save his presidency.... He has taken a position against Obamacare in court that he apparently expects to lose, so he can blame someone else for his failure to repeal and replace the health care law.... Reporting last week from the New York Times revealed that the decision to support the legal fight for a wholesale repeal came at the urging of Trump's acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.... The whole thing proved a massive unforced error.... Republicans quickly flew into a full-blown political panic about the reversal.... On Monday night ... Trump tweet[ed] that he is backing off the whole ACA replacement plan until after the 2020 election, at which time he will present us all with a 'really great' health care plan built of the stuff that made Trump Steaks and Trump University so very great. Further, at least according to Axios, Trump was telling people behind closed doors that he believed the Texas suit would fail. It seems he wanted to back the failing lawsuit because it would be good 'branding' for him to oppose Obamacare as part of his 2020 reelection bid. So, Trump's plan, it seems, is that either the ACA is struck down by the federal courts, making the total breakdown of America's health care system the courts' fault, or that it is upheld by the courts, so he could blame the judiciary for his own failure to fulfill his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Either way, Trump, personally, would be off the hook."
CBS News: "President Trump reiterated a threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border after a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, saying he stands ready to take drastic action if the country doesn't do more to curb illegal immigration.... Along with a list of frustrations over immigration, however, Mr. Trump included immigration judges. U.S. immigration court backlogs are at all-time highs, with not enough judges to adjudicate the cases. That problem was exacerbated by the government shutdown earlier this year. 'We need to get rid of chain migration, we need to get rid of catch and release and visa lottery, and we have to do something about asylum. And to be honest with you, have to get rid of judges,' Mr. Trump said in his laundry list of frustrations with the U.S. immigration system." ...
... Stupid Presidunce Tricks, Ctd. Courtiers Coddle the Boy King. Nancy Cook & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... Donald Trump's senior economic aides are scrambling to impress upon him the potentially dire economic costs of his threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow, the president's top economic advisers, have shared papers and data with Trump over the last 36 hours, illustrating the way economic growth could slow down even if the president shut down the border for just one day -- not to mention the effect on the flow of goods, raw materials and the U.S. supply chain. Inside the White House, officials frantically spent the day searching for ways to limit the economic impact of shuttering the border.... Publicly, Republican leaders expressed their own dismay at the threats, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called potentially 'catastrophic.' But Trump did not seem swayed. 'Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy,' Trump told reporters ... on Tuesday afternoon. 'But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean, we have to have security.'" ...
... Chris Isidore of CNN: "The entire US auto industry would shut down within a week if ... Donald Trump goes through with his pledge to close the US-Mexican border, according to a leading expert on the industry. That's because every automaker operating an auto plant in the United States depends on parts imported from Mexico, said Kristin Dziczek ... of the Center for Automotive Research. About 16% of all auto parts used in the United States, both at assembly plants and sold at auto parts stores, originate in Mexico. Virtually all car models in America have Mexican parts, she said. Because of that reliance, she said the auto industry would stop producing vehicles relatively quickly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jill Colvin & Colleen Long of the AP: "... Donald Trump eased up Tuesday on his threats to shut the southern border this week as officials across his administration explored half-measures that might satisfy the president's urge for action, like stopping only foot traffic at certain crossings.... While Trump on Tuesday did not back off the idea completely, he said he was pleased with steps Mexico had taken in recent days and renewed his calls for Congress to make changes he contends would solve the problem.... Mexican officials announced Monday they'd pulled 338 Central American migrants -- 181 adults and 157 children -- off five passenger buses in a southern state that borders Guatemala, and said they had detained 15 possible smugglers on immigration law violations. But that was not unusual for Mexico, which has for years been cracking down on migration.... Meantime, administration officials grappled with how they might minimize the impact of a shutdown or implement less sweeping actions."
Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA.... -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning ...
The $91BB payout is a giant lie (see Tim Elfrink's WashPo story, linked yesterday), & Puerto Rico is "USA"; ergo, it can't "take from USA." -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, writing for the real world ...
... Daily Beast: "In an explosive interview on MSNBC Tuesday morning, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley referred to Puerto Rico as 'that country' twice -- even though the island has been a U.S. territory for over 120 years. The mis-identification came while Gidley was defending Trump's Tuesday morning tweetstorm slamming Puerto Rico and its need for 'too much money' after the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017.... Trump 'says Puerto Ricans are taking from the USA,' [host Hallie] Jackson responded. 'Puerto Rico is part of the United States. People who live in Puerto Rico are U.S. Citizens. You're rolling your eyes and I don't know why you're rolling your eyes.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Trump wants journalists to look into the oranges (not a typo) of the Mueller investigation:
... Seated beside Trump, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is not a native English speaker, deserves the poker-faced prize. ...
... Fruit Salad. Akhilleus (in today's thread): "The 'oranges' of the Russian investigation is that you are president, Donald. And you were helped into the White House by an adversarial foreign power. Thus, we needed to look at anything that apples to that. There was a lot of liming going on about the whole thing, from you and yours, an a-pear-ance of possible collusion, with you plum smack in the middle trying to berry everything, which caused a less than cherry outlook for most of America, raisin even more questions. This is not a grape time in The country, and you are the cause. You are the melon-oma on the face of America. So if you're looking for oranges, find a mirror" ...
... There's Something Wrong with Trump's "Very Good Brain." Aaron Rupar of Vox: "During an Oval Office event with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday afternoon..., Donald Trump either lied or got confused about where his father was born, admitted that closing the border with Mexico will be economically harmful to the US (but threatened to do it anyway), pushed a baseless conspiracy theory, and repeatedly struggled to say the word 'origins.' Oh, and he urged Congress to 'get rid of judges' who are making it harder for his administration to summarily deport migrants -- a position in tension with the idea that the United States is a nation of checks and balances that respects the rule of law. Even by Trump's standards, it was a troubling performance.... Trump's comments [on the border closing] were a complete reversal from last Friday, when he mistakenly argued that closing the border 'will be a profit-making operation' because of the US's trade deficit with Mexico."
MoveOnDotTrump. Jonathan Chait: "In the immediate wake of Robert Mueller's announcement that he has not established a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Donald Trump, the jovial president declared he would be happy to display the entire report before the public. 'Let it come out. Let people see it -- that's up to the attorney general,' he said. But over the last few days, the administration's position on full disclosure has grown quieter. Meanwhile, periodic murmurs have suggested perhaps the report will amount to something other than total vindication.... [Tuesday] morning, Trump tweeted, "There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff. It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!' [Tuesday], White House press secretary Sarah Sanders answered a question about the Mueller report by calling Democrats 'sore losers' who need to move on. Trump is now calling demands to release the report a 'disgrace' and a 'waste of time.'... Maybe, just maybe, the Mueller report is less flattering than William Barr's topline summary indicated?"
Rebecca Shabad & Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "The House Oversight Committee voted Tuesday to issue subpoenas seeking information on both the White House security clearance process and on the process that led to the administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The panel, led by Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., voted along party lines 22-15 on a resolution to subpoena the testimony of former White House personnel security director Carl Kline to discuss the security clearance process at the White House." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... How to Give an Interview & Say Nothing. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner on Monday dismissed concerns raised by a whistleblower about the White House's security clearance process, saying President Trump's administration has faced 'a lot of crazy accusations' during the past two years.... Kushner, who Trump ultimately demanded be granted a permanent top-secret clearance despite concerns of intelligence officials, told Fox host Laura Ingraham that he 'can't comment for the White House's process.'... During the Fox News interview, Ingraham noted that [long-time White House security advisor Tricia] Newbold had said she has 'grave concerns' about the security-clearance process and asked Kushner if he poses a 'grave national security concern to the country.' Kushner laughed and said: 'Look, I can say that in the White House I work with some phenomenal people and I think over the last two years the president's done a phenomenal job of identifying what are our national security priorities. He's had a great team in place that are helping implement it, and I hope I've played a good part in pushing those objectives forward.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mar-a-Lago's Loose Security. Frances Robles of the New York Times: "A 32-year-old woman from China carrying four cellphones and a thumb drive infected with malware gained access to Mar-a-Lago during President Trump's visit to the Florida resort over the weekend, federal court records show.... She was allowed to enter by Secret Service agents stationed outside the resort after the Mar-a-Lago security manager on duty verified that her last name matched the surname of a member of the club, according to a complaint filed in federal district court in South Florida. Once inside, according to the account filed with the court, the woman said she was there to attend a United Nations Chinese American Association event later in the evening. But no such event existed, according to the complaint, so the club receptionist alerted the Secret Service.... Don Mihalek, executive vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents the Secret Service, said ... the fact that Secret Service agents apparently relied on the determination by a Mar-a-Lago security agent that [Yujing] Zhang was related to a member of the club -- simply because she shared the member's last name -- was problematic." Mrs. McC: No kidding. ...
... Sarah Blaskey, et al., of the Miami Herald: "... In both years prior to Charlottesville, Mar-a-Lago hosted 33 events, according to the Herald's analysis of the Palm Beach Daily News' social events calendar. It dropped to 10 events in the season after Charlottesville.... [Into that vacuum came] Li 'Cindy' Yang, an Asian-themed day-spa magnate.... She helped promote the cobbled-together replacement galas, selling them online as opportunities for Chinese businessmen to gain face time with the Trump family.... 'What's different here is that the president and his family have a direct financial interest in putting on these events,' said Jeffrey Prescott, a former National Security Council aide in the Obama administration and a senior fellow at the Penn Biden Center.... Through his private estate, the president has profited from Yang's many guests, who attended Mar-a-Lago events that charged hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars for tickets.... Yang has maintained that she has no allegiance to the Chinese government. But [her major "bundler," Charles] Lee's travel packages were explicitly intended to promote Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2015 business diplomacy agenda." Read on. Yang has quite a scam going. ...
... David Corn, et al., of Mother Jones: Yujing "Zhang's alleged attempt to enter Mar-a-Lago coincided with an event that had been scheduled that night and that also had been promoted by Cindy Yang's company, GY US Investments, which claimed to be able to provide opportunities to 'interact' with 'the president, the [American] Ministe of Commerce, and other political figures.'... According to the affidavit, [Yujing] Zhang 'claimed her Chinese friend "Charles" told her to travel from Shanghai, China to Palm Beach, Florida to attend this event and attempt to speak with a member of the President's family about Chinese and American foreign economic relations.'... Zhang's arrest again raises the question of whether there is a national security problem at Mar-a-Lago. Democrats in Congress sent a letter to the FBI on March 15 requesting 'criminal and counterintelligence investigations' into Yang for 'unlawful foreign lobbying, campaign finance and other activities by Ms. Yang.'"
A Strange Trump Lie. Cristal Hayes of USA Today: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely stated his father was born in Germany -- the fourth time the president has made such a claim in less than a year. His father, Fred Trump, was born and raised in New York. The issue came up again on Tuesday when the president was discussing NATO and Germany needing to pay more as part of the alliance during a White House event with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The meeting took place amid tensions over Trump's attacks on the alliance, especially his claims that some countries don't contribute enough to mutual defense. 'I mean, Germany, honestly, is not paying their fair share. I have great respect for Angela and I have great respect for their country,' the president said of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'My father is German. Right? Was German. And born in a very wonderful place in Germany, and so I have a great feeling for Germany.'"
A Strange Trump Health Theory. Jonathan Chait: "President Trump has long despised wind power. He has repeatedly blamed wind turbines for killing birds (which they do at a lower rate than other energy sources) and for allegedly causing electrical power to halt when the wind stops blowing (in fact, electricity grids using mixed power sources and battery storage have solved this problem.) In a speech tonight to House Republicans, Trump claimed that wind turbines cause cancer. 'They say the noise causes cancer,' the president of the United States asserted. Wind turbines do not cause cancer.... A power source that does cause many health problems, including cancer, is coal, an extremely dirty fuel Trump loves and has attempted to bolster, with almost no success Aside from costing more to produce energy than other sources of power, and in addition to enormous air pollution side effects, coal also emits greenhouse gases in large amounts. Though this of course is another aspect of science Trump rejects." ...
... At the end of his post, Chait does point out that sometimes Trump's peculiar fears are warranted: "'Someone's gonna leak this whole damn speech to the media,' Trump worried aloud. It was a valid fear, given that reporters were in the room and C-SPAN cameras were covering the speech live."
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted Tuesday to authorize subpoenas to compel Trump administration officials to provide documents related to the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. The committee voted 23-14 along mostly party lines to approve three separate subpoenas, ratcheting up the panel's legal fight with the administration. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) joined Democrats in authorizing the subpoenas, which will allow committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to seek testimony and unredacted information about the controversial change to the decennial survey. One subpoena is aimed at securing testimony from Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore. A second subpoena is to compel Attorney General William Barr to turn over a memo to Gore from James Uthmeier, general counsel to the Department of Commerce, in fall 2017. It also would demand any Department of Justice communications about the citizenship question with the White House, the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign or members of Congress. The third subpoena is targeted toward Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and seeks unredacted copies of several documents and internal communications related to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Melanie Zanona & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Republican Rep. Mark Walker has been caught up in a federal corruption probe that has rocked the North Carolina Republican Party and led to the indictment of former congressman Robin Hayes (R-N.C.). A Walker-controlled political committee received $150,000 from a business owner, Greg Lindberg, at the same time Lindberg allegedly asked him to pressure North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey to replace his deputy, according to criminal indictment unsealed on Tuesday. Walker, a member of GOP leadership, is not named in the indictment. However, Politico has identified him as 'Public Official A'.... The Justice Department announced indictments of four individuals Tuesday on charges of public corruption and bribery, including Lindberg and Hayes, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party until earlier this week. Lindberg and two of his associates allegedly tried to bribe Causey, who was working with federal authorities and not charged in the probe, to oust North Carolina Department of Insurance's senior deputy commissioner. Lindberg allegedly sought more favorable treatment of his company in the state."
Presidential Race 2020
Sheryl Stolberg & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "... the political ground has shifted under [Joe] Biden, and his tactile style of retail politicking is no longer a laughing matter in the era of #MeToo. Now, as he considers a run for president, Mr. Biden is struggling to prevent a strength from turning into a crippling liability; on Tuesday alone, two more women told The New York Times that the former vice president's touches made them uncomfortable. For Mr. Biden, 76, the risks are obvious: the accusations feed into a narrative that he is a relic of the past, unsuited to represent his party in the modern era, against an incumbent president whose treatment of women should be a central line of attack.... As if on cue, the president went after Mr. Biden at a fund-raiser in Washington on Tuesday night. Cracking a joke about asking for a kiss, Mr. Trump said, 'I felt like Joe Biden.'... Caitlyn Caruso, a former college student and sexual assault survivor, said Mr. Biden rested his hand on her thigh -- even as she squirmed in her seat to show her discomfort -- and hugged her 'just a little bit too long' at an event on sexual assault at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was 19.... D. J. Hill, 59, a writer who recalled meeting Mr. Biden in 2012 at a fund-raising event in Minneapolis, said that when she and her husband, Robert, stepped up to take their photograph with the vice president, he put his hand on her shoulder and then started dropping it down her back, which made her 'very uncomfortable.'"
Zachary Basu of Axios: "2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders announced Tuesday that he has raised $18.2 million from more than 900,000 individual donations since launching his campaign on Feb. 19. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Party of Drumpf. Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "... power struggles [within the Republican party infrastructure] have now been resolved in a one-sided fashion. In every state important to the 2020 race, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants are in firm control of the Republican electoral machinery, and they are taking steps to extend and tighten their grip. It is, in every institutional sense, Mr. Trump's party. As Mr. Trump has prepared to embark on a difficult fight for re-election, a small but ferocious operation within his campaign has helped install loyal allies atop the most significant state parties and urged them to speak up loudly to discourage conservative criticism of Mr. Trump."
Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC: "April 2 marks Equal Pay Day, our annual reminder that women's pay is not in fact equal to men's. Not nearly: Women make about 80 cents to a man's dollar. That's a wage gap of nearly 20 percent, and unfortunately, at the rate we're going, it will take nearly 41 years -- until 2059 -- to achieve parity. For Hispanic women it won't happen until 2224, and for black women, it's 2119." Mrs. McC: That is, women, on average, have worked three months into 2019 to receive the same pay men, on average, made in 2018. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jean Chatzky of NBC News: "Black women earn 63 cents for every dollar that men do, Native American women earn 58 cents and Hispanic women make just 54 cents." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Anna North of Vox: "But matters are actually worse than any of these numbers would suggest, according to a 2018 report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), a think tank that looks at public policy through the lens of gender. Measures of the pay gap typically compare the wages of men and women working full time in a given year, as Emily Peck notes at HuffPost. But women are more likely to drop out of full-time work to take care of children or other family members. To account for this, the report's authors looked at women's earnings across a 15-year period, and compared those with men's. What they found was a pay gap nearly twice as big as what's traditionally reported: averaged out over 15 years, women made just 49 cents for every dollar men made." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Illinois. Bill Ruthhart of the Chicago Tribune: "Lori Lightfoot won a resounding victory Tuesday night to become both the first African-American woman and openly gay person elected mayor of Chicago, dealing a stinging defeat to a political establishment that has reigned over City Hall for decades. After waging a campaign focused on upending the vaunted Chicago political machine, Lightfoot dismantled one of its major cogs by dispatching Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, whose candidacy had been hobbled in part by an anti-incumbent mood among voters and an ongoing federal corruption investigation at City Hall."
Pennsylvania. Reid Wilson of the Hill: "A Democratic Navy veteran who served in former President George W. Bush's Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday won a special election to fill a state Senate seat in suburban Pittsburgh, a district President Trump won in 2016. Pam Iovino will represent the state Senate district that covers parts of Allegheny and Washington counties after she beat out D. Raja, a businessman who chairs the Allegheny County Republican Party."