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Donald Trump hinted he might fire FBI director Chris Wray after he publicly split from the president on 'antifa' and warned Russia has a 'very active' effort to discredit Joe Biden. Wray testified under oath to Congress Thursday that antifa was 'a movement' and not 'an organization,' contradicting Trump's demand that it be designated a domestic terrorist organization. As he left the White House Friday to head for a campaign rally in Minnesota, Trump was asked if he was considering firing Wray and said: 'We're looking at a lot of different things. I did not like his answer the other day.'
Sep. 19 - Donald Trump hinted he might fire FBI director Chris Wray Friday after he publicly split from the president on 'antifa' and warned Russia has a 'very active' effort to discredit Joe Biden.
Wray testified under oath to Congress Thursday that antifa was 'a movement' and not 'an organization,' contradicting Trump's demand that it be designated a domestic terrorist organization.
As he left the White House Friday to head for a campaign rally in Minnesota, Trump was asked if he was considering firing Wray.
He replied: 'We're looking at a lot of different things. I did not like his answer the other day.'
'I disagreed with him on those very important points,' he said.
'China is the top of the list. The big problem is China and why he doesn't want to say that, that certainly bothers me.
'Antifa is a bad group, they are criminals and anarchists and they are looters and rioters and everything else. I wonder why he is not saying that.'
Trump removed his first FBI director, James Comey, in May 2017, an action which set off the Robert Mueller probe. Only one other FBI director had been fired before, when Bill Clinton removed William Sessions in 1993.
In a White House briefing just before he boarded Marine One, Trump had been asked about both Wray and Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director he slapped down on Thursday for saying vaccines will not be available until late next spring at the earliest, forcing the medical expert into a walkback. continue to read
Biden’s polling lead nears magic number
The former vice president is above or close to majority support in enough states to win the Electoral College.
Sep. 19 - ...“It’s always hard to convince someone who’s made a decision to do something not to do it,” said Schale, the longtime Biden ally. “And I think the other challenge Trump has is he wasn’t an incumbent [in 2016]. There wasn’t a record, and — historically — job approval matters in these things. He’s in the mid-40s in a lot of these states.”
As an incumbent with low approval ratings, Trump has fewer remaining opportunities lefto make the kinds of gains he needs, particularly with voting already underway in a handful of states — and set to begin soon in many others.
“Even if you were talking about a race being 48 [percent] Trump, 46 Biden — you wouldn’t feel bad about Biden’s chances in that scenario because he’s the challenger, and you want the incumbent to be at 50 or above. Especially if there’s not a significant third-party vote this time,” said McHenry. “So, if you’re looking at it from that perspective, really, Trump is running against 50. And whether he’s within 2 or 3 of Biden, you would want to see him making some gains sooner rather than later.
“I still think that this race can wind up turning on the first debate,” he added. “I’d be hesitant to make any bold predictions about the presidential race until we see what happens there.” source
Bad Omen: Another Poll Shows Susan Collins Trailing In Maine
Sep. 18 -...Kavanaugh and impeachment were the two biggest votes Collins has taken during Trump’s presidency. She tried to finesse the latter by joining Romney in calling for the Senate to hear testimony from witnesses, but that got lost in the shuffle of the final vote to acquit, which she joined. There was no good option for her: If she had joined Romney as well in voting to remove, her Republican base in Maine would have collapsed.
Both in this poll and in a recent one from Quinnipiac, Collins is running ahead of Trump — just not by enough to actually put her in front of Gideon. Biden leads the president 55/38 in the Times survey and 59/38 in the Quinnipiac poll; Gideon led Collins 54/42(!) in that latter one. That result was an outlier, but note that Gideon has led Collins in every public poll of Maine taken this year, typically by five points or so, which is unsurprising given the margins Biden consistently enjoys over Trump there. Clearly the president is weighing down Collins, not just on culture-war stuff like Kavanaugh or impeachment but on the pandemic too. The Times finds that Maine voters favor Biden 60/35 when asked whether he or Trump would handle COVID best.
What does this mean for the big picture in the Senate? As of this morning FiveThirtyEight’s model sees Democrats as a favorite to have a majority next year: view source
