Republican Jewish Coalition Provides New Details On $10 Million In General Election Commitment Largely To Help Trump
Ben Kamisar
WASHINGTON The Republican Jewish Coalition expects to spend “millions of dollars on television” as part of its $10 million independent expenditure campaign for November’s elections, with the lion’s share coming to support President Trump’s re-election.
Matt Brooks, the group’s executive director, touted Trump’s policies on anti-Semitism and on Israel to reporters on a conference call Thursday, hours after the administration touted a deal to normalize relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
The group added more details about its spending plans for the fall which includes TV and digital ads as well as voter mobilization and turnout programs augmented by an investment into building out a strong voter file on Jewish American voters.
Brooks estimated that around 90 percent of the money would go toward helping Trump in key states like Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, but that the work would also act as a “force multiplier to make sure these same voters support our Republican candidates” in down-ballot races.
And he said that the group will be messaging on a variety of issues including Israel, but also law and order, energy independence, the economy and fossil fuels because the American Jewish community is not a “monolith.”
Trump’s Changes To Obamacare Would Likely Be Quite Minor In A Second Term
To get an idea for what Trump might do next, it’s worth looking at how his administration has already changed the ACA since he took office.
In 2017, Trump and Republicans in Congress zeroed out the Obama-era mandate on coverage, allowing Americans to once again go insurance-free, without risking penalties. Many Democrats lamented the move, arguing it would make the health insurance marketplace more unstable, by taking more healthy people out of the system. But the truth is that ACA coverage was already unaffordable for many people making over $50,000 .
“The ACA was more focused on sicker and lower income populations, and trying to really provide care for underserved populations,” Fann said.
The Trump administration has also allowed more people to buy insurance that falls outside of the ACA’s original rules. For instance, people are allowed to sign up for short-term health insurance plans, which don’t have to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The plans have been derided by Democrats as “junk insurance,” but Trump officials say they give some level of coverage to people who can’t afford ACA plans, who would otherwise be uninsured.
“I would say the Republican plan is more of broader tax credits, trying to attract more people,” Fann said.
“Insurers are coming back to the market, premiums are declining,” he said.
“If we leave the ACA alone, it’s going to continue to get better,” Fann said. “Let’s just leave this thing alone until we understand what’s going on.”
Senate Dems Call On Postal Service Board To Reverse Changes Amid Concerns About Mail
Leigh Ann Caldwell
WASHINGTON Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other top Senate Democrats are increasing pressure on the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors to reverse changes enacted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy amid concerns those changes could hurt the Postal Service’s ability to handle mail-in votes this fall.
The letter expands scrutiny of the Postal Service beyond DeJoy and to the six-member Board of Governors, all of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump.
You have the responsibility to reverse those changes and the authority to do so, the senators wrote.
The letter sent to the Board of Governors Monday morning and provided to NBC News is the latest effort by Congressional Democrats to halt and reverse the policy and operating directives implemented by DeJoy.
The Board of Governors has the authority to intervene in decisions made by the postmaster general. The group selected DeJoy for the position n May.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi informed House members this past weekend that they should expect to return to Washington to vote on legislation by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to prevent any changes made to the Postal Service until the coronavirus pandemic is over. That vote is expected to take place on a rare Saturday session this week.
Trump defended DeJoy’s actions last Saturday as a way to turn around the agency, denying the moves were meant to discourage mail-in voting.
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Joni Ernst Unveils New Child Care Proposal Amid Tough Re
Leigh Ann Caldwell
WASHINGTON Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, unveiled a new proposal Tuesday to help ensure that child care is available for parents returning back to work after either being furloughed or working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. The proposal could appeal to women a demographic she needs to win re-election this year.
The legislation, which she co-authored with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chair of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, would authorize federal grants to states for child care centers and providers to help them stay open amid financial troubles during the pandemic. Child care has become more difficult to obtain for working parents as some child care centers close, or dont have the funds to operate under new health and safety requirements.
This pandemic has only made our child care crisis worse, Ernst said in a statement. This new effort will help relieve anxiety for families by ensuring our kids are in safe environments and stabilizing the child care sector as a whole.
Ernst is locked in an increasingly competitive re-election effort in Iowa. Recent polls show her tied or slightly trailing her Democratic opponent Theresa Greenfield. Ernsts numbers in the state have fallen alongside President Trumps. Trump won Iowa by 10 points in 2016, but a recent poll shows he has lost his edge over presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Biden Campaign Releases Two New Ads Focused On The Black Community
WASHINGTON The Biden campaign released two new digital ads focused on the Black community as a part of their $15 million, five-week ad buy in battleground states. The campaign started to run these digital ads on Juneteenth as well as radio and print advertisements as part of their mid-six figure investment in Black media in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina.
The one-minute ad titled Always recounts how Bidens career has been shaped by wanting to stand up and act against injustices. It briefly touts his early career fighting for the Black community by combating housing discrimination to being chosen former President Obamas vice president.
In a memo obtained by NBC News last week, the campaigns director of paid media explained the ad would re-introduce voters to the former vice president at a time when the Trump campaign is trying to discredit his civil and voting rights record. Notably the ad does not mention Biden signing the 1994 crime bill.
The second one-minute digital ad stresses whats at stake in this election, particularly in light of the civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd. The ad shows images of hurt protestors and armed officers as well as President Trumps now infamous walk to St. Johns cathedral after police aggressively dispersed peaceful protestors.
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A Look Back At Trump’s 2016 Rnc Nomination Speech
Melissa Holzberg and Liz Brown-Kaiser
WASHINGTON President Trump is set to accept the Republican Party presidential nomination Thursday night with a speech at the White House. In his first acceptance speech in 2016, then-candidate Trump laid out a litany of complaints about President Barack Obama’s administration and set some benchmarks for his own plans. Heres the state of play on just some of those campaign promises:
Tipton The Latest Incumbent To Lose Party’s Nomination
Ben Kamisar
WASHINGTON There was a big surprise in Tuesdays primary elections five-term incumbent Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton lost to Lauren Boebert, a gun-rights activist and restaurant owner who flouted coronavirus regulations and has spoken favorably about a fringe conspiracy theory.
Incumbents rarely lose, especially in a primary. But Tipton joins a handful of other incumbents whose parties voted them out so far this cycle.
Heres a look at the House incumbents who have already lost their party’s nomination, and how they went down.
llinois Democratic Rep. Daniel Lipinski
The writing was on the wall for Lipinski, one of the only House Democrats who had supported anti-abortion rights legislation.
While nonprofit executive Marie Newman fell just a few thousand votes short to Lipinski in 2018, Newman was able to get over the hump and take Lipinski down in the 2020 primary.
Newman had a lot of progressive allies in her corner a group affiliated with EMILYs List spent about $1 million on TV ads to boost her, and several influential progressive groups, including NARAL, backed her primary bid.
Illinois third congressional district, which includes a portion of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, is considered a safely-Democratic one, as 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won it by double-digits. So Newman is expected to join Congress in 2021.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King
Kings loss came after a cost him support within his own party.
Don’t Miss: What Does Trump Say About Healthcare
Taking Care Of Poor Sick People Isnt Single
TRUMP: Well, I like the mandate. I dont want people dying on the streets. The Republicanpeople, they dont want people dying on the streets, but sometimes theyll say Donald Trump wants single payer.
Q: Will people with pre-existing conditions be able to get insurance?
TRUMP: Yes.Now, the new plan is good. Its going to be inexpensive. Its going to be much better for the people at the bottom, people that dont have any money. Were going to take care of them through maybe concepts of Medicare. Now, some people would say, thatsnot a very Republican thing to say. Thats not single payer, by the way. Thats called heart. We gotta take care of people that cant take care of themselves.
Yes Trump Has A Health Care Plan He Has Been Implementing It
Joe Bidens assertion during Tuesdays debate that President Trump does not have a health care plan is flat out false.
Unfortunately, the mainstream news medias fact checkers probably wont call him out on it, and not just because of their normal anti-Trump bias. In fact, there is a widespread misunderstanding of what the president has done in health care and how it all fits together.
Back in 2018, we described President Trumps 1,000 step progress on health reform, noting that instead of opting to pass one giant, comprehensive health care bill, the president was delivering a series of small but significant reforms to cumulatively take us to a much better destination.
That destination was outlined in 2017 by the administration in a 124-page Health and Human Services document, Reforming Americas Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition. The document is a distillation of the dysfunction of our health care system, much of which ObamaCare made worse. It also paints a picture of an alternative model one that puts patients before insurance companies or government bureaucrats and delivers better care and coverage at lower costs.
Everything that President Trump has done in health care since then has been consistent with the vision laid out in the document. The challenge for the news media, and even some of the presidents supporters, has been an issue of attention span a tendency to miss the forest for the trees.
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Here’s What’s In Trump’s Healthcare Plan
CLEVELAND, OHIO – SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the first presidential … debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the first of three planned debates between the two candidates in the lead up to the election on November 3.
Getty Images
At the first presidential debate on September 29, moderator Chris Wallace asked President Trump, “What is the Trump healthcare plan?“
In the weeks since, the president’s team hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with details. But President Trump has hardly been inactive on health care during his term. In fact, his administration has taken a number of important but underappreciated steps to boost consumer choice and affordability in the healthcare marketplace.
Take the administration’s 2018 rule expanding access to association health plans. Under these plans, groups of small businesses or self-employed workers can band together to enroll in large-group insurance coverage. In some instances, a large-group plan can offer savings of nearly 20% compared to a small-group plan with the same benefits.
Before the rule was promulgated, small businesses had to have a “commonality of interest” aside from providing health insurance in order to sponsor an association plan. They also had to have at least one employee, so self-employed workers couldn’t join.
Growing Number Of Black And Latino Americans Are Optimistic For Future Generations
Carrie Dann
WASHINGTON Amid the continuing coronavirus pandemic, a suddenly uncertain economy and mass protests against racial injustice in the United States, dissatisfaction about the current state of the country has reached record highs. But according to a new Pew Research Center poll, a key group Black and Latino Americans are also significantly more optimistic than they were last year that life will be better for future generations than it is now.
The Pew survey, which was conducted between June 16 and 22, found that a third of Black Americans 33 percent now say that future generations will be better off. While thats far from a majority, its almost double the share who said the same in September 2019.
There was a smaller jump in optimism among Latinos, with 26 percent saying that future generations will be better off, compared with just 16 percent who said the same last fall.
The shifts come after the death of George Floyd sparked mass protests against police violence, racial profiling and injustice in law enforcement. Other public surveys since the protests began have found that some of the core messages of the demonstrations including the belief that police are more likely to use deadly force in encounters with Black suspects have quickly gained traction with the American electorate at large.
The online panel poll was conducted June 16-22 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 1.8 percentage points.
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Planned Parenthood Action Fund Endorses Biden
Liz Brown-Kaiser
WASHINGTON Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political wing of Planned Parenthood, announced its endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president Monday, praising him for his record of expanding health care for women.
Joe Biden is the only candidate in this race who will stand up for our health and our rights, the group’s acting president, Alexis McGill Johnson, said in a statement, noting that President Trump has attacked access to abortion and reproductive health care along with the people that Planned Parenthood health centers serve, like women, racial minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Responding to the endorsement in a statement, Biden said: “As President, Im going to do everything in my power to expand access to quality, affordable health care, including reproductive health care. I’m proud to stand with Planned Parenthood in this fight.”
In both the group’s statement and a video announcing the endorsement, Planned Parenthood Action Fund applauds the former vice president for his work on the Affordable Care Act, which expanded birth control access for women nationwide, and for sticking up for abortion rights. The statement even goes on to point out that Biden is committed to repealing the Hyde Amendment, which largely bans federal funds from being used for most abortions. Critics argue that the Hyde Amendment unfairly reduces access to abortions for low-income, minority women who rely on Medicaid.
Estimated Impact Of The Republican Ahca And Bcra
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has evaluated the AHCA and BCRA with respect to health insurance coverage, impact on the annual budget deficit, cost of insurance, and quality of insurance . Other groups have evaluated some of these elements, as well as the distributional impact of the tax changes by income level and impact on job creation. The results of these analyses are as follows:
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New Poll Finds Majority Of Americans Disagree With Trump On Meaning Of ‘defund The Police’
Ben Kamisar and Ed Demaria
WASHINGTON As President Trump is launching new ads attacking calls to “defund the police” and stoking racial and cultural division on Twitter, a new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t agree with the way the president is framing the police-reform movement.
The new survey from Monmouth University found that 77 percent of American adults say that “defund the police” means to “change the way the police departments operate,” not to eliminate them. That view is shared by 73 percent of white, non-college educated Americans and two-thirds of Republicans, Trump’s core voters.
Just 18 percent of Americans say the movement wants to “get rid of police departments,” a view shared by only 28 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of independents.
The president has criticized those calling to “defund the police,” addressing it when he signed an executive order on policing last month.
“I strongly oppose the radical and dangerous efforts to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police departments, especially now when we’ve achieved the lowest recorded crime rates in recent history,” Trump said. “Americans know the truth: Without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy. And without safety, there is catastrophe.”
Monmouth University polled 867 adults in the United States between June 26 and June 30. The margin of error in the poll is +/- 3.3 percentage points.
