Trump’s big night in Big D: Three takeaways from ‘overthrow’ rally in Dallas

GOP strategist on white suburban voters: ‘He hasn’t given them much reason to vote for him’

ANALYSIS | Donald Trump walked slowly into the White House just after 1:30 a.m. Friday even more embattled than when he left it some 15 hours earlier. During a rally in Dallas hours before, he dropped the “I-word” (impeachment) just once as he described himself and conservatives as victims of an “overthrow” conspiracy.

Gordon Sondland, the hotelier-turned-ambassador to the European Union, told the House lawmakers leading an impeachment inquiry that he came to realize Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, likely was trying “to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.”

Also during what was a remarkable Thursday, his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, acknowledged for the first time that the White House linked a $400 million military aid package to a desire for Ukraine’s government look into the 2016 U.S. election — a seeming quid pro quo Trump has denied.

View the complete October 18 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Trump Visits Texas, Where the Fallout From a Secret Tape Awaits Him

New York Times logoThe Republican speaker of the Texas House was recorded saying President Trump is “killing us” in suburban districts. On Thursday, the president came to Dallas for a rally.

AUSTIN, Texas — With President Trump arriving in red-state Texas for a campaign rally in Dallas on Thursday, the Republican Party in the state faces a host of troubles.

The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives is engulfed in scandal. Six of the state’s 23 Republican members of the United States House of Representatives say they will not run for re-election, opening new opportunities for Democrats. And one of the state’s three top Republican leaders believes that the president has become a political liability among a crucial bloc of voters.

“With all due respect to Trump — who I love, by the way — he’s killing us in urban-suburban districts,” Dennis Bonnen, the speaker of the state House and the central figure in the legislative scandal, said in a 64-minute tape recording released on Tuesday.

View the complete October 17 article by Dave Montgomery on The New York Times website here.