Pelosi says Dems’ House takeover is a done deal
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is so confident of Democrats’ prospects in November that she’s started calling Rep. Hakeem Jeffries “Speaker Jeffries.”
Mrs. Pelosi, who led House Democrats for nearly two decades, including two stints herself as speaker, told colleagues she thinks they will net 30 seats in the election, easily flipping control of the House, where the GOP’s current majority is just several seats.
She also said Democrats could net the four seats needed to flip control of the Senate.
Mrs. Pelosi made her predictions at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee leadership conference in Seattle.
If it happens, she won’t be in Congress to enjoy the majorities. She’s announced her retirement at the end of her 20th term.
Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, had some advice for colleagues itching to regain the majority: Lay off the impeachment talk.
That notion drew applause from the other attendees.
Lara Trump slams claims her father-in-law is beholden to Israel
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President Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump is fuming over conservatives who say he’s indebted to Israel and got dragged into the Iran war by mistake.
Ms. Trump unloaded this week on her podcast, “The Right View,” saying even someone in her own family suggested Mr. Trump was too tied to America’s chief ally in the Middle East.
“I actually got a text message about a week ago or so from a member of my family, married into my family, but a member of my family nonetheless — extended family — who sort of bought into some of that … the idea that Donald Trump is being controlled by Israel,” Ms. Trump said.
She went on to defend the president’s motivations.
“He wants safety and security for us here at home. He also wants to ensure these radical lunatics don’t develop a nuclear weapon. That is why he has done this in Iran. That is why Operation Epic Fury was so necessary. Anyone who believes any of this stuff, please take a breath,” she said.
“I had to be very honest with this family member, and I was like, ’Listen. You need to get ahold of yourself because this is crazy.’ Some of the stuff that was sent to me. I was like, ’I don’t know where you got this, but it’s all insane.’”
Ms. Trump was responding to Xaviaer DuRousseau, a PragerU host who has flipped his politics from liberal to conservative and who was appearing on Ms. Trump’s podcast.
Mr. DuRousseau said he was shocked to hear some conservatives say they believed U.S. troops were dying by the thousands in Iran.
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“It seems like their perspective is totally divorced from reality,” he said.
Pentagon officials have confirmed 13 U.S. military deaths during the conflict.
The attack on Iran has roiled parts of Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement.
“Israel pushed him into this. He shouldn’t have gone along with it,” Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host who now runs his own operation, told The Economist. “This war is something he promised he wouldn’t do.”
Bill Maher gets Trump Kennedy Center award after all
The Trump Kennedy Center will give this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to Bill Maher — despite adamant claims by the White House that it wouldn’t happen.
“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” said Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations. “For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse — one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
Seen, Heard & Whispered was told that the D.C. center appreciated Mr. Maher’s willingness to throw “punches at both sides of the aisle.”
“The center is a place where all opinions & beliefs are welcome,” a source said.
Mr. Maher, longtime host of HBO’s “Real Time” show, pronounced himself thrilled with the award.
“Thank you to the Mark Twain people: I just had the award explained to me, and apparently it’s like an Emmy, except I win,” he said. “I’d just like to say that it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
The award is a bit of an embarrassment for the White House, though.
After the news of the award leaked last week in a report in The Atlantic, presidential spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called the idea “fake news.”
“Bill Maher will not be getting this award,” she said.
The Atlantic said the White House called the center to “make clear that Maher would not receive the prize.”
President Trump has been brutal in his assessment of Mr. Maher recently, including a lengthy social media post last month calling him a “highly overrated lightweight” and urging Republicans to stop appearing on his show.
Mr. Trump did say Mr. Maher was “slightly more talented” than the late-night comics the networks offer up in Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
