McConnell is warmly embraced by Kentucky Republicans amid questions about his health

MAYFIELD, Ky. — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell received a rousing welcome from the party faithful Saturday at a high-profile home-state political gathering amid renewed scrutiny of his health after the 81-year-old lawmaker froze up midsentence during a recent Capitol Hill news conference.

“This is my 28th Fancy Farm, and I want to assure you it’s not my last,” McConnell said at the top of his breakfast speech before the annual picnic that is the traditional jumping off point for the fall campaign season. It was his only reference, however vague, to his health.

McConnell, who is widely regarded as the main architect of the GOP’s rise to power in Kentucky, arrived to a prolonged standing ovation and promoted the candidacy of a protege running for governor this year.

McConnell has been a fixture on the stage at Fancy Farm, where he long has relished jousting with Democrats. His health has drawn increased attention since he briefly left his own news conference in Washington on July 26 after stopping his remarks midsentence and staring off into space for several seconds. GOP colleagues standing behind him grabbed his elbows and escorted him back to his office. When he returned to answer questions, McConnell said he was “fine.” Asked if he is still able to do his job, he said, “Yeah.”

McConnell was out of the Senate for almost six weeks earlier this year after falling and hitting his head after a dinner event at a Washington hotel. He was hospitalized for several days, and his office later said he suffered a concussion and fractured a rib. His speech has sounded more halting in recent weeks, prompting questions among some of his colleagues about his health.

He has said he plans to serve his full term as Republican leader — he was elected to a two-year term in January and would be up for reelection to that post again after the 2024 elections. McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has been the Republican leader since 2007. He would face reelection to the Senate in 2026.

At the breakfast event Saturday, McConnell did not delve into national issues or comment on former President Donald Trump's legal entanglements, and he did not meet with reporters afterward. In his nine-minute speech. McConnell accused Democrats of having “turned their backs on rural America.”

McConnell also praised Daniel Cameron, the state's attorney general who is challenging Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in one of the nation's most closely watched elections this year. McConnell said he first met Cameron when Cameron was a student at the University of Louisville. Cameron went on to serve on McConnell's staff as legal counsel.

“I’ve watched him over the years," McConnell said. "And now you have. And you’ve seen his leadership skills, his ability to rally people together.”

A rift between Trump and McConnell has reverberated in Kentucky, where both men are popular with Republican voters. The split grew after the senator publicly refuted Trump's claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, ending an uneasy partnership that had helped conservatives establish a firm majority on the Supreme Court.

McConnell has been mostly silent since then and has been loath to comment on any of the three indictments of Trump this year. The two have found common cause again in the candidacy of Cameron, who was the beneficiary of Trump’s endorsement during the hard-fought Republican primary for governor.

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‘We have to take it seriously’: Dems brace for a ’24 Biden-Trump rematch

When Barack Obama sat down with Joe Biden this summer and conveyed his concerns about the strength of Donald Trump going into 2024, the warning was not the first to come from within the president's own party.

Nor would it be the last.

The message from one of the Democratic Party’s top voices came with a promise to do everything he can to help Biden stay in the White House. Obama’s concerns may carry more weight as a former president and trusted Biden confidant, but his fears about the formidability of another face-off with Trump reflect a growing sentiment among Democrats.

“Donald Trump can win, number one. … Number two, I think that the third parties can take away enough votes to make Donald Trump win. Number three, we cannot underestimate the dissatisfied mood of the public and his ability to mobilize voters,” said Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden pollster. “I think there’s going to be a very close race. He seems impervious no matter how many indictments. You can run for president from jail.”

Democrats both inside and on the outskirts of the Biden world increasingly believe Trump will be the 2024 GOP nominee. Not only have Democrats taken note of a more organized Trump team, but a number of factors point to the growing reality that it would likely be a challenging, tight rematch for Biden.

Trump’s “support is still very much organic, so I’m very clear-eyed about it,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) in an interview. “I hear some Republicans who are not on the Trump train say that it’s a ticket to defeat — that it’s not a threat. The threat is that he could come back. We have to take it seriously.”

Despite the mounting legal troubles facing the former president, Democrats have noticed that Trump’s campaign, led by longtime GOP operatives Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, is more organized and disciplined than ever. Among the examples Democratic operatives and strategists point to are Trump’s visit to union-friendly East Palestine earlier this year, his attempts to reel in an endorsement from United Auto Workers and efforts to support early voting that Republicans — including Trump — once decried.

“My impression is that they are far more disciplined as a staff around him, making decisions, getting out content, moving quickly,” while also being “nimble” and purposeful in decision-making, said Faiz Shakir, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager.

But Shakir has doubts about whether a stronger team matters with Trump, who delights his firm base of supporters with his tendency to go off script and focus more on his personal grievances than policy issues. Shakir also said Democrats would normally be nervous about Trump’s fundraising numbers but argued it’s a wash since a large chunk of the money is going to legal bills, a figure only expected to grow with his latest indictment.

Ammar Moussa, national press secretary and rapid response director at the DNC, said Trump’s team can’t “erase the stain of the MAGA extremism” Trump has pushed on a number of fronts, including his record on the economy and his moves to pave the way for Republicans to strip away access to abortion.

“We’ll beat Donald Trump regardless of the team he has around him,” he said.

It’s also too early to know whether Trump’s various legal proceedings — as the cases move to trial — will affect his standing in the Republican Party, said Democratic strategist Mike Trujillo, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.

“Living under all these indictments is going to be an interesting, uncharted, walking on fresh snow that no one’s ever walked on before. There’s no playbook here. You can’t go to some episode that happened in ‘96 of Dole or 2012 with Romney or any of the other folks. That Rubik’s Cube, that episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ doesn’t exist,” Trujillo said.

Democrats are thinking less about Trump’s campaign apparatus, said Lake, the Biden pollster, and more about Trump the candidate and the factors that continue to make him a formidable opponent: His ability to mobilize voters, his domination of the news cycle and his stronghold on his base and the Republican Party. While Trump continues to hold a hefty lead in the GOP field, a New York Times/Siena College Poll this week — taken before the latest indictment — had Biden and Trump tied at 43 percent each in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.

“You can often say, ‘Oh a team prepared their candidate well for the debates.’ [Trump] doesn’t prep. He’s going to go out there, and he’s going to win the debate just because he’s going to go out there and absolutely overshadow them by force of nature,” said former Clinton adviser Philippe Reines. “Trump is dominating now just by dint of who Donald Trump is to the Republican Party. Not because of any strategy and tactics that his organization is employing.”

While the DNC and Biden campaign continue to contrast the president with the field of GOP candidates, there’s also a growing feeling that 2024 will likely see the ugly rematch many in the party fear the most, mainly because it opens the possibility of another Trump presidency. The Biden campaign has for the most part sat back, hoarding cash and building its team while Republicans battle it out, but general election planning inside the campaign and among outside spending groups is already underway.

“Looking back at 2020, we do have a playbook that works against the guy. But you can’t rest on your laurels about it,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a top Dem super PAC. “For us, it is: We know how to beat this guy. Let’s beat him again. Let’s take him extremely seriously. Do not underestimate him for a second.”

Until Republicans indicate otherwise, Trujillo said, Democrats should assume the GOP nominee will be Trump and focus on what can help secure a Biden win: Increasing voter turnout and meeting Democratic voters where they are, key efforts at a time when voters’ moods are sour and there’s a risk that lower turnout among some key blocs could threaten Biden’s path to reelection.

“All Trump does is touch hot stoves all the time,” Trujillo said. “For Democrats, we can’t touch that hot stove with him.”

Adam Cancryn contributed to this report. 

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House committee chair on China warns of 'relentless' spying campaign

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), one of the Chinese Communist Party’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, warned Saturday that the U.S. does not fully grasp the extent of China’s espionage within American borders.

“The CCP has continued its relentless espionage campaign against America,” Gallagher said Saturday afternoon on Fox News. “We are slowly waking up to it. But we’re just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of this activity on American soil.”

The comments from Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, come amid an uptick of concern among national security observers about Chinese espionage efforts in recent months. The DOJ on Thursday announced that it arrested two U.S. Navy sailors for allegedly spying on behalf of China.

The Wisconsin Republican warned against the powerful influence of the secretive Chinese Ministry of State Security and the similarly mysterious United Front Work Department, both of which have a role in gathering intelligence at home and abroad. The two units also sit behind the opaque veil of the Chinese government, often making the extent and breadth of their roles and power poorly understood by Western observers.

China has hundreds of suspected covert police stations across the world that enable Beijing to monitor regime critics across the world. In April, federal prosecutors charged two men with operating one such substation in downtown Manhattan.

The Chinese MSS recently announced that it would pursue efforts to enlist citizens in counterespionage efforts in response to a rule that has expanded the scope of Chinese surveillance over documents and data that could cross party expectations. That rule has drawn concern from American officials that it could allow Beijing to interfere with businesses that operate in China.

“In China, there is no such thing as a private company. Everybody, everything, every entity is subject to the whims of Xi Jinping,” Gallagher said.

On Tuesday, the House Select Committee on China sent letters to the leadership of Blackrock and MSCI — two prominent investment companies — questioning whether they have steered American dollars into blacklisted Chinese companies. Both companies say that they follow all relevant laws in their business practices.

Gallagher said that the country needs to work toward decoupling, while ensuring that critical American sectors do not have any dependencies on China. He warned that China’s intelligence efforts perhaps had an end goal.

“I believe that Xi Jinping's lifelong ambition is to take Taiwan,” Gallagher said. “It makes sense they would seek to gather as much information as possible in preparation for such a conflict, and also in order to weaken our ability to surge men and material from the domestic United States to the Indo-Pacific if we did find ourselves in a shooting war with China, which we should be moving heaven and Earth to try and avoid to deter, to prevent. Because it would be incredibly destructive.”

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'No wonder Trump is kicking his ass': Newsom camp hits DeSantis on debate proposal

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s camp on Saturday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed rules for a long-touted debate, arguing that they are an attempt to hide his weaknesses as a candidate.

“What a joke,” Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click said in a statement. “Desantis’ counterproposal is littered with crutches to hide his insecurity and ineptitude — swapping opening statements with a hype video, cutting down the time he needs to be on stage, adding cheat notes and a cheering section.”

“Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet,” he added. “It’s no wonder Trump is kicking his ass.”

POLITICO Playbook exclusively reported on Saturday the DeSantis team’s rules proposal, which includes a prerecorded video in lieu of opening remarks and a live audience instead of an empty room.

Newsom has publicly challenged DeSantis to debate him on policy for months, and the Florida governor told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he would agree to the event. With DeSantis currently on the presidential trail, and Newson floated as a potential future candidate, a matchup of the two governors would symbolize a battle between how America could be run from opposing ends on the ideological spectrum — and the country's dueling coasts.

The two sides’ proposed rules detail a number of similarities. They both agree on Hannity being the lone moderator, a 90-minute run time, equally divided speaking time and two minutes of closing statements.

Between the two governors’ proposals, Nov. 8 is the only date in common, while Georgia is the only location in common.

Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.

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Feds alert judge to Trump’s ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you!’ post

Prosecutors on Friday night called a judge’s attention to a social media post from Donald Trump — issued hours earlier — in which they say the former president appeared to declare that he’s “coming after” those he sees as responsible for the series of formidable legal challenges he is facing.

Attorneys from special counsel Jack Smith’s team said the post from Trump “specifically or by implication” referenced those involved in his criminal case for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.

In a court filing just before 10 p.m. Friday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom alerted the judge in Trump’s latest criminal case – U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan – to a combative post Trump sent earlier in the day.

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps Friday afternoon on Truth Social, which is run by a media company he co-owns.

The prosecutors said Trump’s post raised concerns that he might improperly share evidence in the case on his social media account and they urged that he be ordered to keep any evidence prosecutors turn over to his defense team from public view.

“All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. … And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago.”

Smith’s office has not sought a gag order in either of the criminal cases it is pursuing against Trump: one in Florida focused on his retention of classified documents and the other in Washington over his efforts to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The filing Friday night does not make any request to bar Trump or his attorneys from discussing the D.C. case publicly or with the media.

However, prosecutors in that case have indicated they’re prepared to share a “substantial“ volume of evidence with Trump as soon as Chutkan approves an order governing the handling of evidence. Chutkan is slated to bring attorneys for both sides to court on Aug. 28 to discuss setting a trial date. It’s unclear if Trump’s post will prompt her to seek more immediate efforts to implement a protective order or to impose a gag order, which can be issued under D.C. federal court rules.

Trump’s Truth Social post came just one day after he swore in federal court that he would not make any effort to influence or retaliate against witnesses or make any other actions that might obstruct the administration of justice in his case. Asked by a magistrate judge on Tuesday to verify that he would comply with that instruction, Trump acknowledged it and said that he would.

The Truth Social post made no specific reference to any witnesses or court personnel, but Trump has often used his social media megaphone to attack prosecutors and judges in the criminal cases he is facing.

Trump's legal team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Push for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to take on Rick Scott is growing

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — There’s a growing chorus of Democratic-aligned groups calling for former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Rick Scott, including organizations eager to see a second Hispanic woman in the Senate.

POLITICO previously reported that Senate Democratic leaders have urged Mucarsel-Powell, a Miami Democrat who served one term in Congress before losing a reelection bid in 2020, to take on Scott in a race that could prove pivotal in Democratic efforts to keep control of the Senate.

Mucarsel-Powell is still weighing whether to challenge Scott, the former two-term governor and multimillionaire who could pour unlimited amounts of his own money into the contest. Scott, however, has never run during a presidential election year and has been placed on the defense by both the White House and even fellow Republicans over his stance on Medicare and Social Security.

This week, Latino Democrats, including those connected to groups such as BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have become vocal with their support for Mucarsel-Powell. They see her as a compelling candidate in a state in which roughly a quarter of the population is Hispanic.

“Debbie would be such a fantastic recruit,” Victoria McGroary, executive director for BOLD PAC told POLITICO. “Rick Scott is one of the must vulnerable Republicans in the Senate. It is really time for Florida to have someone as strong as Debbie, a Latina, at the top of the ballot.”

This outpouring of support could be a prelude to Mucarsel-Powell committing to the race. She did not respond this week to a request for a comment on whether she has made a final decision. But others said they really want her to run.

In a statement, Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), the chair of BOLD PAC, added that “Debbie is urgently needed in the U.S. Senate. An immigrant who came to America with her mother at 14 seeking the American dream, her story is the story of so many Floridians.”

Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS Action Fund, which is a group linked to one of the nation’s largest Latino civil rights groups, on Thursday sent a letter to Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Senate Democratic Senatorial Committee.

“As a proven advocate for the Latino community and a fierce defender of the values we hold dear, Congresswoman Murcarsel-Powell's leadership is exactly what Florida needs at this time,” Murguía wrote.

Scott first burst into Florida’s political scene as an outsider during the 2010 tea party wave and has eked out three razor-thin margin wins including his 2018 race against Sen. Bill Nelson. Scott won that midterm contest by slightly more than 10,000 votes.

Scott has already been campaigning vigorously ahead of 2024, setting a goal of visiting all 67 counties. He has repaired a frayed relationship he once had with top Florida GOP officials and has been routinely showing up for county party fundraisers.

There are already Democrats in the race against Scott, most notably Navy veteran Phil Ehr. Ehr mounted an unsuccessful challenge in 2020 to knock off Rep. Matt Gaetz in a ruby-red Panhandle district. His campaign says he has already raised over $500,000.

The argument for Mucarsel-Powell, who is currently a senior adviser for the gun control group Giffords, is that she was elected previously in a swing district in Miami-Dade County, a crucial battleground for Democrats, and knows how to raise money in a congressional race. She was born in Ecuador and immigrated to the U.S. when she was a teenager.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has personally talked to Mucarsel-Powell about running and the DSCC was scheduled to do polling in July on the race.

Other names who have been floated as possible candidates include Tampa-based State House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell and Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins.

Florida Democrats have never nominated a Hispanic woman as a statewide candidate. Both Sen. Marco Rubio, who was first elected in 2010, and former Sen. Mel Martinez, are Cuban-American. The only Hispanic woman in the U.S. Senate is Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada.

The push to nudge Mucarsel-Powell comes after Republicans dominated the 2022 midterms in Florida up and down the ballot, including Rubio winning his reelection contest over former Rep. Val Demings by more than 16 percentage points. Republicans also now have a decisive voter registration edge in the nation’s third-largest state.

María Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, contended, however, that “the political winds have shifted dramatically in Florida, and the Senate seat is absolutely in play with the right Democrat in the race.” She added that Mucarsel-Powell is “a battle-tested powerhouse who knows what it takes to win” and that “she would be an incredibly compelling candidate if she decides to run, and there's no question she would enjoy strong support."

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Senate's endangered Dems take a pass on talking Trump

The Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats are steering clear of the week’s biggest news: the third indictment of former President Donald Trump.

POLITICO asked seven incumbents expected to face competitive reelections in 2024 to weigh in on the charges but heard nothing in response. Of Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), only Sinema’s team replied — with a no comment.

Their silence stands in contrast to many other Democrats — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who quickly weighed in Tuesday with a joint statement alongside House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “the culmination of a months-long criminal plot led by the former president.”

It's a tricky balancing act for the seven endangered lawmakers, all of whom need to win over independents and even Republicans to win their Senate races. However popular Trump’s indictments may be among Democrats, piling on the former president isn’t a winning strategy for incumbents who need to reach beyond the party base in order to keep their jobs. Manchin, Tester and Brown are all defending seats Trump carried in 2020: West Virginia (39 points); Montana (16 points); and Ohio (8 points). President Joe Biden did carry Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, but only narrowly.

Avoiding talk of Trump's indictment is mostly limited in the Senate to Democrats, a quirk of the 2024 campaign map that puts few of the chamber's Republican incumbents in truly competitive races. But in the House, the 18 GOP lawmakers representing House districts won by Biden have been relatively quiet on the indictment, too — more evidence that there’s little upside for frontline members in wading into the former president’s legal morass.

The kid-gloves treatment reflects the split public opinion on Trump’s behavior: 45 percent of adults surveyed in an AP-NORC poll conducted last month — before this latest indictment — said Trump had done something illegal related to the events of Jan. 6. A higher percentage, 53 percent, concluded he had done something illegal related to the handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Unlike their incumbent opponents, the GOP candidates challenging vulnerable Senate incumbents are on mostly on offense with Trump's indictment. Not all of the Republicans running to unseat the Senate’s vulnerable Dems are weighing in on Trump, but those who have are firmly in the former president’s corner. “Joe Biden knows he can't beat Trump at the ballot box, so he's trying to throw him in prison,” wrote Tim Sheehy, who’s challenging Tester in Montana.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who’s seeking Manchin’s Senate seat, told POLITICO in a statement that the indictments are part of a “witch hunt and the weaponization of the federal government,” while his primary rival, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), also lambasted “unprecedented witch hunts from corrupt left-wing Democrats” and vowed to fight “DOJ’s disgusting abuse of power.”

Sam Brown, who’s seeking the Republican Senate nomination in Nevada, told POLITICO: “It is deeply concerning that we appear to be creating a two-tiered system of justice under the current administration where the rules don’t apply to everyone evenly.”

One prominent Republican, however, remained mum as Trump was arraigned: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who predicted criminal consequences for Trump in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, declined through his office to comment on the former president's legal troubles.

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