Political Brief: We're back!

We also have a big announcement!

Dear Friends,

We’re back from our break and we told you we’d have at least one big announcement.

Our podcast has moved to Anchor and we’ve joined That Sounds Fun Network! We’re thrilled to be joining Annie F. Downs’ “amusement park of podcasts” and grow our community. We’ve renamed the podcast, Wear We Are, to reflect its focus on news-politics-faith, but it’s still the same podcast you know and love from us. Sunday’s episode is posted, as is today’s Morning Five, so head on over and take a listen and subscribe!

What does this mean for you? It means that if you’ve been listening through Substack, you’ll need to subscribe through a different platform. We highly recommend Anchor or Spotify. You can also listen through: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, and Stitcher.

If you could, make the switch, and like/rate our show and share our announcement on social media. We’ve made today’s Political Brief free to all subscribers so that you can also get a sneak peek of what subscribers receive in their inbox each Monday on the latest in political news.

To celebrate joining That Sounds Fun Network, we’re featuring 50% off an annual subscription for one year!

Again, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on a different platform (see the many choices above!). Each week, we’ll share links to the episodes here at the newsletter, too.

Reclaim hope this week,

Michael & Melissa

The 3 things you should know:

1. Tomorrow’s primaries: Florida and the NY congressional primaries (NY’s governor primary was in June). More below!

2. Inflation is calming or slowing down. A lot of important commodity prices that drove inflation in the first place are down. (Axios)

3. Education Secretary Cardona said that the Administration should have a decision on student loan debt next week. (USA Today) We covered student loans in Episode 18 of the podcast.

Primaries

• Looking at the big picture, some experts are starting to ask: might Democrats buck the convention that they’ll take big losses in November? In our latest podcast episode, we discuss that it’s too early to make a prediction just yet. But then again, you’ve got Sen. Mitch McConnell lamenting over the lack of quality GOP candidates — something which caused President Trump to release a statement and call McConnell a “broken down hack.” (National Review) And if you’re wondering why McConnell would say that, just know that there are at least 20 Q-Anon-friendly candidates running in major elections for the GOP at the moment. (TNR)
  
  But back to the possible shift in momentum: Cook Political Report seems to insinuate that what we’re seeing is more of a “vibe shift” than a critical shift towards Democrats. Charlie Cook says pragmatically, “It still seems doubtful that things have changed enough to save the Democratic majority in the House, but it is plausible that this could shave a half dozen or a dozen seats from the losses that they otherwise might have sustained.”

• Social media platforms are preparing for election-related misinformation ahead of the midterms.

• “Now, a new crop of Republican candidates and elected officials are using the phrase [the American dream] in a different way, invoking the same promise but arguing in speeches, ads and mailings that the American dream is dying or in danger, threatened by what they see as rampant crime, unchecked illegal immigration, burdensome government regulations and liberal social policies. Many of these Republicans are people of color — including immigrants and the children of immigrants, for whom the phrase first popularized in 1931 has a deep resonance.” (NYT)

• Speaking of the GOP, 2024 nominee hopefuls — Trump, VP Mike Pence, Gov. Ron DeSantis — are campaigning for fellow Republicans in several upcoming primaries, seeking to gain or maintain allies ahead of their potential presidential campaigns. “‘It’s surprisingly business-as-usual,’ said Republican strategist Bob Heckman, a veteran of presidential campaigns, noting that Republicans are not “timid” or “frozen” in the face of Trump’s repeated suggestions he might seek a second White House term. There’s good reason to make allies now, Heckman said — they may decide against running down the road, but ‘if you haven’t done the prep work, you can’t recapture that.’” (WaPo)

• Florida’s primary tomorrow: In Florida, it’s all about the governor’s race and who will win the Democratic nomination to go up against a very-strong Gov. DeSantis. The two candidates are Commissioner Nikki Fried and Rep. Charlie Crist. Some Democrats are discouraged at this point over their choices, but that dissatisfaction might just be another way of expressing that they are intimidated by DeSantis ahead of what many view to be his inevitable victory and then presidential campaign in 2024. Obviously, no victory in a state like Florida is inevitable, and it would not be unprecedented for a candidate to have their hopes for the presidency dashed by losing an election they took for granted. (PBS News)

• New York’s congressional primary tomorrow: We’re interested in two Democratic congressional races, especially.

  • NY-12 was redistricted and it’s a race between Rep. Jerry Nadler, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, and Suraj Patel. Nadler is polling ahead of Maloney at this point. (The Hill) “The campaign has become as much about the candidates’ different identities as their policies, which largely align. Nadler, who could be the only Jewish member of the New York’s U.S. House delegation after this year, hopes that matters in a city with the largest Jewish population in the United States. Maloney, who has broken gender barriers, is emphasizing that she is a woman, and hopes the passions around abortion rights and women’s rights drives voters to her side. And Patel, a millennial and son of Indian immigrants, hopes voters frustrated with the status quo will choose diversity and change.” (NYT)

  • In NY-17, there’s another redistricted race between incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney and state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who is running to his left. Maloney is the head of the DCCC and recently had to defend his push for funding of far-right candidates in GOP primaries. (AP) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and progressive orgs are backing Biaggi. (NYT)

• In Texas, WaPo chronicles how former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is seeking votes in not-so-easy red areas of the state.

• We’ll also track FiveThirtyEight’s generic ballot until November 8th:

  

  Legislation

• President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act on August 16th. (The Week) It includes provisions for climate change, healthcare, and taxes. Some highlights:

  • Support for “green banks”; tax credits for carbon capture; consumer tax credits for some EVs; new limits on the release of methane gas; $60 billion in incentives to increase domestic solar panel production

  • Medicare will be able to negotiate drug prices on the 10 high-cost drugs starting in 2026; $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug expenses for Medicare recipients, starting in 2025; $35 cap on insulin costs for Medicare patients; 3-year extension of ACA subsidies

  • 15 percent minimum tax on most companies that report $1 billion or more in income to their shareholders; $80 billion for the IRS, to increase compliance and modernize the agency

• And since so many outlets are talking about whether or not the IRA will lower inflation, we appreciate this piece in The Dispatch that specifically looks at the value of the climate provisions.

Economy

• It’s still a bit too early, but fears of a recession may be dimming. (Fortune)

• With inflation calming as well, we might expect just a .5% hike from the Fed instead of .75%. (Forbes)

• The labor market may also be turning back to companies/managers. (Yahoo News)

Trump Investigations/January 6th

• There are four investigations into Trump at this time: the Mar-a-Lago classified documents, DOJ’s investigation into January 6th, the Georgia election investigation, and the NY attorney general’s investigation into the Trump organization. (Vox)

• President Trump may request a “special master” i.e. a third party over 4th amendment concerns with regards to the documents seized by the DOJ at Mar-a-Lago. (Axios) And here is a the timeline/list of how the Trump team has responded to the investigations. (Politico)

• In a new NBC poll, 57% of American voters agreed with the statement that the probes into President Trump should continue.

• And more to whether or not the January 6th committee itself has made a big enough impact this past month, Politico obtained this quote, “One Democratic strategist who advises major party donors told me, ‘Most Americans can’t even spell democracy.’” (I hear Americans are pretty good at figuring out when they’re looked down upon though!) Democrats are campaigning on other issues and on the fact that they’re the “party of order.” (TNR)

Foreign Affairs

• The war in Ukraine, of course, continues. Tensions have escalated between Russia and Ukraine in the last few days as Daria Dugina was killed by a car bomb blast in Moscow. She’s the daughter of a Putin-ally and friend. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy fears backlash from Russia. (WSJ)

• The EU has been mediating between Iran and the US for a new nuclear deal and recently submitted a final proposal. The Biden Administration, in turn, has needed to reassure Israeli allies over the content of the proposal. (Axios)

• Are we going to see a clean energy arms race between the US and China? (Politico) And at the beginning of this month, President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law, investing in semiconductor manufacturing in the US. This legislation adds another facet to US-China relations. (NPR)

Something to ponder…

• On Mitch Daniels running in 2024: “Ten years and a political era later, Daniels has refashioned himself into a national leader on higher education reform; he famously held tuition at Purdue at the same price for that same amount of time. Now, his allies are urging him to return to politics — having just formed a PAC for him this week. But Daniels’ more moderate strain of conservatism — he floated the idea of a “truce” on social issues in 2010 — is an artifact of a bygone era of politics.” (Politico)

• NBC News and Generation Lab ran polling on the Class of 2025. An interesting graph: