Good Friday morning from Salt Lake City.
Romney says Trump will win another term in 2020. G7 leaders may rebuke the U.S. over trade. Trump says he doesn’t need to prepare ahead of time for his meeting with Kim Jong Un.
Breaking overnight: Chef and television host Anthony Bourdain was found dead of an apparent suicide in a hotel room in France [Washington Post].
TICK TOCK
- 4 days until in-person early primary voting begins (6/12/2018)
- 11 days until the final day to register to vote online or in person before the primary election (6/19/2018)
- 14 days until in-person early primary voting ends (6/22/2018)
- 18 days until the 2018 Primary Election (6/26/2018)
- 151 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
- 234 days until the first day of the 2019 Utah Legislature (1/28/2019)
- 879 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)
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HERE ARE THE STORIES WE’RE WATCHING TODAY
Four more years?
Mitt Romney, speaking at his annual elite political summit in Park City, says Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2020 because of a good economy and Democrats will nominate a candidate outside of the mainstream [Politico].
What a week!
Polls! Mia Love vs. Ben McAdams. John Curtis vs. Chris Herrod. Plus Donald Trump doesn’t know much about history or the lyrics to “God Bless America”! Bob Bernick and Bryan Schott chew over the week that was [Utah Policy}.
Our week in review is also available in our award-winning podcast form for your mobile listening [Utah Policy].
Brickbats and political mailers
The battle between Rep. Ray Ward and challenger Phill Wright in HD19 is getting mean-spirited [Utah Policy].
OTHER UTAH HEADLINES
- Utah’s suicide rate has jumped by nearly 50% since 1999, putting the state in the top-five nationwide [Deseret News, Tribune].
- The Utah County Republican Party picked Rep. Keith Grover to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Margaret Dayton who retired [Daily Herald].
- Mayor Ben McAdams wants the Salt Lake County Council to slow down on a proposed 8,700 unit housing development west of Herriman [Deseret News].
- Kelle Stephens was reinstated as president of Dixie Technical College five months after she was forced out amid claims of blackmail [Tribune].
NATIONAL HEADLINES
- France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said leaders at the G7 summit may issue a rare rebuke of the United States over President Trump’s threats over international trade [Washington Post].
- Whoa! Senate investigators are probing ties between a former member of Congress, Russia and the Trump campaign [The Atlantic].
- President Trump says his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is more about “attitude” than prep work [Politico].
- The Justice Department is calling on a federal court to overturn a key provision in Obamacare barring insurers from denying people coverage based on preexisting conditions [Politico].
- Senate GOP leaders are working to quash Sen. Bob Corker’s proposal to rein in President Trump on trade issues [Politico].
- Federal investigators seized years worth of notes and emails from a reporter as part of a leak investigation involving a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide [New York Times].
- President Trump hired Rudy Giuliani to speak for him in the Russia investigation, but Melania Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo say Giuliani doesn’t always know what he’s talking about [New York Times].
- EPA administrator Scott Pruitt tasked his security detail to run errands for him, including tracking down his favorite brand of lotion [Washington Post].
- U.S. authorities are transferring about 1,600 immigration detainees into federal prisons [Reuters].
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
- 1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress.
- 1861 – Tennessee secedes from the Union.
- 1869 – Ives McGaffney obtained a patent for a “sweeping machine,” the first vacuum cleaner.
- 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
- 1949 – Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Frederic March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI Report as Communist Party members.
- 1949 – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
- 1995 – Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O’Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.