It seems so obvious in hindsight, now that Patrick Mahomes II is off breaking NFL records. He has the size at 6’3″. He has the intangibles. He has the pedigree. And, of course, he has that right arm, the sort that comes along only once in a rare while.
If there was ever a sure bet to place on a high school player someday maturing into a franchise quarterback, Mahomes would appear to have been it. Yet hardly anyone believed it when he was a recruit in the class of 2014.
High school recruiting, once a curiosity acknowledged only in the first week of February, has ballooned into a year-round media spectacle on the strength of suspense, intrigue and plenty of subterfuge. It’s the college sports fan’s equivalent of a network drama, which makes national signing day the season finale, the moment when all questions about who, what, where and why are answered before the cycle resets.
Sometimes, though, there are no answers. Such is the case with Mahomes, who, almost five years after signing with Texas Tech, remains one of the most peculiar recruiting mysteries of the decade. How could someone so obviously gifted, playing at a prolific Texas high school, only receive a handful of scholarship offers?
Like all the best mysteries, no one has been able to solve it.
Mahomes grew up in Whitehouse, Texas, the son of former Major League Baseball pitcher Pat Mahomes. From an early age, he cultivated a reputation around town as an athletic marvel. Some of that was due to the gravitas bestowed on him as the son of the most famous man in town. Far more of it was on account of how quickly he mastered whatever sport he tried.
Former MLB pitcher Pat Mahomes at a Chiefs game.David Zalubowski/Associated Press/Associated Press
There was baseball, of course, where he was so advanced at the plate that Coleman Patterson, his childhood friend and high school and college teammate, swears, “I think I saw him only strike out two times in my whole life, and that’s from age seven until 18.”
Mahomes’ arm impressed on the diamond, too, not only as a pitcher but dating back to his earliest days as a fielder.
“I’ve heard his dad tell stories about how he threw a ball, I think, from shortstop to first base and about knocked [the first baseman] out,” says Adam Cook, Mahomes’ head football coach at Whitehouse High School for his senior season. “I think that may have been in T-ball.”
There was also basketball, which to this day his godfather, former MLB pitcher LaTroy Hawkins, argues was Patrick’s best sport. And golf. As well as high jump. Even pingpong, which Hawkins learned firsthand after Mahomes humiliated his father and godfather in back-to-back games as a high-schooler.
“He could have beat us if we played two-on-one,” Hawkins says with a laugh. “He’s just that dude.”
But beginning in middle school, it was football that captivated him. Patterson believes that Mahomes was drawn to it not only for the game itself but also what it represented: an opportunity to venture into the unknown.
Football was “a little bit more of a foreign language to him,” Patterson said, making Mahomes “fascinated by what he could do with that sport.”
It took the better part of two years for Mahomes to make his mark on the gridiron at Whitehouse High School, an East Texas power which in recent years had sent players to Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Texas Tech. Mahomes spent his first year quarterbacking the freshman team. As a sophomore, he became the varsity backup but spent most of his time on defense as a starting safety.
Finally, in 2012, he broke camp his junior season as Whitehouse’s starting quarterback. He responded by throwing for 3,839 yards and 46 touchdowns, numbers gaudy enough to earn the admiration of a handful of college coaches.
Among them was Trey Haverty, then a wide receivers coach at TCU. The following spring, he was hired by Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech to coach safeties. No sooner had he arrived than he learned that Kingsbury, too, was enamored with Mahomes’ potential.
“Kliff, after coaching Johnny [Manziel], wanted a mobile quarterback, and Mahomes is obviously that,” says Haverty, who became Mahomes’ area recruiter for the Red Raiders. “[But] as corny as it is to say, it’s the intangibles … Mahomes as a kid made everybody better around him.”
Kingsbury offered, and Mahomes committed in April 2013, more than 10 months before he could sign a letter of intent.
Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech.Ron Jenkins/Associated Press/Associated Press
“I just remember seeing Patrick with his eyes wide-open and excited about how much they threw the ball at Tech, because we did the exact same thing in high school,” Patterson says, while also noting Mahomes was drawn to the opportunity to play Big 12 college baseball. “Texas Tech was kind of a no-brainer for him.”
Houston and Rice were the only other FBS colleges believed to have extended scholarship offers. A third school, Oklahoma State, was widely reported to be Mahomes’ runner-up, even though, according to Cook, the Cowboys never actually offered Mahomes. In fact, no program outside the state of Texas offered Mahomes a scholarship, not even after his numbers improved across the board as a senior.
Recruiting acclaim never followed, either. Greg Powers, who at the time covered Texas football recruiting for Scout.com, remembers ranking Mahomes as a 4-star prospect who landed inside Scout’s Top 300 prospects nationally. He fretted about whether even that was too high for a kid with barely any scholarship offers and a consensus 3-star rating elsewhere in the recruiting world.
“Usually when the offer sheet doesn’t match the talent you felt like you saw, you kind of have to convince yourself to stick to your guns,” says Powers, who now works for Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.
“What is everyone else seeing in this kid that I’m not?”
Four years later, Powers realizes he had the question all wrong. If anything, he didn’t go nearly far enough. What no one has been able to explain, though, is why. Even more peculiarly, no two people interviewed for this story have the same theory for how so many schools overlooked Mahomes.
Cook believes the easiest explanation was also the most obvious: Mahomes was also a standout baseball player who had entered his name in the 2014 MLB draft.
“Everybody was still scared, thinking, ‘Hey, he’s going to go baseball,’” he says. “‘Dad’s a professional baseball player; that’s the way he’s going to go. He’s going to make more money doing that.’”
Even Haverty admits now that Texas Tech was never concerned about the chance Mahomes reneged on his football commitment: “It was the baseball draft we were worried about.”
But Haverty is also quick to note that he doesn’t think baseball was what scared other colleges off. Instead, he points to Mahomes’ throwing style and mechanics, which were rudimentary at the time.
Part of the reason why is that, unlike most quarterbacks of his ilk with financial means, Mahomes was a three-sport athlete who was too busy with basketball and baseball during the football offseason to bother with retaining a private throwing coach or attending offseason showcases.
That, according to Hawkins, is the real culprit.
“I think they missed because … he never had the coaching all those other guys had,” he says. “He never went to those quarterback camps; he never did that.”
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Randy McFarlin, Whitehouse’s head coach through Mahomes’ junior season, points to Mahomes being a late bloomer. High school recruiting moves faster than ever, and nowhere is that truer than at the quarterback position. By the time Mahomes became a starting quarterback, many colleges had already keyed in on their preferred targets.
“Personally, I think there’s a fallacy in the recruiting process: If you don’t get noticed as a sophomore, sometimes you get left out,” McFarlin says. “He wasn’t making waves as a sophomore. … He had a great junior year, but people didn’t know who he was.”
Ultimately, the person best equipped to provide an explanation would seemingly be Powers, who has built a career on knowing the intricacies of high school recruitments. Instead, he’s more baffled than anyone.
“Why he would have flown under the radar—why LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, why they didn’t get him—I mean, I wouldn’t be able to explain it,” he says. “But I bet you they wish they could rewind time and have another shot at it, because at some of those schools, he might have been able to bring a national championship to their doorstep.”
Perhaps the best answer, then, is that it’s unanswerable. Which would be fitting. Patrick Mahomes has become a national sensation because of the confounding things he’s able to do on the football field. It’s only appropriate that his recruitment played out the same way.
Saudi Arabia’s human rights commission is investigating the alleged torture of women’s rights activists including accusations of electrocution and waterboarding, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing government officials and other people familiar with the activists’ situation, the US publication said Saudi al-Qahtani, a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), had overseen “some aspects of the torture”, threatening one of the activists with rape and death.
WATCH: Is Saudi Arabia torturing women’s rights activists? (04:49)
A former adviser at the royal court, Qahtani was dismissed in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
Qahtani, who directed the crown prince’s media operations, was one of 17 Saudi nationals sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in connection with Khashoggi’s murder.
Members of the commission began questioning some of the detainees over the past month in Jeddah’s Dabhan prison, including 29-year-old activist Loujain al-Hathloul.
“Saudi al-Qahtani threatened to rape her, kill her and throw her into the sewage,” one of the sources privy to the testimony told the newspaper.
At least eight of a total 18 activists have been subjected to some form of physical abuse, it said.
Other victims of torture include Aziza al-Yousef, a 60-year-old university professor, Eman al-Nafjan, a mother of three, and Samar Badawi, whose brother Raif Badawi has also been detained on charges of “insulting Islam”.
Accountability measures
Lynn Maalouf, Middle East research director at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera if reports of the investigation taking place are true, it is important for the commission’s work to be carried out in an impartial and transparent way.
“We need to know that the families of the activists are in the know of the process of the investigations, how this is being reported on, and any steps that are going to be taken afterwards based on the findings – so that means any accountability measures,” said Maalouf.
“People who have been found responsible for these abuses should be held accountable and redress for the victims.”
Formed under the leadership of the late King Abdullah in 2005, the human rights commission’s work, which has avoided highlighting politically sensitive issues in public, is unlikely to lead to criminal charges.
“I don’t see how they will hold anyone accountable if they already publicly denied that the torture ever happened,” said one of the Saudi officials who is aware of the commission’s work.
The Saudi government has dismissed the allegations as “wild claims” and denied security officials tortured the detained activists.
WATCH: UpFront – Is an end in sight for the war in Yemen? (25:47)
Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump is willing to find other ways to fund his border wall.
The White House on Tuesday appeared to make a major concession on President Donald Trump’s border wall demands, revealing a potential path to averting a partial government shutdown through Christmas.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders signaled that Trump would support a bipartisan spending deal with $1.6 billion for border security — which has already been endorsed by key senators — rather than forcing a shutdown on Friday.
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Trump has demanded a full $5 billion for his border wall, and Sanders claimed there were additional ways to get the money from other parts of the federal budget.
“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress if they will make sure that we get a bill passed that provides not just the funding for the wall, but there is a piece of legislation that has been pushed around … that provides roughly $26 billion in border security including $1.6 billion for the wall,” Sanders said in an interview with Fox News.
Sanders is apparently referring to the Senate’s Department of Homeland Security spending bill, which easily cleared a bipartisan Appropriations panel in June.
Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, initially pushed that bill last month to GOP leaders as their preferred way to avoid a shutdown this week.
Republican leaders immediately rejected that offer, citing Trump’s demands for a full $5 billion.
Since then, Democratic leaders have backed away from the $1.6 billion offer, and offered Trump a funding bill with no increase in border funding. They proposed providing $1.3 billion, the same amount that’s already been signed into law.
Sanders did not say where the additional border money would come from to reach Trump’s full $5 billion demand, but administration officials have hinted it could come from the military’s budget.
The White House press secretary’s comments were met with relief from some lawmakers.
“I don’t know anybody on the Hill that wants a shutdown and I think all the president’s advisers are telling him this would not be good. So now I think they are pivoting to this idea to use the military and existing funding to build the infrastructure they want to build. And that makes me more optimistic,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.)
“I’m starting to feel like a combination of Christmas being right upon us and people’s desire to go home makes it feel like it’s all coming together here,” he said.
However, Congress has strict rules on how it can transfer money between departments, and Democrats have been skeptical of any large-scale shift of cash for Trump’s wall.
“Existing laws and guidelines make it essentially impossible to fund significant wall construction with [military construction] funds,” a Democratic appropriations aide said Tuesday in response to the White House’s claims. “There are virtually no Defense funds that can be used or reprogrammed for these purposes.”
On his way to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said lawmakers were still in discussions but expressed some optimism.
KiKi Layne is still hungry. Not physically hungry, per se — though, on a busy day of press like this one in early December it wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibility — but she’s metaphorically hungry. It’s the kind of hunger that comes from years of drama school, community theater, and a completely irrational, not-at-all thought-out move to Los Angeles for pilot season. It’s that hunger that director Barry Jenkins saw in Layne, that made her stand out among the 300 or so other women auditioning for the lead role of Tish Rivers in the Oscar winner’s lush adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk. And it’s that insatiable desire that landed Layne the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I’m just getting started,” the tenacious 26-year-old Cincinnati native told MTV News. And it’s hard not to believe her. Where Tish is tender and steadfast; Layne is all fire and grit.
In an interview with MTV News, the actor reflects on her Beale Street journey — from helping a friend submit his audition to landing a breakthrough role for herself — learning from Tish, and how she nearly gave up on her Hollywood dreams before Jenkins literally came calling.
MTV News: Barry Jenkins is such an emotional filmmaker. There’s so much empathy in his work. Does that empathy extend to his directorial style?
KiKi Layne: He’s just so patient with all of the artists and the people working around him, and so when you have that type of patience and you’re allowing people to live in whatever moment, circumstance, feelings, whatever that may be — you feel it onscreen. That’s why it allows the audience to sit with it as well and then be able to go deeper into that empathy. It starts with all that patience that he has.
Bobby Bank/GC Images via Getty Images
Layne (center) with director Barry Jenkins (left) and co-star Diego Luna (right).
MTV News: What was your audition process like?
Layne: It actually started with me helping one of my friend’s audition. He was submitting a tape for Fonny, and he asked me to be his reader. So that’s how it started, and that’s how I found out the film was being cast. It wasn’t until two weeks later that I was able to submit my own tape. And then from there, my next step was the chemistry read in New York with Stephan [James], who had already been cast. Then I was on set shooting a movie.
MTV News: What did your friend say?
Layne: He was excited from the very beginning of me getting the opportunity to submit my own tape. At the time, when I was helping him, I didn’t have representation in Los Angeles yet, so he was just excited that I was going to get my chance to actually go for it.
MTV News: Did you always want to be a performer?
Layne: Always. I went to a performing arts elementary and high school back in Cincinnati, so I started studying acting in a school setting when I was seven and I just never stopped.
MTV News: What was it about acting?
Layne: I honestly don’t know. I feel like I’m one of those people that I was just born to do it. I don’t ever recall wanting to do anything else. I can’t really recall a specific moment or movie that made me be like, “This is the thing I want to do.” It’s always been there.
MTV News: You were doing theater in Chicago when you decided to move to Los Angeles. What inspired the move?
Layne: I had been planning to move to L.A. to take advantage of more TV and film opportunities. Some things shoot in Chicago, but even those things that shoot there still cast their bigger roles in L.A. or New York. I ended up moving because I got an audition for ABC’s talent showcase, and I found out on a Saturday that the audition was the upcoming Tuesday. I just knew I didn’t have the money to be flying back and forth between Chicago and L.A., so I’m like, “Girl, if you’re going out there for that audition, you better find a way to stay.” So I packed up my life Saturday and Sunday and flew to L.A. on Monday. So that was my move, which was rough.
MTV News: What was that first week like?
Layne: The first week was sharing a twin-size bed with my very best friend from elementary [school] until I could figure out my own living situation. Then even once I figured that out, there was just so much stuff that was a complete mess. So much so that the week before I submitted my tape for Beale Street I was ready to go back home to Cincinnati. I felt like I moved too fast. Who moves across the country with no planning? I was ready to go, but then something in my spirit just kept me there and then it was literally the next week that I finally met with the manager and got my audition for Beale Street.
Annapurna Pictures
MTV News: Did you see yourself in Tish at all?
Layne: Tish and me are actually very, very different. I was interested in exploring a side of myself that I don’t naturally tap into, real openness and vulnerability. I carry myself with a lot more independence and this idea that that’s where strength comes from, this ability to do so much by myself. I learned from Tish that that is not the only definition of strength. In fact, there is so much power in all of her vulnerability, and in all of the love that she carries and receives and gives.
MTV News: What was the most challenging part? Was it just tapping into that more vulnerable side, or were there other challenges?
Layne: No, that was the biggest challenge for me. I’m definitely a person, even when I need help, I got to be going through it to finally ask for help. Even in those first couple of months in L.A. — I was struggling, but nobody knew. None of my friends knew, [my] family didn’t know. So many people would have been willing to help me, but I’m just like, “No, I have to figure it out on my own. I got myself into this situation, I’m going to get myself out.”
MTV News: Barry said that what connected him to the story at first was the tender love story between Tish and Fonny. Was it similar for you?
Layne: These are two soulmates. These are two young black people who are… their souls are tied to each other. And I just knew that that was really going to be something special. Then, actually seeing the movie and seeing the images of these two young, chocolate black people loving each other like that — that, to me, made it even more so. I didn’t even realize how very few images of that I’ve seen onscreen.
Annapurna Pictures
MTV News: This is your first feature film. Did it feel like a continuation of your drama studies in a way?
Layne: Definitely. I was working with legends and people with so much experience who just know so much about the craft. In the film, you see all these people coming around my character, Tish, but in real life, all of these people were coming around me and supporting me as I was experiencing all of these new things and having to learn a lot of new things very, very fast. To me, that was the most special thing about everyone that I got to work with, is that they actually came around me, KiKi, you know?
MTV News: I’m assuming living in L.A. is a different experience for you now.
Layne: It’s quite different for me now. I’m settling in as much as I can, traveling so much and everything. I’m in a much better place, and I’m very thankful that I didn’t leave because I really was ready to go. I recently looked at the draft of the email that I was about to send my landlord one night: “I’m out of here. Keep my security deposit, I don’t care. I’ll find someone else to move in.” But now I’m finding my friends and community in L.A., which is a huge part of feeling good about L.A. You’ve got to find your people.
MTV News: What are you looking for when you’re reading scripts these days?
Layne: I’m still looking for stories that speak to me, but I love acting for the opportunity to just play all types of things. I don’t want to be stuck into any type of box. It’s just what speaks to my spirit. It could be any genre because sometimes maybe I want to make people laugh, maybe I want to jump out of buildings. It’s all a possibility for me.
Kristina Bumphrey/Starpix
MTV News: What is an unlikely source of inspiration for you?
Layne: An unlikely source of inspiration? My nieces and nephews. I feel encouraged to keep going because I know that if I keep going, then I can tell them to keep going. But if I stop, or get to discouraged, then how can I encourage them to continue to do whatever it is they want to do? One of my nieces goes to the performing arts school that I went to, and it sounds like she’s leaning more toward Broadway, and she inspires me. I have to keep going to show her you can really do this.
MTV News: Finally, I know you’re obsessed with The Lion King.
Layne: Look, I started to tear up. It’s just a trailer, but people said that about the Beale Street trailer. I’m like, “I get it.” I’m going to be a mess when The Lion King comes out. Don’t put anything into my schedule. Seriously! My team is going to get an email like, “This is where I will be. We are not scheduling anything. I will be one of the first people to witness the magic.”
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Boston has long had interest in the five-time All-Star (around the 2:23 mark):
“Boston has been hawking Anthony Davis for years. They always hoped that it would be—whether it’s the end of this season or the beginning of next before the trade deadline—that they would gather up all those assets, all those picks Danny Ainge has, young players, and they’d be the team to be able to get Anthony Davis.
“But now you have L.A., and if they get shut out in free agency, they’re going to have to take all their young players to try to use them to get Anthony Davis.”
The Celtics were routinely linked to the 6’10” forward prior to last season’s deadline.
The Athletic’sJay King also reported this December that Davis and Celtics guard Kyrie Irving—who is only signed through this season—have talked about the possibility of teaming up in Boston.
The 25-year-old Davis, signed through the 2019-20 season, is averaging 28 points, 12.4 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 2.8 blocks and 1.7 steals per game.
He will be eligible to sign a five-year, $235 million supermax next summer only with New Orleans, though the 2012 No. 1 pick switched his representation to Klutch Sports in September. (Klutch Sports also represents LeBron James, adding fuel to the AD-to-L.A. rumors.)
Boston came within one game of the NBA Finals last season despite injuries to both Irving and Gordon Hayward. Along with players on the current roster who could be attractive to the Pelicans—such as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown—the Celtics have future assets they can include as well.
It’s been more than a year now that the Trump administration has been talking about the “deal of the century” to bring some form of settlement to the Palestinian question in the Middle East.
Bits and pieces of the deal have been leaking: the siege on Gaza is to be lifted, its residents provided with humanitarian aid, while East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements are to be recognised as Israeli territory; Palestinian refugees will have to give up their right of return.
President Donald Trump and his Middle East team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, seem to have secured an implicit backing of the deal by strategic players in the Arab world such, such as Saudi Arabia.
Recent diplomatic initiatives by Israel in Gulf states have borne fruit and it is increasingly clear that they have set out on a course towards normalisation of relations.
The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the US midterm elections and a number of other factors delayed the unrolling of the deal but it cannot be postponed for that long. Israel is set to hold parliamentary elections in November 2019 and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees the deal as a political victory that could guarantee him another premiership.
Thus, the Trump administration is likely to press forward with the deal sometime in the first half of 2019. And on the eve of this certain disaster for Palestinians, the Palestinian political leadership stands disunited.
Relations between Fatah and Hamas – the two main political factions in Palestine – are at an historic low and seem to be getting worse.
It has been 12 years since the two parties clashed in Gaza in the aftermath of the legislative elections, effectively creating two axes of political power in the Palestinian territories. And it’s been 11 years since Arab states started trying to broker a reconciliation between the two. Every time – in Mecca (2007), Sanaa (2008), Cairo (2011), Doha (2012), and Gaza (2014) – an agreement was signed but never implemented.
There was hope that the last Israeli assault on Gaza in November this year would bring the two sides together and would enable them to get over partisan and personal interests. Therefore, Egypt, which is currently leading another attempt at reconciliation, called on the leadership of both movements to come together for new talks and invited delegations from both sides.
But its efforts ended in failure after Fatah and Hamas exchanged hostile statements, accusing each other of wrongdoing.
Fatah declared it would not reconcile and participate in a unity government with Hamas until the latter rolls back the “coup” it carried out in 2007. It also signalled that it would look into imposing additional sanctions on the Gaza Strip, adding to the ones that have been in effect since 2017, to press Hamas to give up power. The Hamas leadership responded that its government is legitimate, as it won the 2006 elections, and accused Fatah of playing “politics of arrogance” and trying to undermine its power in Gaza.
Thus, Egypt’s reconciliation efforts ended yet again in a regrettable failure, and no new initiative is expected to be launched in the foreseeable future.
One of the main points of contention currently between Fatah and Hamas is the ongoing negotiations over a truce between the latter and Israel. A number of local, regional and international bodies have been trying for some time to bring about an agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government for a more permanent ceasefire and some form of lifting of the debilitating siege imposed on Gaza for the past 11 years.
Fatah – and by extension the Palestinian Authority (PA) it controls – sees this arrangement as highly problematic because it deals with the Gaza Strip as a separate geographical entity from the West Bank. And given that the mass expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank over the past few decades has made a declaration of a Palestinian state in its area impossible, Fatah and the PA leadership fear Gaza could be given that status.
This would effectively mean the complete sidelining of the party and its leadership (given that the Strip is under Hamas’ control politically and militarily) and the relegation of the PA to an administrative authority (and not a sovereign state structure), managing the affairs of the Palestinian population in the remaining pockets of territory outside Israeli settlements.
To preclude such a development, Fatah has demanded that a unity government is formed, whereby Hamas relinquishes control over the government, economy and security in Gaza and the model of governance currently in place in the West Bank is transferred to the Strip. Hamas has outright rejected these demands because they effectively mean that Gaza would slip out of its grip.
The group insists that it should participate in the unity government as an equal partner, along with other Palestinian factions, and rejects the extension of the PA’s security policies and model (especially cooperation with the Israeli security apparatus) into the Gaza Strip. It has also made it clear that it will resist any pressure from the PA to disarm its military wing.
The persistent squabbling and disunity between Fatah and Hamas are detrimental to the Palestinian cause and are resulting in increasing disillusionment among the general Palestinian population. Although both factions claim to have the legitimate right to power, political legitimacy is difficult to gauge in Gaza and the West Bank, given that there haven’t been legislative elections since 2006 and PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not faced a vote after his term expired in 2009.
As Fatah and Hamas trade accusations of aiding the deal of the century, their political disunity is what would ultimately allow for its implementation. Hostility between the two factions would facilitate the political separation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in which Egypt is likely to take over economic and security supervision of the former, while Jordan will have some form of authority over the latter.
This would not only preclude the declaration of a viable Palestinian state that satisfies Palestinian aspirations and solidify Israel’s denial of the Palestinian right to return but would also deal a major blow to the popularity and legitimacy of both Fatah and Hamas. At this time, it is clear that it is in their best interest and that of the Palestinian people that they overcome their disagreements and stand united.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
I suspect that the queue of top managers interested in talking to United will be longer than the queue of top clubs interested in talking to Mourinho. #mourinho #mufc
Mourinho sacked. He was the overwhelming fan choice in ‘16. Had a good first season, an acceptable second one until it faded badly. This season has been atrocious and 80% of fans wanted him gone in the last month – not that he’s the only one to blame. Thanks and good luck.
I suspect that the queue of top managers interested in talking to United will be longer than the queue of top clubs interested in talking to Mourinho. #mourinho #mufc
Mourinho sacked. He was the overwhelming fan choice in ‘16. Had a good first season, an acceptable second one until it faded badly. This season has been atrocious and 80% of fans wanted him gone in the last month – not that he’s the only one to blame. Thanks and good luck.
WE THOUGHT WE WERE SOMEWHERE, but in fact, we are nowhere. Yesterday afternoon, we started hearing that SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL was going to file a so-called minibus spending bill — seven bills wrapped into one — with an increase in border spending. He didn’t, and Monday went by without appreciable progress in funding the government.
TIME IS DWINDLING, and Capitol Hill is waiting for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP to say what he would like to sign. At this point, it would be difficult to see Congress clear a seven-bill minibus in four days. So either the government shuts down Friday, or somehow both sides agree to a short-term spending bill.
THE PRESIDENT ISN’T GOING TO GET his $5 billion. No way, no how. So the question is what will he accept, and how much time will he give Congress to do it. The House isn’t in until tomorrow night. At the moment, TRUMP isn’t negotiating, nor is he stating how he’d like to see this standoff resolved.
THERE’S AN INTERESTING DYNAMIC that’s sprouted up in recent days. Republicans have said absent a big spending deal, they’d be fine with a short-term stopgap bill because it would “interrupt” the early days of NANCY PELOSI’S majority. Trump would be fighting Pelosi on immigration in January or February instead of his own party. PELOSI, however, has been incredibly firm in her position that she does not want a short-term spending bill this month, and she is not for a wall.
THERE’S AN IDEA BOUNCING AROUND that government could shut down from Dec. 21 all the way until Jan. 3, and then the new House Democratic majority would open up the session by passing a clean stopgap and sending it to the Senate. But Senate folks tell us they wouldn’t fall for that, and their larger majority in 2019 would amend the bill, and send it back to the House.
— BURGESS EVERETT, JOHN BRESNAHAN and SARAH FERRIS: “Senate Democrats have effective veto power over any deal between Republicans and the president under the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he’s heard nothing from the White House since offering flat spending levels on border security to Trump last Tuesday.
“‘We don’t even know what their parameters or plans are. We’ve asked them, we’ve sent them two things, they haven’t answered us. They’ve sent us nothing,’ Schumer said on Monday. ‘They don’t seem to know where the president is at.’ …
“Senate Republicans would prefer not to pass a stopgap bill but acknowledged on Monday it was possible. That would likely result in House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) passing a long-term spending bill in January and denying Trump the $5 billion in wall funding he’s demanding.” POLITICO
SIREN … OCASIO-CORTEZ EYEING A PRIMARY TO THE NO. 5 HOUSE DEMOCRAT … LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ SCOOP: “Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a new member of House Democratic leadership as a 2020 primary target: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). …
“But a person who has discussed the project with Ocasio-Cortez and her team said the congresswoman-elect has recruited an African-American woman to challenge Jeffries, who was just elected to replace Crowley as caucus chairman — the No. 5 House Democratic leadership position.
“Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director denied that she had already recruited an anti-Jeffries candidate. ‘We’re not looking at recruiting people to run campaigns, we’re looking at building a congressional staff,’ said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent.
“But when asked whether the congresswoman-elect is looking at Jeffries’ seat, Trent said Ocasio-Cortez and her allies were ‘disappointed’ with Jeffries after the caucus chair race. ‘We’re disappointed in the way that the leadership elections went down, specifically that leadership election,’ said Trent. ‘We would have liked to have seen that be a more fair fight with less pressure.’
“Jeffries had a brief response to a potential challenge: ‘It’s a free country and democracy is a beautiful thing.’ … ‘Spread love; it’s the Brooklyn way,’ Jeffries said, quoting a lyric by famed East Coast rapper Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, whom Jeffries saluted on the House floor last year.” POLITICO
THE TRUMP SLUMP …
— AP’S JONATHAN LEMIRE and CATHERINE LUCEY: “For Trump, the economy is a potential 2020 storm cloud”: “The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell again Monday, the latest dip in the roller coaster markets amid the strain of Trump’s trade war, rising interest rates and worries about a slowing global economy.” AP
— EUROPEAN/ASIAN MARKETS DOWN … FT, via Michael Hunter in London, Peter Wells and Nicole Bullock in New York and Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong: “Deepening concern about the outlook for global economic growth stalked stock markets on Tuesday, taking a sell-off on European bourses into a fourth session after Wall Street indices hit their lowest in over a year overnight and Asian indices fell sharply. …
“Analysts said stocks had been hit by concern at a lack of a sustained improvement in trade relations between the US and China at a time when major central banks are ending an era of cheap money by tightening monetary policy, casting doubt on the outlook for growth.” FT
ALEX ISENSTADT: “Trump machine swallows GOP for 2020: Unique structure of the president’s reelection campaign is an expression of his iron grip on the party”: “President Donald Trump is planning to roll out an unprecedented structure for his 2020 reelection, a streamlined organization that incorporates the [RNC] and the president’s campaign into a single entity. It’s a stark expression of Trump’s stranglehold over the Republican Party: Traditionally, a presidential reelection committee has worked in tandem with the national party committee, not subsumed it.
“Under the plan, which has been in the works for several weeks, the Trump reelection campaign and the RNC will merge their field and fundraising programs into a joint outfit dubbed Trump Victory. The two teams will also share office space rather than operate out of separate buildings, as has been custom. The goal is to create a single, seamless organization that moves quickly, saves resources, and — perhaps most crucially — minimizes staff overlap and the kind of infighting that marked the 2016 relationship between the Trump campaign and the party.” POLITICO
— “Bernie tops progressive straw poll,” by David Siders: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tops the first 2020 straw poll by the progressive political action committee Democracy for America by a wide margin, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).” POLITICO
TRADE WARS … RYAN MCCRIMMON: “Trump offering farmers extra $4.9 billion in trade relief”: “The Trump administration announced today a second and ‘final’ round of trade aid for farmers and ranchers burned by retaliatory tariffs, including roughly $4.9 billion in additional direct payments for certain commodity producers.” POLITICO
— MICHIGAN GOP. REP. JUSTIN AMASH (@justinamash): “My fellow Republicans used to oppose bailouts. Now, they euphemistically call them ‘market facilitation payments.’ @POTUS’s big-government trade policy hurt many farmers and ranchers, and he’s responding with even bigger government.”
K-FILE — “Mick Mulvaney in October 2016: Trump would be disqualified from office in an ‘ordinary universe,’” by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski: “Mulvaney made the comments in a previously unreported October 2016 radio interview in which he also said Trump is not a role model and has said ‘atrocious things.’ On October 7, 2016, a week before Mulvaney made the comments, the Access Hollywood tape of Trump making lewd comments about women, including bragging about grabbing them by the genitals, was made public.
“‘My guess is worse stuff is going to come out in the last 30 days,’ Mulvaney said on October 13, 2016 on the Jonathon and Kelly Show, a South Carolina-based radio show. … ‘In an ordinary universe, would both of these people’s past activities disqualify them for serving for office? Yes. But that’s not the world we live in today. The world we live in today, it’s either him or her and for me that’s still an easy choice.’” CNN
A WIN FOR JARED! — “With long-sought criminal justice bill expected to become law, Kushner gets bipartisan credit for his role,” by L.A. Times’ Jen Haberkorn and Noah Bierman: “Kushner has been instrumental in helping his father-in-law secure a rare bipartisan victory: a long-sought overhaul of the criminal justice system.
“Both Republicans and Democrats who’ve worked on the bill in Congress credit Kushner as a key architect. He helped convince the two most powerful Republicans in Washington — his father-in-law and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both of whom embrace the traditionally Republican tough-on-crime stance — to make the criminal justice system less punitive.” LAT
NEW … THE SIX-PART Paul Ryan tax reform video. Watch it here
— GARY COHN joins “CBS This Morning” in studio 57 in an installment of “Issues That Matter.” The appearance comes as Republicans mark the anniversary of the tax bill’s passage.
2020 WATCH — SCOOP: “Warren bill would get feds into generic drug manufacturing,” by Alex Thompson and Sarah Karlin-Smith: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a likely 2020 presidential candidate, will release a bill on Tuesday that would effectively create a government-run pharmaceutical manufacturer to mass-produce generic drugs and bring down prices, several sources in her office told POLITICO on Monday in an exclusive preview of the legislation.
“The bill, dubbed the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, is unlikely to pass the Republican-led Senate, but it signals that a future Warren White House could try to radically revamp the federal government’s role in the pharmaceutical market in order try to lower prices.” POLITICO
— “Cuomo Moves to Legalize Recreational Marijuana in New York Within Months,” by NYT’s Vivian Wang: “Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he would push to legalize recreational marijuana next year, a move that could generate more than $1.7 billion in sales annually and put New York in line with several neighboring states. …
“The speech … could prolong slow-burning speculation about Mr. Cuomo’s presidential ambitions. It also showed, in striking detail, the governor’s leftward evolution in his eight years in office, from a business-friendly centrist who considered marijuana a ‘gateway drug,’ to a self-described progressive championing recreational marijuana, taxes on the rich and a ban on corporate political donations.” NYT
THE INVESTIGATIONS — “Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate,” by WaPo’s Craig Timberg, Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin: “Months after President Trump took office, Russia’s disinformation teams trained their sights on a new target: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House, they now worked to neutralize the biggest threat to his staying there.
“The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram — which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal — claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with ‘radical Islamic groups.’” WaPo
— “Roger Stone Admits Spreading Lies on InfoWars,” by WSJ’s Cezary Podkul and Shelby Holliday: “As questions swirl about his credibility, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone settled a defamation suit seeking $100 million in damages on Monday for publishing false and misleading statements on InfoWars.com, a far-right website known for promoting conspiracy theories. The agreement requires Mr. Stone to run ads in national newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, apologizing for making defamatory statements about a Chinese businessman who is a vocal critic of Beijing.
“It also requires Mr. Stone to publish a retraction of the false statements on social media. Doing so exempts him from paying any of the damages. In a text message, Mr. Stone described his conduct as ‘irresponsible’ and added that ‘I am solely responsible for fulfilling the terms of the settlement.’” WSJ
TRUMP’S TUESDAY — The president will hold a roundtable discussion on the Federal Commission on School Safety report at 2:15 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room.
DAN DIAMOND’S PODCAST — Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Diamond that that teen vaping is “epidemic”: “The nation’s top doctor joined POLITICO’s ‘Pulse Check’ podcast to explain why he’s issuing a rare warning that targets e-cigarettes. One problem: More than 20 percent of high school students now say they’ve recently used Juuls or other e-cigarettes.
“Another: The trend appears to be getting worse. ‘My nine-year-old actually knows what Juuling is,’ Adams told POLITICO. ‘Kids are being exposed to these products through the games they play, through YouTube and at school — where in many cases the bathroom is now referred to as ‘the Juuling room.’” Listen
DEEP DIVE — “‘Men for Others, My Ass’: After Kavanaugh, Inside Georgetown Prep’s Culture of Omerta,” by Evgenia Peretz in February’s Vanity Fair: “For generations, the renowned Jesuit prep school groomed its students to live up to the mantra ‘men for others.’ But after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, the school and its alumni are contending with other demons.” VF
VALLEY TALK — “Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Was Supposed To Change The World With ‘Lean In.’ So What Went Wrong?” by BuzzFeed’s Caroline O’Donovan: “As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg grapples with an ongoing parade of company scandals, the women’s movement she started is stagnant.” BuzzFeed
FOR YOUR RADAR — “Green Beret says he was charged with murder because of Fox News interview,” by NBC’s Carol Lee and Courtney Kube: “The Army Green Beret charged with premeditated murder in the killing of an Afghan man says he believes he’s being unfairly targeted because of comments he made in a television interview more than two years ago.
“In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Maj. Matthew Golsteyn said he’s convinced he never would have been charged were it not for his public admission that he killed the Afghan man during his 2016 appearance on Fox News to talk about military rules of engagement.” NBC
WHAT WALL STREET IS READING — “Goldman Sachs Ignored 1MDB Warning Signs in Pursuit of Asian Business,” by WSJ’s Tom Wright and Liz Hoffman: “Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s push for Asian business and lax oversight of partners led the bank to dismiss warning signs in its dealings with a corrupt Malaysian investment fund, internal documents and interviews with people involved in the transactions show. When the fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., first sought Goldman’s help raising money, the bond deal came before a committee of senior bankers in Hong Kong in 2012 for a key round of vetting.
“Among the concerns sketched out in the meeting’s agenda: ‘potential media and political scrutiny,’ Goldman’s unusual role as both financier and adviser, the colossal profit earned on what should have been a modest transaction—and how much of that haul would need to be disclosed. Not up for discussion: the young fund’s scant track record. The deal happened anyway. It has ensnared Goldman in one of the largest financial frauds in history and darkened the early days of its new chief executive, David Solomon.” WSJ
MEDIAWATCH — “Former CBS chairman Les Moonves fired for cause, will not receive severance in wake of sexual misconduct allegations,” by WaPo’s Elahe Izadi and Travis Andrews: “Les Moonves, the once-powerful head of CBS, will not receive any severance payment in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, CBS’s board of directors announced Monday.
“The network made the announcement after the completion of a company investigation that found Moonves guilty of ‘willful and material malfeasance’ and a failure to comply with the investigation. He was set to receive as much as $120 million as part of his severance package, depending on the results of the inquiry. … A lawyer for Moonves called the CBS board’s conclusions ‘without merit.’” WaPo
— FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: DAVID HAWKINGS, DAVID MEYERS and ISSUE ONE are starting The Firewall, an independent digital publication that will cover political reform issues and launch in the spring. Hawkings most recently was senior editor of CQ Roll Call and wrote the “Hawkings Here” column, and Meyers most recently was VP of business operations for CQ Roll Call.
— OLIVER DARCY in CNN’s Reliable Sources: “Former staffers of The Weekly Standard are not happy about a note sent to the magazine’s subscribers providing notification that subscriptions are being transferred to the ‘expanded and redesigned Washington Examiner magazine.’ I talked to several staffers Monday evening who expressed dismay that Clarity Media Group, after folding the magazine, would use The Weekly Standard’s logo (and thus credibility) to explain to readers what happened.
“Staffers said the note, which effectively implied to subscribers that the Washington Examiner magazine would be better than The Weekly Standard, was insulting and dismissive of the product they had put out for the last 23 years.” The letter to subscribers
— BILL KRISTOL is joining Davidson College as the inaugural visiting Vann Professor of Ethics in Society next year.
HUD DEPARTURE LOUNGE — PAM PATENAUDE, the deputy secretary of HUD, is leaving office early next year. More from Katy O’Donnell
OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the Trump hotel Monday night at a birthday party for Tommy Hicks, who’s running for co-chair of the RNC unopposed and is supported by Trump: Kimberly Guilfoyle (who sang happy birthday to Hicks), Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Reince Priebus, Jeff Miller, Jason Miller, Kelly Love, Sergio Gor, Tony Sayegh, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Charlie Kirk, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Pete Marocco, Derek Harvey, Kiron Skinner, Charlie Glazer, Brian Walsh and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
— SPOTTED at a White House reception Monday night hosted by Trump and first lady Melania Trump: Viktor and Amalija Knavs, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Tonette Walker, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani.
BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Jacqueline Sikoff of Princeton University’s communications and public affairs office (hat tip: Ben Chang) … (was Saturday): McCauley Mateja.
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Frank Coleman, SVP of public affairs at the Distilled Spirits Council. How she got his start in his career: “In journalism as a stringer from 1982 to 1983 for Newsday in Long Island in college. I covered everything from police beat (murders and bombings) and protests (Shoreham Nuclear Reactor) to features and obits.”Playbook Plus Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Robb Watters, managing partner of the Madison Group … Jeanne Cummings, political editor for the WSJ … Nick Geale, COS at Dept. of Labor … former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark is 91 … Lindsay Conwell, head of industry/nonprofits at Google … Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) is 71 … Matt Schlapp, co-founder of Cove Strategies and chairman of the American Conservative Union, is 51 … Brunswick’s Linus Turner … Rachel Streitfeld, senior producer for CNN’s “State of the Union” … Julie Donofrio (h/t Tammy Haddad) … Jennifer Scoggins Hanks, director at DCI Group … Rich Luchette … POLITICO’s Andrew Restuccia and Ryan McCrimmon …
… Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, is 61 … Google’s Jesse Suskin … Dwight Holton is 53 … Elissa Dodge, EVP at Qorvis Communications (h/t Kristen Thomaselli) … IEA’s Jesse Glicker … Max Mounkhaty … Jon Prior … Liz Halloran, deputy communications director for the Human Rights Campaign (h/t Olivia Alair Dalton) … Philip Bennett … Fred Sainz, director of corporate comms at Apple … Denise Forte … Noam Neusner … Micah Lasher … Brendan Kelly … Lee Spieckerman … Sarah Shulman … Deborah E. Cunningham … Kristina Budelis … Spencer Sharp … AP’s Will Lester is 66 … Wes Coulam, executive director of Washington Council Ernst & Young … Anna-Claire Whitehead … Tyler Lechtenberg … Leonard Maltin is 68 … McCall Johnson … Wendy Strout (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)
Challenging fellow New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries would open an audacious new front in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s efforts to steer the direction of the Democratic Party. | Charles Krupa/AP Photo
Jeffries, the newly elected No. 5 Democrat in the House, has drawn criticism from the left since the party’s leadership elections.
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a new member of House Democratic leadership as a 2020 primary target: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Ocasio-Cortez, who ousted House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley earlier this year in a shocking primary victory, put colleagues on notice for future primaries just days after the November election, telling a livestream audience that she and an allied group, Justice Democrats, would keep working together to boost anti-incumbent challengers — though she didn’t name names. But a person who has discussed the project with Ocasio-Cortez and her team said the congresswoman-elect has recruited an African-American woman to challenge Jeffries, who was just elected to replace Crowley as caucus chairman — the No. 5 House Democratic leadership position.
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The person who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez and her team, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation, called Jeffries the “highest priority” primary target of Ocasio-Cortez.
A second person with direct knowledge of Justice Democrats’ primary plans said the group is “looking” at Jeffries’ seat. Since Justice Democrats put out a call for potential targets, the group’s supporters have singled out Jeffries as a member they would be “excited” to oppose. “We’re not going to shy away from New York,” the second person said.
Challenging Jeffries would open an audacious new front in Ocasio-Cortez’s efforts to steer the direction of the Democratic Party, pitting her and allies against a rising-star African-American Democrat seen by some as a potential future speaker of the House. It would also set off another intra-party New York City brawl — Jeffries’ Brooklyn district is just a few miles south of Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx-and-Queens seat — that would peak just as Democrats hope to rally around a presidential nominee in mid-2020.
Jeffries has sparked the ire of Justice Democrats for several reasons. The group feels Jeffries takes too much money from corporate interests, a key litmus test, and is overly friendly with banking and pro-charter school interests. But Ocasio-Cortez is also unhappy that a campaign donation to her from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was allegedly used in a whisper campaign against Lee before her narrow loss to Jeffries in the recent race for Democratic caucus chair.
“It’s personal for Ocasio,” said the person who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez and her staff. “And she’s going to go all out to take him out.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director denied that she had already recruited an anti-Jeffries candidate.
“We’re not looking at recruiting people to run campaigns, we’re looking at building a congressional staff,” said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent.
But when asked whether the congresswoman-elect is looking at Jeffries’ seat, Trent said Ocasio-Cortez and her allies were “disappointed” with Jeffries after the caucus chair race.
“We’re disappointed in the way that the leadership elections went down, specifically that leadership election,” said Trent. “We would have liked to have seen that be a more fair fight with less pressure.”
Jeffries had a brief response to a potential challenge: “It’s a free country and democracy is a beautiful thing.”
Jeffries — who, like Lee, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has A-ratings from a range of liberal organizations such as the ACLU and NAACP — also shrugged off questions about his ideological credentials.
“Spread love; it’s the Brooklyn way,” Jeffries said, quoting a lyric by famed East Coast rapper Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, whom Jeffries saluted on the House floor last year.
Jeffries, a former state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2012 after running an aggressive primary campaign against former Rep. Ed Towns, forcing him into retirement, represents a majority-black Brooklyn district that’s 23 percent white and 18 percent Latino. Voters there went against Ocasio-Cortez’s preferred candidates for governor and attorney general in 2018 primaries — Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout — instead backing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General-elect Letitia James.
Jeffries’ allies said he will be well-prepared to defend his seat — the former corporate lawyer for CBS and Viacom has more than $1 million on hand after the 2018 cycle, according to OpenSecrets.
“There is no one who knows their district better than Hakeem Jeffries,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). “Hakeem is and will continue to work the district, and he will continue to win by large margins, so, ultimately, whoever primaries him will be wasting their time and their money.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats are trying to organize better and earlier in primary target districts over the next two years, hoping to replicate the playbook Ocasio-Cortez used to beat Crowley. But Crowley’s district is different than the one Jeffries represents in a few ways. Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley during a low-turnout primary by securing a majority of young voters in fast-changing neighborhoods.
After her June primary win, Ocasio-Cortez put her new political muscle behind anti-incumbent candidates in several states, but while Rep.-elect Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) succeeded in Boston, challengers in Florida and Missouri were crushed by Reps. Stephanie Murphy and Lacy Clay.
New York City, where two other Democratic primary challengers held incumbents under 60 percent of the vote as Ocasio-Cortez won in 2018, could be particularly ripe ground for Ocasio-Cortez’s activism in 2020.
But Justice Democrats-backed primary challenges could sprout elsewhere around the country, too. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, a Blue Dog Democrat who in the past has won endorsements from the conservative Club for Growth and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is also on Justice Democrats’ early target list, according to the person with knowledge of the group’s plans.
Justice Democrats said that in 2020 it hopes to challenge more Democrats who, like Crowley, it considers too closely aligned with special interests and it says don’t demographically reflect districts that are minority-white.
“We’re going to double down on primary challenges and look at some of these white, male corporate Democrats similar to Joe Crowley,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats. “Many of these places are majority or plurality people-of-color districts that don’t demographically or policy-wise reflect the diverse working class communities they often serve.”
Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), a leader of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, which has been a target of criticism for progressives, voiced frustrations with Ocasio-Cortez’s push to primary Democrats.
“This majority was made by New Dems and Blue Dogs,” Peters said, referring to a second Democratic caucus considered more centrist than the New Democrats. “It was not made by turning seats from blue to blue. It was made by those people who turned seats from red to blue. If we want to keep the majority, those are the people we should be listening to.”
“We should not be listening to people who don’t represent that mainstream voter who’s given Democrats the majority,” Peters added.
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