memeorandum: Cory Booker places staff in Iowa ahead of potential 2020 White House run (Ben Jacobs/The Guardian)

2:00 PM ET, September 9, 2018

Top Items:

Bob Woodward: “People better wake up to what's going on” in the Oval Office — Watergate journalist Bob Woodward made headlines once again this past week, with his new book about the Trump White House, entitled “Fear.” This morning, in his first TV interview, Woodward paints a picture …

Discussion: Raw Story, Mother Jones, Axios, Shareblue Media, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, HuffPost and New York Times, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Allen / Axios:

How “senior” is Anonymous? — The whodunit over the Trump administration's “anonymous” hinges on the word “senior.” The New York Times describes its mysterious Op-Ed contributor as “a senior official in the Trump administration.” — The big question: But how senior is “senior”?

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Townhall, Fox News Insider, Shareblue Media, Daily Kos and Breitbart

Crispian Balmer / Reuters:

U.S. President Trump facing a ‘coup’: Bannon — ROME (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is facing a “coup”, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told Reuters, pointing to an anonymous column in the New York Times detailing resistance within the Trump administration.

Discussion: Axios

Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post:
Pence says he never discussed removing Trump from office

Discussion: Raw Story, CNN, HuffPost and Breitbart

Sally Jenkins / Washington Post:

At U.S. Open, power of Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka is overshadowed by an umpire's power play — Chair umpire Carlos Ramos managed to rob not one but two players in the women's U.S. Open final. Nobody has ever seen anything like it: An umpire so wrecked a big occasion that both players …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Sporting News, New York Times, The Root, Bustle, Vox, Outside the Beltway, Telegraph, The Daily Caller and Deadspin

Maureen Callahan / New York Post:

It's shameful what US Open did to Naomi Osaka — Naomi Osaka, 20 years old, just became the first player from Japan to win a Grand Slam. — Yet rather than cheer Osaka, the crowd, the commentators and US Open officials all expressed shock and grief that Serena Williams lost.

Discussion: Daily Wire and Althouse

Rebecca Traister / The Cut:

Serena Williams and the Game That Can't Be Won (Yet) What rage costs a woman. — I don't care much about the rules of tennis that Serena Williams was accused of violating at Saturday night's U.S. Open final. Those rules were written for a game and for players who were not supposed to look …

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post, New York Post, The Daily Caller and Deadspin

Gillian B. White / The Atlantic:
Serena Williams's U.S. Open Loss Was Humiliating—But Not for Her

Discussion: CNN, twitchy.com and USA Today

Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:

As Leslie Moonves Negotiates His Exit from CBS, Women Raise New Assault and Harassment Claims — Members of the board of the CBS Corporation are negotiating with the company's chairman and C.E.O., Leslie Moonves, about his departure. Sources familiar with the board's activities …

Discussion: CNBC, Law & Crime, BloombergQuint and Deadline, more at Mediagazer »

Matthew Mosk / ABC News:

Trump campaign members were ‘fully aware’ of efforts to set Putin meeting: Papadopoulos — George Papadopoulos, the one-time foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump who became swept up in the special counsel investigation, says members of the Trump campaign team were “fully aware” …

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Beast, POLITICUSUSA, Political Wire and Law & Crime

Ben Jacobs / The Guardian:

Cory Booker places staff in Iowa ahead of potential 2020 White House run — According to multiple sources, Cory Booker has placed four staffers on the ground in Iowa, helping Democratic candidates, as he moves to position himself for a potential presidential bid.

Discussion: Political Wire

Politico:

The growing GOP fears — DRIVING THE DAY — IF YOU LISTEN TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, Republicans are poised to win big in the midterms, keep control in Washington and win in a landslide in 2020. Nothing to worry about, folks. — BUT THAT'S A STARK CONTRAST to the vast majority …

Discussion: Vox, Talking Points Memo and CNN

Vinnie Longobardo / Washington Press:

A new ethics complaint could have just put the fate of Brett Kavanaugh in Merrick Garland's hands — After watching Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testify under oath during his confirmation hearings about his knowledge of stolen Democratic emails when he was a White House lawyer …

Tamar Auber / Mediaite:
Perjury Complaint Filed Against Kavanaugh to be Reviewed by...Merrick Garland!

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and RedState

Politico:

At-risk House Republicans say no to new tax bill — The White House and GOP House leaders are pushing a second tax reform before the midterms. — The White House and top congressional Republicans want to push for a House vote on a second round of tax cuts ahead of the midterms in hopes …

Christian Davenport / Washington Post:

Sen. Ben Sasse said he thinks about leaving the GOP ‘every morning’ — Sen. Ben Sasse said Sunday morning that he probably thinks about leaving the Republican Party “every morning,” while decrying the way he said Republicans and Democrats get caught up in the political furors of the day instead of having a …

Discussion: Politico and Breitbart

Elise Viebeck / Washington Post:

Trump to provide written answers under oath in Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit — President Trump will provide written answers under oath in the defamation lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who claims Trump sexually assaulted her in 2007, a new court filing stated.

Discussion: CNN, Talking Points Memo and Raw Story

Kareem Shaheen / New York Times:

3 Million People With Nowhere to Go — President Bashar al-Assad's forces are about to attack Idlib, the last rebel-held province in Syria. Fear of mass slaughter is increasing. — Mr. Shaheen covered the Syrian war for The Guardian. — The first thing that struck me when I saw Idlib …

Discussion: CBS News

Laura Vozzella / Washington Post:
Va. state senator who met with Assad says British are planning fake chemical attack

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog

Suleiman Al-Khalidi / Reuters: Russian and Syrian jets pound Idlib province after summit

The Times & The Sunday Times:

Warsaw ghetto vandal to speak at Momentum's Corbyn festival — A woman who spray-painted graffiti “tainted with anti-semitism” on one of the last surviving walls of the Warsaw ghetto will speak at a Momentum event alongside the Labour Party conference this month.

Sharon LaFraniere / New York Times:

Prosecutors Admit They Wrongly Accused Russian of Offering Sex for Republican Access — WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have admitted that they wrongly accused Maria Butina, a Russian citizen now in custody on charges of illegally acting as a foreign agent, of offering to trade sex for a job …

Washington Post: Prosecutors back off claim that accused Russian agent Maria Butina traded sex for access

Kim Kelly / Teen Vogue:

What is anarchism? — Anarchism is a radical, revolutionary leftist political philosophy that advocates for the abolition of government, hierarchy, and all other unequal systems of power. It seeks to replace what its proponents view as inherently oppressive institutions …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Michael Burke / The Hill:

Pence ‘more than willing’ to sit down with Mueller — Vice President Pence on Sunday said he is “more than willing” to sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller — 's team as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. — “I would,” he said on CBS's …

BBC:

Sergei Skripal and the Russian disinformation game — When the UK authorities announced on Wednesday that they suspected two alleged Russian agents in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, they released CCTV images of the suspects arriving at Gatwick airport.