fighting-words

In 2016, a New York City real estate developer who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars managed to win the presidency after convincing thousands of Rust Belt voters that the daughter of a textile salesman was an untrustworthy elitist because she gave a few paid speeches to a Wall Street investment bank. Four years later, some of the nearly two dozen Democrats running for president are retreading the populist path that runs roughshod over Wall Street.

The candidates hope bashing big banks still resonates with voters, but they’re also broadening the message to include other economic issues that divide the haves from the have-nots. “The last three presidential elections have all been Main Street versus Wall Street, and — increasingly — about the Rust Belt versus Wall Street,” said Andy Green, managing director of economic policy at the Center for American Progress.

A mistrial was declared Thursday in the case of a man from Stuart, Florida, who was charged last year for threatening to kill Rep. Brian Mast’s children over the Trump administration’s family separation immigration policy.

Laurence Key, 68, is charged with one count of communicating a threat to kidnap or injure a person. But the trial that began Monday in Miami was declared a mistrial after the jury was hung, TCPalm reported, citing court documents and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — who has led opposition to House Democrats’ campaign finance, elections and ethics overhaul, HR 1 — said Wednesday he believed lawmakers who support the measure may imperil their re-election chances.

Yet, the Kentucky Republican again pledged to give the measure, which the House is expected to pass along party lines on Friday, zero floor time in his chamber, declining then to give senators an opportunity to test his theory in their 2020 campaigns.

A Twitter spat between New York Rep. Lee Zeldin and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared to conclude at about midnight Friday, after a work week of back-and-forth accusations between the two lawmakers of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Omar, who is Muslim, invited Zeldin, who is Jewish, to meet with her in her office “over Somali tea” to “share notes on how to fight religious discrimination of all kinds.” The heated Twitter exchange began after Omar felt a tweet by Zeldin was an “Islamophobic dogwhistle,” and crested when Zeldin challenged Omar to condemn a voicemail left for his office by an unidentified caller who derided him, unironically, as a “Nazi Jew.”

Well, that joke went over people’s heads.

Twitter — usually not the best medium for conveying sarcasm — raked Rep. John Yarmuth over the coals this weekend after he suggested lawmakers impose a “total and complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats until we can figure out what is going on.”

Republican Rep. Jason Smith called Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas and apologized Thursday for blurting out “Go back to Puerto Rico” while Cárdenas was waiting to speak on the House floor.

Cárdenas, a descendant of Mexican immigrants, accepted the Missouri Republican’s apology, said in a statement to Roll Call.

A local official in South Florida accused Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of being an anti-Semite who could try to "become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.

Annabelle Lima-Taub, a Hallandale Beach commissioner in Broward County, Florida, signed an online petition calling for Tlaib’s removal from office and posted it to her Facebook page.

On Roll Call’s Political Theater Podcast, you won’t always get what you want. You won’t always get what you need. But you’ll never be bored. We hope. With that in mind, here are a few of our favorite podcasts from the year that was, which just happened to be our first.

[Subscribe to Political Theater at RollCall.com]Matt Bai, Jason Reitman and Jay Carson talking about Gary Hart and their film “The Frontrunner.”

Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan suggested that former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn could have been charged with treason during a fiery tirade at the three-star general’s sentencing hearing Tuesday.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team of prosecutors did not charge Flynn with treason, and multiple legal experts have said it would be extraordinarily difficult for them to prove such a charge.