Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* If Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to quit his current job, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said he’d stand down and let the former senator have his old job back. Alabama’s special-election primary to fill Sessions’ old Senate seat is in three weeks.
* Eric Trump, who’s supposed to be helping run his father’s business and steering clear of politics, wrote a new fundraising letter this week on behalf of Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
* To the surprise of no one, Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) announced yesterday he’s running for the U.S. Senate next year, hoping to take on incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). Messer will likely be part of a crowded GOP primary.
* As Rachel noted on the show last night, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, hoping to prove his value to Trump World, has reportedly begun touting “his ability to raise money from wealthy donors, suggesting he could bring in funds to a legal-defense fund.” When Priebus was the RNC chair, he was a successful fundraiser.
* Entertainer Kid Rock published an online message yesterday, reflecting on a potential U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan next year, saying he “will be scheduling a press conference in the next 6 weeks or so to address this issue amongst others, and if I decide to throw my hat in the ring for US Senate, believe me … it’s game on.” The entertainer, who supported Trump’s campaign, would almost certainly run as a Republican. * In Philadelphia, a former aide to Rep. Bob Brady’s (D-Pa.) campaign, pleaded guilty this week to paying a Brady primary rival to end his candidacy in 2012. * And in Georgia’s gubernatorial primary, Rep. John Lewis (D) has thrown his support behind Stacey Abrams (D), the former Georgia House minority leader. Abrams still faces state Rep. Stacey Evans (D) in a Democratic primary.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
