Nov 24, 2015 6 min read

Wake Up To Politics - November 24, 2015

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Tuesday, November 24, 2015
350 Days until Election Day 2016
69 Days until the Iowa Caucuses I'm Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics, and reporting from WUTP world HQ in my bedroom - Good morning: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL!!!
To send me questions, comments, tips, new subscribers, and more: email me at wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com. To learn more about WUTP and subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or like me on Twitter and Facebook. More ways to engage with WUTP at the bottom. 2016 Central

Trail Talk The question: were there people cheering in New Jersey after the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11?
Donald Trump “There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down.”
Ben Carson “I saw the film of it, yes…You know there are going to be people who respond inappropriately to virtually everything. I think that was an inappropriate response. I don't know if on the basis of that you can say all Muslims are bad people. I really think that would be a stretch.”
Marco Rubio “It's not true and there’s plenty of fact-checks to prove that it isn’t.”
Chris Christie “I do not remember that, and so it's not something that was part of my recollection. I think if it had happened, I would remember it, but, you know, there could be things I forget, too.”
Bernie Sanders “I don’t think anybody else in America has seen it. What I get concerned about…is the growth of Islamophobia in this country, the desire to win votes by scapegoating a group of people, which is not what America is supposed to be about. So I think once again, Mr. Trump is missing the boat.”
George Pataki “Not sure what luxury spider-hole @realDonaldTrump was hiding in on Sept11 but I saw Americans come together that day”
Polling Roundup: IA, NH CBS and YouGov polled the presidential primary races of both parties in the two states first to cast ballots: Iowa (voting in less than 70 days) and New Hampshire.
Iowa On the Republican side, Donald Trump remains in the lead with 30% of the vote, but Ted Cruz comes behind him at 21%, with Ben Carson at 19%. Marco Rubio is the only other contender with double digits (11%).
Since the CBS/YouGov Iowa poll last month, Trump has risen slightly (from 27% to 30%), but most notably, Ted Cruz shot to second place (from 12% to 21%), unseating Ben Carson, who tied with Trump last month, but fell to third place in this poll (from 27% to 19%). Marco Rubio also rose slightly, to double digits (from 9% to 6%).
In the lower tier of the race, Jeb Bush takes 5% of the vote, with Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum all taking 2% each. Mike Huckabee and John Kasich get 1% each. No one in this tier changes more than a point from last month’s poll
On the Democratic side, the CBS/YouGov poll was the first conducted since the CBS debate in Iowa, and it shows a dramatically different picture than the month before. In the November poll, a full 50% of the vote goes to Hillary Clinton, with Bernie Sanders close behind at 44%, and Martin O’Malley toiling at 5%.
When CBS/YouGov polled the Iowa race in October, Sanders was leading with 43% to Clinton’s 34%. O’Malley’s standing is exactly the same.
New Hampshire On the Republican side, Donald Trump maintains his frontrunner status in the state, with 32% of the vote. His closest competitor is Marco Rubio’s 11%. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz tie for third place, with 10% each.
This is a similarly different picture than last month’s poll. Donald Trump dropped six points from his October showing of 38%, while Ben Carson loses only 2%, which may seem small but is enough to take away his second-place status. Marco Rubio jumped 4% to take his place, and Ted Cruz jumped 5%, from fourth place, to tie with Carson in third.
Next, John Kasich leads the lower tier with 8% (a 3% jump). Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, and Jeb Bush each take 6%, a loss of 2% for Bush and 1% for Fiorina, and a 2% gain for Bush. Finally, Chris Christie registers at 5%, with the remainder of the field taking 1% each.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders leads with 52% of the vote (2% drop), with Hillary Clinton at 45% (6% gain), as Clinton tightens the race from Sanders’s 15% lead last month to just 7% now. Martin O’Malley has 3% of the vote in both polls.

White House Watch

The President’s Schedule It’s a busy day for President Obama:
In the morning, he will sit down with French president Francois Hollande, just nine days after the terrorist attacks in his country. In the meeting, the two Presidents will “coordinate [their] efforts to assist France’s investigation into these attacks, discuss further cooperation as part of the 65-member counter-ISIL coalition, and reiterate our shared determination to confront the scourge of terrorism,” according to the White House.
From CNN: a look at the state of U.S.-French relations, what’s changed in the past decade, and the differences between Obama and Hollande: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/politics/obama-francois-hollande-washington/index.html
In the afternoon, Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 individuals. This medal is always given to a diverse list of people, and this year is no exception. Among those receiving the award today are baseball players (Yogi Berra, posthumously; Willie Mays), a veteran (Bonnie Carroll), current/former members of Congress (Shirley Chisholm, posthumously; Lee Hamilton; Barbara Mikulski), musicians (Emilio Estefan; Gloria Estefan; Itzhak Perlman; Stephen Sondheim; Barbara Streisand; James Taylor), a Native American leader (Billy Frank, Jr.), lawyers (William Ruckelshaus; Minoru Yasui), a physicist (Katherine G. Johnson), and a film director (Steven Spielberg).
According to the White House, “The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
From Washington Post: What is the Presidential Medal of Freedom and how is it awarded? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/one-of-the-last-washington-mysteries-how-to-get-the-medal-of-freedom/2015/11/23/d3351fa2-91f3-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html