Saturday Morning Post: The Weekly View from Washington
Bill Clinton didn’t do his wife’s presidential hopes any favors in an interview with NBC that aired Monday and reverberated throughout the week. The former president struck a defensive and at times exasperated tone defending the muddle of the family’s charitable works underwritten by corporate interests and foreign governments. But he raised as many questions as he answered. Look in particular for his insistence that the Clinton foundation never did anything “knowingly inappropriate” to cast a long shadow. Every American ear schooled in his singular brand of rhetorical jujitsu surely twitched.
On Wednesday, another shoe dropped with the news that Exxon Mobil will be walking away from the Clinton Global Initiative after six years of sponsorship, while others, including Monsanto, reevaluate their support. We reached out to ten other companies that have helped stage the foundation’s annual conference for at least the last two years to ask if they’d be renewing their commitment this year. Three of them — Cisco, Laureate University, and Western Union — confirmed that they would. (Said a Cisco spokesman, “We see value in these meetings, especially as they help us connect with leading companies, current and former heads of state, NGOs, and others.”) The rest — a list that includes HP, Microsoft, and NRG — didn’t respond. Exxon says its decision has nothing to do with the current controversy. Okay. Either way, if the oil giant’s move ends up precipitating a blue-chip stampede from the charity, it will only thicken the miasma hanging over it. The implication that the reputational risk now overwhelms whatever benefit a continued association offers would be clear enough. It’s possible to perceive a hidden upside for the Clintons in the foundation’s corporate backers showing themselves out, if it renders the line of questioning closer to moot by the time Hillary starts taking debate stages. But there will still be the issue of Bill’s paid speeches, which he’ll continue to give. As he told NBC, “I gotta pay our bills.”
| Tory Newmyer | |
| @torynewmyer | |
| tory_newmyer@fortune.com |
Top News
• Obama to Democrats on Trade: (Stop Whining and) Just Do It
President Obama hit the trail Friday in support of his flagging trade agenda, rallying Oregonians at Nike’s Beavertown headquarters. He struck a notably sharp chord calling out trade skeptics in his own party for distorting the stakes. But in terms of finding votes, which should really be the name of the game at this point, Obama’s energies might have been better spent one state north. Three of the four House Democrats in Oregon’s Congressional delegation are already declared supporters of handing Obama the fast-track negotiating authority he says he needs to finish work on the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership deal. In Washington state, home to nine Fortune 500 companies (to Oregon’s two), four House Democrats who should be sure-bets remain on the fence. All four — Reps. Suzan DelBene, Denny Heck, Derek Kilmer, and Adam Smith — belong to the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition, the group expected to form the core of Obama’s support among House Democrats. New York Times
• Labor Market Looking Up
Finally, evidence of a spring thaw in the employment report. While March represented a downbeat, with only 85,000 new jobs on the rolls, in April, the economy made a strong showing as employers added 223,000 new jobs. The gains knocked the jobless rate down to a near seven-year low of 5.4 percent, after 55 consecutive months of growth. A meaningful pickup in wages remains elusive, however, with hourly wages climbing just 3 cents. Fortune
• Blue Skies Ahead for the Commercial Drone Industry
Good news from the FAA for Amazon and others who want the feds to loosen up on regulating commercial drones. The agency is signaling it’s going to relax restrictions on allowing the aircraft to fly out of an operator’s line of sight. For now, the FAA will be launching “research projects” to gather safety and performance data. But the line-of-sight hurdle has been the key for those who hope to deploy drones on a commercial scale. Fortune
Around the Water Cooler
• Accounting for the Congressional Gender Gap
The current Congress claims an all-time record for female membership, with 104 women holding seats. But considering that represents less than a fifth of the total, it’s not much to brag about. Accounting giant PwC is launching a concerted effort to address the imbalance by changing how it doles out political money in Washington. The company is focusing on giving earlier to female pols it supports to discourage electoral challengers — and contributing to others who aren’t necessarily on committees with jurisdiction over PwC priorities. Fortune
• Why Running for President Could Actually Be a Bad Idea
The field of Republican presidential contenders, now busy swelling to a logistically ungainly size, testifies to an increasingly received wisdom in Washington: There’s only upside in launching a White House bid. Even if you don’t stand a chance of placing in an early contest, much less capturing the nod, by mustering a campaign, you can expect to raise your visibility and cash in for speaking gigs, a book deal and a TV contract once your bid collapses like an undercooked soufflé. Conservative writer Matt Lewis challenges that notion, surveying what’s become of the third ring from the 2012 GOP circus to argue that contenders who might have been motivated by the prospect of personal gain have reaped only misery. Carly Fiorina, take heed. Daily Beast