Daily Digest: Who wrote it?

Good morning, and happy Thursday. Here's the Digest.

1. Anonymous editorial targets Trump. An opinion piece in The New York Times by an anonymous senior administration official claiming to be part of a "resistance" working "from within" to thwart President Trump's "worst inclinations" set off a wild guessing game inside and outside the White House on the author's identity. In an extraordinary move, a furious Trump tweeted a demand Wednesday night that if "the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!" White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called on the "coward" who wrote the piece to "do the right thing and resign." White House officials did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on Trump's call for the writer to be turned over to the government or the unsupported national security ground of his demand. To some, the ultimatum appeared to play into the very concerns about the president's impulses raised by the essay's author. Trump has demanded that aides identify the leaker, according to two people familiar with the matter, though it was not yet clear how they might go about doing so. The two were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. (AP)

2. Klobuchar takes prominent role in opposing Kavanaugh. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has joined fellow Senate Democrats this week in pushing back against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said she expects his views of presidential power to be a major theme of the debate. “He has a very broad view of the power of the president, so that’s another reason there’s such a focus on this right now — because President Trump picked him,” Klobuchar said in an interview with the Star Tribune. Klobuchar and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been trying to slow down the confirmation process for Kavanaugh, who is President Donald Trump’s second nominee to the nation’s high court. The hearings come as midterm elections are heating up; Klobuchar’s Republican opponent, state Rep. Jim Newberger, criticized her role following the opening day of hearings on Monday. “When Do Nothing Amy finally decided to do something, it [was] political and disrespectful,” Newberger tweeted. But Klobuchar said Democratic complaints about the process in the GOP-led Judiciary are valid. She noted that 42,000 documents on Kavanaugh’s career — he’s currently a D.C. federal appeals judge — were released the night before the hearing, not giving lawmakers enough time to review them. She said that the White House has another 100,000 documents it has yet to turn over. (Star Tribune)

3. Democrats aren't backing off claim that checks say is false.  Democrats in the Minnesota House are still using a claim about legislative pay raises in their bid to win majority control from Republicans in November, despite independent media analyses that have found the claim to be false. Campaign mailers from the Minnesota DFL Party contend that incumbent House Republicans voted to give themselves a 45 percent pay raise. The mailers have targeted incumbent Republicans whom Democrats believe are vulnerable. The Star Tribune editorial board  on Wednesday became the latest media entity to challenge the accuracy of the claim. Fact-checkers at WCCO-TV and KSTP-TV  previously said it was false. But House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, is not backing down. “They put themselves ahead of every other item of business,” Hortman said. Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt suggested Democrats were using “false claims” to distract from their “extreme agenda.” He said Hortman “owes Minnesotans an apology.” (MPR News)

4. Here come the nasty ads. The television ad tone has shifted in some of Minnesota's most competitive races with the lazy days of summer now gone. Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen unloaded Wednesday on Democratic challenger Dean Phillips. The west suburban race is viewed as a toss-up, where past voter loyalty to the five-term Paulsen is colliding with the district's broader electoral trends that give Democrats hope of flipping the seat. Paulsen's new ad goes hard at Phillips, an entrepreneur, for failing to provide health insurance to employees at his coffee shop while calling health care a "moral right" in his campaign. The ad labels him "Dishonest Dean Phillips" and "another shady businessman who would make things worse." It also said he was tardy on his business taxes. Phillips, a first-time candidate, wasted no time criticizing Paulsen over the ad, which mirrors one from an outside Republican-aligned group that also began airing this week. “We knew it was coming, and here it is,” Phillips said in a video posted on social media. “Millions of dollars in smear ads from Erik Paulsen and his outside special interest funders.” (MPR News)

5. Trump's Duluth visit was good for business. President Donald Trump's June 20 visit to Duluth may have snarled traffic, but it also gave many downtown businesses an economic boost, as recently released tourism tax receipts confirm. Gerry Goldfarb, general manager of Duluth's Holiday Inn & Suites, said he saw increased hotel room bookings and restaurant sales days before the president's arrival, as the commander in chief's advance security detail prepared for the visit. Often there's a bit of a lull in the days after Grandma's Marathon, but Goldfarb said Trump's appearance made for solid post-race business this year straight into the ensuing week, with business cresting Wednesday when the president took the stage. "We saw a nice overspill of people looking for places to eat and places to buy stuff. I really feel the hotel and lodging industry here saw a real positive two- to three-day impact," he said. "There were definitely people driving up from the Twin Cities. I spoke to people from North Dakota and even Canada who came down to see the president," Goldfarb said. The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center hosted the Trump rally, and the facility's executive director, Chelly Townsend, said: "It was definitely a moneymaker for us." In all, after expenses were factored into the picture, the DECC cleared more than a $54,000 profit from the event. (Duluth News Tribune)

Thanks to Bill Wareham for helping out with the Digest the past few days.

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