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There will be no abortion "litmus test" in the Democrats' drive to win back the House, he said. His comments echoed earlier ones from Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer and Bernie Sanders.

That's not just an insult to the women (and men) who make up the Democrats' base. It's a fool's errand.

Much of the left has learned all the wrong lessons from Hillary Clinton's defeat. They could focus on increasing turnout among their base -- women and African-Americans -- but Democrats have instead taken a rhetorical page from both Donald Trump's sexism and Bernie Sanders's populism by trying to appeal to disaffected white guys.

This pivot to the right on women's health is particularly insidious, reflecting an anti-feminist backlash across the political spectrum.

Democrats may say they are trying to field the most competitive team of candidates they can to win a majority in Congress, and in some districts that candidate might be anti-abortion. But this treads a dangerous path: ceding to demands that the entire political system cater to the perceived values of a group that largely stopped voting for Democrats in the 1960s, when the party pushed the Civil Rights Act and equal rights for women.

The public embrace of anti-choice candidates is just one plank of this party overhaul. The new Democratic platform emphasizes building infrastructure, lowering prescription drug costs and creating jobs.

It's not just "economic anxiety" the party is trying to transform into votes. Funding candidates who oppose legal abortion contradicts any claim that Democrats are the party of the masses, let alone the ignored and underserved.

Women are more than half the population, and one in three of us will have an abortion in her lifetime, according to a 2011 study from the Guttmacher Institute. Nearly every American will have a friend, lover, colleague, girlfriend, sister, boss, wife or mother who has had an abortion, even if they never know it.

Feminists focus on reproductive rights for good reason: a woman's ability to decide for herself when and if to have children shapes much of the rest of her life -- whether she completes her education, whether she marries for love, whether she parents when she feels adept and ready, whether she fulfills her professional potential, and whether she's able to follow her own personal path wherever it leads.

Supporting laws that give the state the power to compel women to continue pregnancies is misogynist and illiberal. Expecting Democratic politicians to stake out clear ground on abortion rights is not a "purity test" or a difference in opinion on policy or efficacy, like divergent views on the best ways to reduce inequality or suggesting we should repair the ACA before promoting a single-payer system.

It's a basic question of human rights: Are women sovereign citizens in our own bodies? If your answer is no, the Democratic Party shouldn't fund your campaign.

It's disturbing to see the United States' ostensibly progressive party so quickly abandon both its own most loyal voters and progressive ideals, all in a frenzied grab for the same Trump supporters who have dominated sympathetic media coverage of the election. It's also a losing strategy.

It seems unlikely that abortion alone is the one issue alienating many voters from the Democratic Party.

What is obvious, though, is that abortion rights are an animating issue for the Democratic Party base, and support for abortion rights gets a whole lot of women marching, donating money, and volunteering for Democrats.

The party has a lot to lose by alienating them in a dodgy gamble to scoop up Trump voters, where a "win" apparently means building the ranks of the party by adding more people who are hostile to women's rights. Clearly, we have enough of those guys already.

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Democrats' disastrous mistake on abortion (opinion) - CNN

In Arizona, where the Great Recession cut a deep swath through home prices and shook all facets of the economy, voters are now increasingly buoyant about the fiscal future they envision for themselves and the nation.

Theyre saving their ire for politics and politicians.

More than two dozen voters gathered in Phoenix this week delivered a bipartisan broadside against President Trump, Republicans and Democrats, dismissing the political class as serving its wealthy benefactors and abandoning everyday Americans.

Their fiercest disappointment was aimed at Trump.

Arizona has been something of a desert mirage for Democrats in recent years; Hillary Clinton made a late stab at the state before Novembers presidential election, but Trump won easily.

Eight months later, however, even many of his supporters have thrown up their hands at his presidency.

I loved him because he was different. I thought that he was really going to do a lot of change, good changes, said one Republican woman. I hated Obama, so I was ready for a change.

Now, she said, people are laughing at us.

Before I felt like he could do it all, and now I think just if somebody can control him a little bit.

She said she will not vote for Trump again unless he fulfills his campaign promises specifically his pledge to provide better healthcare at a cheaper price. She noted that he had ultimately supported GOP healthcare plans that did the opposite.

The focus groups, organized by Priorities USA, a liberal advocacy group, were meant to probe voter views in advance of the 2018 midterm elections. Reporters were allowed to view six hours of questioning on the agreement that they not specifically identify the voters.

The questions largely revolved around views of Trump and Republican efforts to pass healthcare and tax reform measures. Yet in the process, participants voiced strikingly little support for Democrats nor any enthusiasm about using their vote to cast out Republicans next year.

Democrats are doing something badly wrong, said one Democratic-leaning voter, saying the party should have done a better job last year. Democrats are flailing.

I think the government is totally corrupt, said an independent voter who leaned toward Democrats in elections but disparaged both sides.

Jefrey Pollock, a Priorities pollster who conducted the focus groups, acknowledged that its not all roses for the Democrats.

The Democrats still have to put forward an economic vision that is persuasive, he said. The 2018 election isnt just all about being anti-Trump. Its not.

Although Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House, he said, infighting between the parties and the absence of any successful and popular legislation has tarnished both sides.

The soup of Washington has become so thick they just believe everyone is stuck in it, Pollock said of voters. The Democrats do have to put forward a sort of bold positive. As a Democratic partisan, he insisted that they have made positive proposals, but the people need to hear it, he said.

Since the election, in which he received 46% of the vote, Trumps popularity has slumped. Polls by a half-dozen nonpartisan survey organizations in the last week have shown his job approval dropping again after several months of a stable, albeit low, plateau. Fewer than 40% of Americans have a favorable view of his performance in office, the polls indicate.

Trumps drop in polls has featured a notable decline in support among independents and a smaller, but still significant, decline among moderate Republicans.

That decline was reflected in all three focus groups, both a Republican-dominated one and two that included Democrat-sympathetic voters.

For more on politics from Cathleen Decker

Earlier focus groups in Florida and Ohio two states Trump wrested from the Democrats in 2016 on his way to victory showed the same drop in Trump support, pollsters said.

Among Republicans in Arizona, Trump seemed to have morphed from outsider candidate to just another politician, a dangerous transition at a time when anyone involved in politics is looked upon with disdain.

Asked whether Trump sided with regular people or big corporations, nine of 10 in the Republican group said he sided with corporations. All 10 said Republicans in Congress sided with corporations. Two said Democrats sided with ordinary people. Sentiments were not dramatically different in other groups.

Theyre all the same; theyre all puppets, said one Trump voter.

One voter brought up the case of former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who recently resigned his seat after complaining that he no longer could afford to maintain homes in two places.

Seriously? asked one voter, who had backed both Arizona Sen. John McCain and, in 2012, Mitt Romneys presidential campaign. To be fair, thats insane. These guys have healthcare for life, six-figure incomes a pay raise and considerable benefits, and were supposed to have sympathy for them?

Another Trump and McCain supporter cited the senators recent cancer treatment at the nearby Mayo Clinic to signal the difference between elected officials and people like her. McCain, she said, was certain to maintain care at the highly regarded hospital, a circumstance she said would not be afforded to most of those McCains age who are covered by Medicare.

What about the rest of us? she asked.

Still, several in the Republican-leaning group held out hope that Trump would find a way to right his presidency, although they suggested he has mere months to do so.

Asked what the president would have to do to gain her vote in 2020, one independent replied, I think he needs to become more humble.

The criticisms of the president were all the more notable considering many voters expressed support for some of his positions. Several Latino and millennial voters groups generally allied with Democrats favored refocusing the nations attention and resources to this country rather than spending overseas. That was a major argument Trump made during his campaign.

Stop worrying about the rest of the world, said one independent voter. See what happens.

Focusing on America not what Koreas doing, what Russias doing. Just us, another said.

Another sign of the shifting views was Republican voters abandonment of traditional GOP positions on tax reform, the subject of the next fight in Washington.

Republicans have proposed a plan that would lower rates on businesses and particularly benefit the wealthy, who pay more in taxes than the less well-off. The Arizona voters were dismissive of one traditional GOP plan simplifying tax rates and expressed suspicion about the impact of the reforms.

Even more than Latino voters or millennials, Republicans expressed fear that GOP tax plans would benefit corporations instead of the middle class. They turned aside what has been a tenet of GOP tax policy for more than a generation: that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy would trickle down to others lower on the economic ladder.

Much of their concern seemed to reflect lasting unease stemming from the economic collapse of 2008. That same sentiment helped propel Trump in 2016 and in the absence of any measurable improvements from Washington, now threatens him.

People in Arizona and Ohio, all these other groups in other places in the country, thought after the crash that Wall Street and big corporations were made whole again, and they were left behind, said Patrick McHugh, the executive director of Priorities, who observed the focus groups.

Trump made a lot of promises to address those issues. Hes now president. Hes now responsible for fulfilling those promises.

In all three groups, voters seemed less angry than disgusted. Rather than make America great again, several suggested, Trump has ushered in decline.

Weve lost our way as people, one independent voter said. The government itself and the elected officials are fattening their pockets off our backs.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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Democrats anxious about the white working-class vote found fresh hope last week in the gangbusters campaign launch of an otherwise unknown former fighter pilot named Amy McGrath. In a viral video announcing her U.S. House campaign, McGrath, clad in a bomber jacket, directs a steely stare at the camera and tells a powerful story: As a young girl, she tried to change the law barring women from combat by writing to her representatives in Washington, only to be snubbed by her U.S. senator, Mitch McConnell. Yet she persevered, and flew 89 combat missions bombing Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The video quickly became a sensation, already scoring 1 million YouTube viewsthree times the number of people who voted in the last election in Kentuckys 6th District, where she plans to run. In 36 hours of the video release, McGrath raised nearly $200,000 in online donations.

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Its not hard to understand why Democrats are sending the video around, and sending checks in her direction: 45 years after George McGoverns bust of an anti-war campaign, 37 years after President Jimmy Carter's ill-fated hostage rescue mission and almost three decades since Michael Dukakis thought it was a good idea to take a tank ride, Democrats still believe they have to prove theyre not a bunch of national security softies. Republicans have colonized the guns and guts vote so thoroughly that theyve started to see every tough-talking Democrat who comes along as the next savior of the party. Before McGrath, the working-class hero du jour was Randy Bryce, or Ironstache, the Wisconsin Army vet and House candidate whose introductory video melted Democratic hearts as he skewered Speaker Paul Ryans attempt to repeal Obamacare. He raised serious coin, too: $430,000 from 16,000 donors in about two weeks. And some Democrats already are fanning a crush on Iraq War vet Seth Moulton to top the presidential ticket in 2020, even though hes not yet 40 years old and has only won two elections on the Massachusetts North Shore.

It all makes sense on paper. Theres just one problem. Ever since the Iraq War, Democrats have always recruited a robust slate of military vets. And they usually lose.

It might be emotionally satisfying for Democrats to see a bad-ass veteran talk about landing fighter jets on aircraft carriers while proudly wearing the Democratic badge. But the warm feeling obscures the fact that viral videos, no matter how patriotic, dont turn deep red districts blue. Every dollar that goes to flashy pipe dreams like McGrath or Bryce is a dollar that doesnt go to the dozens of dull candidates with a plausible shot at flipping a seat. (And, yes, most people who win House races are dull. Turn on C-Span for five minutes if you dont believe me.)

Its not just McGrath or Bryce. Democrats are betting heavily on military veterans to break through what political polarization and gerrymandered districts have done to their seat share in Congress, and particularly the House of Representatives, where they are down to 201 seats, versus 234 Republican ones. The New York Times reported last month that Democratic Party leaders are aggressively seeking former members of the military to flip Trump districts, both because they represent a challenge to career politicians, and because they take the security-toughness card away from Republicans. About 20 Democratic veterans have announced challenges in Republican House districts, with more expected before summer is out.

Theres no inherent problem with Democratic candidates who are veterans. But its a lazy assumption that red turf can be easily poached by a candidate who can stir some feel-good patriotism and bring a healthy dose of swagger from the real America. If youre a Democrat, sharing a video of a McGrath or a Bryce affirms to your social media networks that your party isnt made up of precious snowflakes. Donating might seem like a chance to support that vision of the partyfull-throated, muscular, ready to fire the jets for 2018. (This is the Kind of Ad that Keeps Paul Ryan Up at Night, crowed Mother Jones, about McGraths video.) But the question that matters is how to identify and prioritize winnable seats. The quest for vets threatens to turn the party into a bunch of deluded Don Quixotes, chasing after districts far out of Democratic reach.

Democratic fascination with veterans as a congressional strategy began in 2006, when public frustration with the Iraq War was peaking. Forty-nine general election House candidates were branded as Fighting Dems. Only five won, four of whom took Republican-held seats. But putting veterans up front gave Democrats extra credibility when criticizing the war.

Since then, Democratic House strategists, and willing Democratic primary voters, have continued to lean on veterans, even though their batting average has only gotten worse. According to data provided by the Veterans Campaign and Military Times congressional reporter Leo Shane III, Democrats nominated 43 veterans for House races in 2016 and 54 in 2014. Each time, only three veterans won, and all succeeded fellow Democrats. No Democratic military veteran has defeated an incumbent House Republican since 2012, when Tammy Duckworth of Illinois took out the vitriolic Joe Walsh, who publicly complained that Duckworth talked about her service too much. (She also defeated an incumbent Senate Republican last November.)

Before Duckworth, four Democratic vets took Republican-held seats in the 2008 election, but that was hardly a model class. Two of the four were defeated in their 2010 reelection bids, and a third resigned after charges of groping and sexual harassment. Today, there are only 18 veterans in the House Democratic caucus, eight of whom were first elected in 2006 or thereafter.

To be fair, a poor electoral track record is no reason for Democrats to give up on military veteran candidates. Those who served bring valuable experience and perspective to a governmental body that funds our armed services and plays a major role in national security policy. And swiping a district across gerrymandered lines is an exceedingly difficult task, regardless of a candidates biography. Just because many veterans fall short doesnt mean lawyers, business owners or local legislators would offer better odds.

But candidates with compelling bios and polished videos do create a shiny object problem at the national level, distracting Democratic attention from bigger problems with the partys messaging and connection to working-class voters, and from the races that provide the most plausible path to the speakership.

Democrats need to flip 24 seats to take control of the House. According to the Cook Political Report as of late July, there are 52 Republican-held seats that are competitive, and thats under a generous definition of competitive, including 23 seats deemed likely to remain in Republican hands. Kentucky' 6th District, where McGrath is running, doesnt make the cutthe incumbent, Rep. Andy Barr, has won the seat by about 20 points in the past two elections, and both Donald Trump and Mitt Romney won the district by double digits. The only way McGrath wins in a district like that is if the bottom completely falls out from under the GOP. A fighter jet video is not going to tip the district over.

Nor, by the way, does Wisconsins first congressional district, where Bryce is challenging Speaker Ryan, make the competitive list. The districts pinkish hue Obama snatched it in 2008, though Trump notched a double-digit win here in 2016has always given Democrats false hope that Ryan was vulnerable. But hes never had a close race, and hes run 10 times.

No doubt Bryce shows promise (though his three previous electoral defeats for local offices in the past five years dampens expectations), as does McGrath. And politics is not always easily gamed. Just because a race is not classified as competitive today does not mean it wont be tomorrow. But should Democratic small donors plow resources into a couple of massive long shots on the basis of slick videos that tell us little about the candidates beyond a thumbnail biography?

Democrats have already felt the pinch in their pocketbook this year, after Jon Ossoff, the Democratic nominee in Georgias 6th District in June, proved to be the political equivalent of an investment bubble. The week after he scored a Daily Kos endorsement in January, Ossoff took in $400,000, an initial pace similar to McGrath and Bryce. With few other races competing for attention, and offering the tantalizing possibility of delivering Trump a blow in the Republican Deep South, Ossoff eventually raked in a record-breaking $23.6 million, not counting money from outside organizations.

In retrospect, the Ossoff campaign was not the best vehicle for Democratic financial resources. But todays impulsive click-driven small donor armies absorb lessons about as well as a toddler. Much like amateur stock market day traders looking to get rich quick, they want to bet on feel-good prospects, and are easily sold by fancy presentations. Moreover, many progressives have soured on the Democratic Party establishment. They are not inclined to make the safe investment in party infrastructure, such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whichbecause it is built for immediate wins and not grandiose long-term 50-state strategiestends not to get overextended on sparkly long shots.

Theres little about being a veteran that makes it easier to speak on the bread and butter issues that matter in elections, a lesson Democrats learned the hard way in 2004when former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark flamed out as a primary candidate, and then another military veteran, Sen. John Kerry, lost in the general election to a guy whod avoided the Vietnam War, but was far more plainspoken. Weakness with the white working class certainly hampers the Democrats ability to take advantage of Trumps abysmal job approval and Congress meager legislative output. But to solve that problem, Democrats cant simply call in the cavalry, no matter how many times they try.

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show The DMZ.

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Why Democrats Fall So Hard for Military Candidates - POLITICO Magazine

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in May. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in May.

How is Washington spending tax dollars that might benefit President Trump? Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee want to count the ways.

The committee's 18 minority members sent letters on Tuesday to the 15 cabinet departments and nine independent executive branch agencies, requesting documents on their spending at "businesses owned by or affiliated with the Trump Organization."

They said the letters are the first step in an investigation of federal spending involving Trump companies.

The letter said Trump's "financial entanglements make it impossible to know whether he is making his decisions in the public interest" or to benefit the president and his family.

Before Trump took office, he turned over management of the Trump Organization to his eldest son, Donald Jr., and a long-time Trump deputy. But he didn't give up ownership. Subsequently, Democrats have been hammering on the conflicts-of-interest questions that remain.

"It looks like he's making money off being president," said committee member Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill. "This is not, you know, for him to make money for his business, or his family to make money. But it seems like that's what happening."

The letter cites several instances uncovered by the press, including the State Department's booking of 19 rooms at a Trump hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia; costs for Secret Service protection for his son Eric's business travel for the Trump Organization; outlays at several agencies to support President Trump's trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and golf club in New Jersey; and Housing and Urban Development subsidy payments to the Starrett City complex in Brooklyn, in which Trump has an ownership stake.

Democrats gave the departments and agencies an August 25 deadline to deliver the documents, and asked that copies go to the committee's Republican staff as well. As the minority party in Congress, the Democrats cannot hold committee hearings. But they expressed optimism that the new GOP committee chair, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, will join them for a bipartisan investigation.

The committee's majority staff didn't respond to NPR's request for comment Tuesday afternoon, nor did the White House.

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Hill Democrats Launch Investigation Of Federal Spending At Trump Businesses - NPR

Congressional Democrats blasted President Trump on Tuesday for warning that North Korea will be met "with fire and fury" by the U.S. if it continues to ratchet up tensions involving its nuclear program.

The president made the remark during a briefing on the opioid epidemic from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey where he's on a 17-day vacation.

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," Mr. Trump said. "As I said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."

Earlier in the day, it was revealed that a new U.S. intelligence assessment concludes that North Korea has developed the ability to build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on top of a ballistic missile, including an intercontinental missile that can reach the U.S., reported CBS News' David Martin.

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North Korea has made headway in its nuclear ambitions, developing a warhead that could fit on a ballistic missile that could reach the United Sta...

Several key Democratic lawmakers said that Mr. Trump's heated rhetoric will only make the situation worse.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, who previously served as a top member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted that isolating North Korea "has not halted their pursuit of nuclear weapons." She said "diplomacy is the only path forward." Feinstein went on to say Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who's currently in Asia, should discuss the reopening of North Korea talks with U.S. regional partners.

Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-New York, said that the president's remark sounded more like a statement from "the 'Supreme Leader' of North Korea than from the President of the United States."

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the president has undermined U.S. credibility by drawing "an absurd red line."

Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, tweeted a statement that said, "This is not a time for escalating rhetoric that threatens to bring the world to the brink of war."

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minnesota, tweeted that Mr. Trump's threat is "dangerous" and "risks war."

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, tweeted that the president's remark was "reckless."

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, said that this is "not the time" to issue more threats and to test North Korea's long-range missiles.

The House and Senate have gone on their month-long recess for August and aren't scheduled to return to Capitol Hill until September.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also had some tough words for the president.

"I take exception to the president's comments because you've got to be sure that you can do what you say you're going to do," he said in an interview on KTAR Phoenix. "I don't believe that President Reagan or President Eisenhower or other presidents that I've admired would have said the same thing. They might have done as much as we could but not that kind of rhetoric, I'm not sure how it helps."

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Democrats blast Trump's "fire and fury" warning to North Korea - CBS News