“Senate Democrats’ embrace of a shutdown deal that doesn’t guarantee extended health care subsidies is already an electoral issue,” Politico reports.
“Nearly every major Democratic Senate candidate panned the deal, from Texas hopeful Colin Allred, a former member of Congress, deriding it as a ‘joke’ to Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton condemning it as a ‘complete betrayal of the American people.’”
Christine Pelosi (D) will not run for her retiring mother’s seat in the House of Representatives, but instead will seek a California state senate seat.
Speaker Mike Johnson plans to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) before the House votes on a government funding package, Punchbowl News reports.
Grijalva’s installation in the House does not change the voting math for the funding bill. But she said she will sign the discharge petition to release the Epstein files. Grijalva’s signature will force a vote in the House.
President Trump on Monday threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion for a documentary that his lawyer claimed included “malicious, disparaging” edits to a speech Mr. Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, the New York Times reports.
“The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would hear a challenge to Mississippi’s counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, a case that could upend mail-in rules in dozens of states, creating chaos ahead of the 2026 elections,” the New York Times reports.
“The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, asks the justices to determine the meaning of ‘Election Day.’ It is a potential blockbuster and adds to the court’s other elections and voting cases for the term, which include a case about who can sue to challenge Illinois’ mail-in ballot rules and a challenge to the Louisiana congressional district map that could gut a remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act.”
Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, has quietly erased thousands of old social media posts — including a dozen tweets that championed the “defund the police” movement, described police as “standing armies,” and urged cities to divert money from law enforcement to social services, CNN reports.
Nate Silver: “Once the shutdown began on Oct. 1, I disagreed with the conventional wisdom that Democrats were ‘winning’ it. True, polls found that a slight plurality of voters blamed Republicans rather than Democrats. But those same polls showed that voters didn’t understand why there was a shutdown in the first place, and that Democrats’ message on health care wasn’t breaking through. Moreover, Democrats’ advantage on the ‘blame’ question was eroding over time — while Trump’s approval rating actually improved initially once the shutdown began.”
“Then something changed — and I was getting ready to eat crow. Late last month, Trump’s numbers began to plummet, with his net approval rating falling from −7.5 on Oct. 17 to −13 three weeks later. It wasn’t a huge shift in absolute terms. But Trump has had a high popularity floor and a low ceiling. It was something real enough to contribute to Democrats absolutely crushing Republicans in a series of elections last Tuesday in New Jersey, Virginia and other states. Meanwhile, Trump was starting to feud with Congressional Republicans, urging them to ‘nuke’ the filibuster when leadership was reluctant to do so.”
“So what did Democrats do with their newfound leverage? Over the weekend, they just gave up.”
“The U.S. military killed six people on Sunday in two more strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean,” the New York Times reports.
“The latest strikes raised the death toll in the campaign to 76 people in 19 attacks in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea since early September.”
“The Supreme Court on Monday declined an opportunity to overturn its landmark precedent recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, tossing aside an appeal that had roiled LGBTQ advocates who feared the conservative court might be ready to revisit the decade-old decision,” CNN reports.
“Instead, the court denied an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who now faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees for refusing to issue marriage licenses after the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges allowed same-sex couples to marry.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “is wading ever more deeply into the Democratic Party’s ideological tug of war, endorsing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota in her contested primary race to replace the retiring Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat,” the New York Times reports.
“Ms. Flanagan, who was elected twice as the running mate of Gov. Tim Walz, is facing off against Representative Angie Craig, a Democrat. Their race is one of many primaries next year that will help determine the direction of the party.”
“The chairman of the BBC apologized Monday for how the U.K. state broadcaster edited a speech by President Trump, in an effort to draw a line under a scandal that has prompted both its director general and head of news to resign following criticism by the White House,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The apology came a day after BBC Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness said they were leaving the organization.”
“The decision by eight Democratic senators to side with Republicans to advance a bill to end the government shutdown drew heated condemnations from other members of the party and reopened longstanding divisions on how to best fight back against President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times: “British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.”
“Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the FBI budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.”
“It was a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials.”
“A federal appeals court late on Sunday allowed a judge’s order to stand that directs President Donald Trump’s administration to fully fund this month’s food aid benefits for 42 million low-income Americans during the ongoing government shutdown,” NBC News reports.
Playbook: “We have movement. After 40 days and 40 nights of a truly biblical government shutdown, the Senate last night moved forward with a procedural vote that should mean this record-breaking crisis is finally coming to an end. What replaces it this morning is the eruption of an ugly Democratic civil war, as the party rips itself to shreds for dealing across the aisle…”
“Liberal social media is on fire this morning, with activists, pressure groups and wannabe Democratic senators and presidents falling over one another to condemn the deal in ever-louder terms. Panelists on MSNBC were banging the drum against it last night, some calling for Schumer to face the heat. Instantly, it feels like a purity test — nobody hoping to get anywhere in Democratic circles right now is permitted to be anything other than outraged.”
“Over the weekend, in the face of the longest federal government shutdown in history, a familiar refrain has arisen from President Trump and other Republicans: Repeal Obamacare,” Stat reports.
“Republicans have long said Democrats’ Affordable Care Act is to blame for skyrocketing health care costs and what they say is increasingly poor access to care that is getting worse. Democrats say the ACA expanded coverage to millions and that Trump’s tax bill, which cuts about $1 trillion from Medicaid over a decade, will undo much of the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
