“We should be bringing in the best and brightest, and that’s what Donald Trump is changing about our immigration system. Let’s expedite the best and brightest who are gonna give a million dollars to the US to prove they’re at the top of the list.”
— Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, on CNBC.
“The Trump administration jettisoned a plan to honor the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and the civil-rights movement on quarters for the nation’s 250th birthday,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Those themes were part of a proposed five-quarter special series that went through years of debate and design but was never officially announced by the U.S. Mint. They were replaced with images inspired by the Mayflower Compact, the Revolutionary War and the Gettysburg Address.”
“There was a time when calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was considered too risky for a Democrat to campaign on,” NBC News reports.
“But today, images of aggressive immigration arrests in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina, have led to anti-ICE sentiment creeping back into the party’s messaging.”
Mona Charen: Trump’s deportations are ripping mothers from their babies.
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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) delivered a withering critique of his own party, asserting that congressional Republicans are failing to help enact the agenda that President Trump ran on, Semafor reports.
Said Hawley: “Congress really has to act. I think you’ve seen a Congress that has not been as enthusiastic about his agenda as I would like.”
A new Gallup poll finds roughly six in 10 adults — 58% for Medicare and 61% for Social Security — say they are more worried today than a year ago about potential changes to these benefits, including about a third of Republicans.
Dan Pfeiffer: “In the minds of most voters, Trump’s economic policy can be summed up in one word: tariffs.”
“Trump was elected to lower prices, and one of his first and most high-profile acts was to explicitly raise prices on nearly everything. Americans know about the tariffs, and they don’t buy Trump’s absurd and largely incomprehensible arguments about why he enacted them.”
“Voters draw a straight line from Trump’s tariffs to higher prices. A Navigator Research poll of battleground House districts found that 69% believe that tariffs have increased costs.”
“They need to come to Congress and say what they’re doing. We don’t know what’s going on. Nobody knows what the mission is in Venezuela.”
— Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), quoted by Punchbowl News.
A new AP-NORC poll finds just 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how President Trump is handling the economy.
That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term.
Overall, 36% of Americans approve of the way he’s handling his job as president, which is down slightly from 42% in March.
The New York Times, attacked by President Trump for reporting about his physical condition, said that it wouldn’t be deterred by “false and inflammatory language” that distorts the role of a free press, the AP reports.
Trump had posted on Truth Social that he believed it was “seditious, perhaps even treasonous” for the Times and other media outlets to do “FAKE” reports on his health.
NOTUS: “In the past two months, President Donald Trump has pardoned a convicted drug trafficker, an unemployment scammer, a money launderer whom he said he is unfamiliar with and a foreign bribe recipient.”
“The pardons — and post-pardon fallout — are increasingly rankling Republican lawmakers, who are left with little recourse to rein in Trump despite him, at times, undermining their political messaging about stamping out ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ and cracking down on foreign drug trafficking.”
A new Emerson survey of Ohio voters finds both statewide elections for governor and U.S. Senate tightening, with both races falling within the poll’s margin of error.
In the open seat for governor, 46% support Amy Acton (D), while 45% support Vivek Ramaswamy (R) and 9% are undecided.
In the U.S. Senate election, 49% support incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R) and 46% support former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), with 5% undecided.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said she will consider signing “every discharge petition” regardless of subject, to stop “House leadership from blocking Members from governing.”
Venezuelan dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado appeared in Oslo after a “journey in a situation of extreme danger” to reach the Norwegian capital from her place of hiding in Venezuela, Bloomberg reports.
Wall Street Journal: “The Venezuelan opposition leader was trying to get to Norway by Wednesday in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize that she won for challenging Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro. First she had to get from the Caracas suburb where she has been in hiding for a year to a coastal fishing village, where a skiff awaited her.”
“Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight.”
“A congressional redistricting proposal that has split Indiana’s Senate Republicans advanced to its final stage Wednesday after lawmakers quickly dispatched three Democratic amendments and positioned the high-stakes bill for a decisive vote on Thursday,” the Indiana Capital Chronicle reports.
“But it remains unclear whether the Senate GOP caucus has enough support to pass the measure.”
Playbook notes President Trump applied pressure his own special way — with an epic 414-word Truth Social post demanding a GOP gerrymander, issuing primary threats and calling Senate President Rodric Bray, a redistricting opponent, “either a bad guy, or a very stupid one!”
Playbook: “The longest government shutdown in history was all for this: a Democrat-led vote in the Senate this morning on extending Obamacare subsidies that we already know is going to fail. The GOP alternative — bolstering health savings accounts — will also get a vote today, and yes, it too will fall short without bipartisan support.”
“Each side will then blame the other for blocking progress… and millions of Americans will see health care premiums soar at the end of the year.”
“America has a talent shortage, with 40% of adults lacking basic digital skills, says a new report from JPMorganChase that bolsters the bank’s recently announced $1.5 trillion U.S. investment initiative,” Axios reports.
“The report frames the workforce shortage as a national security threat, not just an economic issue, arguing that funding for vital industries like AI and energy won’t move the needle without a talent pipeline.”
“MAGA’s media machine is ripping itself to shreds, locked in a web of interpersonal feuds that have derailed its once-relentless focus on advancing President Trump’s agenda,” Axios reports.
“The MAGA movement spent years perfecting the art of attacking outsiders. Now, less than a year into Trump’s second term, its most prominent voices are attacking each other with a fury normally reserved for the left.”
“The acrimony is so deep between President Trump’s border czar and his homeland security secretary that the two officials barely speak to or meet with each other,” Axios reports.
“Tensions reached such a fever pitch last week that the White House was swamped with rumors and news stories claiming that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had lost Trump’s favor and was on her way out.”
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.
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