“Former South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer is mounting a GOP primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham, arguing the incumbent isn’t conservative enough to represent the state,” the AP reports.
Said Bauer: “Once every 6 years, he gets conservative. The rest of the time he votes with the Democrats.”
Wall Street Journal: “America’s two political parties have traded places economically. Where Americans once referred to upper-income ‘country club Republicans’ and blue-collar ‘lunchpail Democrats,’ they now see a working-class GOP and, in many ways, a professional-class Democratic Party.”
“That is good news for Republicans, because working-class voters—often defined as those without a four-year college degree—are one of the biggest blocs in the electorate. But with that success comes a problem: The GOP now represents more constituents who rely on social safety-net programs, such as Medicaid.”
“A federal judge has ruled that recent mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt plans to downsize and reorganize the nation’s health workforce,” the AP reports.
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“Democrats are rushing to portray Vice President JD Vance as the central figure behind the passage of the GOP’s megabill, with potential 2028 rivals arguing it will come back to haunt the MAGA heir apparent,” Politico reports.
“After 27 hours of debate in the Senate, Vance’s Tuesday vote brought the megabill one step closer to President Donald Trump’s desk. Democrats’ rush to tie the bill so closely to the vice president illustrates their belief that it could be toxic for the GOP in the midterms and 2028 — and that it could hurt Vance if he runs for president once Trump leaves the political stage.”
Elon Musk has predicted Steve Bannon is “going back to prison” after the two former Trump advisors reignited their bitter feud this week, the Daily Beast reports.
Bannon, in turn, told Musk to “go back to South Africa.”
“The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services,” the New York Times reports.
“Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax bill is running into Republican resistance in the House as moderate and ultra-conservative GOP lawmakers threaten to defy the president and sink his domestic agenda,” Bloomberg reports.
Los Angeles Times: “A fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal preacher, Swaggart bragged he had more followers than Oral Roberts or Jim Bakker, lived a luxuriant life on a 100-acre compound in Baton Rouge, La., and whooshed off to evangelistic crusades in a private jet with a fleet of 18-wheelers, loaded with musical instruments and television equipment, rumbling down the highway below.”
“But his ministry was upended in the 1980s when photos surfaced showing Swaggart with a prostitute at a New Orleans motel and again when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol in the Mojave Desert while traveling with a woman who told officers she was a prostitute.”
“The University of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday that it had struck a deal with the federal government that will limit how transgender people may participate in its athletic programs, bowing to the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the law that bans sex discrimination in education,” the New York Times reports.
“The government also said the Ivy League school had pledged to “adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’” that comply with the Trump administration’s reading of Title IX and a pair of executive orders that the president issued this year.”
Tara Palmeri: “It’s not just a bill — it’s President Trump’s entire legislative agenda wrapped into one. The only major piece of legislation this Congress will pass. And, some argue, the very reason many of these Republicans were elected in the first place.”
“It’s border policy. It’s defense spending. It’s tax cuts. It’s health care. Trump is handling everything else unilaterally — even the real wars and the trade wars — so this bill is it.”
“But behind closed doors, there’s real anxiety. Especially around the Medicaid cuts. They know it could come back to bite them in the midterms.”
Said one Republican lawmaker: “The Democrats are rooting for us to fuck ourselves on Medicaid.”
Jonathan Chait: “In their heedless rush to enact a deficit-exploding tax bill so massive that they barely understand it, Senate Republicans call to mind a scene in The Sopranos. A group of young aspiring gangsters decides to stick up a Mafia card game in hopes of gaining the mobsters’ respect and being brought into the crew. At the last moment, the guys briefly reconsider, before one of them supplies the decisive argument in favor of proceeding: ‘Let’s do it before the crank wears off.’ After that, things go as you might expect.”
“Like the Mafia wannabes, congressional Republicans have talked themselves into a plan so incomprehensibly reckless that to describe it is to question its authors’ sanity. As of today’s 50–50 Senate vote, with Vice President J. D. Vance breaking the tie, the House and Senate have passed their own versions of the bill. The final details still have to be negotiated, but the foundational elements are clear enough. Congress is about to impose immense harm on tens of millions of Americans—taking away their health insurance, reducing welfare benefits, raising energy costs, and more—in order to benefit a handful of other Americans who least need the help. The bill almost seems designed to generate a political backlash.”
“Given that President Donald Trump and the GOP, unlike the morons in The Sopranos, are not collectively under the influence of crystal meth, the question naturally arises: Why are they doing this?”
President Trump signaled support for New York City Mayor Eric Adams — for whom he made federal corruption charges disappear — and threatened to arrest Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, New York Magazine reports.
Said Trump, when asked about Mamdani’s pledge to refuse to cooperate with ICE: “Well, then we’ll have to arrest him. Look, we don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.”
He added: “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally. We’re gonna look at everything.”
“My sincere hope is that this is not the final product. This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”
— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), quoted by Axios, after voting for the bill she now hopes is not final.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) apologized to Zohran Mamdani (D) after she falsely claimed in a radio interview that the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City had made “references to global jihad,” Politico reports.
Mamdani has declined to condemn people using the phrase “globalize the intifada,” even though he said he doesn’t use it himself.
Democrats are already vowing to make President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” a centerpiece of their strategy for taking back the House of Representatives in 2026, Axios reports.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is facing an explosion of internal anger among his members over the Senate’s changes to President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Axios reports.
Said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC): “Our bill has been completely changed … It’s a non-starter.”
One House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there are “well over 20” GOP lawmakers threatening to vote against the bill.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) made the “agonizing” decision to vote for Senate Republicans’ version of the “big, beautiful” bill after winning key concessions on federal health and food-aid programs for her state, Politico reports.
Said Murkowski: “I had to look on balance, because the people in my state are the ones that I put first. We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”
Associated Press: “It was a surprising statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi as the Trump administration promises to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein: The FBI, she said, was reviewing ‘tens of thousands of videos’ of the wealthy financier ‘with children or child porn.’”
“Yet weeks after Bondi’s remarks, it remains unclear what she was referring to.”
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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