“The disruptions from federal restrictions on flying at the nation’s busiest airports were challenging, but relatively contained this weekend. But the cuts are expected to grow in the coming days, threatening to wreak havoc for airlines and travelers as Thanksgiving approaches,” the New York Times reports.
Politico: U.S. airlines cancel more than 1,000 flights for a second straight day largely due to shutdown.
“The victories this past week of a democratic socialist in the New York mayor’s race and two moderate Democrats in the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey represented only the beginning of the battle over the future of the Democratic Party,” the New York Times reports.
“Now the stage is set to test those dueling visions in the 2026 midterm elections, which will feature a staggering number of consequential Democratic primary races, especially in contests for the Senate.”
“Far-right influencers have been hinting in recent weeks that they have finally found a venue — Miami — and a federal prosecutor — Jason A. Reding Quiñones — to pursue long-promised charges of a ‘grand conspiracy’ against President Trump’s adversaries,” the New York Times reports.
“Their theory of the case, still unsupported by the evidence: A cabal of Democrats and ‘deep-state’ operatives, possibly led by former President Barack Obama, has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a yearslong plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office.”
“But that narrative, which has been promoted in general terms by Mr. Trump and taken root online, has emerged in a nascent but widening federal investigation.”
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“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Friday signaled his openness to a proposed one-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits as a way to end the government shutdown,” Axios reports.
“Jeffries called a one-year extension proposed by House members “laughable” last month, but he has since proven flexible on several of his initial shutdown demands in an effort to reach a deal.”
“U.S. elections are sending a consistent message: Americans are deeply frustrated with their government’s inability to solve problems,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The latest example arrived Tuesday in a rebuke of President Trump, as voters rallied to Democrats in hopes they can better address affordability and other major challenges. That pushback was delivered just 12 months after the president swept all seven of the top battleground states in a show of Republican dominance.”
“The rapid-fire swing in fortunes for both parties is the result of a narrowly divided nation quick to throw out elected officials seen as slow to improve their lives. To many Americans, government is literally not working, as evidenced by a federal shutdown that has now stretched into the longest in U.S. history.”
“Large companies are running into a problem as they try to claim some of the tax cuts that the Republican Congress passed this summer: They can’t escape the corporate tax increase that Democrats passed three years ago,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Basically, President Trump giveth, but former President Joe Biden taketh part of it away.”
“Senate Republicans and Democrats are drifting further from a deal to reopen the federal government after President Donald Trump came out against any renewal of the Obamacare premium tax credits,” Punchbowl News reports.
Olivia Rodrigo criticized the Trump administration after one of her songs was featured in a government video promoting deportation efforts, The Guardian reports.
“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spent the week celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s historic mayoral victory. Then, on Saturday, she made clear how far she’s willing to go with his progressive agenda,” Politico reports.
“The governor praised the democratic socialist ‘who’s lighting politics on fire’ — but that didn’t stop her from opposing his plan to make New York City buses free, questioning how he plans to fund universal child care and saying she’ll keep an eye on how Mamdani leads New York’s Jewish community.”
Just in time for the holidays, the Blue Wave T-Shirt is back.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he plans to keep the Senate in session until both parties find a way to reopen the government, Punchbowl News reports.
During a rare Saturday Senate session, Thune took an increasingly hard line on the Obamacare premium tax credits, saying they were “Biden bonuses.”
President Trump proposed a compromise on health insurance payments, calling on Republicans to send federal payments that would go to insurers under the Affordable Care Act directly to Americans to bring an end to the government shutdown, CNBC reports.
A Washington Post analysis of multiple video feeds found that President Trump spent nearly 20 minutes apparently battling to keep his eyes open at a Thursday event in the Oval Office.
“It was a seemingly stark illustration of the strain of the presidency on a 79-year-old who typically keeps a vigorous travel schedule that even his aides say they struggle to keep up with — and who has reveled in calling his predecessor ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden.”
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Sen. Jon Ossoff — the only Democratic senator up for reelection next year in a state Trump won in 2024 — has become a symbol of the shutdown stalemate.
“He sharply criticizes Trump, saying the president needs to step in and make a deal. And he sticks tightly to that script, giving virtually the same answers every day no matter what the shutdown-related questions might be.”
Playbook: “When President Donald Trump inevitably flicks on the television at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, Rep. Wesley Hunt is hoping the president catches a nearly 60-second message his campaign spent just $2,500 on, buying up every remaining spot of airtime on Fox News cable…”
“Hunt’s gambit — aimed at ingratiating himself with Trump by finding common cause with the president’s repeated calls in recent days for nuking the filibuster — is a sign of what has become the latest MAGA litmus test in contested GOP Senate primaries around the map.”
IRS Direct File, the electronic system for filing tax returns for free, will not be offered next year, the AP reports.
“President Donald Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him,” ESPN reports.
“A senior White House source said there have been back-channel communications with a member of the Commanders’ ownership group, led by Josh Harris, to express Trump’s desire to have the domed stadium in the nation’s capital bear his name. The new stadium is being built on the old RFK Stadium site that served as the team’s home from 1961 to 1996.”
President Donald Trump careened into the weekend with no sign of abandoning his futile “kill the filibuster” strategy to end the shutdown, despite a stinging week of political rebukes, Politico reports.
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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