“I think it’s a Godfather reference.”
— Donald Trump Jr., quoted by the New York Times, when asked about his text using the phrase “go to the mattresses” as he told Mark Meadows to get his father to condemn the violence on January 6.
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“Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said Sunday that he has met with President Joe Biden’s National Security adviser Jake Sullivan — and that the two administrations are working collaboratively on national…
The Atlantic: “Since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and subsequently turned it into X, disaffected users have talked about leaving once and for all. Maybe they’d post some about…
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a prominent ally of Donald Trump, said voters don’t care who conducts background checks into the president-elect’s Cabinet picks and that Trump would fire members of…
Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was defeated Nov. 5 in his reelection bid, said he won’t rule out running for the Senate again or for governor of Ohio in 2026, Politico…
A new CBS News poll finds President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration starts off with mostly good will from the public: a majority of Americans overall are either happy or at…
Axios: “While President-elect Trump’s 2016 win sparked shock, outrage and massive protests, the response to his 2024 victory has been more muted.” “2016 birthed The Resistance, a political movement to…
“The prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.” — Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi, quoted by the Washington Post in 2023. Save to Favorites
“President-elect Donald Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort, a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest…
“Since the election, Jared Bernstein, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has often found himself in a down mood — dealing, he says, with ‘confusion, guilt’…
“President-elect Donald Trump’s eclectic roster of figures to lead federal health agencies is almost complete — and with it, his vision for a sweeping overhaul is coming into focus,” the…
“The sweeping tariffs that President-elect Donald Trump imposed in his first term on foreign metals, machinery, clothing and other products were intended to have maximum impact around the world. They…
Axios: “Lost in the noise of Trump’s most controversial picks is the simple, undebatable fact that this might be the most ideologically diverse cabinet of modern times.” Save to Favorites
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to select Brooke Rollins, a former Trump administration policy adviser, to lead the Agriculture Department, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Rollins is the president of…
Playbook: “In a flurry of Truth Social posts last night, President-elect Donald Trump made a furious pre-holiday-week dent in his list of Cabinet and key sub-Cabinet nominations — naming nine…
Politico: “Blue cities represent the core of the Democratic base… But this year, the major cities accounted for smaller shares of the votes cast in the battleground states than four…
“A common thread weaves through many of Donald Trump’s picks for his incoming administration, a quality the president-elect values as highly as loyalty and perhaps even more than conventional qualifications:…
“President-elect Donald Trump is considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” USA Today reports. “Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador…
Wall Street Journal: “Trump told friends shortly before the Bessent announcement that he trusted him to execute the administration’s policies more than any of the other contenders. Trump’s advisers also…
Washington Post: “In any other presidential transition, such a showdown and physical confrontation between two top advisers to the president-elect would be a showstopping breakdown in decorum.” “But in Trump’s…
New York Times: “While election polling has been around for more than a century, election forecasts have come to the forefront only in the past decade and a half. And…
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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