Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime fixer, described his role at the Trump Organization during testimony Monday at a Manhattan courthouse as essentially “whatever” Trump “wanted,” Axios reports.
Said Cohen: “The only thing that was on my mind was to accomplish the task, to make him happy.”
“Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice,” the Washington Post reports.
“Don’t look now, but inflation expectations are picking up — both in the corporate C-suite and at Americans’ kitchen tables,” Axios reports.
“When people expect higher inflation, it can be self-fulfilling — and if this reversal of progress in inflationary psychology continues, it will make Federal Reserve leaders warier of cutting interest rates.”
Russell Berman: “Earlier this month, federal prosecutors bestowed on Republicans what seemed like an election-year gift: charging a senior House Democrat in a competitive district with accepting $600,000 in bribes and acting as a foreign agent. For a party clinging to a threadbare majority in the House, the indictment offered an obvious opportunity for an America First attack. Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, who prosecutors say acted on behalf of a Mexican bank and the government of Azerbaijan, is now the second Democrat in recent months—after Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey—to be accused of doing the bidding of foreign interests.”
“Yet in the past week, the GOP has been strangely quiet about Cuellar. No one in the party leadership has denounced him. Speaker Mike Johnson, fending off an attempt on his job from the far right, certainly could have used the distraction. But he hasn’t mentioned Cuellar once. Donald Trump even praised him, suggesting that President Joe Biden had sent the FBI after “the Respected Democrat Congressman” because Cuellar had criticized the administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), “running unopposed in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Arizona, placed a reservation on Monday for $19 million in television advertisements for the general election this fall, according to his campaign — the largest any Senate candidate in the country has made so far,” the New York Times reports.
Donald Trump Jr. visited Peter Navarro in Miami federal prison, ABC News reports.
Said Trump: “It’s important to show support.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) joined Donald Trump’s entourage in court on Monday, the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Vance’s presence could signal a new frontier for Mr. Trump’s testing of potential running mates. The former president has been encouraging vice-presidential contenders, including Mr. Vance, to grant interviews to a range of cable networks in order to measure their performance, as well as inviting them to join him on the campaign trail and to attend fund-raisers for his campaign.”
“But Mr. Vance, who had been aggressively critical of Mr. Trump before running for office, has worked to repair that relationship, and is now one of his most vocal defenders in the Senate.”
Joyce Vance: “There was little doubt before last week that federal Judge Aileen Cannon was determined to delay Trump’s criminal case in front of her—the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case—until after the election. Now, there is none.”
“Michael Cohen, once Donald Trump’s loyal attack dog and now his dedicated antagonist, has taken the stand as the star witness in the first criminal trial of an American president. Prone to tirades and charm, he is an unpredictable witness whose testimony will be at the crux of the case against Mr. Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“Nebraska holds its primary election tomorrow. While all five Republicans in the state’s delegation — two senators and three House members —- are on the ballot, the state party is endorsing none of them,” the Washington Post reports.
“It’s the latest state Republican party in which far-right activists are taking control and attempting to root out traditional or centrist Republicans in order to nominate more like-minded candidates, regardless of their electoral chances in a general election…”
“State parties were once extensions of the national party, working together toward a common goal of electing the strongest Republican candidates. But that has changed in the era of Trump and the GOP’s painful identity crisis. Elements of the right are now more interested in far-right purity than electability.”
“A Democratic group is rolling out a new $140 million ad campaign that aims to chip away at Donald Trump’s support among one of his most loyal voting blocs: rural voters,” the AP reports.
“The ads, from American Bridge 21st Century, will begin airing Monday in the northern battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They are aimed at swing voters in smaller media markets that are less saturated with political advertising and where they hope to reach people, especially women, who may be on the fence.”
NBC News: “He sides with defendants less frequently than any of his eight colleagues, according to numbers crunched by Lee Epstein, a political scientist at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.”
“But in several recent oral arguments in some of the most contentious cases currently before the court, Alito has notably raised questions about the Justice Department’s decisions to prosecute certain cases, expressed sympathy for Trump’s argument that former presidents should be immune from prosecution, and aired concerns about gun owners being charged. Rulings in all the cases are due by the end of June.”
Wall Street Journal: “Graham’s intrigue with the Trump-backed Bible offers a case-in-point to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s stronghold on evangelical Christians, many of them white, ahead of the November election. To many evangelicals, Trump—despite his at times checkered personal life—continues to be their champion with his unapologetic, politically incorrect approach to politics, religion and world affairs. His embrace of Christianity for political promotion and vindication in the face of legal turmoil has only deepened the conviction of Trump’s Christian base, according to officials with his campaign and some evangelical leaders.”
“Republican presidents and presidential candidates have long courted evangelical voters and leaders, but Trump stands out for spurring congregants to pressure their pastors to adopt a more hard-edge political message.”
New York Magazine: “George Latimer (D) refuses to critique the Israeli military strategy in Gaza or declare he would, as a congressman, ask the U.S. government to condition military aid to Israel, as Biden has done…”
“I ask Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) if Israel should always have a Jewish majority. Strikingly, unlike a vast majority of American politicians, he doesn’t answer immediately in the affirmative.”
Washington Post: “Unlike in 2022, many GOP candidates running in tight races are choosing to steer away from one of the former president’s favorite talking points.”
Nate Cohn on this morning’s new battleground polls that showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in five of six key states:
“What’s more surprising is the U.S. Senate results. This is the first time we’ve asked about Senate races this year, and the Democratic candidates led in all four of the states we tested: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.”
“Not only do Democrats lead, but they also seem to do so in an entirely customary way, with ordinary levels of support from young and nonwhite voters, even as Mr. Biden struggles at the top of the ticket…”
“This level of crossover voting has been extremely rare in the last few years, but it was pretty common before 2020. In fact, these results remind me a lot of the 2016 presidential election, when Mr. Trump surged in white working-class areas, Hillary Clinton surged in college-educated areas, and yet the Senate and House results by county still mostly followed the pre-2016 pattern.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says he vehemently disagrees with President Biden on his Israel policy and has even suggested Biden may lose his reelection bid over it,” the Washington Post reports.
“But the 82-year-old progressive leader, who recently announced he’ll run for a fourth term, still plans on stumping for the president, making the case to what he describes as unenthusiastic young and liberal voters around the country that they should hold their noses and vote for him.”
Said Sanders: “It’s no great secret that there is not an enormous amount of enthusiasm for either candidate. People who are voting for Trump have doubts about him, as well. But when it comes down to it, it’s not Biden versus God, it is Biden versus Trump. And I think, there is no question in my mind that Biden is, by far by, by far the superior candidate.”
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.