“Senate Republicans are bracing for another one of their colleagues to possibly call it quits: Joni Ernst,” Politico reports.
“The two-term Iowa senator hasn’t officially announced her plans for 2026, and she’s gone through some of the motions of launching another campaign, including recently hiring someone to manage it and announcing her annual fall fundraiser.”
“President Donald Trump for the first time since returning to office will send weapons to Kyiv under a presidential power frequently used by his predecessor, a move suggesting new interest by the president in defending Ukraine,” Reuters reports.
“Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote just five majority opinions in the Supreme Court term that ended last month, the fewest of any member of the court. But her voice resonated nonetheless, in an unusually large number of concurring and dissenting opinions, more than 20 in all,” the New York Times reports.
“Several of them warned that the court was taking lawless shortcuts, placing a judicial thumb on the scale in favor of President Trump and putting American democracy in peril. She called the majority’s opinion in the blockbuster case involving birthright citizenship, issued on the final day of the term, ‘an existential threat to the rule of law.'”
For members: Not Ordinary Times
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the Democratic Party went too far in its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, prioritizing ideology over practical solutions, Bloomberg reports.
Said Dimon: “I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed.”
Dimon also said that former President Joe Biden “didn’t have one business person” advising him and that he was “speechless about the lack of knowledge” in the administration.
“Some of New York’s wealthiest financiers are uniting against Democratic nominee for mayor Zohran Mamdani, with a plan to raise $20 million to fight the surging progressive candidate,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“We just lecture people too much.”
— James Carville, quoted by the New York Post, on the Democratic party alienating men.
Juts published: So You Want to Own Greenland? by Elizabeth Buchanan.
Why do despots over the centuries keep wanting to own Greenland? The fascinating, calamitous story of the many who’ve tried… and uniformly failed.
“State Department employees are bracing for mass layoffs as soon as Friday after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with reorganization and downsizing,” Semafor reports.
“The high court on Tuesday lifted a lower-court judge’s decision that had blocked the planned layoffs, which could number in the thousands.”
Vanity Fair has catalogued all the times Donald Trump complained about not winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
“A federal appeals court in New York on Thursday upheld a civil jury verdict that found President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, and which ordered him to pay her $5 million in damages,” CNBC reports.
“The 22-year-old Donald Trump superfan put in charge of countering domestic terrorism has faced understandable questions over his experience with law enforcement,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Now, The Daily Beast can disclose that Thomas Fugate does have law enforcement experience: He was investigated less than four years ago in connection with a teenage love triangle gone wrong.”
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“Israel has concluded that some of Iran’s underground stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium survived American and Israeli attacks last month and may be accessible to Iranian nuclear engineers,” the New York Times reports.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist who was detained by the Trump administration for months, filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his prominent role in campus protests, The Guardian reports.
“The Senate is poised to vote Monday to confirm the first judicial nominee of President Donald Trump’s second term,” Politico reports.
“The Senate voted 51-43 along party-lines to end debate on Whitney Hermandorfer’s nomination for a judgeship on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The procedural step cleared the way for a final vote on confirmation when senators return to Washington next week after a weekend back home.”
“The Trump administration is firing and pushing out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next,” the Washington Post reports.
“Some people are simply fired, delivered a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi that cites the broad powers afforded to the president in the U.S. Constitution. Others, particularly at the FBI, are told they can leave or be demoted or terminated.”
“President Donald Trump huddled Wednesday evening in the Oval Office with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and top Senate GOP campaign officials about the 2026 midterm elections,” Punchbowl News reports.
“During the meeting, Trump administration officials made clear to Thune and the Senate Leadership Fund that they were going to let the race between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton play out a bit before deciding whether and how to engage in the contest. The White House wants to see whether the polling gap between Cornyn and Paxton will close. The primary is scheduled for March.”
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.
