Trump Media plans to issue a new cryptocurrency, which will be distributed among its shareholders, Bloomberg reports.
The company, which operates President Trump’s Truth Social platform, said the new token will be allocated to investors in a partnership with crypto exchange Crypto.com.
President Trump said he’s dropping his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort, the AP reports.
Trump said in a social media post that he’s removing the troops for now: “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!”
Earlier for members: A Quiet Supreme Court Ruling Clips Trump’s Power
“The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released a full transcript and video of former special counsel Jack Smith’s closed-door deposition before the Republican-led panel earlier this month,” NBC News reports.
“The release consists of a 255-page transcript and more than 8 hours of video. Smith sought to testify publicly, but his request was denied by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.”
“A recently released cache of surveillance video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City is raising new questions about the prison cameras at the facility where Jeffrey Epstein died in his cell in 2019,” CBS News reports.
“The videos were among a huge cache of materials released on Dec. 23 by the Department of Justice as congressionally mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Rather than clarifying events surrounding Epstein’s death, the footage appears to complicate the official narrative, and contradicts some prior statements about the prison’s surveillance system.”
Tara Palmeri: “If there’s one thing 2025 has made clear, it’s that in today’s Washington, scandal is just noise. The people who survive it are the ones who learned from President Trump that endurance—not accountability—is the real strategy. Ride out the shame long enough and it eventually fades.”
“This year alone, a series of old allegations resurfaced around some of the president’s allies. There was reporting about border czar Tom Homan allegedly accepting a $50,000 Cava bag stuffed with cash in exchange for government contracts, only to have it brushed aside by FBI Director Kash Patel, who has reportedly been using FBI Boeing aircraft like a personal jet to visit his country singer girlfriend.”
“Then there are the lingering and newly revived scandals involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who seems largely immune, perhaps because he presents as a Ken-doll version of a war secretary, untouched by consequences.”
“Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the months since the Trump administration began a military and economic pressure campaign against the government of the South American nation,” the New York Times reports.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) urged a “tax revolt” among Trump supporters.
Said Greene: “Almost every Trump voter I see on X is so fed up they are planning a 2026 tax revolt. And rightfully so!”
She added: “It’s because Americans work their asses off, barely make ends meet, and the government consistently gives their hard-earned tax dollars to foreign countries, foreign wars, and foreigners the U.S. government has brought/allowed into America! And NOTHING is given to Americans!!!”
“The Trump administration terminated the lease agreement governing Washington’s three public golf courses, a move that throws the future of municipal golf in the District into uncertainty and clears a path for the president to put his imprint on one of the region’s most prominent public courses,” the Washington Post reports.
A good read: Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation by Zaakir Tameez.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) recommends the book saying it “tells the story I never knew, of how passionate abolitionist Charles Sumner, who hated politics and politicians, ended up in the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in the first place and then came to be violently assaulted on the Senate floor by South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks.”
He adds: “It then follows Summer’s difficult convalescence and the central role he played in the coming of the Civil War and everything to follow. Absolutely riveting.”
“Vaccination rates among kindergarten students have plunged across broad swaths of the United States since before the pandemic, exposing children and families to increasing health risks as many school districts pull back from their traditional role as a bulwark against infectious disease,” the Washington Post reports.
“The accelerating decline reveals the lasting medical consequences of a political backlash against public health efforts during the pandemic, which radicalized many against long-standing vaccine mandates.”
Trump Mobile, the phone company launched by the Trump Organization, has delayed plans to ship its gold-colored smartphone by the end of this year, the Financial Times reports.
The Economist: “What could be a slurred festive toast is in fact the cheerful forecast of Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, who expects the calendar’s turn to herald faster economic growth. His optimism has foundation. The effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a tax-cutting law enacted in July, will soon start to be felt. Americans will receive refunds that reflect retroactive tax cuts on income from 2025. They will also find that levies on monthly earnings have fallen…”
“Such tax-cutting should be enough to boost GDP by 0.3%—a reasonable stimulus given the economy probably grew by 1.9% in 2025. And it is just one of several factors that could prove Mr Bessent right. The consensus among economists surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in November was that growth would slow to 1.8% in 2026, as haphazard policymaking and tariffs weighed on the economy. Could their gloom prove misplaced?”
“Thus America might enter 2026 with both the monetary and fiscal cannons firing.”
President Trump said on Truth Social that “scumbag” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and “RINO” District Attorney Dan Rubinstein should “rot in hell” over the incarceration of former election clerk Tina Peters.
President Trump said that construction of his long-teased Triumphal Arch is expected to begin “sometime in the next two months,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it. They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arch.”
“The proposed structure — modeled loosely on European victory monuments — is one of several high-profile projects Trump has personally championed as part of the semiquincentennial celebrations, a sprawling effort expected to include national and local events across the country.”
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Wall Street Journal: “Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees — usually young women — to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services… The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein… They came to a halt in 2003, after an 18-year-old beautician returned to the club from a house call to Epstein and reported to managers that he had pressured her for sex…”
“A manager sent Trump a fax relaying the employee’s allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, some of the former employees said. Trump told the manager it was a good letter and said to kick him out.”
President Trump used his veto power to reject a bill designed to make it easier to build a water pipeline in Colorado, CBS News reports.
That prompted a sharp rebuke from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), while saying she hoped this wasn’t political retribution.
Said Boebert: “I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects. My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape.”
Politico: “Mamdani’s ambitious — and costly — platform was predicated on the idea that a left-leaning mayor can effectively lead a city that often appears ungovernable.”
“Any hiccup threatens to unravel his lofty goals of free child care, bus service and government-run supermarkets… The challenges facing Mamdani will begin immediately.”
Wall Street Journal: Five challenges Mamdani faces on day one.
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.
