President Trump shared an image of him as the Pope on Truth Social. It was also shared by the official White House account on X.
The papal conclave to elect the new Pope will begin on May 7.
President Trump shared an image of him as the Pope on Truth Social. It was also shared by the official White House account on X.
The papal conclave to elect the new Pope will begin on May 7.
“President Donald Trump had a meltdown Saturday after a federal judge banned him from using a centuries-old wartime act to deport men without due process,” the Daily Beast reports.
Wrote Trump: “Can it be so that Judges aren’t allowing the USA to Deport Criminals, including Murderers, out of our Country and back to where they came from? If this is so, our Country, as we know it, is finished!”
“The president’s temper tantrum comes less than two days after U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., whom Trump appointed during his first term, struck down his use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.”
Andrew Marantz: “Other countries have watched their democracies slip away gradually, without tanks in the streets. That may be where we’re headed—or where we already are.”
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“The White House border czar warned Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers over his guidance to state workers who encounter federal immigration officials on the job, suggesting the Democratic governor could face felony charges if the Trump administration believes its immigration efforts are impeded,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Republicans are largely “extending tax breaks that have been on the books for years,” Politico reports.
“To many voters, it may not seem like anything has changed in their taxes — and that will present a unique sales challenge for GOP lawmakers… At the same time, to help defray the cost of their plans, they are eyeing spending cuts that could be more noticeable to their constituents, including changes to Medicaid, a popular health safety-net program.”
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Speaker Mike Johnson’s hope of advancing the long-promised GOP megabill by Memorial Day is running headlong into political reality, as Republicans struggle “to unify around some of their most consequential decisions, including how deeply to cut spending and overhaul safety-net programs,” Politico reports.
“GOP leaders pushed back a trio of key votes they were hoping to finish next week. The Energy and Commerce Committee is still grappling with politically toxic proposals to roll back Medicaid spending. The tax-focused Ways and Means Committee is locked in a standoff over a key deduction disproportionately utilized in swing blue-state districts. And the Agriculture Committee is struggling to reach the $230 billion in spending cuts it’s targeting for the country’s largest anti-hunger program amid backlash from centrists.”
“Investor Warren Buffett told thousands of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders Saturday that the United States shouldn’t use ‘trade as a weapon’ and anger the rest of the world like President Donald Trump has done with his tariffs that roiled global markets,” the AP reports.
Said Buffett: “It’s a big mistake in my view when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well, and you have 300 million who are crowing about how they have done.”
Wall Street Journal: “After Trump met with Rob Manfred at the White House last month, the issue of Rose was among the topics of conversation. Trump told others after the discussion that Manfred will posthumously remove Rose from MLB’s permanently ineligible list.”
“If that happens, it would open the door for the game’s all-time hits leader to be elected into the Hall of Fame nearly four decades after he was banned for gambling on baseball.”
“Marco Rubio is doing big things under President Donald Trump — way more than nearly anyone expected,” Politico reports.
“The secretary of State was once thought of as one of the weakest players in the Trump orbit, a man who wouldn’t last long in the Cabinet because he faced many internal rivals and had major policy differences with Trump and the MAGA base.”
“But Rubio has deftly earned the president’s trust, enough so that Trump this week gave him another powerful job as interim national security adviser, replacing the ousted Mike Waltz. Some Trump advisers are interested in making the arrangement permanent.”
“President Trump is considering an executive order to examine payments made to college athletes and whether they have created an unfair system,“ the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump’s focus on the issue — which he’s talked about in the past, one of the people briefed on the matter noted — was renewed after he spoke with Nick Saban, the famed former University of Alabama football coach, backstage at an event Thursday night in Tuscaloosa, where Mr. Trump delivered an address to graduates.”
“The United States imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported auto parts on Saturday that could sharply raise prices for new and used vehicles as well as for repairs and insurance,” the New York Times reports.
“The latest tariffs, which President Trump ordered in March as part of his plan to promote domestic manufacturing, come after the 25 percent levies on imported cars that took effect in early April.”
“This second round of duties on imported parts will have a broader impact because even cars made in the United States often have engines, transmissions, batteries or other components produced in other countries.”
CNN: Another round of auto tariffs just went into effect. They could change the industry forever.
“Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looks set to secure a second term in office, media networks project, with voters choosing stability over change against a backdrop of global turmoil inflicted by a returning President Donald Trump,” CNN reports.
BBC: “It’s quite a remarkable turnaround from the start of the year, when polling put Albanese’s popularity at record lows after three years of global economic pain, tense national debate, and growing government dissatisfaction.”
More from the BBC: “At this point of the evening, it’s hard to imagine a more emphatic rejection of Peter Dutton’s Liberal-National coalition than has played out. He has lost the election, with massive swings away from his party right around the country. And he has lost his own seat.”
Wall Street Journal: The Trump factor boosts another world leader in a close election.
“President Donald Trump’s decision to oust his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was the product of a slow accumulation of frustration with a former Green Beret officer who was seen as far more eager to use military force than his boss in the Oval Office,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump administration officials are exploring ways of challenging the tax-exempt status of nonprofits, in a move that some IRS staffers fear could damage the agency’s apolitical approach,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In hourslong meetings that continued over a recent weekend, Internal Revenue Service lawyers explored whether they could alter the rules governing how nonprofit groups can be denied tax-exempt status.”
Wall Street Journal: “Trump is drawing support from a rising faction of New Right economic voices that has spent the past decade working to reshape the GOP along Trumpist lines and away from laissez-faire. They say the party’s collective willingness to buckle up and go along with Trump’s trade war, whether out of ideological sympathy or political calculation, is evidence the populists are prevailing.”
“Some Republicans remain uncomfortable with the departure from Reaganite dogma. The tariff debate has sent markets gyrating and induced anxiety among the business community that has long been the party’s major constituency.”
Washington Post: “The looped version of the 15-minute video and music is expected to run throughout the weekend on the White House digital channels with a strategy of ‘finding innovative ways to distribute fact sheets and other information.’”
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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