“Elon Musk is quietly pumping the brakes on his plans to start a political party,“ the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Musk has told allies that he wants to focus his attention on his companies and is reluctant to alienate powerful Republicans by starting a third party that could siphon off GOP voters.”
“Musk’s posture marks a shift from early last month, when he said he would form what he called the America Party to represent U.S. voters who are unhappy with the two major political parties.”
Oliver Darcy: “Megyn Kelly, who likes to brand herself as a fearless truth teller, instead played hype woman on Tuesday by giving conspiracy-monger Marjorie Taylor Greene a warm and fuzzy platform.”
“Kelly introduced Greene as merely a ‘lightning rod’ with ‘epic fights on Capitol Hill,’ scrubbing away years of unhinged rhetoric. During the lengthy interview, Kelly—a trained lawyer who has demonstrated she can effectively cross-examine guests when she wishes to—lobbed softballs and steered clear of meaningfully challenging Greene on her record of lies and bigotry.”
“Jeanine Pirro, then a weekend host on Fox News, told the chairman of the Republican National Committee in a September 2020 text message that she was determined to aid President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, despite the network prohibiting on-air personalities from political involvement,” the Washington Post reports.
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“The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of the short video app’s more than 170 million U.S. users to spread the messages of President Donald Trump,” Reuters reports.
“Don’t free up your calendar just yet,” Politico reports.
“Moscow on Tuesday moved to cool expectations of a long-awaited face-to-face summit between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, despite much excitement following President Donald Trump’s White House meetings with top European leaders on Monday…”
“Russia’s calibrated language follows a familiar pattern: agree in principle, stall in practice.”
“Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands.”
– Former CDC Director William Foege, quoted by Stat, on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The White House says President Trump canceled his August vacation to his Bedminster resort to work on talks to end the Ukraine-Russia war, The Hill reports.
A new Echelon Insights survey finds JD Vance leading the 2028 presidential field with 43%, followed by Ron DeSantis and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tied at 9%, Marco Rubio at 6% and Nikki Haley at 4%.
On the Democratic side, it’s a wide-open field: Kamala Harris leads with 26%, followed by Gavin Newsom at 13%, Pete Buttigieg at 11%, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 6%, Cory Booker at 5% and JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Jasmine Crockett at the back of the pack with 3%.
“A group of Texas Democrats are returning to the state House in Austin where they will spend the night — the latest step in broader protest over Republican plans to redraw congressional districts in the state,” NBC News reports.
“The Democrats will join state Rep. Nicole Collier, their colleague who has remained locked in the state House chamber since Monday afternoon after refusing the condition of a security escort to leave the chamber.”
“You can’t run a country, or any organization, without reliable data, and firing the head of a statistics agency because you don’t like the numbers it produces starts a path the United States does not want to go down. At the other end lies a ruined economy and a damaged democracy.”
– Andreas Georgiou, former head of the Greek national statistical office, quoted by the New York Times.
Greg Sargent: “President Donald Trump raged at Democrats Monday for supposedly cheating in elections in a long and unhinged Truth Social rant—and buried in his tirade is a clear indication of how he hopes to corrupt the 2026 midterm elections at a time when his agenda is nose-diving in polls.”
Politico: “The federal officer who arrested the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city outside an immigration detention center in May suggested that he was making the arrest at the direction of the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, Todd Blanche, according to law enforcement body camera footage described in a new court filing.”
New York Times: “Applicants to the community are screened with an in-person interview, a criminal-background check, a questionnaire about ancestral heritage and sometimes even photographs of their relatives.”
“The community’s two architects — a classically trained French horn player who has livestreamed his own sex videos, and a former jazz pianist arrested but not charged for attempted murder in Ecuador — say they must personally confirm that applicants are white before they can be welcomed in.”
Thomas Edsall: “The Trump administration ranks among the most intrusive in American history, driving the tentacles of the federal government deep into the nation’s economy, culture and legal system.”
“Economically, the administration is dictating corporate behavior through tariffs, subsidies and the punishment of disfavored industries and companies, while rewarding allies with tax breaks and deregulation. And that’s all before the government takes its cut.”
“Culturally, Trump is seeking to redefine the boundaries of public discourse: pressuring universities, elevating grievance politics and reshaping federal agencies to reflect ideological loyalty rather than expertise or experience.”
“Within the legal system, the administration is aggressively reshaping the federal judiciary, asserting executive power over independent institutions and using the Justice Department for political ends.”
“Taken together, these interventions reveal a presidency determined to expand executive reach into virtually every sphere of national life.”
“The Trump administration moved Tuesday to revoke the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants in the federal government’s intelligence community,” the AP reports.
New York Times: “Rescinding security clearances appears to be part of a campaign by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to draw attention to what she sees as flaws in intelligence assessments about Russian malign influence operations during the 2016 election. Ms. Gabbard’s attention to that issue has won praise from Mr. Trump.”
“The White House is working over the August recess to build momentum for a key Federal Reserve nominee the administration wants in place next month,” Politico reports.
“Stephen Miran, whom President Donald Trump tapped to temporarily serve on the Federal Reserve’s board, has been meeting with members of the Senate Banking Committee, which will need to green-light his nomination before the full Senate can vote on confirmation.”
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 40% of adult citizens strongly or somewhat approve of Donald Trump’s job performance and 56% disapprove
The 56% who disapprove of Trump’s job performance is the highest share to do so in Trump’s second term.
“The Justice Department is investigating whether Washington, D.C., police manipulated data to make crime rates appear lower,“ the Washington Post reports.
“The launch of the criminal probe — run out of the federal prosecutor’s office in D.C. — escalates the tense relationship between the Trump administration and local D.C. officials, who have repeatedly cited steep drops in violent crime to question the federal push to take over law enforcement in the nation’s capitol.”
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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