Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) “allegedly had an affair with a senior aide who later died after dousing herself with gasoline and setting herself on fire,” the Daily Mail reports.
“Regina Aviles, 35, poured gasoline over herself before becoming engulfed in flames at her home on September 13 in Uvalde, Texas – about two hours west of San Antonio.”
“President Trump cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russian forces, backing off an earlier upbeat assessment as he looks to bring the war to an end and prepares for another meeting with President Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “I don’t think they will, but they could still win it. I never said they would win it. I said they could win. Anything can happen.”
Former FBI director James Comey asked a federal judge to dismiss the criminal case against him, calling it a vindictive prosecution driven by President Trump’s long history of personal animosity toward him, the New York Times reports.
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) accused Democrats of hating the military and serving for purely political reasons, the New York Times reports.
Said Perry: “They hate the military. That’s only a credential that they get when they want to run for office. They join the military, they serve a little bit, they get the credential and then they run for office and wear the uniform and say, ‘Look at me — I support America.’ But let’s face it, all their votes say they don’t support America.”
Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” Politico reports.
“A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that Donald Trump can send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon, despite objections by the leaders of the city and state, giving the Republican president an important legal victory as he dispatches military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locales,” Reuters reports.
“The Trump administration is exploring ways to pay air traffic controllers while the federal government is shut down,” Politico reports.
“It’s part of the Trump administration’s effort to control the most visible or politically fraught impacts of the shutdown, which is now entering its third week. Though so far flight delays due to staffing problems at control towers have been sporadic and isolated, a rash of illnesses in the right place at the right time could send delays across the nation soaring and ramp up political pressure on politicians to act.”
Top White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett on Monday predicted the government shutdown is “likely to end sometime this week,” CNBC reports.
He suggested Democrats were waiting to vote to reopen the government until after this weekend’s nationwide “No Kings” protests against President Trump.
“If you wanted a sense of how this shutdown is hardening Republicans’ views and creating unity in an otherwise fractured House GOP, Speaker Mike Johnson held a news conference with two leading members of the House Freedom Caucus this morning,” Punchbowl News reports.
“HFC Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), two of the most vocal members of the hardline right caucus, stood alongside Johnson in the Capitol on Day 20 of the shutdown.”
“Why is this important? Because Harris, a physician, and Roy, a candidate for Texas attorney general, are huge opponents of extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are at the heart of the three-week-long shutdown. They’ve also been among Johnson’s most ardent GOP opponents since the day he became speaker.”
President Trump said “that the US would destroy Hamas if the militant group didn’t continue to honor the ceasefire with Israel, with a fragile truce resuming after a weekend of heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “They’re going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them — if we have to, they’ll be eradicated, and they know that.”
“A panel of federal appeals court judges appeared skeptical Monday of President Donald Trump’s use of unconventional methods to install loyalists as top prosecutors without Senate confirmation,” Politico reports.
“A trio of judges from the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals spent over an hour questioning the multistep process the Trump administration used to designate his former personal attorney Alina Habba the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey and keep her there even after district judges sought to replace her.”
Since July 4, the House of Representatives has conducted just 20 days of business in the last 16 weeks.
A new AARP/Gotham Polling survey finds Zohran Mamdani leading the New York City mayoral race with 43%, followed by Andrew Cuomo at 29% and Curtis Sliwa at 19%.
In a two-way race, Mamdani leads Cuomo, 45% to 41%.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is resisting calls to swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, saying Monday that he will administer the oath of office to her after the Senate votes to reopen the government,” ABC News reports.
“Demolition crews have begun tearing down part of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing building,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump at the time: “It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”
The deadline for U.S. colleges and universities to sign a deal with the Trump administration — the “compact” devised by the Department of Education in exchange for priority treatment on federal grants — is today, NPR reports.
Nine schools originally received the “compact,” which would force schools to prevent transgender individuals from certain restrooms and sports, limit international student enrollment and adjust admission criteria. Six of those schools have already rejected the proposal.
“U.S. envoys met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday aiming to corral Israel and Hamas to get the Gaza ceasefire plan back on track after an explosion of violence over the weekend that threatened to derail the week-old truce,” Reuters reports.
“The latest events reflected the stumbling blocks to keeping the long-sought ceasefire from unravelling and securing a lasting peace after two years of war in Gaza. Key questions of Hamas disarming, further Israeli troop pullbacks and future governance of the Palestinian enclave remain unresolved.”
“The Argentine peso has fallen below the level it reached before the US Treasury began purchases earlier this month, in a sign that the Trump administration’s financial support is failing to halt the currency’s slide ahead of a crucial election for libertarian president Javier Milei,” the Financial Times reports.
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.