“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.’”
“A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked an executive order from President Trump targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, declaring it unconstitutional,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The ruling from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell is a decisive win for the law firm and likely to serve as a model for judges weighing cases brought by other firms targeted in similar orders.”
Politico: Judge strikes down Trump executive order punishing prominent law firm.
President Trump was interviewed by Kristen Welker of NBC News:
WELKER: Some people on Wall Street have expressed concerns that the possibility of a recession is increasing, and I want to know what you think about that. Are you comfortable with the country potentially dipping into a recession for a period of time if you are able to achieve your long term goals?
TRUMP: Well, you know, you say, some people on Wall Street say. Well, I tell you something else. Some people on Wall Street say that we’re going to have the greatest economy in history. Why don’t you talk about them? Because some people on Wall Street say this is –
WELKER: That’s what I’m getting at.
TRUMP: There are many people on Wall Street who say this is going to be the greatest windfall to ever happen.
WELKER: And that’s my question, long term, is it okay in the short term to have a recession?
TRUMP: Remember this. Look, yeah, it’s everything’s okay. What we are. I said, this is a transition period. I think we’re going to do fantastically.
“Marco Rubio is expected to serve as both secretary of State and national security adviser for a minimum of six months, and a number of top advisers to President Donald Trump are interested in making the arrangement permanent,” Politico reports.
Said one official: “It was not set up to be a stop-gap measure.”
David Weigel: “No modern president had worked so quickly to knock out the foundations from left-wing institutions, which the influencers appreciated. A year after he said he’d be ‘too busy for retribution,’ at a time when his campaign worried that voters didn’t want him to focus on retribution, he had done plenty. The State Department was even combing its records for information on some Trump foes.”
“This has terrified big and small ‘L’ liberals. It’s also been fairly easy, exercising powers that don’t need congressional approval and other presidents were reluctant to use. Trump can credibly tell supporters, like he did in Michigan this week, that he kept his promises.”
“With the United States facing its largest single measles outbreak in 25 years, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will direct federal health agencies to explore potential new treatments for the disease, including vitamins,” the New York Times reports.
“The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the nation’s top health official that experts fear will undermine public confidence in vaccines as an essential public health tool.”
“It was easy to miss, but last weekend President Trump floated a fundamental rewrite of the American tax code. In a social media post, and again in remarks to reporters, Mr. Trump suggested the United States could stop taxing income under $200,000 and instead rely on revenue from his extensive tariffs,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut. Because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”
“The idea was news to Republicans on Capitol Hill already in the throes of translating Mr. Trump’s impulses for cutting taxes into law.”
Harvard University President Alan Garber fought back against President Trump’s renewed threat to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, telling the Wall Street Journal that the move would be “highly illegal” and “destructive to Harvard.”
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.