From a Wall Street Journal editorial:
“Opposing Donald Trump is a perilous business, but working for him can be equally as dangerous. That’s one lesson from Thursday’s indictment of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton for mishandling classified documents.”
“Funding for every government agency has lapsed for 17 days and counting, marking the longest full government-wide shutdown in US history,” Bloomberg Government reports.
“After racist texts among members of the New York State Young Republicans were made public, the party’s state leaders were slated to meet Friday and vote to disband the group,” the New York Times reports.
“The planned vote comes days after Politico disclosed how leaders of Young Republican groups across the country exchanged messages that included racist and antisemitic comments, with some participants’ discourse including comments about raping their political enemies and placing them in gas chambers.”
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to force Democrats to vote next week on legislation to pay more than 1 million military service members during the government shutdown, doubling down on his strategy of highlighting the plight of military families,” The Hill reports.
Charlie Cook: “With the ink not even on paper in some of these states’ redistricting efforts, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how this will play out in the House. I am skeptical that Republicans can redraw enough districts to insulate them from what looks like a pretty tough midterm.”
“President Donald Trump said high threatened tariffs with China were not viable as tensions between the world’s two largest economies intensify ahead of an expected face-to-face meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “It’s not sustainable. But that’s what the number is, it’s probably not, you know, it could stand, but they forced me to do that.”
“The tariff clash between Washington and Beijing saw US import taxes on Chinese goods rise to as high as 145% in a tit-for-tat exchange that raised fears of a global downturn and a cutoff in trade between the two economies.”
New York Times: “President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin say they plan to meet in Hungary in the coming weeks, but a potentially major roadblock stands in the way. To get there, Mr. Putin will need to pass through airspace over European countries that belong to the International Criminal Court.”
“And that court has a warrant out for the Russian leader’s arrest.”
Andy Kroll: “Russell Vought is using the White House budget office to lay waste to the federal bureaucracy—firing workers, decimating agencies, and testing the rule of law.”
Out next week: Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America by Jonathan Karl.
“This is a story of unprecedented political plot twists, showing what happened behind the scenes as political fortunes fell and rose again, and as a new team coalesced around President Trump with the goal of creating an entirely new world order.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) “has nearly double the war chest of Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas’ Senate GOP primary after the third fundraising quarter of the year — though in the latest flare-up between the two, neither can agree on which funds count,” the Texas Tribune reports.
A new poll finds Britain’s Labour Party tied with the Greens at 15%, way behind the Reform Party at 32% and the Conservatives at 17%, the Telegraph reports.
The Economist: “It is increasingly likely that governments will… resort to inflation and financial repression to reduce the real value of their high debts, as they did in the decades after the second world war. The machinery for such a strategy is in place at central banks, which have a large footprint in bond markets. Already, populists such as Mr Trump and Nigel Farage in Britain attack their country’s central banks with proposals that would weaken the defenses against inflation.”
“Price rises are unpopular—just ask the hapless Joe Biden—but they do not need political support to get going. Nobody voted for them in the 1970s or in 2022. When governments cannot get their act together, and run economic policies that are unsustainable, bouts of inflation just happen. By the time markets wake up, it is too late.”
“This is asinine. The very people who say the administration has too much power continue to give it to them. I am over this childish behavior.”
— Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), quoted by Semafor, after another failed vote to end the government shutdown.
New York Times: “Even as Mr. Putin has pounded Ukrainian cities and waged grinding warfare in the country’s east, he has invested dozens of hours into flattering Mr. Trump, dangling the prospect of Russian-American business deals and sending the message that Russia is open to talks to end its invasion.”
“The tactic has helped Mr. Putin head off repeated deadlines and sanctions threats by the American president without curtailing Russia’s war effort.”
The new Fifty Plus One polling averages show Abigail Spanberger (D) leading the Virginia governor’s race by 10 points and has Mikie Sherrill (D) leading the New Jersey governor’s race by 6 points.
Meanwhile, G. Elliot Morris explains how partisan polls can increase the bias of these averages.
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.
