“The State Department is laying off more than 1,300 employees as part of a sweeping reorganization plan that Trump administration officials say will cut down on unwieldy bureaucracy and modernize the agency,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The department on Friday began notifying the employees being let go, including more than 1,100 civil servants and around 250 foreign-service officers.”
“The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as ‘full raw’ surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further,” Wired reports.
“Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by Wired and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro.”
“The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as ‘raw’ footage.”
“Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official who previously served as President Trump’s criminal defense attorney, declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term and did not denounce the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a questionnaire submitted to a Senate panel considering his nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge,” CBS News reports.
“It is so fucking bananas to watch them now try and diffuse this bomb that they planted.”
— Jon Stewart, quoted by the HuffPost, on how the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracies are dividing Trump supporters.
Andrew Sullivan: “We have been a brutal deportation nation long before our Trumpian 21st Century gambit. What’s different now, it seems to me, are four things: the sheer scale of it; the frantic pursuit of quantity over quality; the relative paucity of resources for courts and judges; and the fact that the enforcers are anonymous, masked, and unknowable — and will soon be on every street in America.”
“ICE will now have more resources than all but 15 countries’ military budgets, and is set to grow from an annual budget of $10 billion to $150 billion over four years. This is a ramp up of mind-boggling size and speed.”
Garrett Graff: “We’re about to pour $200 billion into immigration enforcement—but understanding specifically why this is a bad idea is important.”
“FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files,” Axios reports.
“At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside of Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.”
Paul Krugman: “Let’s be clear: U.S. law does give the executive branch a lot of discretion to impose tariffs without additional legislation. It does this for a reason: Temporary tariffs were intended to serve as a political pressure-release valve that would make low tariffs emerging from international agreements sustainable. This worked well as long as we had responsible presidents; it has been a disaster under Trump. Still, he does have a lot of legal authority to set tariffs.”
“But that authority is by no means open-ended. Tariffs can be imposed only for specific reasons… Trump has hugely abused all these justifications, especially the last. There is no economic emergency.”
For members: Trump Acts Like He’s Above the Law, Because He Mostly Is
I know you’re inundated—with headlines, notifications, and endless demands on your time and wallet.
But here’s the hard truth: the billionaires and broligarchs aren’t going to rescue journalism. They’ve flooded the public square with noise, gutted the news business, and left serious coverage buried beneath outrage and clickbait.
That’s why independent sites like Political Wire matter more than ever.
If you’ve found value here — and if you’re one of those who always keeps this site open in a browser tab — become a member and get 20% off your first year.
Your support is what makes this possible.
Annie Lowrey: “Households will pay an average of $2,400 more for goods this year, thanks to Trump’s policies.”
“A prominent Georgia Republican was running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 300 investors of at least $140 million, federal officials alleged in a complaint filed Thursday,” the AP reports.
“The civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said First Liberty Building and Loan, controlled by Brant Frost IV, lied to investors about its business of making high-interest loans to companies. Instead, investigators said, it raised more money to repay earlier investors.”
Gallup: “Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.”
“These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said that he believes the Biden administration destroyed key files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, the Washington Examiner reports.
President Donald Trump expressed support for flood alarms in Texas responding to a disaster that has left more than 100 people dead and 170 people missing, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form, where alarms would go up if they see any large amounts of water or whatever it is.”
He added that “nobody ever saw a thing like this coming” and that “this is a once-in-every-200-year deal.”
“I’m not a voter in New York City, so I have no dog in that fight. And everything that I’ve read on him, I don’t really agree with virtually any of it, politically. So that’s just where I’m at as a Democrat. So he’s not even a Democrat, honestly.”
— Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), on Fox News, speaking about Zohran Mamdani (D).
CNN: “White House advisers are now unequivocally engaged in a coordinated effort to dramatically ramp up the pressure on Powell in public statements and through bureaucratic moves designed to give Trump more leverage.”
“That leverage, sources say, isn’t designed to trigger Powell’s removal – at least not at the moment.”
“But with Trump’s frustration over the Fed’s refusal to bow to his pressure to lower rates growing by the day, it is the most consequential step taken thus far to bring that threat to Powell’s doorstep.”
“It also serves as the clearest window into the expanding effort to change Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee’s insistence on independence.”
“Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.”
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.