“Donald Trump reportedly weighs 224-pounds, doesn’t like rigorous exercise and walks with swollen ankles these days, but the president has some advice for the Democrat governor of Illinois: do more exercise,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said Trump: “I hate to barge in on a city and then be treated horribly by corrupt politicians and bad politicians like a guy like Pritzker.”
He added: “He ought to spend more time at the gym, actually. The guy is a disaster.”
“President Donald Trump said he spoke to Vladimir Putin in recent days and that he believed the Russian president’s dislike of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is holding up a meeting between the two leaders,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “He doesn’t like him. I have people I don’t like, I don’t like to meet with them.”
President Trump questioned South Korea’s political stability on Truth Social, hours before he was to host President Lee Jae Myung at the White House to discuss tariffs, trade and military cooperation, Axios reports.
Said Trump: “Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there.”
“Democrats are still paying for Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump last year — literally,” Axios reports.
“The Democratic National Committee has paid more than $15 million toward paying off Harris 2024 campaign expenses in the first six months of 2025.”
“The continued payments and lackluster fundraising left the DNC with $65 million less cash on hand than the Republican National Committee at the end of July.”
“They call me the president of Europe. Which is an honor.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
“We’re going to be doing numbers on the cost of drugs in this country. I’m not talking about a 20% decrease, I’m talking about a 1000% decrease.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
Oliver Darcy interviewed Wired editor Katie Drummond for his Status newsletter:
DARCY: Stepping back, what do you think it means for American democracy and for the tech sector when Silicon Valley leaders are openly bowing before Donald Trump? And, in an attempt to end on a positive note: Where, if anywhere, do you find reasons for optimism?
DRUMMOND: We’re witnessing, in real-time, a profound consolidation of power and collusion among political and tech elites—the ruling class of this country, and the world – wherein the tools and technologies that this industry has built, and continues to build, can now be deployed in service of an authoritarian regime…
Don’t think for a second that these companies and their executives won’t get in line. They’re already in the Oval Office with a custom glass and 24-karat-gold statuette, for god’s sake.
What gives me optimism? People in tech doing novel, subversive, transformational things—grassroots or otherwise. That, and my second passport.
“A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
Garrett Graff: “The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism. In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here. The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed.”
“I think many Americans wrongly believe there would be one clear unambiguous moment where we go from ‘democracy’ to ‘authoritarianism.’ Instead, this is exactly how it happens — a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged. Then you wake up one morning and our country is different.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders will rally with Maine Democrats this weekend, the Bangor Daily News reports.
The Vermont independent will be in town boosting gubernatorial candidate Troy Jackson and insurgent U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner.
New York Times: “The year is 2032. Studying the Electoral College map, a Democratic presidential candidate can no longer plan to sweep New Hampshire, Minnesota and the ‘blue wall’ battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and win the White House. A victory in the swing state of Nevada would not help, either.”
“That is the nightmare scenario many Democratic Party insiders see playing out if current U.S. population projections hold.”
One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s closest associates said the Trump administration will move to pull the Covid vaccine off the U.S. market “within months,” the Daily Beast reports.
President Trump appears to be in deep denial about his historically low approval ratings, the Daily Beast reports.
Said Trump, on Truth Social: “Except what is written and broadcast in the Fake News, I now have the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had, some in the 60’s and even 70’s. Thank you.”
President Trump attacked ABC and NBC’s news coverage of his administration—claiming it was “97%” negative—and said he supports the idea of the two networks having their broadcast licenses revoked, Forbes reports.
In a follow-up post, the president reiterated the license revocation threat, before suggesting that “at a minimum,” they should be forced to “pay up BIG” for their licensed broadcast spectrum.
“The U.S. government is likely to take ownership stakes in more companies — just as it did with Intel — toward the goal of building a sovereign wealth fund, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said Monday,” Axios reports.
“It’s a new paradigm for the U.S. government’s relationship with the private sector, and raises fresh questions about how much authority the administration intends to exert over corporate America.”
CNBC: Trump says government will make deals like Intel stake “all day long.”
“Alex Pelbath, the Air Force pilot who flew the last U.S. aircraft out of Kabul when America ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan, is now running for Congress in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, calling himself a ‘Trump conservative’ and pledging to be the political reinforcement the president needs,” the Charleston Post & Courier reports.
Said Pelbath: “Combat leaders understand that mission is everything. My mission is clear. Provide President Trump the reinforcements he needs, deliver common sense leadership that will make the Lowcountry proud and bring an outsider’s perspective to Washington. I was the last one out. But the mission’s not over.”
“A PAC aligned with Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) is going up with new ads Monday bolstering GOP senators in Ohio and Florida,” Axios reports.
“The group will spend half a million dollars between the two states. It’s another sign of Republican leaders moving early to try to sway voters ahead of next year’s midterm elections.”
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.