“The Trump administration is laying out a set of operating principles that it wants universities to agree to in exchange for preferential access to federal funds,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The memo demands that schools ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions, freeze tuition for five years, cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%, require that applicants take the SAT or a similar test, and quell grade inflation.”
“The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently,” the New York Times reports.
“The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive, underscoring the risks of a fiscal stalemate that had no end in sight. It also evinced how President Trump might try to leverage the governmentwide closure to achieve his agenda, slash the budget and exact revenge on his political enemies.”
Axios: “Vought told House Republicans that he’ll spend the next week figuring out ‘constitutionally’ what the administration can do in terms of shrinking the federal work force, according to a source on the call.”
“He also said the layoffs will be ‘consequential.’”
Punchbowl News: “Democrats are pushing for a 10-day stopgap funding bill that would preserve their ability to force a deal on Obamacare subsidies. Democrats say this is necessary because they can’t trust GOP leaders and the White House to address the issue without leverage.”
“But Republicans remain very comfortable with their position. Even the Republicans involved in the preliminary bipartisan talks are sticking by Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s view that the Nov. 21 clean CR is the only way to end the shutdown.”
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“The U.S. will provide Ukraine with intelligence for long-range missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, American officials said, as the Trump administration weighs sending Kyiv powerful weapons that could put in range more targets within Russia,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump recently signed off on allowing intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to aid Kyiv with the strikes. U.S. officials are asking North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to provide similar support, these people said. The expanded intelligence-sharing with Kyiv is the latest sign that Trump is deepening support for Ukraine as his efforts to advance peace talks have stalled.”
“Karoline Leavitt is back in the press secretary’s traditional office in the White House,” CBS News reports.
“Leavitt is reclaiming the roomy space with a fireplace that Taylor Budowich, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications and cabinet affairs, occupied until he left the Trump administration this week.”
Philip Elliot: “Amid all these threats, the number of workers who haven’t yet found themselves furloughed is raising eyebrows, according to conversations with federal workers left in a lurch and Hill staffers watching their bosses talk past each other. Some are wondering if more is at play than the essentialness of their work.”
“If someone is furloughed, the thinking goes, they could more easily be seen as extraneous, giving the Administration an easier path to arguing they aren’t needed at all. It’s why some around Washington suspect managers are designating fewer employees for furlough than previous standoffs.”
“After the government shutdown began Wednesday morning, furloughed employees at an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services were told to set an out-of-office message in their email accounts blaming Democrats for the situation,” the HuffPost reports.
“The White House is targeting Democratic states with its first wave of cuts to federal projects following the government shutdown, impacting billions of dollars in funding for energy and infrastructure in New York, California and elsewhere,” Politico reports.
“Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday the Trump administration is cancelling nearly $8 billion in funding for energy programs he characterized as part of ‘the Left’s climate agenda.'”
“The cuts will impact 16 states — all of which voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.”
“This was a difficult vote. The paradox is, by shutting the government, we’re actually giving Donald Trump more power. And that was why I voted yes.”
— Sen. Angus King (I-ME), quoted by the New York Times, on siding with Republicans to keep the government open.
Social Security payments to more than 74 million Americans will stay on schedule during the government shutdown, ABC News reports.
“The post of United Nations ambassador isn’t a Cabinet position, as President Trump signals the decreased importance of the U.N. to his administration,” CBS News reports.
“When former Rep. Mike Waltz was confirmed by the U.S. Senate earlier this month, news outlets reported that the vote filled the final vacancy in Mr. Trump’s Cabinet, which buoyed Waltz’s status with protocol-oriented foreign officials. But the decision has been made to not elevate the role to that Cabinet rank.”
“Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Department of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was ‘the greatest blackmailer ever’ — and may have traded the feds video of his rich and well-connected associates getting massages from young women in exchange for a controversial 2008 plea deal,” the New York Post reports.
“The 64-year-old cabinet secretary said that Epstein himself showed off his notorious ‘massage room’ while giving Lutnick and his wife a tour of the infamous East 71st Street townhouse after the couple moved in next door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005.”
Said Lutnick: “I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’ And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told House Republicans on Wednesday, the first day of the government shutdown, that the Trump administration will start firing federal employees in the next “one to two” days, NBC News reports.
Punchbowl News: “We’re told that the Democrats in the group proposed a short-term CR — 10 days or two weeks — that would serve as a forcing mechanism to get some sort of bipartisan deal on Obamacare subsidies.”
“Republicans, however, stood by their leadership’s position, which is that Obamacare negotiations shouldn’t be tied directly to government funding.”
“There are all sorts of ideas bouncing around right now, and none of these matter unless there’s leadership buy-in on both sides of the aisle.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) with a 60% to 28% approval rating.
A hypothetical re-election matchup shows Shapiro ahead crushing Stacy Garrity (R), 55% to 39%.
From the Washington Post editorial board:
“The Democratic Party shut off any potential escape valve to avoid a shutdown, which began at midnight on Tuesday. In doing so, progressives embraced the same disastrous mentality that led the House Freedom Caucus to believe it could come out ahead in previous government funding standoffs: They wrongly assumed their political leverage would withstand the ensuing fallout.”
Inside Elections: “Throughout 2017 and into early 2018, election watchers kept seeing the same movie over and over: Special elections in heavily Republican areas were way closer than they had any right to be, as Donald Trump’s presidency galvanized Democratic voters and put several normally safe Republican districts into play. Eight years later, Trump is back in the White House and once again generating intense backlash: Democrats are overperforming in special elections to an even greater extent than they did in 2017-18. But with only four federal special elections in the books so far this year, unlike during Trump’s first term, we have yet to see a truly competitive race develop.”
“That could change on December 2. That’s the date of the special election in Tennessee’s 7th District, a solidly Republican seat that could nevertheless have just enough Democratic voters to make things interesting.”
“A pornographic blog linked to Virginia lieutenant governor candidate John Reid (R) shared content from accounts that fetishized Nazism and sexual violence,” the American Journal News reports.
“Reid has denied ownership of the blog, which was hosted on Tumblr under the name JRDeux, the same handle he uses on Instagram and TikTok. Other news outlets have reported on the existence of the blog, but not its racist content or disturbing imagery.”
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.
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