Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer, according to a statement from his personal office Sunday, and it has spread to his bones, CNN reports.
Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices. The only trade that means anything is the individual who buys something. That’s the only real trade. And that by very definition, if it’s voluntary, is mutually beneficial, or the trade doesn’t occur.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by Politico.
“Some consumer prices will likely rise due to tariffs, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged on Sunday, even after the White House publicly warned retailers against it,” Axios reports.
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“Russia targeted Ukraine on Sunday with one of its largest drone bombardments of the war, an apparent show of force only a day before President Trump is expected to talk with President Vladimir V. Putin as he pushes Russia to accept a cease-fire deal,” the New York Times reports.
“The drone barrage, in which an estimated 273 exploding drones and decoys were recorded in the skies across Ukraine, killed a woman and injured several other people.”
“President Trump is playing an unusually active role in New York politics — getting involved in local campaigns, commandeering municipal projects and putting a thumb on the scale for both Republicans and Democrats,” Axios reports.
“Trump is no longer a New York resident, but the city where he built his empire still has a hold on him.”
“And the administration isn’t afraid to get heavy-handed with the president’s former hometown.”
“Pope Leo XIV spurned J.D. Vance on Sunday, offering him a quick greeting after his inaugural mass while holding extensive private meetings with other world leaders,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The first American pope shook Vance’s hand during a brief, 17-second exchange during the procession line after the mass.”
“Tucked deep in the thousand-plus pages of the multitrillion-dollar budget bill making its way through the Republican-controlled U.S. House is a paragraph curtailing a court’s greatest tool for forcing the government to obey its rulings: the power to enforce contempt findings,” the AP reports.
“It’s unclear whether the bill can pass the House in its current form — it failed in a committee vote Friday — whether the U.S. Senate would preserve the contempt provision or whether courts would uphold it. But the fact that GOP lawmakers are including it shows how much those in power in the nation’s capital are thinking about the consequences of defying judges as the battle between the Trump administration and the courts escalates.”
At 10 p.m., the House Budget Committee is due to reconsider the massive taxation-and-spending package it rejected Friday.
CNN: “The 21st of July looms for Kamala Harris and the much smaller world of advisers left around her. It’s the day she’s set to lose the US Secret Service protection that former vice presidents are granted for six months — six months from the inauguration that she believed would be her own after Joe Biden gave her 107 days to win the 2024 election when he ended his reelection bid last July 21.”
“By this date, multiple people close to her say they increasingly believe Harris will have finally ended the intrigue over her political future and be preparing for a 2026 California gubernatorial run. Though she hasn’t made up her mind yet, several of those people tell CNN they expect an official launch would likely come in August or soon after Labor Day.”
Washington Post: “In the opening months of his second term, Trump has taken an unusually direct and high-profile role in attempting to manage the sprawling American economy — an approach that could bring him enormous benefits if it thrives or danger if it stumbles.”
“It’s a departure from decades of Republican orthodoxy and arguably from Trump’s own history; during the 2024 campaign, he called Democrat Kamala Harris a communist and a Marxist because her vow to tackle price gouging could have led to price controls.”
New York Times: “Before the shadow primary — the quiet frenzy of courting donors, aides and the news media that defines the earliest stages of a presidential race — comes a period of politics that is a bit louder and a whole lot sillier.”
“Call it the chatter primary.”
“And this year, the talk about the 2028 presidential race seems to be coming from nearly every direction in the Democratic Party.”
“The party’s next primary battle is widely expected to be highly competitive and very crowded. Political kibitzers have flung around at least 19 names, crafting an early list that includes governors, senators, House members, former Biden administration officials and even some business leaders.”
“We might very well lose the greatest country that this world has ever known. And it might be in part because of the decision that Biden and those around him made to run for re-election.”
— Beto O’Rourke, quoted by The Guardian.
“President Trump warned Bruce Springsteen to ‘keep his mouth shut’ until he gets back to the U.S. The rock icon is showing no signs of backing down, delivering a fiery performance from a stage in this city Saturday that reflected the stark political divide in America,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Springsteen echoed earlier criticism of the Trump administration Saturday, saying a ‘rogue’ government was rolling over U.S. lawmakers and institutions designed to keep authoritarianism in check.”
Said Springsteen: “Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday warned that the reciprocal tariffs on trading partners could go back to the rate slapped on them on “Liberation Day” last month if they don’t engage in good faith negotiations, The Hill reports.
Wall Street Journal: “After broadening the Republican coalition, Trump is at risk of shrinking it. Trump came close to winning young voters—those under age 30—in 2024, a sharp reversal from his 25-point loss among young voters in 2020. He also made gains among Black, Hispanic and other minority groups, losing by a far smaller margin than in 2020. And he improved his showing among seniors.”
“Now that he is back in the White House, these groups have grown increasingly unhappy with his job performance.”
“President Trump’s strategy to ‘flood the zone’ may be working to keep his approval rating from sinking even lower,” the New York Times reports.
“Voters who have not heard much about some of the many major news events from the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s second term have a higher opinion of the job he is doing, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. A little under half of the 42 percent of voters who approved of the job Mr. Trump is doing as president said they had not heard much about at least some of the ups and downs of his administration’s decisions.”
“Federal prosecutors across the country may soon be able to indict members of Congress without approval from lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section,” the Washington Post reports.
“Under the proposal, investigators and prosecutors would also not be required to consult with the section’s attorneys during key steps of probes into public officials, altering a long-standing provision in the Justice Department’s manual that outlines how investigations of elected officials should be conducted.”
“If adopted, the changes would remove a layer of review intended to ensure that cases against public officials are legally sound and not politically motivated.”
“Top leaders of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel aiming to torpedo peace negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to minutes of a high-level meeting in Gaza that Israel’s military said it discovered in a tunnel beneath the enclave,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Days before the assault that left nearly 1,200 dead, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s Gaza chief, told fellow militants that an ‘extraordinary act’ was required to derail the normalization talks that he said risked marginalizing the Palestinian cause.”
“The plan worked—at a terrible price.”
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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