“The White House blamed exposure to environmental toxins, poor nutrition, and increased screen time for a decline in Americans’ life expectancy Thursday, in a major administration report that also casts doubt on the current vaccine schedule and medications deemed safe by most in mainstream medicine,” the Washington Post reports.
The report also declared that “today’s children are the sickest generation in American history in terms of chronic disease.”
The Economist: “Complacent about being the world’s haven, America has been budgeting without any sense of restraint. Over the past year the federal government has borrowed a staggering $2 trillion, or 6.9% of GDP, even though no crisis has drained its coffers. On May 16th Moody’s, a rating agency, stripped the country of its last headline triple-A credit score. Yet on May 22nd the House of Representatives passed, by just one vote, President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill, which cuts taxes and raises deficits. Reflecting the rising fiscal risk, the yield on 30-year Treasuries has risen to 5.1%, the highest since 2007, amid a sell-off.”
“America has more fiscal leeway than other countries, but the Republican Party seems determined to test its limits.”
Josh Barro: Trump is about to learn you can’t spin the bond market.
A federal judge in Boston has blocked President Trump’s executive order to shut down the Department of Education, the Washington Post reports.
The order says the Trump administration must “restore the Department to the status quo such that it is able to carry out its statutory functions.”
Earlier this year, “as many as 75% of Elon Musk’s posts on X were about DOGE or U.S. politics,” the Washington Post reports.
That figure that has fallen to 10% recently as Musk has resumed “posting more about battery technology and AI.”
“The popularity of labor unions surged over the past decade, while American sentiment toward big business has fallen,” Axios reports.
“The approval switcheroo helps explain, in part, why the Republican Party has been courting labor unions in recent years.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that foreign nationals with $5 million to spare will soon be able to register for a new “gold card” visa that would give them the right to live and work permanently in the United States, CNN reports.
Said Lutnick: “I expect there will be a website up called TrumpCard.gov in about a week.”
“Elon Musk’s pledge to step back from campaign spending — if he means it — is rippling across the nation’s political landscape,” Politico reports.
“Some Republicans are worried that they might be losing their whale. Some Democrats fear they are losing their foil.”
“The Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 4-4 ruling, said Oklahoma cannot create the nation’s first religious charter school funded directly with taxpayer dollars,” ABC News reports.
“Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not take part in the decision.”
New York Times: “The brief ruling in one of the most anticipated cases of the term came as a surprise, after the oral arguments in April. A majority of the justices had appeared open to allowing Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school.”
Washington Post: “A ruling for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would have allowed, for the first time, direct and complete taxpayer funding to establish a faith-based school, sanctioning government sponsorship of a curriculum that calls for students to adhere to Catholic beliefs and the church’s religious mission.”
“First lady Melania Trump is getting an assist from artificial intelligence for an audiobook version of her memoir that was created entirely with AI and audio technology,” ABC News reports.
“The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a government contractor found guilty of defrauding a state transportation program designed to promote diversity,” the Washington Post reports.
“The unanimous decision reversed a trend in which the justices have pushed back on how prosecutors pursue white-collar fraud.”
Andrew Egger: “In one sense, it’s no surprise that the Big Beautiful Bill, which the House passed this morning by a 215–214 vote, slashes taxes primarily for the wealthy while cutting spending on entitlement programs geared toward the poor. That’s been GOP SOP for ages.”
“But even as the package was being hammered out, MAGA’s populist wing was clanging a bell asking Donald Trump to intervene. After all, many of the Americans who stand to be harmed by this bill were the very voters who had migrated into the GOP in recent years. Was Donald Trump really going to let GOP lawmakers slip back into their old plutocratic ways?”
“Answer: You bet he was.”
For members: A Few Thoughts on the Bill Republicans Just Passed
“The president has a lot of power.”
— Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), quoted by NOTUS, explaining why he ultimately voted for a budget bill he didn’t like.
Jessica Yellin has a very interesting interview with former Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and why he ultimately tried to challenge President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary.
Said Phillips: “This was an issue of nobody, Vice President Harris, who was in the room, who’s known Joe Biden for years, who attacked him vigorously in 2020, who met with him weekly, a woman of color. You know, she wouldn’t run. I called Gretchen Whitmer directly. Her very thoughtful political director said, please do not mention this. Do not mention her name. And as a result, you know, we can’t have you talk. I called JB Pritzker directly, same thing. His team was rude and I thought reprehensible.”
He added: “I tried to encourage everybody, Newsom, Klobuchar, anybody. Of course, I knew they wouldn’t do it, though, Jessica, because they wouldn’t give up. They wouldn’t risk their personal futures for the country’s.”
It’s worth watching.
“The United States and Vietnam have concluded a second round of trade negotiations on tariffs and agreed to continue the talks to address unresolved issues,” Reuters reports.
“It was the biggest vote of the 119th Congress so far — and they missed it,” Politico reports.
“GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York and David Schweikert of Arizona were both recorded as not voting on the Republican domestic policy megabill that passed the House early Thursday morning.”
“Both were surprising: They had each played key roles in the legislation — Garbarino as a moderate advocate for clean-energy tax credits and raising the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction, and Schweikert as a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee.”
“Two Republicans cast votes in opposition to the House GOP megabill Thursday morning. One — Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — was expected, given his long history of criticism of Republican leaders’ approach to the legislation,” Politico reports.
“The other — Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio — was somewhat more surprising. A devout fiscal hawk, he has not been among the House Republicans most vocal in pushing for changes to the sprawling party-line bill.”
“The U.S. government is phasing out the penny, whose use has spanned more than two centuries,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Treasury Department will stop putting new pennies into circulation by early next year. Afterward, there won’t be enough pennies to use in everyday cash transactions, and businesses will need to start rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents, the Treasury said in a statement.”
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.