The Federal Trade Commission is demanding documents from liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America “about possible coordination with other media watchdogs accused by Elon Musk of helping orchestrate advertiser boycotts of X,” Reuters reports.
Oliver Darcy: “If the roles were reversed — if a Democratic administration were using the FTC to target a conservative media watchdog because George Soros didn’t like its reporting — outlets like Fox News would never stop covering it.”
“If Harvard can’t resist these steps towards tyranny, who can?”
— Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, on CNN.
Politico: “Johnson had to battle for months with factions of his own conference, and with the Senate, at multiple key junctures. But he plowed through and moved a host of Trump’s campaign promises closer to the president’s desk after a final flurry of negotiations and a rare, overnight session on the House floor.”
Said Johnson: “There was a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart.”
“In essence, Johnson spent months fighting fires. His job, in conjunction with other GOP leaders, was to manage flare-up after flare-up as various groups inside the House ranks battled over trillions in tax cuts and politically explosive reductions to social safety-net spending.”
Washington Post: Trump and Johnson notch big win with House passage of sweeping tax bill.
Bloomberg: “The assault on a beacon of US education ostensibly in the name of tackling anti-semitism is the latest move that erodes the nation’s soft power globally. The administration has cut funding or dissolved institutions including USAID, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.”
“Other universities in the US and internationally are likely to capitalize on Harvard’s plight, snatching the smartest minds — dozens of Nobel laureates attended or taught at the school. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has already offered to unconditionally accept Harvard students.”
The Guardian: China pledges support for overseas students after Trump’s latest attack on Harvard.
ABC News: “Earlier this week, a federal judge in Florida nominated by Donald Trump suggested the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs — basing his ruling on the precedent from a 1970s court case — but stopped short of issuing an order affirming the president’s right to impose sweeping tariffs.”
New York Times: “If passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Trump, the bill would sharply slow the sales and production of battery-powered cars and trucks in the United States and set back the global effort to address climate change.”
“The measure would gut subsidies for battery manufacturing, incentives for purchases of electric vehicles by individuals and businesses, and money for charging stations that Congress passed during the Biden administration. And it would impose a new annual fee on owners of electric cars and trucks.”
“President Trump already has the weight of the executive branch behind his efforts to strip funding from top universities, deport millions of unauthorized migrants and pressure foreign governments to change their economic policies,” the New York Times reports.
“With the sprawling bill that passed through the House on Thursday, Republicans are also preparing to enlist the tax code as another tool against Mr. Trump’s political foils.”
“House Republicans’ tax package would only provide a modest boost to economic growth, according to a new government analysis that’s sure to disappoint GOP lawmakers,” Politico reports.
“The plan would increase the average annual growth rate by 0.03 percentage points to 1.86 percent from 1.83 percent, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation predicts.”
“Sen. John Cornyn has enlisted Chris LaCivita, a top political adviser to President Trump, to help him beat back a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,” Axios reports.
“LaCivita’s involvement doesn’t guarantee an endorsement from Trump in what is expected to be the GOP’s most expensive Senate primary. But it does show how Cornyn, long regarded as more country club than MAGA, is moving to align himself with the president.”
“A divided Supreme Court on Thursday refused to immediately reinstate a pair of independent regulators fired by the Trump administration, saying the president may have the power to summarily oust the board members and calling into question a 90-year-old legal precedent that has protected the independence of key regulatory bodies,” the Washington Post reports.
“The court’s unsigned order, which drew a sharp dissent from the three liberal justices, did not decide the underlying merits of the case, which will continue to play out in the lower courts. But it was a strong endorsement of presidential authority at a time when President Donald Trump is trying to seize greater control of the federal bureaucracy.”
“It has been said that the best jokes are dangerous because they are in some way truthful,” the New York Times reports.
“On Wednesday, a dangerous joke was told in the Oval Office. The South African president turned to the American president and said: ‘I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.’”
“There was a lot packed into this one little aperçu. Nothing has so succinctly summed up the way the rest of the world feels it must now approach America as these 10 words…”
“The context was lost on no one.”
President Trump said that autism must not occur naturally, citing figures inflating the spike in autism and suggesting the administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission could provide answers, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “When you hear 10,000, it was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 31 for autism, I think that’s just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced, has to be.”
Jonathan Chait: “House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.”
“That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The ‘big, beautiful bill’ would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.”
“President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans,” Reuters reports.
“The newly sworn-in head of the Social Security Administration told agency staff this week that when he was first offered the job in the Trump administration, he wasn’t familiar with the position and had to look it up online,” ABC News reports.
Said Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive: “So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I’m really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job. And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”
He added: “I’m like, ‘What the heck’s the commissioner of Social Security?'”
“Crypto billionaire Justin Sun for years wouldn’t set foot in the U.S. for fear of arrest. The Chinese-born tycoon, facing scrutiny from U.S. authorities, even missed a chance to fly on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket despite paying $28 million for the opportunity,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now, Sun isn’t just back in America. He is about to attend a dinner with President Trump as a VIP guest.”
“After weeks of industry speculation, Sun confirmed in a social-media post Tuesday that he is the largest holder of the president’s $TRUMP memecoin. His some $23-million stash catapults him into the exclusive circle of 25 investors who were invited to a private VIP reception with the president on Thursday.”
“The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the college to fall in line with the president’s agenda,” the New York Times reports.
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.