“House Democrats are looking on in agony as Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar (D-TX) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) appear destined to duke it out for a single congressional district,” Axios reports.
“It would be a fight for the ages, pitting progressives’ 36-year-old rising star leader against a well-liked, 78-year-old stalwart of the left at a time when age is already one of Democrats’ biggest headaches.”
Said one senior House Democrat: “They are going to be vicious.”
“President Trump agreed with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to red lines for the coming talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and said he hoped to follow up quickly with a trilateral summit with the two warring leaders,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump is raking up global support in his push for a Nobel Peace Prize — garnering nominations from Pakistan, Cambodia, Israel and GOP lawmakers as he touts his role in talks to end various global conflicts,” The Hill reports.
“Friday may be Trump’s biggest diplomatic test yet when he sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk about ending the war in Ukraine, something the president has struggled to settle between the two adversaries.”
Said a former aide: “There’s no question the pressure’s on. Trump sees this prize as the ultimate capstone to how history will remember him.”
Former President George W. Bush and his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, held a fundraiser in Kennebunkport for Jonathan Bush, their cousin who is exploring a run for Maine governor in 2026, the Bangor Daily News reports.
“South Park hit yet another home run with Season 27’s continued jokes about the Trump administration,” Deadline reports.
“The second episode of Season 27 drew 6.2M global multi-platform viewers across Comedy Central and Paramount+ in its first three days… That’s a slight uptick from the premiere episode, which reached nearly 6M viewers in the same time frame.”
“Paramount says that global streaming consumption of the long-running series from Trey Parker and Matt Stone has grown double digits in the first three days of Episode 2702’s release, up 49% from the same period of streaming for the series post-premiere.”
As states move forward with mid-decade redraws, The Downballot will be continually updating their tracker.
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could avoid congressional approval to extend his 30-day federal takeover of Washington’s police, amid his efforts to wrest control of the capital’s law enforcement,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “If it’s a national emergency we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly.”
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 83% of Republican-leaning Americans approve of President Trump, down from 92% in January.
Interestingly, a majority of Americans think Trump knew some (27%) or a lot (44%) about the sex crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein against underage girls before investigations into Epstein began; only 8% say he knew nothing about them.
President Trump said he may name the next Federal Reserve chair “a little bit early” and added that he was down to three or four potential candidates, Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “I’ll be naming a new chairman sometime within the next — I think I’ll name it a little bit early, the new chairman. I’m down to three or four names.”
Associated Press: “The new appointments can be viewed as consolation prizes for leaving a high-profile post in the Trump administration following rocky tenures. But they also reflect the degree to which Trump is trying to keep his loyalists close, even if their earlier placements in the administration were ill-fitting.”
“During his first White House tenure, Trump was new to politics, made many staffing picks based on others’ recommendations and saw heavy staff turnover. Trump has stocked his second administration with proven boosters, which has meant fewer high-profile departures.”
The Economist: “One potential area is a deeper normalization of diplomatic and business relations between America and Russia, including a lifting of sanctions. Mr Putin yearns for this kind of rehabilitation. Another is co-operation in the Arctic, for example over energy, resurrecting discussions that reportedly took place in February, with Russian officials keen to woo American business. What offers Russia might make for peace in Ukraine are less obvious.”
President Trump said that there will be “very severe consequences” if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to stop his war in Ukraine after their Friday summit in Alaska, though he did not say what those consequences might be, the AP reports.
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday called on his fellow Republicans in Congress to pass a crime bill extending the 30-day limit on federal police control in Washington, adding that he could declare a national emergency if lawmakers don’t act,” Reuters reports.
“The crime-related legislation would initially pertain to the nation’s capital, but could used as a model for other U.S. cities.”
“Israel is in discussions with South Sudan about the possibility of resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the war-torn East African country, part of a wider effort by Israel to facilitate mass emigration from the territory left in ruins by its 22-month offensive against Hamas,” the AP reports.
“President Trump said he would host the Kennedy Center Honors himself in December, as he announced this year’s honorees: the actor Sylvester Stallone, the rock band Kiss, the recording artists George Strait and Gloria Gaynor, and the British actor Michael Crawford,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump has been intensely interested in the center, naming himself its chairman and purging its traditionally bipartisan board, and said he had rejected prospective honorees he called ‘wokesters.’”
“Andrew Cuomo is overhauling his buttoned-up public persona and pugilistic campaign for New York City mayor in a desperate bid to stop democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani,” Politico reports.
“His social media presence, characterized by its conventionality during the Democratic primary, has taken on a slang-inflected, sassy voice during the general election — and it’s almost entirely directed at his 33-year-old foe, who has excelled online.”
Anne Neuberger: “American companies are world leaders in technology—be it innovative software, cloud services, artificial intelligence, or cybersecurity products.”
“Yet beginning as many as three years ago, hackers believed to be backed by the Chinese government did something the United States, the tech powerhouse, could not adequately defend against: they gained and maintained access to major U.S. telecommunications networks, copying conversations and building the ability to track the movements of U.S. intelligence officers and law enforcement agents across the country.”
“The attack, dubbed ‘Salt Typhoon,’ constituted a large part of a global campaign against telecoms, and it penetrated systems at many U.S. carriers so thoroughly that officials will almost certainly never know the full scope of the capabilities China achieved to spy on Americans’ communications.”
“Salt Typhoon was more than a one-off intelligence success for China. It reflected a deeper, troubling reality. Mere decades after the widespread adoption of the Internet opened a new realm of geopolitical contestation, China is positioning itself to dominate the digital battle space.”
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.