“California Democrats and Texas Republicans who might otherwise have had no chance of getting elected to Congress are suddenly spotting opportunity in the states’ mid-decade redistricting,” Axios reports.
“It’s not every day as many as 10 safe, open seats suddenly become available. The redistricting arms race has the potential to transform both states’ congressional delegations for years to come.”
“Americans haven’t been this gloomy about the job market since the Great Recession,” Axios reports.
“Fears about joblessness have surged since President Trump unveiled plans to impose steep tariffs on foreign goods.”
“The economy might have hit a soft patch, but it has so far dodged the bleak predictions from a few months ago. Consumers are still bracing for the worst to come.”
“In the Biden administration, the American environmental movement reached what many of its supporters considered an apex. Congress passed the largest ever federal law to combat climate change. Coal-burning power plants were shutting down. Hundreds of billions of dollars of federal investment in renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles was beginning to flow,” the New York Times reports.
“But in just months, President Trump has attacked much of that work.”
“The Biden-era climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is in tatters. The White House is trying to revive coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, while boosting oil and gas and hindering solar and wind power. And it is weakening or trying to scrap environmental policies and regulations, some dating to 1970.”
“The abrupt reversal in fortunes has led to a moment of crisis for the environmental community.”
“President Trump on Saturday split from Ukraine and key European allies after his summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, backing Mr. Putin’s plan for a sweeping peace agreement based on Ukraine ceding unoccupied territory to Russia, instead of the urgent cease-fire Mr. Trump had said he wanted before the meeting,” the New York Times reports.
“Skipping cease-fire discussions would give Russia an advantage in the talks, which are expected to continue on Monday when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visits Mr. Trump at the White House. It breaks from a strategy Mr. Trump and European allies, as well as Mr. Zelensky, had agreed to before the U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska.”
Cook Political Report: “As Texas Republicans appear poised to thwart Democrats’ brief quorum break and pass a brutal new gerrymander, California Democrats’ plans to retaliate with their own aggressive map are coming into view.”
“Democrats’ California proposal is a mirror image of Republicans’ Texas plan in the sense that it flips three of the other party’s seats into solid Democratic pickups and makes two other GOP seats much more winnable, though still competitive. The plan would also shore up support for Democrats in the state’s competitive blue-held districts, including two rated as Toss Up and two rated as Lean Democrat by the Cook Political Report.”
“But unlike in Texas, where the GOP legislature can draw the state’s map however and whenever it wants, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento must first convince voters to permit them to enact a gerrymander — something that’s far from guaranteed.”
CNN: “There was one moment that only Trump and Putin will be able to recount: their brief ride in the presidential limousine from the tarmac to the room where the meeting took place. No one else was in the car with them except Secret Service agents — no advisers or even translators.”
“That leaves the contents of their brief chat known only to them.”
“The state-run Russian international news network Russia Today has released behind-the-scenes video from Alaska that appears to show President Donald Trump fawning over Vladimir Putin,” the Daily Beast reports.
The New York Times notes Trump showed deference to Putin: “Despite the fact that the meeting took place on U.S. soil, Mr. Trump allowed Mr. Putin to speak first at their joint appearance.“
Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich was surprised President Trump took no questions from reporters after his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Daily Beast reports.
Said Heinrich: “We were told we would have an opportunity to put questions to both leaders after a joint press conference in the event that meeting went well enough that they could set the stage for a second meeting. And President Trump said if that didn’t happen, he was likely to call off the joint presser and just address the media solo and send people home. Neither of those things happened.”
“Over the first several months of his freshman term in Washington, Representative Rob Bresnahan Jr., Republican of Pennsylvania, became one of the most active stock traders in Congress, despite having campaigned for his seat on a promise to end stock trading by lawmakers on Capitol Hill,” the New York Times reports.
“Now Mr. Bresnahan’s trading is attracting more scrutiny after he made several transactions that appeared to benefit from the consequences of his own votes on the House floor.”
“Democrats are working to weaponize Mr. Bresnahan’s trades against him as they plot a campaign to oust him in next year’s midterm elections, and some Republicans privately concede that the issue could hurt him in his highly competitive district as they attempt to hold onto their slim House majority.”
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’ll travel to Washington to meet with US counterpart Donald Trump on Monday to discuss the end of Russia’s invasion, as he and European allies push for a trilateral summit with Vladimir Putin,” Bloomberg reports.
Axios: “The meeting will take place six months after their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February.”
New York Times: “When the hasty planning began for the historic summit in Alaska, some observers wondered whether — given the state’s proximity to Russia of less than 60 miles — Mr. Trump would make a ceremonial visit by stepping into the neighboring country.”
“It was not to be. But one person close to Mr. Trump indicated days before the trip that a Moscow visit might be possible down the road. So perhaps it wasn’t simply a joke when, in their final moments at the podium, Mr. Putin suggested that the two leaders next meet in his capital city.”
Mr. Trump seemed amenable: “Oooh, that’s an interesting one. I don’t know, I’ll get a little heat on that one. But I could see it possibly happening.”
“Friday’s summit in Alaska began as a superpower spectacle, then abruptly ended without any indication of what was achieved or where things go from here,” Axios reports.
“President Trump didn’t get the ceasefire he came for, or the public commitment he wanted from Vladimir Putin to meet next with Volodymyr Zelensky. The leaders scrapped a planned lunch and departed early — but not before both declared the meeting a success.”
The Atlantic: Trump leaves Alaska empty-handed.
“President Donald Trump said Saturday that Ukraine and Russia should go straight to agreeing on a final peace deal, dropping his demand for a ceasefire in a dramatic reversal that aligns him with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Washington Post reports.
“Israel and the U.S. are pushing forward efforts to relocate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a move they have presented in humanitarian terms but which governments in Europe and the Arab world have criticized as unrealistic and a potential violation of international law,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump welcomed his Russian counterpart to Alaska with the former showman’s signature extravagance: a red carpet, a military flyover and a ride in the presidential limousine,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But Trump is returning to Washington with little to show for all the pageantry.”
“The U.S. president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin ended their highly anticipated meeting without announcing a breakthrough, leaving the path toward ending the war in Ukraine unclear. By Friday evening, Trump, who had taken a risk in inviting the sanctioned Kremlin leader to the U.S., was stuck in the same predicament he faced days prior: Putin remains obstinate, deeply reluctant to end the 3½-year war without concessions on Ukraine’s future.”
“Both men staked their political reputations on a successful summit, and Putin appears to have come out on top.”
New York Times: In Russia, Putin’s meeting with Trump plays as a triumph.
Washington Post: Trump, Putin break off summit with no Ukraine deal as talks end early.
CNN: Trump-Putin summit ends without concrete deal.
Julie Mason and I discussed the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on her fantastic radio show.
Foreign Policy: “The Russian government is many things, but subtle is not one of them. Ahead of a highly anticipated summit on the Russia-Ukraine war in Alaska on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov engaged in some blatant trolling.”
“Lavrov arrived in Alaska wearing a CCCP sweatshirt. Those are the Russian initials for ‘USSR,’ which stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (aka the Soviet Union). Experts say that Lavrov, who has been Russia’s top diplomat for roughly two decades, knew exactly what he was doing by wearing that sweatshirt.”
“The war in Ukraine—a former Soviet republic—is widely viewed as a product of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union and imperialistic ambitions.”
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.