“President Trump and MAGA spent years lampooning censorship, discrimination against conservatives, and progressive ‘cancel culture,’” Axios reports.
“Now in power — and riding an outpouring of grief and fury over Charlie Kirk’s tragic killing — they’re enforcing speech codes to punish ideological opponents.”
Washington Post: JD Vance vows retribution on liberal institutions after Charlie Kirk killing.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile writes in the Washington Post that D.C.’s longtime Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton should retire as she “is no longer the dynamo she once was.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said yesterday the Trump administration “had doomed five West African men it deported to the prospect of torture and death in their home countries — even though they had won protection from U.S. immigration courts,” Politico reports.
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“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can no longer oversee the prosecution of President Donald Trump in the 2020 election interference case, according to a decision issued Tuesday by the state’s highest court,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The ruling casts doubt on the future of the last remaining criminal prosecution of Trump.”
“The unemployment rate for Black Americans is up sharply this year,” Axios reports.
“The Black unemployment rate has long been higher than the jobless rate overall — but the gap narrows when the labor market is strong, as it was in 2019 right before the pandemic and during the strong job market of 2022 and 2023.”
“The U.S. military is taking swift disciplinary action against U.S. troops over social media posts linked to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, carrying out a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy toward those it sees as cheering his death,” Reuters reports.
Dan Pfeiffer: “Think about that: the Secretary of Defense is asking the public to report U.S. troops for exercising the same freedom of speech we ask them to defend with their lives.”
“Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded to criticism of this policy with an unhinged post on X, suggesting that expressing an opinion is a ‘violation of the oath.’ What the hell is he talking about?”
“A week after Israel’s missile strikes in Qatar, it’s clear not only that the assassination attempt against Hamas leaders failed, but that it backfired,” Axios reports.
“The strike increased the feeling inside the Trump administration and around the world that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reckless and has become a destabilizing force in the region.”
G. Elliot Morris notes 17 Republican and 11 Democratic U.S. House members have said they won’t run for re-election next year.
“Historically, the number of net retirements for each party is a pretty reliable predictor of which one will pick up seats in the U.S. House during the next midterm. The following rules are not true for every cycle, but are pretty good: (1) Whichever party has more net retirements tends to lose more seats, all else being equal; and (2) More net retirements usually translates to more seats lost.”
As the Sept. 30 government shutdown looms, extra cash for lawmaker security is the “only remaining holdup” keeping GOP leaders from unveiling plans for a two-month funding patch, Politico reports.
“Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan entered the race for Georgia governor on Tuesday as a Democrat, completing a political transformation that has taken him from a pro-Donald Trump Republican to a contender for the state’s highest office under a new party banner,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Said Duncan, in an announcement video: “I’ve never wavered in taking on Trump. So Georgia Republicans threw me out of their party. I was leaving anyway. Now I’m running for governor as a proud Democrat.”
President Trump was asked by a reporter about Charlie Kirk:
REPORTER: My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. How are you holding up?
TRUMP: I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get for about 150 years. And it’s gonna be a beauty. It’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.
“Workers across the country who’ve mocked Charlie Kirk’s death online have quickly learned their words can get them fired,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“From American Airlines to Nasdaq—and in workplaces that include restaurants, schools and law firms—employers have ousted or suspended staff in recent days for gloating, deriding or making otherwise contentious posts about the conservative activist’s killing. Many are getting flagged to the posts by online activists who’ve collected the names of commenters. Some prominent conservatives have joined the call, too.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is scheduled to speak about political violence later today, less than a week after a gunman assassinated conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.
Punchbowl News: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is at the center of this entire funding clash. If you listen to Schumer, you come away believing he’s prepared to dive into a government shutdown. Schumer said Monday that Republicans refuse to negotiate and are ‘causing a shutdown.’”
“The New York Democrat clearly wants Republicans to agree to insert an extension of enhanced premium tax credits for Obamacare into the bill, something the GOP has refused to entertain. This would be his minimum goal.”
“It’s not hard to understand Schumer’s politics here. Schumer got walloped in March when he helped Republicans avoid a shutdown. So he has to take a hard line now, especially since the Trump administration’s hostility toward Congress — through rescissions and impoundment — has only increased since then.”
“Yet there are several potential weaknesses in Schumer’s position. Schumer seems to believe Democrats could win a shutdown based on the fact that Republicans aren’t negotiating. But who got blamed for the 2013 and 2019 shutdowns? The instigating party — Republicans. At that time, Republicans tried to play the ‘Democrats-won’t-negotiate’ card. It didn’t work.”
Earlier for members: A Shutdown Would Backfire on Democrats
“Having secured big payouts from Disney/ABC and Paramount/CBS in recent months, Donald Trump is now once again taking the New York Times to court — for at least $15 billion dollars,” Deadline reports.
In a Truth Social post, Trump described the 174-year-old newspaper as “one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country.”
Playbook: “The court filing is quite a read, detailing Trump’s anguish at what he perceives to be negative coverage that he receives.”
Washington Post: Trump files defamation and libel lawsuit against New York Times.
“Congress is inching toward a bipartisan agreement to reverse the Trump administration’s recent renaming of several Army bases across the southern United States that had long been politically controversial for honoring Confederate leaders,” the Washington Post reports.
“Tucked within the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Republican-led House last week is a measure that, if adopted by the Senate, would block Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reversal of a separate base-renaming effort that was directed by Congress five years ago.”
“A special election in Minnesota on Tuesday will determine who will fill the seat of the late Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman, just over three months after she and her husband were fatally shot in what Gov. Tim Walz at the time called ‘a politically motivated assassination’ and less than a week after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk,” CNN reports.
Washington Post: It’s Election Day in a Minnesota suburb — because of political violence.
“President Donald Trump is set to spend nearly all of his two-day state visit to Britain this week behind closed doors — or, at least, manicured hedges — far from massive planned protests and without delivering a traditional address to potential critics in Parliament, which is scheduled to recess as his plane speeds over the Atlantic,” the Washington Post reports.
“Although the invitation from King Charles III appears designed to please a president whose “America First” policies are upending trade and security relationships, that doesn’t mean Trump’s royal moment can’t be derailed. The president and the king have differences on a laundry list of geopolitical issues they will have to navigate as they project friendship before a global audience.”
Wall Street Journal: King Charles rolls out the red carpet to woo Trump.
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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