“Senior Justice Department leaders are advocating for a charge against President Donald Trump’s former adviser-turned-critic John Bolton this week,” CNN reports.
“Currently, the prosecutors think they could bring a stronger case by the end of the year against Bolton over the mishandling of national security documents, rather than pushing for a charge at this time.”
North Carolina state Sen. Phil Berger (R) is expected to accept an endorsement from President Trump in his 2026 primary challenge in exchange for redrawing congressional maps, WNCN reports.
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin knocked the Trump administration for making deals with large corporations to avoid the full extent of its tariff policies, describing such agreements as anti-American, CNBC reports.
Said Griffin: “Is that our country, that we’re going to favor the big and the connected? That’s not the American story.”
He added: “When the state becomes involved in picking winners and losers, there’s only one way this game ends: All of us lose.”
Politico: “The feeling among many foreign diplomats gathered in Turtle Bay this week is that Trump is often more interested in declaring victory than focusing on the unsexy diplomatic slog it takes to achieve it — a problem when U.S. support is key to negotiating the end to many conflicts.”
“For the countries actually mired in conflict, the struggle to keep his attention is existential.”
“President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will use tariff revenue to offer cash bailouts for farmers who are struggling with trade uncertainty and other economic headwinds,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick into their benefit. So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.”
David Karpf: “American mass media has been transformed in these early months of President Donald Trump’s second administration. We’re about 35 weeks into a term that will last for 173 more, and in that time, we have seen a tech titan gut a once-great newspaper in an apparent act of capitulation to the commander in chief, government accounts gleefully spreading hateful memes on X (the far-right platform owned by a billionaire tech oligarch), a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump against The New York Times (and quickly dismissed by the judge as “superfluous”), and, of course, the assault on free speech carried out by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman. Big things can happen very quickly.”
“Here is what seems to be next: TikTok’s U.S. operations are reportedly on the cusp of being sold to a group that includes Trump allies, led by yet another tech baron, Larry Ellison.”
U.S. fighter jets “scrambled to identify and intercept four Russian warplanes flying near Alaska” yesterday, the AP reports.
“It’s the third time in about a month and the ninth time this year NORAD has reported such an incident involving Russian aircraft flying near Alaska.”
Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) wrote a letter to the South Shore Press asking President Trump to “intervene” and “help me escape” from prison.
“Microsoft has disabled certain services and subscriptions by Israel’s defense ministry, after finding evidence that it used the tech company’s cloud services to surveil Gaza citizens,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
President Trump said he didn’t know if former FBI Director James Comey would be indicted after issuing a direct call for Attorney General Pam Bondi to do so over the weekend, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “I can only say that Comey’s a bad person, he’s a sick person. I think he’s a sick guy actually, he did terrible things at the FBI. But I don’t know, I have no idea what’s going to happen.”
“Oklahoma’s superintendent, who has attracted national attention as he sought to install religion and rightwing viewpoints in Oklahoma schools, will resign to run a conservative education non-profit,” The Guardian reports.
“Ryan Walters, who has led public schools in Oklahoma since 2022, has in the past tried to put Donald Trump-branded Bibles into classrooms and to require teaching 2020 election conspiracies.”
“Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, was barred from walking with her class at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994 as a punishment connected to the massive cheating scandal that implicated over 130 midshipmen in her class,” the New Jersey Globe reports.
Said Sherrill: “I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly ten years with the highest level of distinction and honor.”
“Two Republican super PACs paid nearly $1 million this month to quietly settle an inquiry into whether they illicitly coordinated with the campaign of Lee Zeldin, a member of President Trump’s cabinet, during his 2022 run for governor of New York,” the New York Times reports.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Punchbowl News he doesn’t foresee “any circumstance” where Republicans will net 10 new seats through their unprecedented nationwide mid-decade redistricting push.
“As of now, Republicans have drawn five new red seats in Texas. GOP leaders are aiming for at least two in Ohio, two in Indiana, one in Missouri, possibly three in Florida and potentially one in Kansas.”
Said Jeffries: “They may not net any as far as I’m concerned because Democrats are fighting back hard. The Republicans were expecting that we would just roll over and play dead. And instead, California has responded aggressively.”
“Jeffries also said Democrats hope to strike down the map in Texas, arguing it violates the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. And he predicted Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez in South Texas would win reelection even in redder districts.”
“If the White House thought its threat to fire federal workers during a government shutdown would spark a Democratic retreat, so far, it’s not happening,” Politico reports.
“Instead, multiple congressional Democrats brushed off the prospect of mass layoffs as a negotiating tactic and vowed not to bend as a midnight Sept. 30 shutdown deadline approaches.”
“A branch of the National Archives released a mostly unredacted version of Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s military records to Nicholas De Gregorio, an ally of Jack Ciattarelli, her GOP opponent in the New Jersey governor’s race,” CBS News reports.
“The disclosure potentially violates the Privacy Act of 1974 and exemptions established under the Freedom of Information Act.”
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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