“Donald Trump shattered long-held political norms when Republicans elected him twice despite scandals that would have sunk most candidates. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is testing whether Democrats are willing to play by the same rules,” Axios reports.
“The answer will show whether voters’ tolerance for scandal — long thought to be a Trump-only phenomenon — is hardening into a broader feature of American politics.”
“A far-right lawyer who pledged to smash the cocaine-fueled armed groups that have expanded in this country took the most votes in Sunday’s first round of the presidential election, a blow to both the ruling leftist party and establishment conservatives,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The U.S. and Iran exchanged fresh blows over the weekend, with the U.S. striking what it said were air-defense radar and drone sites and Kuwait coming under attack after Iran said it was retaliating,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The exchange of fire came as the two foes were working to hammer out a deal to wind down the fighting. President Trump indicated a deal was close ahead of the weekend, but mediators have said issues like nuclear commitments and the timing and scale of any financial relief remained unresolved.”
“Sen. Cory Booker said that he had ‘concerns’ that the candidacy of Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, could be damaged by recent revelations, including that Mr. Platner exchanged sexual messages with women outside his marriage,” the New York Times reports.
Washington Post: The Platner sexting controversy and what it could mean for Democrats.
David Sanger: “President Trump likes his military and diplomatic victories quick, clean and decisive.”
“On his desk in the Oval Office, he keeps models of the B-2 bombers that took out three Iranian nuclear sites in one night, not quite a year ago. In the opening weeks of the Iran conflict this year, he talked often about replicating his success in Venezuela — ‘the perfect scenario,’ he said — shorthand for overthrowing a troublesome leader with one quick commando raid, and replacing him with a pliant, American-friendly successor.”
“But now, Mr. Trump has hit the stalemate phase of his presidency.”
Axios: “Texas has gained more than 2.5 million new residents since 2020 — roughly the entire population of New Mexico — reshaping the electorate and injecting new uncertainty into this year’s marquee Senate race.”
“Republican Ken Paxton is favored to defeat Democrat James Talarico in November, but the influx of new arrivals — along with fading Latino support for President Trump and booming exurban counties — has scrambled the political math in typically red Texas.”
“Many former Biden aides think Jill Biden’s new book is rewriting history, unhelpful to the Democratic Party and tone-deaf,” Axios reports.
“Most Democratic Party leaders don’t want to talk about Joe Biden’s presidency, but the Bidens are making that difficult. Both are writing books and the former president plans to make campaign stops ahead of the November midterms.”
Wall Street Journal: “The White House memorandum describing President Trump’s recent physical examination lacks details of the results of tests to assess his cardiovascular health, according to physicians who read the report.”
“That is one of several areas of the report that doctors said stood out for its lack of specificity. The president spent about three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Tuesday, where he underwent a battery of tests as part of his annual medical examination.”
Axios: Trump health readout leaves key blanks unfilled.
Playbook: “The Senate will return from recess to a hell week. The chamber is tasked with taking back up the party-line immigration enforcement bill, and the complicated politics of the DOJ’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which derailed efforts to pass it before the White House’s original deadline of tomorrow. Senators are also picking up reauthorization of expiring government spy powers, and the appropriations committee is starting markups this week ahead of October’s deadline to fund the government.”
“Meanwhile, the House won’t kick off in earnest until Wednesday.”
“But how much of the GOP’s wishlist gets done — and how long lawmakers stay in town until they return to their districts to campaign — will depend largely on the personalities in play. Speaker Mike Johnson can’t afford more than a couple of defections in the House, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s margins aren’t such a sure bet anymore, either.”
Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) cancelled an appearance on MS NOW after news broke of a new scandal involving sexually explicit texts, Mediaite reports.
Sen. Cory Booker said that he expects Republican opposition to President Donald Trump’s policy agenda to grow after his administration’s recent push to create a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, among other actions, ABC News reports.
Said Booker: “We fought a revolution to stop exactly this — a ruler from taking public funds and doing whatever they want with no checks and balances. This president is giving us a master class in our own democracy by tearing it down.”
Meanwhile, a GOP told CNN there are 8 Senators in the Republican Conference “who are pretty put out with the White House.”
The U.S. and Iran have yet to ink an agreement to end the war that has dragged on into its fourth month, with President Donald Trump saying Saturday that he is in “no hurry” to make a deal, CNBC reports.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said it’s “deeply offensive” that a new $1.8 billion settlement fund created by the Trump administration to resolve the president’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service could be used to pay participants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Bloomberg reports.
Los Angeles Times: “Mired in a persistent cost of living crisis and an unpopular war with Iran, President Trump reached a perilous milestone last week, registering an approval rating of 34% in a top-tier poll — a record low less than halfway through his second term.”
“The results mark one of the sharpest polling collapses of any modern president. The data, from the Economist and YouGov, brings Trump back down to his political nadir, matching a number he hasn’t seen since the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack five years ago.”
“It follows on several other surveys published in recent days showing the president entering precarious political territory roughly six months ahead of the midterm elections, raising alarm bells in Republican campaign offices across the country over the party’s prospects in the fall.”
“President Trump on Saturday called for the cancellation of a concert series celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, after a wave of musicians pulled out,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “Cancel it. We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.”
CNN: Artists are bailing on a Trump-backed concert series for America’s 250th. Now he’s hosting his own ceremony.
“Democratic state leaders around the country have an unusual strategy to stymie President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion settlement fund for people who claim they were wrongly investigated by the government,” the Washington Post reports.
“Their plan: Tax the payouts at 100 percent.”
New York Times: “The departure of more than 10,000 federal lawyers has left some agencies without sufficient staff and has boosted the ranks of state attorneys general offices and advocacy groups.”
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.
