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President Trump railed against a judge’s ruling that his name be removed from the Kennedy Center in an incensed social media post, suggesting that he was considering casting the performing arts center aside as one of his personal projects, the New York Times reports.
Trump wrote that unless he was free to decide the center’s trajectory, he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey.”
“President Trump’s top aides have discussed whether he should kill the administration’s nearly $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund in exchange for getting immigration enforcement funding passed next month,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“More than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged top Trump aides to drop the fund since its creation last week, said people familiar with the outreach, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is usually supportive of the president’s efforts.”
“Administration officials have grown increasingly concerned about the viability of the fund, people familiar with the matter said, which had been expected to provide payouts to an array of Trump allies.”
A federal judge in Miami made a striking turnabout on Friday, reopening President Trump’s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. and saying that she wanted to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve it was “premised on deception,” the New York Times reports.
The ruling by the judge, Kathleen Williams, was a significant blow both to Mr. Trump, who had voluntarily dismissed the suit last week, and to the Justice Department.
“The U.S. military has not confirmed that Iran placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz despite continued searches of the critical waterway, adding to growing confusion around the war,” NBC News reports.
“The military searches using underwater drones, water robots and manned and unmanned aircraft have found some objects that could be mines, but none have been definitively identified.”
Maine U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner (D) isn’t backing down from his comments that Sen. Susan Collins (R) “sent me” to fight in Iraq, charging her with “trying to offload her mistakes” for pointing out that he chose to enlist, Semafor reports.
It’s always fun to chat with the great Julie Mason about politics.
Today’s news quiz is proving to be a tough one: So far, just 13% of readers have answered every question correctly.
Think you can join them? Click here to take the quiz.
New York Times: “A year ago, the Trump administration withdrew from a global effort to curb offshore tax-dodging by multinational companies. That decision has been a huge gift to corporate America, enabling companies to avoid at least $40 billion in income taxes since the beginning of 2025.”
“A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign locales like Cyprus, Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Often, corporations funneled the profits through subsidiaries in places where they had no employees, offices or customers.”
New York Times: “John Solomon, a reporter who gained President Trump’s favor through his work questioning the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians who meddled in the 2016 election, is in discussions to join the White House as special government employee.”
The Economist: “Politics is NOT exactly rocket science. How interesting, then, that Elon Musk is so bad at it. Unlike the two or three industries—and still counting—where Mr Musk has done as much or more than any other human this century to advance the species, politics does not require much technical sophistication or even rigor.”
“The maths tend to be simple addition or division. Yet the calculations matter: the flourishing of the civilization whose multiplanetary future preoccupies Mr Musk requires a healthy politics, much as his own companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, counted on far-sighted government subsidies and contracts, not to mention the principled rule of law, to succeed.”
“But unlike the other fields Mr Musk has shaped, his contribution to this bulwark of civilization is to make it not more imaginative and optimistic but more atavistic and fearful, and just plain dumber.”
“In politics, in contrast to other industries, Mr Musk has not chosen the path of revolutionary entrepreneurship.”
A new Texas Public Opinion Research poll in Texas finds James Talarico (D) just ahead of Ken Paxton (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 44% with 7% undecided.
Almost a third of Sen. John Cornyn’s runoff voters say that they will vote for Talarico in November.
President Trump left a two-hour meeting on a possible deal with Iran without making a decision, despite suggesting on social media that he had intended “to make a final determination” during the gathering in the White House Situation Room, the New York Times reports.
“A judge on Friday ordered the removal of President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling that the iconic Washington venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress,” Reuters reports.
“The judge also temporarily blocked the Washington, D.C., cultural landmark from being closed for two years for renovations.”
Washington Post: “The ruling throws the Kennedy Center’s near future into uncertainty, blocking leaders from shutting down the performing arts venue in July after they have canceled most performances in anticipation of the closure.”
CNN: “The White House has yet to release any results from President Donald Trump’s most recent physical exam, a break from its own past practice that’s likely to fuel further questions about his health and fitness.”
Los Angeles Times: “President Trump plans to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary — and his own 80th birthday — next month by watching bare-chested and bloody UFC fighters kick, punch and choke each other on the storied South Lawn of the White House.”
“Later, during the administration’s summer-long festival to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, IndyCars will race in a fossil fuel-burning extravaganza around and around the National Mall — home to the U.S. Capitol and the Washington and Lincoln monuments.”
“The former mayor of Arcadia pleaded guilty Friday to acting as an illegal agent of China,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Eileen Wang, 56, was charged last month and agreed to plead guilty to accusations that she was directed by the Chinese government to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to court filings.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) posted the fable of the scorpion and the frog, in which one creature can’t help but kill the other — even if it means both their deaths.
Who does Cornyn think is the scorpion? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
“The Pentagon is moving to recruit hundreds of troops to appear as spectators at President Donald Trump’s UFC cage-fighting event at the White House, and requiring those who attend to pay their own way and meet height and weight requirements,” the Washington Post reports.
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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— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
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— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
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— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
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