Members get an ad-free site, exclusive analysis, the private Trial Balloon podcast, real-time trending news and the full Political Wire experience.
Become a member. Already a member? Log in.
“President Donald Trump signed an interim deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, speeding up the timeline for the agreement to go into effect despite blowback from Republicans who said it amounted to a victory for Tehran,” Bloomberg reports.
“The so-called memorandum of understanding is now in effect, a US official said. It was unclear if Iran had immediately begun taking steps to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
“President Trump settled a $100 million lawsuit against his niece, Mary Trump, for her part in leaking his confidential information to The New York Times as part of a bombshell investigation into the president’s tax filings,” NOTUS reports.
New York Times: “When the text of the deal intended to wind down the conflict was finally released on Wednesday, read aloud paragraph by paragraph by a senior administration official who stopped to defend each section, it read nothing like a surrender document. Instead, the Iranians emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military having not only survived, but with much to celebrate.”
“It starts with the resumption of Tehran’s ability to reap billions of dollars in oil sales, lifting pressure on the struggling regime even as negotiators prepare to begin haggling over a far more lengthy and critical document: the one Mr. Trump insisted in an interview on Sunday will arrest Iran’s nuclear program for the next 15 or 20 years.”
“President Trump may be trying to wind down his conflict with Iran, but he is escalating his war with Senate Republicans,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump blindsided his supposed allies in the Senate on Wednesday with a rocket of a social media post from across the Atlantic, tying together a host of his pet peeves about the Senate while yanking his new nominee for national intelligence director from his confirmation hearing just hours before it was to occur.”
“It was an extraordinary move from a president whose own party controls the chamber, but just the latest sign of a major rupture between Mr. Trump and G.O.P. senators as the midterm elections approach.”
Politico: Trump escalates his war on Senate Republicans — and senators are striking back.
“Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.”
— Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), in a statement.
“President Trump on Wednesday defended letting Iran maintain its large arsenal of ballistic missiles when discussing the emerging deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” NewsNation reports.
Said Trump: “I mean, they have to have some, because other people have some. You got to have some.”
He added: “Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them? Doesn’t work that way, you know, it doesn’t work that way, and missiles aren’t the problem. Missiles, they hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet.”
“Bill Pulte, a close ally of President Trump’s, appears set to take over as the acting director of national intelligence on Friday, despite deep opposition on Capitol Hill and apprehension inside the nation’s spy agencies,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Pulte has used his current post as a top federal housing official to help with Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies. Lawmakers are worried that Mr. Pulte could find ways to weaponize the spy office even in just a few days on the job.”
“Congress turned down President Donald Trump’s request for funding for his modernization efforts at the White House – mainly out of concern that he would tap taxpayer dollars for his proposed ballroom,” NOTUS reports.
“Now, the president is turning to a pot of money Congress approved last year for the U.S. Secret Service.”
Matt Viser: “Workers on the National Mall, desperate to turn the Reflecting Pool to President Trump’s preferred shade of blue, poured jug after jug of hydrogen peroxide into the water yesterday morning. As they did so, members of the National Guard, deployed to clean up crime, looked on. The water, at that moment, matched their mossy-green fatigues.”
“The Reflecting Pool now evokes the joy of a Green Bay Packers victory. Or a high-school prank. Or St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago. It most certainly is not the gleaming American-flag blue that Trump’s repainting of the pool was supposed to produce.”
“That project—the one that cost taxpayers at least $16.4 million and came with a nanobubbling system that promised to kill off algae growth—is hidden under 18 to 30 inches of swamp water dense with scraggly plumes of algae.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a high-profile critic of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, said he is “kicking the tires” on a 2028 presidential bid and is pushing for “dramatic change” in Washington, NOTUS reports.
Said Van Hollen: “If you are asking me whether I think Democrats need to shake things up, you bet I do. It’s pretty clear operating that from within the confines or the halls of Congress is not a successful recipe for actually getting change.”
“Iran and Oman will define how the Strait of Hormuz is administered in discussion with other Persian Gulf states under the agreement to end the war in the Middle East, senior U.S. officials told reporters Wednesday,” CNBC reports.
President Trump’s nominee to serve as a top independent watchdog at the Department of Justice refused to call the January 6 insurrection an “attack” during questioning by senators, The Guardian reports.
“When Senate Republicans chose a new majority leader in 2024, South Dakota senator John Thune narrowly defeated Texas senator John Cornyn. Since then, Cornyn’s career has taken a turn for the worse, culminating in his shocking landslide defeat in last month’s Texas GOP primary runoff,” New York Magazine reports.
“But in retrosepct, Cornyn might have been the lucky one. Yes, the Texan had to suffer the humiliation of Donald Trump endorsing his opponent, Ken Paxton, even after he all but crawled on his knees to Mar-a-Lago to show his loyalty to the president. But it turns out Trump had a different hell in mind for Thune, as he has perpetually thwarted his efforts to manage the U.S. Senate.”
Semafor: Trump and Thune’s dynamic turns the Senate “very chaotic.”
A Trump-backed pastor has dropped out of Oklahoma’s Republican House primary after his intimate relationship with a campaign aide was exposed, the Daily Mail reports.
The astonishing collapse comes after an investigation that exposed Jackson Lahmeyer’s intimate relationship with campaign fundraiser Caitlin Simmons Key, a former Miss Oklahoma USA.
Key said that she and Lahmeyer, who is married, kissed on several occasions during the heat of the campaign. He sent her thousands of text messages, in one telling her “I enjoyed those lips,” and recounted leaving Mar-a-Lago for a strip club at 1am after being offered cocaine.
New York Times: Trump rescinds endorsement of right-wing pastor after texting scandal.
“Let’s call it the Trump deal.”
— President Trump, talking to reporters about the deal negotiated to end the war in Iran.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said in a new interview that she did not “regret” her vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 but was “disappointed” that he later helped overturn the constitutional right to an abortion, the New York Times reports.
Said Collins: “I do not regret that vote. I do disagree with Justice Kavanaugh’s vote.”
“Senate lawmakers are threatening to freeze Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if the Pentagon doesn’t turn over more details about the deadly bombing of an Iranian girls school in February and full videos of lethal strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the waters off Latin America,” Politico reports.
“The provisions, tucked into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense policy bill, would withhold 75 percent of the Pentagon chief’s travel budget until lawmakers receive the documentation.”
“President Donald Trump has created an absolute mess,” Punchbowl News reports.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee was forced to cancel its confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence after Trump instructed him not to attend.”
“At 3:54 a.m. today, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was looking to ‘cancel’ Clayton’s confirmation hearing to be DNI because he wanted the Senate to also confirm James McDonald as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York…”
“Trump’s meandering post is having a cascading effect on other legislative priorities, too. It threatens to upend an extension of FISA Section 702 authority, which has been dark since Friday. Democrats have vowed they won’t vote to reauthorize Section 702 until a permanent DNI nominee is in place. And Trump repeated his unrealistic demand that GOP leaders attach the SAVE America Act to a FISA extension.”
Playbook: “The last-minute U-turn is Trump’s latest capricious decision that is puzzling Republicans on the Hill.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.