“Whether you liked Ms. Harris or not, this last election was a choice, a very simple one. You had the choice between the Constitution and the criminal. And this country chose the criminal. You put a criminal at the top of America. A convicted felon.”
— Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (I), on a podcast.
“An aging political class in Washington is prompting fresh calls for forcing older officeholders to step aside in favor of younger faces,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Working well past retirement age is an area of rare bipartisan agreement in Washington. President Trump will turn 80 this year, and Joe Biden left office at age 82, both breaking Ronald Reagan-era records for age in office. In Congress, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is 92 years old, while Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) is 87. It isn’t unusual for members to die on the job, as three did in 2025 alone.”
“We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It’s the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class. They are the elites they pretend to hate. If you’re Steve Bannon, how do you sell any of this? He’s literally closing rural hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros.”
— Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), at a campaign rally.
“Rep. Thomas Massie had a lively Friday night,” the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
“His time at the Oldham County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner on Feb. 6 had an abrupt end — a video that went viral in its immediate aftermath showed his speech to the audience was cut off after event emcee and state House Speaker David Osborne (R), grabbed his microphone while he was speaking as the congressman went over his allotted time.”
“Amid signs that the U.S. economy may be poised to accelerate, Trump administration officials are predicting an economic boom that will lift Republican prospects in the November congressional elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“The administration aims to run the economy hot, counting on a rare trifecta to boost growth in 2026: generous tax refunds and investment incentives, Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and the pruning of regulations that corporate groups call burdensome. Productivity gains from wider deployment of artificial intelligence will keep inflation at bay.”
“President Donald Trump is betting that larger tax refunds this spring will help sate Americans’ cravings for economic relief and boost GOP fortunes in November. The political payoff may be fleeting,” Politico reports.
“The White House believes the average refund could increase by $1,000 thanks to tax cuts in the GOP’s signature legislation, passed last summer. But as tax season kicks off, economists and Republican strategists — and even some of the president’s own allies — warn that the boost American households receive from the refunds may wear off by November.”
“President Trump’s allies are offering access to him and other perks to donors who give at least $1 million to a new group supporting flashy initiatives he is planning around the nation’s 250th birthday,” the New York Times reports.
“The group, Freedom 250, is threatening to overshadow years of plans meant to reach the broadest cross section of Americans for semiquincentennial celebrations. They are now taking on a Trumpian flare, replete with marble and machismo.”
“But Freedom 250 has also emerged as another vehicle, akin to the White House ballroom project, through which people and companies with interests before the Trump administration can make tax-deductible donations to gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fund-raising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters.”
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has moved up his visit to Washington and is expected to meet with President Trump on Wednesday to discuss the negotiations with Iran,” Axios reports.
Chasity Verret Martinez (D) won Saturday’s special election for Louisiana State House District 60, defeating Brad Daigle (R), 62% to 38%, the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.
The Downballot reports it was “a massive 37-point overperformance compared to the 2024 presidential result.”
“A whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is based on a sensitive phone conversation the U.S. intercepted in which individuals linked to a foreign government discussed a person close to President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The discussion, at least in part, concerned issues related to Iran… The full substance of the call, which was intercepted by the National Security Agency, couldn’t be determined.”
“The intercepted conversation was a key catalyst for the highly classified whistleblower complaint filed by a U.S. intelligence official last May that accused Gabbard of limiting the sharing of the conversation within the U.S. intelligence community for political purposes.”
“Washington Post Chief Executive Officer Will Lewis resigned, days after the newspaper laid off several hundred staffers in a move that triggered a backlash against billionaire owner Jeff Bezos,” Bloomberg reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Lewis is departing after two tumultuous years atop the organization. He arrived vowing to carry out a digital transformation, stem financial losses and reverse a decline in online readership.”
The Financial Times reports Bezos was angered by Lewis partying it up in San Francisco during Super Bowl Week as he was laying off hundreds of staffers at the newspaper.
New York Times: “The chaotic White House response to a racist video clip of the Obamas that Mr. Trump posted online was one moment where the administration realized that its usual reactions to criticism — laugh it off, double down, move on — would not work.”
“And while Mr. Trump does not, as a rule, acknowledge wrongdoing — and did not in this case, either — he deleted the clip in the face of widespread outrage in what amounted to a remarkable climbdown.”
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz told Reuters that the U.S. would begin making payments toward the billions of dollars it owes to the United Nations.
“When Mayor Zohran Mamdani met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last fall, the 34-year-old democratic socialist steered their private conversation toward an unlikely subject: New York City zoning laws,” Politico reports.
“It wasn’t idle policy chatter. The city’s labyrinthine land-use approval process has long been a personal fixation for the Queens-born president — a grievance that dates back decades to his days as a New York real estate developer. For Mamdani, who entered the meeting as a liberal villain to the right and a frequent Trump antagonist, it proved a rare point of resonance.”
“Trump became animated as Mamdani described how the system slows housing construction, telling the mayor he had wanted it overhauled for years, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting.”
Dina Doll: “Buried in a footnote of Ghislaine Maxwell’s court filing, she makes the bombshell claim that there twenty-five accomplices of Jeffrey Epstein entered into secret settlements and that there are four unnamed employee co-conspirators of Epstein.”
“The fact is, Maxwell is no longer content with the conditions of her confinement. She has tasted a glimpse of freedom and appears determined to push for more. After losing her appeal to the Supreme Court, she filed a habeas corpus petition. This is the legal equivalent of a last resort. It asks a court to overturn a conviction on the grounds that it is so fundamentally unfair or unconstitutional that it cannot stand, even after all other appellate avenues have been exhausted.”
“In her petition, Maxwell alleges that twenty-five accomplices of Epstein entered into secret agreements with Epstein survivors through their lawyers. She also asserts that four employees of Epstein were co-conspirators but were never charged. Maxwell does not stop there. She specifically names two men closely associated with both Epstein and Donald Trump: Leon Black and Leslie Wexner.”
“When you piece it altogether Maxwell’s court filling starts looking less like a plea to a Judge but a pardon plea to Trump.”
“I am, by the way, the least racist president you’ve had in a long time, as far as I’m concerned.”
President Trump, speaking to reporters.
Punchbowl News: “Hillary Clinton will sit for a private deposition on Feb. 26, and Bill Clinton will follow a day later.”
“The Clintons are still pushing for public hearings. Comer, for his part, told me he’s happy to hold public hearings at a later date. But he insisted that private depositions are more substantive and suggested that after the private depositions, the Clintons won’t have any desire to appear in public.”
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.