Democratic pollster Nick Gourevitch told the Washington Post that Kamala Harris lost the presidential election because of overwhelming voter concerns about the economy and inflation.
Said Gourevitch: “To be honest, if you ever did a focus group with anybody over the last year, it is the first thing that comes up every single time.”
After leading an unsuccessful effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) plans to support his reelection as speaker next year, Punchbowl News reports.
The support from Greene is just the latest sign that Johnson is likely to encounter little Republican resistance in his quest for 218 votes on the House floor on Jan. 3.
“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to rebuff the prospect of reviving his nuclear diplomacy with President-elect Donald Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the 40-year-old dictator called the U.S. a superpower that operated by force rather than a will to coexist and belittled the value that previous talks had for his cash-strapped regime.”
Adam Serwer: “Members of Donald Trump’s inner circle understandably wish to interpret the election results as a mandate for the most extreme right-wing policies, which include conducting mass deportations and crushing their political enemies.”
“But how many Trump supporters think that’s what they voted for?”
“Many seem not to—persisting in their denial of not only Trump’s negative qualities and the extremism of his advisers, but the idea that he would implement policies they disagreed with.”
Peter Baker: “On the night he won a second term, President-elect Donald Trump rejoiced in the moment. ‘America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,’ he boasted. In the two weeks since, his campaign has repeatedly heralded his ‘landslide,’ even to market Trump merchandise like the ‘Official Trump Victory Glass.'”
“But by traditional numeric measures, Mr. Trump’s victory was neither unprecedented nor a landslide. In fact, he prevailed with one of the smallest margins of victory in the popular vote since the 19th century and generated little of the coattails of a true landslide.”
“The disconnect goes beyond predictable Trumpian braggadocio. The incoming president and his team are trying to cement the impression of a ‘resounding margin,’ as one aide called it, to make Mr. Trump seem more popular than he is and strengthen his hand in forcing through his agenda in the months to come.”
Michael Schaffer: Calling Trump’s win ‘resounding’ isn’t just wrong. It’s risky.
“This is good, actually. She barely shows up and doesn’t do the reading. To borrow a phrase I saw elsewhere, it’s like giving someone an unplugged controller.”
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), commenting on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) chairing a new subcommittee on government efficiency.
Just published: Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021 by former German chancellor Angela Merkel.
New York Times: “Long-anticipated in Germany, the book… promises the inside story of the taciturn woman many saw as the defender of a global liberal order. When the world was shocked by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the first election of Mr. Trump and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ms. Merkel exuded a kind of patient, cerebral calm that was widely seen as the bastion of an old, more predictable world order.”
“Since she stepped down in 2021, things have changed drastically. Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Germany to wean itself off cheap Russian gas. Absorbing both the lack of cheap energy and a reduction of the Chinese export market, the German economy has stagnated. The country’s bridges, roads and railways, long neglected, are falling apart. And Ms. Merkel’s welcoming migration policy has led to a surge in the far right.”
“All of which has led to widespread unhappiness and a rethinking of Ms. Merkel’s legacy.”
Washington Post: “Biden and his aides have concluded that they have few ways to block President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to upend agencies and shatter norms, but there is one big thing they can do: focus their final weeks on getting billions of dollars out the door to finish implementing Biden’s signature pieces of legislation.”
Axios: “Trump won’t be inaugurated for another two months, but MAGA mayhem is already dominating the news cycle in the same ways it did throughout his first term…”
“If past is prologue, the pace of chaos is unlikely to relent even after Trump gets his Cabinet in place.”
Semafor: “On top of their small majority, Republicans may also have two troublesome tasks to handle next year: funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year and raising the debt limit.”
“President-elect Donald Trump has floated selecting the financier Kevin Warsh as his Treasury secretary with the understanding that he could later be nominated to lead the Federal Reserve when Jerome Powell’s term as chair ends in 2026,“ the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Trump discussed the potential arrangement with Warsh during a meeting Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect’s private club in Florida.”
“Warsh is a front-runner to lead the Treasury Department… Trump is thinking about appointing the investor Scott Bessent to lead the National Economic Council with an eye toward nominating him as Treasury secretary later in his term if Warsh becomes Fed chair.”
“Ben Carson — the former neurosurgeon who helmed the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump administration — is a favorite to return to the role if he wants it,” Politico reports.
Politico: “Rather than showcasing Trump’s absolute power over his GOP allies, it revealed his limits. The doomed nomination lasted just eight days — and its failure is an unwelcome lesson for the president-elect, who has been projecting invincibility and claiming a historic mandate despite his reed-thin popular vote victory.”
Playbook: “Gaetz’s path to helm the DOJ was based on one calculation: That, yes, his nomination would be painful for Senate Republicans to swallow, but that they would ultimately capitulate to Trump. Sure, they might trash Gaetz to reporters on background, but they’d either hold their nose and vote for him, or skip town and allow Trump to make a recess appointment.”
“That calculation was incorrect.”
Wall Street Journal: Botched Gaetz nomination shows limits of Trump’s hold over GOP.
Playbook: “For years, the conventional wisdom around Trump is that he has a sweet tooth for chaos and that his appetite is bottomless as long as he ultimately gets the outcome he desires. But Gaetz-gate suggests that when that chaos becomes a distraction — or worse in his eyes, when it makes him look bad — he’s willing to cut bait and head home.”
“Trump’s flood-the-zone approach often works when it comes to the public: overwhelm people with news and it becomes difficult to prioritize what matters and what doesn’t. But that strategy doesn’t really work when you’re dealing with the Senate, which is built to move at a tortoise’s pace in the best of times.”
“President-elect Donald Trump is considering shaking up the leadership at the FBI by firing the director and installing an experienced former agent and MAGA loyalist in the top two roles,” CNN reports.
“Trump has planned for months to fire Christopher Wray if he was elected, but in recent days has struggled to find a compromise of selecting a new director who can carry out his agenda while also being Senate confirmed. That concern only increased after it became clear his first pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was facing an uphill confirmation battle before he withdrew his name.”
“With that context in mind, Trump has considered one potential option: naming Mike Rogers, a former FBI special agent and former Michigan congressman who just narrowly lost a Senate race, as the FBI director, while putting Kash Patel, a controversial MAGA loyalist, in as the deputy FBI director, according to several familiar with Trump’s thinking.”
President-elect Donald Trump named Pam Bondi as his new attorney general pick, NBC News reports.
In 2013, while she was Florida Attorney General, Bondi received a $25,000 donation from Trump — while Bondi was deciding whether to take legal action against Trump University.
Bondi eventually decided not to pursue the matter.
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.