“The European Union signaled its readiness to engage and negotiate with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, warning of the need to avoid a trade conflict that would hurt both sides and the global economy,” Reuters reports.
Said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: “We will need to work together to avoid a global race to the bottom.”
President Trump opened a video call with American troops stationed in South Korea by asking: “How is Kim Jong Un doing?”
He went boasted about how well he got along with the North Korean leader: “You have somebody with pretty bad intentions, I guess, you know, you would say that. I developed a pretty good relationship with him but he’s a tough cookie.”
Columbia Journalism Review: “The return of Donald Trump to the White House has prompted predictable worries among many DC-based reporters about how his administration might seek to control and intimidate the press. But for a surprising number of people on the daily White House beat, that concern is mixed with another, more privately expressed emotion: relief at finally being rid of the Joe Biden press operation.”
Said one White House print reporter: “I think it’s important for people to understand the context, that we’re coming out of four years of Biden and things haven’t been great. There’ve been fewer eyeballs on the press briefings and less attention than under Trump, so people just don’t understand some of the very frustrating things that we’ve dealt with and that we hope are going to be rolled back.”
“Among those frustrations: the Biden press office largely kept reporters at a remove from the president, who had agreed to far fewer formal interviews than any president before him.”
The Daily Beast reports a translator working for a German television channel appeared to get frustrated during Donald Trump’s speech at the Capitol yesterday and asked his producer while the mic was still hot: “How long do you want to stay on this shit?”
A government website for women seeking information about reproductive health and abortion rights was seemingly taken down just hours after President Trump assumed office, the Daily Beast reports.
Asked about President Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 offenders, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) pleaded ignorance to reporters, Politico reports.
Said Thune: “I don’t have any comments. I haven’t seen all the stuff, the executive orders, that he signed yet, so — we said all along that Biden opened the door on this.”
“These people would line us up in front of a firing squad and kill us if they could. We know exactly who the Democrats are… Democrats, until you start writing big checks to Republicans and start voting Republican… then we can start talking about unity.”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), on Real America’s Voice.
President Trump named Ed Martin, an advocate for the January 6 rioters, as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., NBC News reports.
The Wall Street Journal has video of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced for 18 years for seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, leaving federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland after President Trump’s commutation of his sentence.
Peter Hamby: “Since the election, we’ve watched a parade of executives from seemingly every sector of the American economy—sports, tech, finance, media, even corners of Hollywood—genuflecting before Trump as he returns to power. It’s not just a selfish charade. Trump won the election outright, he dominated the cultural conversation, and Democrats got left behind. Corporate America is reacting accordingly. Under any administration, it would be hard to find fault with a CEO for wanting to establish a healthy relationship with a president in full command of the government.”
“Meanwhile, Democrats have lost their cachet. Their voters are tuning out the news, and Democratic politicians are retreating to their own states and districts, biding their time and waiting for Trump to overstep. Until then, maybe voters won’t care about whatever corporate cronyism comes to pass in Trump’s Washington, as long as the cost of living stabilizes, interest rates fall, and world conflicts fade (all big ifs).”
“But watching Trump at the inauguration, flanked by a platoon of billionaire supplicants and unaccountable tech CEOs, you have to wonder how long this president can keep wearing the outsider mask.”
President Trump’s freewheeling speech at the Capitol yesterday following his inaugural address shows he won’t be reigned in by staff, Axios reports.
Said one former adviser: “We struggled with this the entire time in the first administration. But Trump gonna Trump. The difference between now and then is this crew doesn’t sweat it.”
William Kristol: “Shortly after noon yesterday, Donald Trump took the oath of office. He swore that he would “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States” and would, to the best of his ability, ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.'”
“He spent the rest of the day violating that oath.”
“The blizzard of executive orders and pronouncements that Trump issued yesterday featured—almost boasted of—his disdain for legality and contempt for constitutionality. One might say that Trump’s embrace of illegality and unconstitutionality was a feature, not a bug, of Day One of his presidency. From abrogating the law governing TikTok to trying to end birthright citizenship—not to mention a host of other actions, especially but not only concerning immigration—Trump made clear that a lawless presidency is at the core of his vision for his second term.”
Elon Musk responded to the outrage over a one-armed gesture he gave during a speech celebrating the inauguration of Donald Trump, the BBC reports.
Said Musk: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
“That makes him look very guilty.”
— President Trump, quoted by The Hill, on former President Biden pardoning his family in the final 20 minutes of his term.
Aaron Blake: “One of the big questions surrounding a newly sworn-in President Donald Trump — and one nobody really knew the answer to, no matter how long he’s been in public life — is how far he would be willing to go in his second term.”
“Trump has never been afraid of extremism. But it is fair to wager that his second term will be significantly more untethered from traditional norms. Gone are the concerns about seeking reelection. Severely diminished are the non-MAGA Republicans in his administration and Congress. And the past eight years have gradually beaten the will out of the Republicans who might dare to stand in his way.”
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.