President Trump branded Zohran Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic” the day after the New York mayoral hopeful declared victory in the city’s Democratic primary, the Financial Times reports.
Said Trump, on Truth Social: “It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line… We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.”
Border czar Tom Homan told the New York Post that he has received so much hate for his positions on immigration that he is unable to live safely with his family.
Said Homan: “I don’t see my family very much. My wife’s living separately from me right now.”
“Scott Brown, a Republican who once represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, announced his second bid Wednesday for the New Hampshire Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen next year,” the AP reports.
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“On the day after Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani emerged as the likely Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Rep. Jerrold Nadler endorsed him in November’s general election, giving Mr. Mamdani a key measure of support from one of the city’s most prominent Jewish leaders,” the New York Times reports.
“Anthony Bernal, the top aide to Jill Biden, abruptly withdrew from his scheduled interview with the House Oversight Committee after President Trump’s White House waived his ability to invoke executive privilege to protect private conversations,” Axios reports.
“Bernal was quietly one of the most powerful people in the Biden White House with regular access to former President Biden as he aged.”
“Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary in the New York City’s mayor race shocked Wall Street,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Some of the world’s most influential and powerful financiers were left grasping to understand what Mamdani’s victory would mean for their industry—and whether they would leave the city.”
Garry Kasparov: “Andrew Cuomo positioned himself as just that person—the normalcy candidate. The problem is that the disgraced former governor wasn’t. Normalcy is not having over a dozen sexual harassment allegations to your name. It isn’t massaging coronavirus death counts to burnish your reputation (although the architects of the Chernobyl coverup might be proud). Suddenly returning to politics less than half a decade after ignominiously resigning isn’t normal. A do-nothing, ChatGPT-written campaign from someone who only moved to the city full-time last year reeks of entitlement. We should not be surprised that these things turn voters off.”
“An extremist victory is what happens when the normalcy candidate isn’t actually normal…”
“Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Wednesday he’s not ready to support Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill. But the Wisconsin Republican said that the White House, including the president himself, is helping to move him closer to yes,” Politico reports.
“Johnson shared details of Monday’s one-on-one meeting with Trump in an exclusive interview where he credited the administration for working with him on a push to set up a budget review panel that would force Congress to return to the issue of deficit reduction even after the ‘big, beautiful bill’ is passed.”
Said Johnson: “I’ve got everybody’s attention… they realize I’m serious, so they need to get serious.”
“The Trump administration plans to limit sharing classified information with Congress after someone leaked an internal assessment suggesting that Saturday’s bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities weren’t as successful as President Trump claimed,” Axios reports.
Julie Roginsky: “What were voters in New York to do? When I filled out my ballot yesterday, I did not rank either Cuomo or Mamdani — because I won’t vote for a sexual predator and because I won’t vote for a deeply inexperienced candidate who refuses to acknowledge that ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is an offensive term to his Jewish constituents. I knew that my vote was wasted, that the five people I ranked had no shot of winning. And for this, I blame the Democratic establishment.”
“When Cuomo popped up his head to run, all the establishment figures who flocked to him could have said no. They could have looked at other competent leaders, who did not have Cuomo’s baggage. (Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch comes to mind.) Instead, they did what they do best: tried to impose a deeply flawed candidate with a disconnected message on their own voters.”
Vice President J.D. Vance raised his middle finger during a Republican Party dinner in Ohio, while delivering remarks about political culture in Washington, D.C., NBC News reports.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is expecting a child with his wife Ginger.
New York Times: “He distinguished himself from a field of 10 rivals by offering an unapologetically progressive economic platform that was as memorable as it was ambitious. He proposed making city buses free, offering free child care and freezing the rent on rent-stabilized apartments — all financed by a large tax hike on the city’s wealthiest residents.”
“But his success also owed much to his exuberant style, demonstrative love for New York and mastery of social media that seemed to embody the kind of generational change many Democrats say they are hungry for. He filmed himself running into the icy waters of Coney Island in January and speaking with voters in the Bronx who swung to Mr. Trump last fall.”
“It was a stark contrast to Mr. Cuomo’s joyless campaign, which featured heavily staged events and a candidate who repeatedly warned voters that the city was in deep trouble that only he could fix.”
Washington Post: “Mamdani prevailed by focusing incessantly on the affordability challenges faced by New York residents, pledging to ease the cost of living by providing free child care, freezing rent and making city buses free. In a city home to the world’s largest population of billionaires, he pledged to fund his ideas by raising taxes on the wealthy.”
“Seeking to become the first Muslim mayor of a city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, he did not shy away from criticizing the Israeli government for its handling of the war in Gaza.”
“President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States and Iran would hold talks ‘next week,’ while also casting doubt on the need to iron out a deal with Tehran about its nuclear program,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “I don’t care if I have an agreement or not. The only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, about we want no nuclear.”
“After six months of aggressive immigration enforcement and promises to focus on deporting violent criminals, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a small fraction of the undocumented immigrants already known to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as having been convicted of sexual assault and homicide,” NBC News reports.
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte referred to President Trump as “daddy” during a news conference.
Said Rutte: “Sometimes daddy has to use strong language.”
The children of Melissa and Mark Hortman, who were gunned down in a political assassination earlier this month, issued a statement calling on people to honor their parents’ legacy by doing “something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else,” the Minnesota Reformer reports.
“We are not cutting Medicaid. The president has said that and I have said that. We’ve all said that. We’re strengthening the program.”
— Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), speaking to reporters, while saying the opposite in private.
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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