“MAGA is recoiling at President Trump’s increasingly personal attacks on his own followers over Jeffrey Epstein, opening the most bitter divisions yet between the president and the GOP base,” Axios reports.
“MAGA has at times grumbled over Trump’s handling of foreign affairs, immigration and other sporadic issues. But the president’s growing irritation with his supporters’ Epstein theories and adamance that they’re illegitimate is widening the most significant rift yet.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds 49% of voters would consider joining a third party as an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, while 45% say they would not consider joining a third party.
“More cryptocurrency drama is unfolding on the House floor Wednesday, a day after conservative hard-liners foiled GOP leaders’ plans to advance a trio of regulatory bills,” Politico reports.
“The hard-liners climbed back aboard following a Tuesday night meeting with President Donald Trump and a last-minute negotiation Wednesday with House leaders that allowed the chamber to take an initial procedural step on the legislation. But the deal they cut — to merge the market-structure-focused CLARITY Act with a separate bill banning a central bank digital currency — has sparked backlash from members of the committees that crafted the legislation.”
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The Telegraph: “Trump has overseen nearly as many air strikes in the first five months of his second term as Joe Biden launched in his entire presidency.”
“A batch of Trump memecoins set to be unlocked this week will test demand for the cryptocurrency and add almost $100 million to the billionaire president’s net worth,” Bloomberg reports.
A new CNN poll finds Americans oppose President Trump’s signature legislation by a whopping 61% to 39% margin.
Leigh Ann Caldwell: “Many Republicans I’ve been talking to over the past few days have predicted that Trump would do something dramatic to distract from Epstein.”
“We need to learn from the blacks. The way they were able to remove the power from the n-word word by using it. So from now on it’s: What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what’s hanging, my Nazi?”
— Greg Gutfeld, on Fox News.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that 17% of voters say they approve of the way the Trump Administration is handling the Jeffrey Epstein files, while 63% of voters disapprove, and 20% did not offer an opinion,
Republicans are split with 40% approving of the way the Trump administration is handling the Epstein files, 36% disapproving and 24% not offering an opinion.
Said pollster Tim Malloy: “Epstein has been dead and gone for years but his tawdry legacy looms large in a country wanting to know more about who he knew and whether secrets have been buried with him.”
The Prospect: “Hospitals are closing or actively considering doing so, cutting programs, and laying off staff. Planned Parenthood is warning patients it can no longer accept Medicaid insurance and in one region says it can’t provide services to Medicaid recipients at all, even if the patient doesn’t use Medicaid to pay.”
“And lawmakers in at least five states are planning special sessions to revamp their already-enacted budgets and determine how to handle the cuts, including what cuts they should enact and how to administer the new Medicaid work requirement.”
A new Virginia Commonwealth University poll finds Abigail Spanberger (D) leading Winsome Earle-Sears (R) in the race for Virginia governor among registered voters, 49% to 37%.
When asked which issue would most influence their vote in the upcoming election, 28% of voters identified the rising cost of living, followed by women’s reproductive rights at 14% and immigration at 14%.
Peter Wehner: “We are witnessing one of the more shocking political events of recent times: Donald Trump’s MAGA base, over which he has had a decade-long cultlike hold, is in open revolt against him. And his initial efforts to quell the uprising have, so far, only further inflamed it.”
New York Times: “‘Evil’ is a word getting a lot of airtime in the second Trump term. It is not enough anymore to dislike a journalistic inquiry or disagree with an opposing philosophy. Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked. The Trump administration’s efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance but a holy mission against forces of darkness.”
“The characterization seeds the ground to justify all sorts of actions that would normally be considered extreme or out of bounds. If Mr. Trump’s adversaries are not just rivals but villains, then he can rationalize going further than any president has in modern times.”
“Maros Sefcovic, one of the European Union’s top trade negotiators, is headed to Washington on Wednesday to talk to Trump administration officials in a bid to stop painful 30 percent tariffs from kicking in on Aug. 1,” the New York Times reports.
“But at a time when E.U. officials are hoping that President Trump’s latest tariff threat is more of a negotiating gambit than a serious possibility, the latest comments from the White House have offered little encouragement.”
Columbia University could settle with the Trump administration as soon as next week, paying hundred of millions of dollars in fines and implement various “reforms” to re-start cut off federal funding, the New York Times reports.
Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are laughing off the divorce rumors that have plagued them for much of the past year, Good Morning America reports.
“President Trump denied that he was planning to attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after polling Republican lawmakers during a closed-door meeting about whether he should oust him,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Trump: “We’re not planning on doing anything… I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely. Unless he has to leave for fraud.”
“He’s dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don’t understand what the interest or the fascination is… I don’t understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody, it’s pretty boring stuff.”
— President Trump, quoted by CNN.
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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