“The Defense Department confirmed that the Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown,” CNN reports.
“The move marks a striking departure from government procedure for funding the military, which traditionally relies on public funds appropriated by Congress.”
Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) talked to The Atlantic about his controversial tattoo.
“He told me that after he got the tattoo, he had two full-body screenings for tattoos as a requirement for government work, including screening for ‘hate’ tattoos, in both the Army and as part of his State Department work, and that the skull was not flagged either time. He told me that members of his family are Jewish, and that he has had his shirt off around them many times without anyone objecting to the tattoo.”
Said Platner: “Eighteen years. It’s never come up.”
“A growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill has raised concerns about President Trump’s expanding war against drug cartels carried out without consultation or authorization by Congress, and is pressing for more information and involvement in a campaign whose legal basis remains murky,” the New York Times reports.
“Most in the group have not expressed explicit opposition to the strikes that have been carried out so far against boats in the Caribbean Sea and, this week, expanded to the Pacific… But for a GOP-led Congress that has seldom questioned Mr. Trump on any matter, foreign or domestic, the skepticism reflects a rare and potentially significant bit of dissent over a widening war.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is sending an aircraft carrier to Latin America in major escalation of military buildup in the region, the AP reports.
“Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” the Washington Post reports.
” The rise in prices — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) admitted during a podcast that President Joe Biden failed to establish “a secure border” where President Donald Trump succeeded, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Sanders: “I don’t like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border. And it ain’t that hard to do. Biden didn’t do it. Those before him did not do it.”
He added: “We should have a secure border period. I think most people in the Congress agree with that.”
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will endorse Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor Friday,” Politico reports.
“The nod is coming after months of pressure and just before early voting begins Saturday.”
“Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, a populist conservative who has earned the moniker for headline-grabbing moves that get under President Trump’s skin, pulled off another dramatic moment with an anti-tariff ad that used 1987 audio of Ronald Reagan decrying tariffs as destructive,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump, in a late-night social media post Thursday, claimed the ad, which was paid for by the province of Ontario and has been broadcast since last week in the United States, was ‘fraudulent’ and announced he was ‘terminating’ trade talks with Canada.”
“New York Attorney General Letitia James pleaded not guilty on Friday to criminal charges that she committed bank fraud and made false statements to a lender when she bought a house in Norfolk, Virginia, five years ago,” Bloomberg reports.
“The government website of Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) highlights that she has ‘traveled over 28,000 miles across the Commonwealth since coming into office’ and ‘headlined numerous events across the Commonwealth and across the nation,'” NOTUS reports.
“But her official lieutenant governor schedule tells a different story.”
“Unredacted calendar documents obtained this month by NOTUS via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act show large gaps — sometimes weeks, other times months — where Earle-Sears lists no meetings, events or governmental engagements on her official schedule.”
President Trump took questions from reporters at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi:
TRUMP: Adam Schiff is one of the lowest forms of scum I’ve ever dealt with in politics… You’re telling me that he’s going to be indicted. I don’t know. You could ask Pam…”
BONDI: We’re not going to comment on any grand jury that’s open. We can’t legally.
TRUMP: I hope it’s true.
Peggy Noonan: “Donald Trump’s supporters are feeling satisfaction after two astonishing achievements: He is the first president this century to establish order on the southern border, and he has secured some new possibility for a Mideast settlement. These are breakthroughs even if they don’t last.”
“But the people in this White House, with every triumph, become wilder and wilder. Their triumphalism is accelerating my now-chronic unease over the sense that the strict lines of our delicately balanced republic are being washed away.”
“The U.S. military has conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday, blaming the Tren de Aragua gang for operating the vessel and leaving six people dead in the Caribbean,” the AP reports.
“Reports this week that President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for wrongful prosecution is making Republican senators uncomfortable amid the 24-day government shutdown,” The Hill reports.
Millions of Social Security recipients will see a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase in their monthly checks next year, the Washington Post reports.
Charlie Cook: “Close association with Trump is not a handicap in red states and districts, for now at least. It is a benefit, keeping the band together. But outside red America, it is at best a strong headwind and in some cases, an anchor around the necks of GOP candidates. One way to look at red and blue America is to think about the states that are so red that a GOP candidate literally needs no support from independents, never mind Democrats, to win. The opposite is also the case in heavily Democratic states and districts, where a Democrat can win with no support among Republicans or independents.”
“Most states and congressional districts fall into one of those camps. But there are seven states and several dozen congressional districts that are not majority-Republican or -Democrat, where a candidate needs not just to hold his or her own party together but also a substantial share of the actual independents there. As this column has noted before, Trump is not at all popular in purple America, with only about a third of independents approving of the job he is doing.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned President Trump over his foreign policy, saying that the president could see “all hell break loose” if he involves the US further in Venezuela or Ukraine, Politico reports.
Said Paul: “It’ll be much bigger than Epstein, because Epstein — there was a segment of the MAGA movement that was concerned about it, a significant segment. There’s an even bigger segment of the MAGA movement that is concerned with intervention overseas. And if all of a sudden President Trump becomes the president of regime change in Venezuela and giving arms and money to Ukraine, I think a lot of people will feel abandoned.”
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.