“A National Weather Service office in eastern Kentucky was scrambling to cover the overnight forecast on Friday as severe storms were moving through much of the eastern United States,” the New York Times reports.
Lexington Herald Leader: 14 dead amid devastation after storms hit Kentucky.
“The Trump administration appears to be losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as President Trump offers a face-to-face meeting in an effort to end the Ukraine war,” The Hill reports.
“Trump this week flirted with traveling to Turkey to meet with Putin on the sidelines of talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials, but the Kremlin, just before negotiations were expected to kick off, said the Russian president would not be attending and instead sent lower-level officials.”
Wall Street Journal: How Russia’s call for peace talks turned into a diplomatic defeat for a Putin.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) accused former FBI Director James Comey of trying to “jizz up some type of coup” against President Donald Trump, the Daily Beast reports.
“House Republicans’ attempt to curb Medicaid as part of President Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax-and-spending bill has opened up a constellation of intraparty fights that are complicating the GOP-controlled Congress’s efforts to advance the sweeping legislation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The fight over Medicaid—how deeply and quickly to trim the program that serves more than 70 million people—helped snarl progress Friday on getting the megabill to the House floor. Spending-hawk holdouts on the Budget Committee blocked the measure, setting the stage for further talks into the weekend. But even if the bill makes it through the House by leaders’ self-imposed Memorial Day deadline, more battles are expected in the Senate.”
New York Times: “The handful of lawmakers who blocked their own party’s sprawling domestic policy measure from advancing out of a key committee on Friday acted out of a fundamentally different view of federal spending and debt than the rest of the G.O.P. They are single-mindedly focused on slashing deficits by restructuring the government to dramatically scale back social programs, whatever the political consequences.”
“The first multi-day foreign trip of President Donald Trump’s second term bucked the norms of presidential travel, demonstrating just how swiftly and drastically his transactional approach to foreign policy has reshaped the way other countries interact with the United States,” Politico reports.
“Trump’s whirlwind journey this week through three wealthy Arab Gulf states appeared more like a governor’s economic development mission — with corporate leaders and investment pledges — than a typical presidential trip. Usually, those highly choreographed missions are geared toward affirming alliances, engaging in tough diplomatic negotiations and advancing American foreign policy priorities. Trump did all of that, but his chosen allies and priorities were strikingly different.”
“Amid long, uncomfortable pauses, Joe Biden struggled to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected or why he had classified documents he shouldn’t have had, according to audio obtained of his October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur,” Axios reports.
“The newly released recordings of Biden having trouble recalling such details — while occasionally slurring words and muttering — shed light on why his White House refused to release the recordings last year, as questions mounted about his mental acuity.”
“The audio also appears to validate Hur’s assertion that jurors in a trial likely would have viewed Biden as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’”
“The U.S. DOGE Service arrived at the Social Security Administration this year determined to slash staff and root out what it claimed was widespread fraud and wasteful spending — a mission Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team has pursued across the government,” the Washington Post reports.
“But as of this week, many of the major changes DOGE pushed at Social Security have been abandoned or are being reversed after proving ineffective, while others are yielding unintended consequences and badly damaging customer service and satisfaction. The problems come as the agency struggles to cope with a record surge of hundreds of thousands of retirement claims in recent months.”
The Trump administration has decided to permit the sale of devices that enable standard firearms to fire like machine guns, a move that one person familiar with the matter said was “by far the most dangerous thing this administration has done” on gun policy, NBC News reports.
Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States by a notch to “Aa1” from “Aaa”, citing rising debt and interest “that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns,” Reuters reports.
Wall Street Journal: “The move strips the U.S. of its last remaining triple-A credit rating from a major ratings firm, following similar cuts by Fitch Ratings in 2023 and S&P Global Ratings in 2011.”
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Punchbowl News: “There is a ton of blame going around right now for today’s GOP debacle in the House Budget Committee.”
“There’s a healthy amount of anger toward Johnson. Some of this is legitimate. He did leave a lot of these decisions to the last minute.”
“But the White House seems extremely annoyed with Arrington for holding a vote on a package that wasn’t going to pass the committee. Republican leadership did want to proceed with the vote, or at least that’s what they told us.”
A new J.L. Partners survey found 46% of Republican voters are ready to back Vice President J.D. Vance as President Donald Trump’s successor, while no other named prospect got more than double-digit support.
Just 8% would back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while 7% supported Vivek Ramaswamy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) each received 6% support.
“The Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya,” NBC News reports.
“In exchange for the resettling of Palestinians, the administration would potentially release to Libya billions of dollars of funds that the U.S. froze more than a decade ago.”
“The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from moving forward with deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for a group of immigrants in northern Texas, siding with Venezuelans who feared they were poised for imminent removal under the sweeping wartime authority,” CNN reports.
“The decision is a significant loss for Trump, who wants to use the law to speed deportations – and avoid the kind of review normally required before removing people from the country.”
NBC News: Supreme Court rules Trump administration must give Venezuelans more time to challenge deportation under Alien Enemies Act.
“U.S. consumers are becoming increasingly worried that tariffs will lead to higher inflation, according to a University of Michigan survey released Friday,” CNBC reports.
“The index of consumer sentiment dropped to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April, in the preliminary reading for May. That is the second-lowest reading on record, behind June 2022.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) has suspended his campaign for governor, clearing the field in the Republican primary for Vivek Ramaswamy (R), Politico reports.
Said Yost: “I do not wish to divide my political party or my state with a quixotic battle over the small differences between my vision and that of my opponent. I am simply not that important.”
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.