“Eric Trump has said growing demand for cryptocurrencies could ‘save the US dollar’ by attracting investment flows from around the world into America,” the Financial Times reports.
He claimed the digital assets boom would channel “trillions . . . from around the world in wonky currencies” towards the U.S.
Paul Krugman: “The thing is, there are real reasons for the upsurge in resentment by young white males. American men have in important ways been hurt by the changes in our society over the past several decades. Richard Reeves published an excellent book about the subject, Of Boys and Men, in 2022… He discusses a wide variety of topics. What I want to focus on, enlarging his analysis, is the economic side of the problem of men in America. The most important aspect of that side is the growing number of men in their prime working years who are not in the labor force…”
“Clearly, something has gone wrong for prime working-age American men. And the demoralization caused by the decline in economic opportunity fuels political radicalization.”
“Despite the unremitting chaos, there is an underlying unifying theme in Trump’s economic policy: that he will avenge men’s loss of status and bring back ‘manly jobs’ by going after those he considers the villains — cheating international trading partners, lying environmentalists and supporters of renewable energy, the federal ‘deep state’, and sneering intellectuals.”
“China played down its rapidly rising military might for years. In the past few weeks, Beijing has broadcast a steady drumbeat of firepower displays and muscular rhetoric, carrying an unmistakable warning for the U.S.,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“It began on Sept. 3, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping brandished his country’s full nuclear triad—the means to deliver nuclear weapons by land, sea and air—together for the first time at an extravagant parade of military hardware and personnel.”
New York Times: “There they sat, side-by-side, some of the wealthiest, most influential and best connected people in the world, all together at one long table inside a nearly-thousand-year-old castle. The guest of honor was in the middle of the table, wearing white tie, looking happier than ever. He was being treated like a king by an actual king.”
“The state dinner that King Charles III hosted for President Trump on Wednesday night at Windsor Castle seemed like a new apex for Mr. Trump: a glittering showcase of the powerful outdoing themselves to get (or remain) on the good side of a president whose second term has been marked by demonstrations of brute power. Those demonstrations have increasingly taken the form of retribution against perceived enemies at home and tattered alliances abroad.”
“If President Donald Trump hoped that putting a close ally at the Federal Reserve would grab headlines, White House economic adviser Stephen Miran’s dissent and way-below consensus interest rate projection on Wednesday delivered,” Reuters reports.
“If the hope was to have someone on the inside to get the Fed to lower interest rates as sharply as Trump wants, Miran’s lone dissent was evidence the gambit had failed, at least for now.”
Axios: Fed meeting hints at new future of the central bank.
“President Donald Trump and several members of his Cabinet will speak at a memorial in Arizona this weekend to honor Charlie Kirk, the conservative political organizer killed in a shooting on Sept. 10,” Politico reports.
Playbook: “No fewer than seven of the most senior figures in the U.S. government will speak at the event on Sunday — the president himself; plus Vance; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and policy guru Stephen Miller; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and DNI Tulsi Gabbard. There may never have been a funeral service quite like it.”
“Indeed, the memorial will serve as a launching point for what now looks likely to be one of the most significant aspects of Kirk’s death — its galvanizing effect on the conservative movement.”
“Vaccine advisers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected this week to consider softening or eliminating recommendations for some routine childhood immunizations — which doctors say could significantly depress vaccination rates and trigger more infectious disease outbreaks,” Politico reports.
Axios: Crunch time arrives for RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisers.
“The Trump administration moved again Wednesday to make it harder to gain U.S. citizenship, announcing a slate of changes to the core civics test that immigrants must pass to be naturalized,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The changes would expand the number of questions immigrants need to be prepared to answer, and increase the number of questions they must answer correctly in order to pass.”
“Buying and controlling media platforms. Firing commentators. Canceling shows. These aren’t coincidences. It’s coordinated. And it’s dangerous. The GOP does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom, quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Politico: “A full year before anyone casts their vote in November 2026 — meaning now, in the fall of 2025 — the American health care system will begin transitioning from an era of unprecedented expansion of coverage to an era of unprecedented cutbacks. And President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress will be easy to blame.”
“Unless Congress reaches a deal fast on some expiring Obamacare provisions, insurance premiums are set to rise, often by double-digit percentages, in and out of Affordable Care Act exchanges. Hospitals are retrenching ahead of the massive cuts imposed by Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’ Altogether, around 14 million people will lose coverage in the coming decade, the Congressional Budget Office projected in August, with the first wave of losses beginning in months.”
“Corporate leaders regularly praise the Trump administration and its policies in public. Behind closed doors, their mood is darker,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“At a meeting of CEOs and other executives on Wednesday convened by the Yale School of Management, dozens of America’s business leaders sounded off on their concerns about tariffs, immigration, foreign policy matters and what many described as an increasingly chaotic, hard-to-navigate business environment.”
“President Trump is frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The question is whether he will ever be angry enough to do anything about it,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Trump has told several aides in recent weeks that Netanyahu prefers using military force to compel Hamas’s surrender, instead of the president’s preferred method of a negotiated cease-fire. His frustration boiled over last week hours after Israel attacked Hamas negotiators in Qatar, an operation that threatened to derail fragile peace talks.”
Said Trump: “He’s fucking me.”
Reuters: Israel opens new route out of Gaza City, death toll passes 65,000.
“Trump-friendly billionaires are consolidating control over American media, steering legacy brands and social platforms in a new conservative direction,” Axios reports.
“The media landscape of 2016 is unrecognizable. Once dominated by critics of President Trump, today’s fragmented ecosystem is increasingly controlled — or threatened — by forces aligned with the White House.”
“President Trump departed Windsor Castle Thursday morning, calling King Charles III a ‘great gentleman and a great king,’ as the president was set to conclude a two-day state visit to Britain with a meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a joint news conference and announcements of business deals involving American and British companies,” the New York Times reports.
“The heavily stage-managed trip has helped Mr. Trump escape political tensions at home, at least briefly, and emphasized longtime American-British ties. The visit to Windsor Castle mostly avoided overt politics and differences between the allies over difficult issues, including trade and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.”
“But Mr. Starmer is expected to raise those topics during his meeting with Mr. Trump, and both men could be quizzed on them at a news conference before the president flies back to Washington on Thursday afternoon.”
Wall Street Journal: How Britain’s Keir Starmer became Europe’s soft-spoken Trump whisperer.
Jonathan Lemire reports on a passage from Kamala Harris’s soon-to-be-released book, 107 Days, that as Harris rushed to pick a running mate last year, her “first choice” was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be “too big of a risk” for a Black woman to run with a gay man.
She writes that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man.”
“But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had a meltdown on X after failing to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on the House floor.
Omar responded: “Literally none of this is true and this woman needs to get help. We have to stop allowing members who are experiencing mental breakdown to continue to work without getting them the help they need. This is an emergency, let’s help her before she hurts herself or one of us.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told the House Judiciary Committee that he thinks the FBI has the names of at least 20 people tied to Jeffrey Epstein, including prominent figures in the music industry, finance, politics and banking, the Miami Herald reports.
“Some military lawyers and other Defense Department officials are raising concerns about the legal implications of President Trump’s expanding military campaign against Latin American-based drug cartels,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The concerns are around the justification for the strikes themselves, as well as the legal implications for the U.S. military personnel involved in the operations.”
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.