“Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t seem to be planning to bring the House back into session next week,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Come Saturday, the House will have been out for an entire month, a nearly unprecedented recess in the middle of a government shutdown.”
“Powerful members of the Democratic National Committee will soon decide how states will be chosen to be among the first to vote in the 2028 presidential primaries, moving the party closer to one of the most important decisions it will make in the coming years,” CBS News reports.
CNBC interviewed small business owners “to get a better understanding of how much tariffs are costing them and the impact the duties are having on their strategy and operations.”
“Many of the small businesses said they’ve been forced to freeze hiring, pull back growth plans, take on new financing or cut salaries to keep operations afloat.”
“President Trump called Republicans in the Indiana Senate on Friday morning to encourage them to redraw the state’s congressional maps to benefit Republicans ahead of the midterm elections,” the New York Times reports.
“The call is part of an escalating White House pressure campaign on Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to help the Trump administration retain control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections next year.”
From a Wall Street Journal editorial:
“Opposing Donald Trump is a perilous business, but working for him can be equally as dangerous. That’s one lesson from Thursday’s indictment of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton for mishandling classified documents.”
“Funding for every government agency has lapsed for 17 days and counting, marking the longest full government-wide shutdown in US history,” Bloomberg Government reports.
“After racist texts among members of the New York State Young Republicans were made public, the party’s state leaders were slated to meet Friday and vote to disband the group,” the New York Times reports.
“The planned vote comes days after Politico disclosed how leaders of Young Republican groups across the country exchanged messages that included racist and antisemitic comments, with some participants’ discourse including comments about raping their political enemies and placing them in gas chambers.”
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to force Democrats to vote next week on legislation to pay more than 1 million military service members during the government shutdown, doubling down on his strategy of highlighting the plight of military families,” The Hill reports.
Charlie Cook: “With the ink not even on paper in some of these states’ redistricting efforts, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how this will play out in the House. I am skeptical that Republicans can redraw enough districts to insulate them from what looks like a pretty tough midterm.”
“President Donald Trump said high threatened tariffs with China were not viable as tensions between the world’s two largest economies intensify ahead of an expected face-to-face meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “It’s not sustainable. But that’s what the number is, it’s probably not, you know, it could stand, but they forced me to do that.”
“The tariff clash between Washington and Beijing saw US import taxes on Chinese goods rise to as high as 145% in a tit-for-tat exchange that raised fears of a global downturn and a cutoff in trade between the two economies.”
New York Times: “President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin say they plan to meet in Hungary in the coming weeks, but a potentially major roadblock stands in the way. To get there, Mr. Putin will need to pass through airspace over European countries that belong to the International Criminal Court.”
“And that court has a warrant out for the Russian leader’s arrest.”
Andy Kroll: “Russell Vought is using the White House budget office to lay waste to the federal bureaucracy—firing workers, decimating agencies, and testing the rule of law.”
Out next week: Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America by Jonathan Karl.
“This is a story of unprecedented political plot twists, showing what happened behind the scenes as political fortunes fell and rose again, and as a new team coalesced around President Trump with the goal of creating an entirely new world order.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) “has nearly double the war chest of Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas’ Senate GOP primary after the third fundraising quarter of the year — though in the latest flare-up between the two, neither can agree on which funds count,” the Texas Tribune reports.
A new poll finds Britain’s Labour Party tied with the Greens at 15%, way behind the Reform Party at 32% and the Conservatives at 17%, the Telegraph reports.
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.
