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“Prominent activists with the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement are raging and saying they feel betrayed after the Supreme Court sided with pesticide maker Monsanto on Thursday and said it did not need to put a warning label about a potential cancer risk associated with its Roundup weedkiller,” NewsNation reports.
“The backlash could test the movement’s ties with the Republican Party, especially after the Trump administration backed Monsanto in the case.”
“The four-day cycle of attacks that Iran set off with the United States over the Strait of Hormuz has risked derailing the newly reached cease-fire in a war both sides are eager to end,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet for Iran, analysts say, it was a necessary gambit.”
“Iran’s newfound power to disrupt traffic through a waterway that is pivotal to the global economy is critical leverage it cannot afford to lose — either at the negotiating table or back at war with the United States.”
Wall Street Journal: “Iran has the exclusive right to manage traffic in the Strait of Hormuz under the preliminary peace deal signed with President Trump, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, adding that attempts to circumvent its authority risk triggering more strikes like those seen in recent days.”
Washington Post: Iran insists it has sole control of Hormuz, ignoring Trump’s threats.
“The 2028 presidential election is JD Vance’s to lose, Maggie Haberman said on ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday – something Donald Trump isn’t happy about,” The Wrap reports.
Said Haberman: “I will say, there is nothing in our reporting that suggests that Rubio is doing the things one would be doing to run. And it is still Vance’s to lose, which also doesn’t necessarily thrill Trump, who doesn’t like the idea of somebody coming next.”
“Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) said on Sunday that Congress will likely need to provide the Pentagon with additional funding for the Iran war via a budget reconciliation package,” NewsNation reports.
Said Harris: “To be honest with you, it’s probably going to take something along reconciliation to be able to do it because the Democrats don’t offer us any votes to go along.”
Los Angeles Times: Costs of Iran war will linger despite conflict’s end.
“I think it’s ironic that we control the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and the White House, and we’re yelling ‘election fraud’? I mean, we won all the damn elections.”
— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), on NewsNation.
“President Donald Trump is on the brink of learning whether the US Supreme Court will bless two of his most audacious gambits, his bids to oust a Federal Reserve governor and roll back automatic birthright citizenship,” Bloomberg reports.
“The justices are scheduled to rule on both issues as they release the final seven rulings of their term this week. Trump in each case is seeking to topple a longstanding national pillar – the principle that anyone born on US soil is an American in one and the independence of the Fed in the other.”
Maggie Haberman: “Donald Trump has become so invested in the idea that things always work out for him… Part of why he believes that’s true for him is because, as we describe it, he’s been something of a walking moral hazard his whole life, where he takes actions and somebody else holds the bag.”
“I don’t even think it’s disputable. I mean, if he had won that election he would’ve been hobbled. He was already pretty unpopular. Covid was raging, inflation was raging. Instead, Biden was the one who ate all of those conditions.”
— Regime Change author Jonathan Swan, on NBC News, on whether losing the 2020 election was the best thing to ever happen to Donald Trump.
Playbook: “Immigration is the central issue defining the Democratic primary for one of the most competitive toss-up districts in the country this week — a race that could provide a window into how immigration politics will animate the midterms.”
“The Tuesday primary in Colorado’s 8th District between Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird is the biggest test case yet of whether channeling the explosion of anger from the Democratic base over the Trump administration’s sweeping ICE actions will translate to votes in a district Democrats are targeting as a prime flip opportunity to unseat GOP Rep. Gabe Evans.”
“Immigration is not always a top five issue for voters, but it does have an outsized importance for Latinos, one of the swingiest voting blocs this cycle.”
“Sen. Thom Tillis on Sunday expressed frustration with President Donald Trump’s continued fixation on passing the SAVE America Act,” Politico reports.
Said Tillis: “Why are we doing more things to undermine our confidence in elections, rather than getting the strong message out that will win for Republicans this year?”
David Brooks: “I’d say that a guiding principle of the emerging AI age is this: When intelligence is plentiful, volition is valuable. The people who are going to make a difference are not the ones who seek relaxation and passively use AI to work less. They are the ones who will seek improvement and actively wrestle with AI to develop their own mental capabilities and accomplish more.”
“In other words, what will differentiate people is not how smart they are but their relationship to mental effort. Right now, some people have what psychologists call a high need for cognition. They enjoy thinking hard. These are the people who enjoy playing difficult games and reading dense books. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the cognitive misers, the people who find it unpleasant to think hard and take any opportunity not to do it. In the middle are the people who have a medium need for cognition. They will put in the effort when they really care about something, but they don’t intrinsically enjoy it. Need for cognition correlates with intelligence but is not the same thing. We all know a lot of really smart people who don’t like to work hard.”
Los Angeles Times: “The Iran war has cost the average American household between $775 and $1,300 so far in fuel and taxpayer costs, according to an analysis by Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.”
“Benjamin Netanyahu lost the Democrats. Now a growing number of Republicans are souring on him and his country, too,” Axios reports.
“More Republicans, especially younger ones, turned on Israel as its military leveled Gaza — and then Netanyahu alienated President Trump and his team as they sought to end the Iran war.”
“For 15 years, Netanyahu offset collapsing Democratic support by cultivating Republicans. If Republican support is no longer guaranteed, he has a serious problem — and so does Israel.”
James Poniewozik: “The whole spectacle feels less like a national birthday than like an expensive midlife crisis. And there is little pretense that this is a party for everyone so much as a chest-thumping bacchanal for conquerors.”
“What I would hope that the Trump administration would do is reconsider this. Look at how it’s going to impact states like Ohio. In Ohio, the Haitians are working primarily in manufacturing. They’re also working in the food area. But if you look at where they’re working across the country, probably the most important area they’re working is in health care. It’s Haitians who are taking care of your mom or your dad who has Alzheimer’s, taking care of family members who might be in a nursing home. And to say we’re going to pull all those out, it’s just not in our own self-interest.”
— Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), on CNN.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) accused President Trump of treating Congress as “merely an appendage” in his handling of the Iran war, The Guardian reports.
“This is more fire than cease: Over the past few days, tension between the U.S. and Iran has been escalating with another exchange of strikes on Saturday. President Trump threatened on Truth Social to resume the war and ‘complete the job,'” Axios reports.
“The U.S. and Iran are bombing each other again, putting the tenuous ceasefire in doubt again.”
“Between the lines: One reason for the renewed fighting seems to be different interpretations of the memorandum of understanding to end the war that was signed 10 days ago — especially when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) was interviewed on ABC News by Jon Karl:
KARL: Republicans are going to make you the poster child for the Democratic Party.
MAMDANI: Let them. We don’t have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we’ve delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible. We’ve delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We’ve delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords. We’ve delivered 165,000 potholes being paved. And we’ve done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city’s history. That’s what it looks like to have democratic socialism.
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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