“President Donald Trump said the United States will send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine that will be reimbursed for by the European Union, offering critical help to Kyiv as it battles an onslaught of Russian drone attacks,” USA Today reports.
Said Trump: “We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need. Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening… there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it.”
In a Truth Social post, President Trump acknowledged the existence of the Jeffrey Epstein files and even suggested that he had read them.
He then insisted that the files were written by “by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.”
Said Trump: “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is going hard at President Trump as he gears up for a difficult reelection fight, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
At a rally, Ossoff called Trump a “depraved man” and said America had to fight against “deeply entrenched corruption and greed.”
Associated Press: “One year after coming millimeters from a very different outcome, Trump, according to friends and aides, is still the same Trump.”
“But they see signs, beyond being on higher alert on stage, that his brush with death did change him in some ways: He is more attentive and more grateful, they say, and speaks openly about how he believes he was saved by God to save the country and serve a second term, making him even more dug in on achieving his far-reaching agenda.”
“We’ll see… I will not leave a broken country to my kids or to anyone else’s.”
— Gov. Andy Beshear (D), quoted by NBC News, on whether he’ll run for president in 2028.
Ed Kilgore: “At first blush, the idea that things would be better had Trump been peacefully re-inaugurated on January 20, 2021, seems nuts. But we can all agree it would have been good if there had been no ‘stop the steal’ rally, no gatherings of Christian-right extremists blowing shofars, no Capitol riot, no shattered windows, no dead or injured police officers, and no enduring right-wing myth of a rigged election.”
“A Trump win would have also meant no second Trump impeachment, then no federal criminal prosecution of Trump for his involvement in an attempted insurrection. These developments, while momentarily satisfying to Democrats, did virtually nothing to limit Trump’s political support while doing a lot to intensify polarization.”
“Moreover, think of the burdens Trump would have inherited as a second-term president taking office in 2021. He would not have been able to hand off the final stages of the coronavirus epidemic, and all the unpopular and unpleasant measures it involved, most of which he had originally supported. He would have almost certainly become the ‘inflation president,’ too.”
“Fluoride was introduced into drinking water starting in 1945. The flu vaccine was first made available to the general public a year later. Fuel efficiency standards for cars were adopted in 1975,” the New York Times reports.
“Such innovations long ago became stitched into the fabric of American life, largely accepted by most Americans who came to rely on them or gave them little thought. That is, until President Trump and his team came along and began methodically rolling back widespread practices and dismantling long-established institutions.”
“It should come as no surprise that Mr. Trump would try to undo much of what President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did over the past four years. What is so striking in Mr. Trump’s second term is how much he is trying to undo changes that happened years and even decades before that. At times, it seems as if he is trying to repeal much of the 20th century.”
New York Times: “The dilemma is reflective of the Democratic Party’s broader struggles with identity politics as it dissects its losses in 2024. Recovering its standing with voters, many in the party believe, requires coming to terms with the party’s transformation during the Obama and first Trump presidencies, when American liberals broadly embraced what had previously been vanguard positions on a range of social and cultural issues, including gender and race, immigration and policing.”
Washington Post: “There were already whispers of messianism among some of Trump’s supporters, such as the QAnon offshoot called Negative 48 whose members frequented his rallies in 2022. Trump has long claimed that God was on his movement’s side, and attendees at Trump rallies have routinely described the events in spiritual terms.”
“But after the assassination attempt, many of his followers — and most notably Trump himself — more explicitly cast him as a divine instrument.”
“The economic fallout from President Trump’s policies may prove less dire than feared,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Economists expect stronger growth and job creation, lower risk of recession and cooler inflation than they did three months ago, according to The Wall Street Journal’s quarterly survey of professional forecasters.”
“The reason: The Journal’s previous survey was conducted at the height of the president’s threats to impose eye-watering tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners. He paused some of the tariffs shortly thereafter.”
“President Donald Trump on Saturday defended embattled Attorney General Pam Bondi, as he tries to quell a revolt among his MAGA base over Jeffrey Epstein,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening.”
“Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants with as little as six hours’ notice to countries other than their own even if officials have not provided any assurances that the new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture,” the Washington Post reports.
“People being sent to countries where officials have not provided any ‘diplomatic assurances’ that immigrants will be safe will be informed 24 hours in advance — and in ‘exigent’ circumstances, just six. Those being flown to places that have offered those assurances could be deported with no advance notice.”
“The volume of Canadians taking road trips into the U.S.—the means by which most Canadians visit—dropped by 33% last month compared to June 2024, following a 38% drop in May,” Forbes reports.
“U.S. trading partners trying to navigate the final weeks of negotiations before President Donald Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs hit are facing a leader who has made clear he’s lost patience with talks,” Bloomberg reports.
“Even as negotiators from Brussels to New Delhi are racing to find a way out of the punishing levies he’s floated, Trump continued to send letters unilaterally setting rates — while still allowing for a little wiggle room.”
CNN: What to know about Trump’s global tariff rollout.
A new Politico-Public First poll “finds President Trump’s disruptive trade policies are threatening to alienate a significant tranche of his own voters, a major red flag for Republicans going into 2026.”
“Just half of Trump voters surveyed believe his tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy would benefit American companies — a core premise of the president’s protectionist trade agenda.”
“President Donald Trump and his allies are using a little-known but powerful corner of higher education — college accreditation — to exert pressure on colleges and universities, an effort that threatens the independence of accreditors and the stability of the institutions they approve,” the Washington Post reports.
“Accrediting agencies, which have existed for more than a century, determine whether colleges meet standards of quality by evaluating every aspect of their finances, operations and student achievement. If a college lacks an accreditor’s seal of approval, its students cannot obtain the federal education loans and grants that are the lifeblood of many schools.”
“Thousands of new deportation agents deployed into American cities. A doubling of detention space to hold tens of thousands of immigrants before they are expelled. Miles of new border wall, along with surveillance towers equipped with artificial intelligence,” the New York Times reports.
“That is the expansive plan that President Trump’s top immigration officials now intend to enact after months of struggling to overcome staffing shortages and logistical hurdles that have stymied his pledge to record the most deportations in American history.”
“After weeks of pressuring members of Congress into supporting his signature domestic policy legislation, Mr. Trump has secured an extraordinary injection of funding for his immigration agenda — $170 billion, the vast majority of which will go to the Department of Homeland Security over four years.”
“Sitting across from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House, President Trump said he hoped there would be no more U.S. bombing of Iran,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Netanyahu later told him in private, however, that if Iran resumed moving toward a nuclear weapon, Israel would carry out further military strikes. Trump responded that he favored a diplomatic settlement with Tehran, but didn’t otherwise object to the Israeli plan.”
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.