“National Democratic leaders are encouraging state Democrats in the Texas House to consider walking out of a special legislative session this month to block Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Jeffries called the coming special session an all-hands-on-deck moment that would require extraordinary actions to block Mr. Trump and Texas Republicans.”
For members: Republicans Take a Big Gamble in Texas
Chuck Todd: “Since the Democrats regained the White House in 1976, only four people have won the presidency: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Of those four, three of them — Carter, Clinton, and Obama — were barely even in the top tier of conversation three years before their nomination.”
President Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi should release “whatever she thinks is credible” on Jeffrey Epstein as he faces pressure from his MAGA supporters, ABC News reports.
Wired: “Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the Department of Justice and FBI described as ‘full raw’ surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead.”
“If there is one point of consensus in the deeply fractured Democratic Party, it’s that the old ways of doing business just aren’t cutting it,” the New York Times reports.
“And so, many of the party’s most analytically minded strategists have begun focusing their energies on dissecting the tactical and technical decisions that led to last year’s devastating defeats, and dreaming up proposals to overhaul the machinery of progressive politics.”
“This work is not about the big picture of what the party stands for. It is about the nuts and bolts of how to get candidates elected: which potential voters to target; whose doors to knock on, and whether door-knocking is still effective in a digital age; and when and where to advertise, whether online, on television or by mail.”
“NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned on Wednesday that countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia,” Reuters reports.
“The Trump administration announced that it would impose a 17 percent tariff on most imports of tomatoes from Mexico, as it withdrew from a decades-old trade agreement that had prevented those levies from snapping into place,” the New York Times reports.
“The tariffs will add to the price of a year-round grocery store staple for many Americans, while funneling more business to domestic tomato growers, largely in Florida.”
“A sprawling coalition of law enforcement unions will endorse Eric Adams’ campaign this week — in what is a major win in the early days of his independent re-election bid,” the New York Post reports.
“The newly formed slate dubbed NYC Uniformed Forces Coalition 2025 includes nearly all the city police, corrections and sanitation unions — and will formally back Hizzoner’s re-election run on Thursday on the steps of City Hall.”
“Four veteran Homeland Security agents who helped execute the Trump administration’s arrests of pro-Palestinian foreign academics for deportation testified Tuesday that the orders they received were both highly unusual and described by senior officials as urgent,” Politico reports.
Said agent Darren McCormack, who arrested Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil: “Somebody at a higher level than the people I was speaking to had an interest in him.”
Said agent Brian Cunningham, who arrested Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk: “There were a lot of hands in the fishbowl.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said he supports Ghislaine Maxwell testifying to Congress and demands the Department of Justice release everything they have on Jeffrey Epstein.
Said Johnson: “I’m for transparency. We should put everything out there and let the people decide. Pam Bondi needs to come forward and explain it to the American people. Let’s get this thing resolved.”
The House has ground to a halt after a bloc of conservatives voted against a rule that contained three major crypto bills, Punchbowl News reports.
“Senate Republicans will scale back the White House’s $9.4 billion spending clawback request as they look to shore up their vote count,” Politico reports.
“Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who is leading the rescissions effort in concert with the White House, said Republicans will remove a $400 million cut to the global AIDS program known as PEPFAR, bringing the total amount of cuts in the package down to $9 billion.”
Will Robinson: “The conservative movement has built a sprawling, always-on communications ecosystem. It’s not just Fox News and talk radio anymore — it’s a web of Facebook groups, hyperlocal influencers, YouTube rage-podcasters, TikTok conspiracy loops, Telegram channels, Spanish-language disinformation, and AI-generated propaganda running 24/7. They’ve overtaken not only the mainstream media — but the mental bandwidth of millions.”
“Their strength isn’t just repetition. It’s immersion.”
“They’ve mastered a feedback loop that goes top-down and bottom-up: disinformation is seeded by influencers or bots, echoed by talk radio or fringe outlets, and then laundered through trusted local voices—pastors, sheriffs, coaches, county chairs, Spanish-language radio, even fake hometown newspapers. The result? What starts as a lie on a fringe site becomes gospel truth in your uncle’s WhatsApp group.”
“By contrast, Democrats still treat communication like a campaign accessory. We rely on mainstream press hits and paid ads. We speak at voters, not with them. And we too often equate communication with branding—when it should be organizing.”
“The Defense Department will become the largest shareholder in rare earth miner MP Materials,” CNBC reports.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that a “formal process” to select the successor to Jerome Powell as chair of the Fed has begun, as the White House’s frustration with the central bank’s reluctance to cut interest rates grows, the Financial Times reports.
“He’s fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me.”
— President Trump, quoted by CNN, attempting to rewrite the history of his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
A new CNN poll finds 50% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the amount of information the federal government has released about the Jeffrey Epstein case.
However, almost no one is content with the amount the government has shared: Just 3% of Americans say they are satisfied with it.
A sizable chunk of the public either says it doesn’t matter to them either way (29%) or that they haven’t heard enough about the case to say (17%).
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.