“Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gained access to a massive database of health and car insurance claims and are using it to track down people they want to deport,” 404 Media reports.
“The database, which contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills and growing, includes peoples’ names, addresses, telephone and tax identification numbers, license plates, and other sensitive personal information.”
“Lawmakers are just now catching up on the missed sleep from the marathon floor sessions during the last reconciliation fight. But that isn’t stopping Republicans from starting to talk about the next reconciliation battle,” NOTUS reports.
Said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): “I think I pretty well have a commitment.”
“Johnson, a fiscal hawk who withheld his vote on the reconciliation bill until the final days over the legislation’s $3.9 trillion price tag, said he ultimately decided to back President Donald Trump’s landmark legislation because of assurances from top Senate Republicans — as well as the president himself — that the GOP would pursue another reconciliation bill in the next fiscal year that addresses spending cuts.”
Said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA): “We’ve been planning a second reconciliation bill for the fall. It would be attached to the next fiscal year. And then potentially one in the spring. That’s my plan: three reconciliation bills before this Congress is over. I think we can do that.”
“Western Europe officially experienced its hottest June on record, as scientists warned such an “exceptional heatwave” was likely to become more frequent and intense because of climate change exacerbating extremes of heat, dryness, cold and wet around the world,” the Financial Times reports.
President Trump threatened to use federal power to seize control of New York City if “communist” Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor, the New York Post reports.
Said Trump: “If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same. But we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.”
“My point of access to the White House is Donald Trump. And that’s really hard for people to comprehend.”
— Right-wing agitator Laura Loomer, quoted by the New York Times.
“A special team created by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has expressed a desire to gain access to emails and chat logs of the largest U.S. spy agencies with the aim of using artificial intelligence tools to ferret out what the administration deems as efforts to undermine its agenda,” the Washington Post reports.
President Trump said Jerome Powell should “resign immediately” if allegations from an administration official that the Federal Reserve chair misled lawmakers prove true, while deepening his personal attacks against the head of the central bank over interest rate policy, Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “We should get somebody in there that’s going to lower interest rates.”
“President Donald Trump’s allies in the Senate are warning their GOP colleagues that failing to pass the White House’s $9 billion-plus rescissions package would embarrass the president and show Republicans aren’t serious about reducing federal spending,” Punchbowl News reports.
Said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA): “If the Republicans in the United States Senate do not pass the rescissions package after all the rhetoric about reducing spending, then they should hide their head in a bag. And I think the White House will provide the bag.”
Semafor: Rescissions bill becomes next Republican headache.
“Students from around the world who hope to study in the United States are winding down much of their online activity, unfollowing celebrities and politicians, asking friends and family to stop sending news links and scouring their own internet presence for posts that carry even the faintest whiff of hot-button politics,” the Washington Post reports.
“International student visa applicants told The Washington Post that the sanitization is driven by fear that a single ‘like’ or meme, if taken the wrong way, could derail years of hard work, should it run afoul of sweeping new visa-vetting procedures under President Donald Trump. Tech companies have also been marketing account-scrubbing and screening tools to foreign visitors.”
“Elon Musk has left the government, but his clout at DOGE lives on,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Weeks after the billionaire left his role at the Department of Government Efficiency amid his feud with President Trump, a small band of Musk loyalists is fighting to preserve the legacy—and power—of the government-slashing office.”
“The Trump administration’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was overseeing a deal to free several Americans and dozens of political prisoners held in Venezuela in exchange for sending home about 250 Venezuelan migrants the United States had deported to El Salvador,” the New York Times reports.
“But the deal never happened.”
“Part of the reason: President Trump’s envoy to Venezuela was working on his own deal, one with terms that Venezuela deemed more attractive. In exchange for American prisoners, he was offering to allow Chevron to continue its oil operations in Venezuela, a vital source of revenue for its authoritarian government.”
“His expensive tax cuts have been signed into law. His steep global tariffs are taking clearer shape. And his twin campaigns to deregulate government and deport immigrants are well underway,” the New York Times reports.
“With the major components of his agenda now coming into focus, President Trump has already left an indelible mark on the U.S. economy. The triumphs and turbulence that may soon arise will squarely belong to him.”
“Not even six months into his second term, Mr. Trump has forged ahead with the grand and potentially disruptive economic experiment that he first previewed during the 2024 campaign. His actions in recent weeks have staked the future of the nation’s finances — and its centuries-old trading relationships — on a belief that many economists’ most dire warnings are wrong.”
“Two Republicans named Kevin are vying to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. One is rising to the top of the list of potential candidates, while the other is facing skepticism from President Trump’s allies,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Kevin Hassett, one of Trump’s closest economic advisers, is emerging as a serious contender to be the next Fed chair, according to people familiar with the matter. Hassett’s rise threatens the other Kevin—former Fed governor Kevin Warsh—an early favorite for the job who has angled for the position ever since Trump passed him over for it eight years ago. Some people close to the president worry that Warsh, who isn’t in Trump’s inner circle, won’t be a champion of lower rates.”
“The company that owns the social media platform Truth Social and counts President Donald Trump as its largest shareholder said Monday that it had reached a deal with Newsmax, which its founder has described as ‘supportive of the President and his policies,’ to stream Newsmax content globally,” the Washington Post reports.
“The unprecedented deal links a company whose largest shareholder is the sitting president with a conservative media ally, in a deal that could benefit both parties financially.”
“Republicans like Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, and they’d support him as chair of the Federal Reserve. Just maybe not at the same time,” Semafor reports.
“As President Donald Trump criticized current Fed Chair Jerome Powell yet again on Tuesday for not cutting interest rates, Republicans cautioned the president to take his time before announcing who could replace Powell next year — whether that’s Bessent or someone else.”
“Most crucially for the administration, though, two senior GOP senators on key fiscal committees aired worries about one person holding both the Treasury job and the Fed chairmanship. That idea, which the White House dismissed after Bloomberg reported this month that Trump’s advisers had discussed it with him, would break nearly a century of precedent and spark questions about its effect on the central bank’s independence.”
New York Times: Bessent steps up criticism of Fed as auditions for Chair.
Politico: “In passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last week, GOP leaders blew past a host of warnings to potentially add several trillion dollars of additional borrowing — brushing off concerns that they were missing a late opportunity to put the nation on a more sustainable fiscal trajectory in favor of piling on expensive new tax cuts.”
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.