“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened to severely punish those who make unfounded allegations against his cabinet, in a bid to deflect a scandal that may risk hurting his campaign for reelection next year,” Bloomberg reports.
“The government has come under fire over a case involving a juvenile detention center in Budapest, whose former director has been accused of running young women as prostitutes and other related crimes.”
David Frum: “Yes, Trump’s politicization of the Department of Justice is a backward-looking expression of hurt feelings. It’s also another step in a forward-looking plot to shred the rule of law in order to pervert the next election and protect his corruption from accountability. James Comey’s rights and liberties are not the only ones at risk today. So is your own right to participate in free and fair elections in order to render a verdict on Trump’s invasion of those rights and liberties.”
“Trump understands the stakes—and has been astoundingly transparent about his intentions. Will you listen and understand as clearly as he speaks and threatens?”
Miami Herald: “Federal prosecutor Will Rosenzweig took a short break from his healthcare fraud and money-laundering cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami this week to observe the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, with his family.”
“But he noticed something was amiss when his office-issued mobile phone wasn’t working on Tuesday. He called the office to find out what was wrong. Rosenzweig soon learned his phone was shut off because he had been fired by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi…”
“Rosenzweig was fired, according to multiple sources, because of the negative things he said about Trump on a social media blog before he became a federal prosecutor in Miami.”
A good observation from The Downballot:
“Even as a new independent poll finds a tied race for New Jersey’s open governorship, backers of Republican Jack Ciattarelli are still not spending as though they believe he’s in a tight contest against Democrat Mikie Sherrill.”
Earlier for members: Is the New Jersey Governor’s Race Really Close?
“Iran has increased construction at a mysterious underground site in the months since the U.S. and Israel pummeled its main nuclear facilities, suggesting Tehran has not entirely ceased work on its suspected weapons program and may be cautiously rebuilding,” according to a Washington Post review of satellite imagery and independent analysis.
“The ongoing work is at a site known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or Pickaxe Mountain, where since 2020, Iranian engineers have been tunneling deep into the Zagros mountain range — about a mile south of the nuclear complex at Natanz, which was a target of U.S. bombing strikes on June 22.”
The BBC rejected complaints about its coverage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, saying its reporting was “proportionate and appropriate,” Deadline reports.
Oliver Darcy: “Inside the halls of the Pentagon, reporters are wondering: Will this be their last week reporting from the building? Last Friday, the Pete Hegseth–led Department of Defense notified members of the press corps that they will be required to sign a new agreement if they wish to maintain access. The document contains a series of sweeping new restrictions, most notably a clause that would bar reporters from publishing any information without explicit government approval.”
“The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, delivered the new rules to news organizations with a firm deadline: September 30, or next Tuesday. If newsrooms don’t agree to the policy, their access to the building will seemingly be revoked. So far, the pushback has been universal. I’m told that not a single outlet has plans to sign the pledge.”
“Russia has agreed to equip and train a Chinese airborne battalion and share its expertise in airdropping armored vehicles that analysts say could boost Beijing’s capacity to seize Taiwan, according to newly obtained documents that show the two nations’ deepening military cooperation,” the Washington Post reports.
“The agreements allow Beijing to access training and technology in one of the few areas where Russian capabilities still surpass those of the Chinese military: Russia’s more experienced airborne troops.”
ProPublica: “The records show that Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million of federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after she was contacted by a major financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Gulf Coast enclave and was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.”
“Frustrated city officials had been laboring for months, without success, to get disaster assistance. But just two weeks after the donor stepped in, they were celebrating their sudden change of fortune.”
Stephen Colbert investigated President Trump’s claim of “triple sabotage” during his United Nations appearance this week.
Businessweek: “The theme of this year’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York is ‘Better Together.’ It’s a tag line that’s typical of the UN’s painstaking messaging by committee: cautious, vaguely optimistic and so blandly self-evident (it’s really just another way of saying the name of the institution itself) that it couldn’t possibly offend anyone.”
“Anyone, except Donald Trump. In his attention-grabbing address to the body on Tuesday, the US president took direct aim at the value of togetherness, assailing the UN, globalism, free trade, climate change, renewable energy, immigration and the competence of his fellow world leaders.”
Said Trump: “I’m really good at this stuff… Your countries are going to hell.”
“For the first time in nearly a decade of polling, more than half of Americans say the country’s best days are already behind it. Three-quarters think the country’s political system needs major reforms or a complete overhaul,” according to a new CNN poll.
“A consensus opinion has emerged about President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election: Disengaged voters were critical,” CNN reports.
“With partisans deeply dug in, and views of the parties and politics notably and persistently negative, persuasion in political campaigns has begun to focus more on getting irregular voters to participate than on convincing people to change their minds. In 2024, those irregular voters were a central part of Trump’s winning coalition.”
“But neither party has any long-term guarantee of disengaged voter support, participation or attention as the 2026 midterms approach.”
New York Times: “Getting an indictment is relatively easy for prosecutors, who have a lot of sway over grand juries. Winning at trial is much harder, and in the Comey case, many factors could make it challenging for the government to secure a conviction.”
“Line prosecutors in Virginia who had initially reviewed the evidence in the Comey case put in a memo why they thought the effort to convict him was too weak to take to court. The grand jury on Thursday rejected one of the three counts presented to it. And Mr. Trump’s string of invective about Mr. Comey and his repeated references to his own criminal cases provide a lot of evidence for possible defense motions about a vindictive prosecution.”
“Still, Mr. Trump has always understood that even absent a conviction, defendants face a reputational cost in a criminal case, not to mention the financial penalty in the form of legal bills.”
“President Trump on Thursday ordered his administration to investigate what he claimed were rich people and organizations funding left-wing political violence around the country, citing the recent assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk,” the New York Times reports.
“The accusation — that liberal activists and organizations have secretly funded and organized a kind of professional brigade of anarchists around the country to attack law enforcement officers, destroy property and create public havoc — was one that Mr. Trump has made many times before.”
“The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has received new materials from the estate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” Politico reports.
“The delivery of documents comes in response to a recent letter from congressional investigators to the estate, requesting cash ledgers, message logs, calendars and flight logs in the estate’s possession.”
Punchbowl News: “Hakeem Jeffries has absolutely no relationship with Trump. The two have never met. In fact, Democrats say Trump has never even uttered Jeffries’ name.”
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.