President Trump is calling off his meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries just days before the deadline to keep the government open, Punchbowl News reports.
Trump said in a lengthy Truth Social post that he “decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive” and called Democrats’ demands “unserious and ridiculous.”
Vivek Viswanathan: “As dealmaker in chief, Trump has turned U.S. trade negotiations into a series of deals, haggled with Nvidia and AMD on China exports so America could get in on the deal, and called an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement the ‘ultimate deal.’ He covets the Nobel Peace Prize, ostensibly as a tribute to his dealmaking prowess.”
“Yet Trump has little to show for his methods: no end to the war in Ukraine, no new modus vivendi with Russia or China, no progress on Middle East peace, no breakthroughs on trade, and certainly no Nobel Peace Prize. The recent rupture in relations with India follows breaches with Europe and Canada. Mexico may be next.”
“Why is Trump’s dealmaking backfiring so spectacularly? The answer may lie in his dismissal of an important bit of American dealmaking folklore: namely, that a deal is a deal.”
“Republicans in the Kansas legislature are planning to petition to call themselves into a special session on redistricting, circumventing Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly,” Punchbowl News reports.
“This special session would be the beginning of a lengthy process to try and draw Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids out of her Kansas City-based district. This push, which comes amid White House pressure, is the newest front in the nationwide redistricting wars.”
“Republicans can force the governor to call a special session if a supermajority of lawmakers sign a petition. The Kansas legislature has a GOP supermajority in both chambers.”
Jonathan Chait: “Stephen Miller delivered a eulogy for Charlie Kirk that served as a battle cry for the Trump administration’s state-sponsored war on his perceived foes—a war for which Miller is the primary strategist. The speech was a jarring piece of rhetoric. It is a perfect encapsulation of the ethos of Trumpism, boiling away the president’s idiosyncratic habits of mixing insult comedy and weird digressions into his rhetoric and leaving, in Miller’s tongue, the residue of pure ideology and will to power.”
“Miller’s theme was that President Donald Trump’s side embodies pure good, his opponents pure evil, and the former is destined to utterly destroy the latter. Republicans have never stopped complaining that Hillary Clinton once described a portion of Trump’s base as “a basket of deplorables.” Yet over the weekend the president’s most powerful adviser depicted half the country as worthless, irredeemably wicked, and fated for destruction.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told Fox News that a social media post from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sent her family and friends into a panic.
Said Noem: “It was cryptic and it was really menacing, I would say, Sean. It immediately panicked my family and friends. Within, I would say, a couple of minutes of that being posted I started to get text messages and phone calls. Family, my kids saying, ‘Are you okay, Mom? Are you fine?’”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claims that former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has been held in solitary confinement with no windows for nearly 30 days.
Said Greene: “I’m told he is in his cell 24 hours per day and he is only allowed to get a shower 3 times a week. He does not get any sunlight. He’s only allowed to buy stamps from the commissary and is drinking water from the sink… There are no windows.”
She added: “This is torture.”
Punchbowl News: “Schumer and Jeffries have been demanding this meeting with Trump, and now they’ve got it. Will it be a repeat of Trump’s disastrous December 2018 sitdown with Schumer and then Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Or will 2025 Trump be different? Will the president invite in cameras like the last time? How will Jeffries respond in his first-ever sitdown with Trump? There’s lots to ponder.”
“Johnson and Thune should want to be in this meeting to make sure that their negotiating position is represented. Trump likes nothing more than chasing a deal. Of course, the two sides are far apart. But with Trump in a room with two Democrats, you can’t be too sure of something unpredictable happening.”
“The U.S. and global economies are set to slow less sharply this year than previously expected, but will continue to lose momentum in 2026 as higher tariffs take an increasingly large toll on activity, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In a quarterly report, the Paris-based research body forecast the U.S. economy will grow 1.8% this year and 1.5% next year, having expanded by 2.8% in 2024.”
A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot 47% to 42% with 11% undecided. Among people who say they are definitely or very likely to vote, the margin is 50% to 45%.
And this is stunning: Just 28% of U.S. adults say the country is on the right track, while 60% say it’s on the wrong track.
Gallup: “Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. is at its lowest since President Donald Trump took office in January, with 29% now saying they are satisfied.”
“The Department of Defense has quietly delayed its cleanup of harmful ‘forever chemicals’ at nearly 140 military installations across the country,” the New York Times reports.
“The Pentagon has been one of the most intensive users of these chemicals, which are also known as PFAS and are a key ingredient in firefighting foam. For decades, crews at U.S. military bases would train to battle flames by lighting jet-fuel fires, then putting them out with large amounts of foam, which would leach into the soil and groundwater.”
“Democrats are looking Tuesday to add to a streak of successful showings in special elections and other off-year contests during President Donald Trump’s second term, eyeing a ruby red state Senate district in Georgia where their candidate is looking to pull off a major upset,” the Washington Post reports.
“Republicans are hoping to retain the seat they have been favored to keep and counter some troubling indicators for the party in this year’s elections. The race provides a fresh snapshot of voter attitudes eight months into Trump’s new term in office.”
“Elon Musk has not been shy about putting much of his life on public display. The tech billionaire posts daily on his social network X, has cooperated with two biographies and often speaks on podcasts and at conferences,” the New York Times reports.
“But there is one part of his life that he has not revealed much about — his longtime estrangement from his father, Errol Musk, who has become increasingly outspoken about his family and business ventures tied to the Musk name.”
“A New York Times investigation found that a significant factor in Elon Musk’s rupture with his father stems from accusations against Errol Musk of child sex abuse.”
“UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting told British patients to ignore Donald Trump’s call for pregnant women to avoid Tylenol, known in Britain as paracetamol, in a rare instance of a British minister overtly criticizing the US president,” Bloomberg reports.
“The Secret Service found and seized an illicit network of sophisticated equipment in the New York region that was capable of shutting down the cellular network as foreign leaders prepared to gather nearby for the annual U.N. General Assembly,” the New York Times reports.
“Officials said the anonymous communications network, which included more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers, could interfere with emergency response services and could be used to conduct encrypted communication.”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization promised a “robust” response to Russian incursions into its airspace and said it would use all options, including military, to defend itself, Bloomberg reports.
Wall Street Journal: “In labeling Tylenol use in pregnant women as a potential cause of autism, Trump threw the full weight of his office behind a theory that he acknowledged has yet to be proven. He defied the careful guidance offered by some in the row of scientific advisers who stood behind him during the Roosevelt Room address.”
“The president noted that he was diverging from the medical leaders he chose to guide him, who offered a more calibrated warning on Tylenol use.”
Said Trump: “Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says. But I’m not so careful with what I say.”
“Not since America’s founding 250 years ago has a U.S. president expanded power — and punished critics — in more unprecedented ways than Donald J. Trump,” Axios reports.
“Yes, most presidents stretch the power of the White House and, on rare occasions, blatantly target U.S. critics on U.S. soil. But Trump has veered, often suddenly, proudly and loudly, into unprecedented territory in at least 15 different areas.”
“No president in peacetime has done this much in one year of one term.”
“Trump has done this in eight short months, often with the loyal backing of a compliant Republican-led Congress and validated by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court.”
New York Times: Trump’s remarks at Kirk memorial distill his politics.
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.
