“I was honestly surprised when Mike Waltz, a friend and colleague who cares about American leadership in the world, sold out to Trump because it was always going to end this way. A combat veteran who honorably served his country, Mike was never going to be unprincipled enough, incompetent enough, or dumb enough (like Pete Hegseth) to survive under Trump.”
— Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), on X.
“The National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously known, due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements and preexisting vacancies,” CNN reports.
“The nation’s forecasting agency is in tatters as what could be a destructive hurricane season nears.”
“Serving as governor used to be a stepping stone to the Senate. These days, not so much,” NOTUS reports.
“Governors are refusing to run for open Senate seats — despite heavy lobbying from the national parties — and sitting senators are opting to run for governor rather than for re-election. The Senate’s current slate of governors-turned-senators say there’s a good reason why.”
Said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): “They see the same thing that we see in terms of a dysfunctional operation in the Senate and the House. We don’t even do appropriations. We do continuing resolutions. We’re not able to build consensus. Those are not good things.”
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The new World Press Freedom Index finds the U.S. has fallen to 57th out of 180 countries when it comes to overall freedom of the press.
Time: “A landmark agreement for Ukraine to hand over half of its future oil, gas and mineral wealth to the U.S. may be thawing a cold war within the Republican Party.”
“For more than a year, Republicans have been at odds over the war-torn country, with Trump-aligned lawmakers skeptical of continued involvement and national security hawks intent on countering Russia’s continued invasion. But several Republicans in Congress told Time Thursday that the deal gives both factions what they need: a path to continued support that could be sold to voters as either a business arrangement or a moral obligation—or both.”
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Trump’s minerals deal remains painful for Kyiv, but it has dashed the Kremlin’s military hopes.
Wall Street Journal: “Getting rid of Mike Waltz makes it simpler for Trump to follow his instincts, but it might not make achieving foreign-policy wins any easier.”
“From the day he returned to the Oval Office in January, Trump has made it clear that he was the one calling the shots on foreign policy and was prepared to solicit advice from a broad circle that went beyond the traditional interagency team to include business executives and MAGA-world personalities.”
“It is possible that Marco Rubio, the secretary of state who will serve temporarily as national security adviser, will take control of the foreign-policy process. But chances are more likely that Trump will continue to solicit advice from outside the traditional national security system, even when his government advisers have doubts.”
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) twice told a Daily Caller reporter to “fuck off” as he asked her a question about detained migrant Kilmar Albrego Garcia.
Axios: “In Trump’s mind, Signalgate was the first time he was unable to control the narrative or win the day.”
“Waltz came to symbolize Trump’s first obstacle. Momentum is so important to the president that he emphasized the concept in his advice last night to University of Alabama graduates.”
Said one White House official: “He just came to look at Waltz like he was bad luck, bad news. There was nothing Mike could do at that point.”
“You have to break the system a little bit and follow your own instincts, but if your vision is right, nothing will hold you down. Nothing. You have to have the right vision. If you look at some of these internet people, I know so many of them, Elon is so terrific, but I know now all of them. You know, they all hated me in my first term, and now they’re kissing my ass.”
— President Trump, giving a speech at the University of Alabama.
“Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is set to travel to the early primary state of South Carolina at the end of this month to headline the state party’s influential Blue Palmetto Dinner,” Politico reports.
“He’s delivering a commencement speech at the historically black Lincoln University on Sunday in Pennsylvania, a key swing state. And he’s going on national shows like ‘The View’ to bolster his profile as he heads into a reelection bid next year.”
“Still, in an interview, Moore insisted he isn’t running for president in 2028.”
Josh Tyrangiel: “Almost 14 years after he accidentally posted the first lewd photo to his Twitter account, and six years after he walked out of a minimum-security prison, having served 18 months for transferring obscene material to a minor, Weiner is running for city council in New York. Is his candidacy a test of America’s capacity to forgive? A provocation for Democrats to stop clutching their pearls while Trump gropes his way to authoritarianism?”
“One consequence of living in an age when nothing seems to matter is a tendency, at least in some people, to overcorrect and insist that everything matters. The return of Anthony Weiner raises Big Societal Questions, and if that’s your thing, have at it.”
“The Trump administration has been examining whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the US as ‘enemy combatants’ as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment,” CNN reports.
“The ‘enemy combatant’ designation could also be applied to suspected narco-terrorists outside the US, the people said, as a way to potentially give the US a justification to conduct lethal strikes against them.”
“U.S. employers added 177,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent,” the New York Times reports.
“Both numbers, which demonstrate that the U.S. labor market remains in good condition, are based on surveys taken in the immediate wake of the Trump administration’s move in early April to institute the highest level of tariffs on imports since the 1930s.”
“Hill Republicans are delivering a flurry of rare rebukes of the Trump administration, in the latest sign that the president doesn’t have complete control over the GOP governing trifecta,” Politico reports.
Related for members: Polls Suggest Trump’s Base Is Starting to Waver
President Donald Trump on Friday said he is “taking away” Harvard’s tax exempt status, ABC News reports.
Said Trump: “It’s what they deserve.”
Bloomberg: “The IRS code prevents presidents from interfering with the federal tax agency’s decisions, raising questions about whether Trump’s Friday announcement stemmed from his own decision-making or a reference to the end of the independent agency’s review.”
“Days after a Canadian election that hinged on who would best stand up to President Donald Trump, he is at the center of an election in another liberal democracy,” NBC News reports.
“Trust in the United States is plummeting in Australia, which votes Saturday amid global financial turmoil sparked by tariffs Trump has imposed on trading partners around the world including Australia, a U.S. ally and vital security partner in countering China.”
“As in Canada, Australia’s opposition conservative party, the Liberal Party, was primed to win before Trump returned to office, thanks to public anger over the cost of living and record-high home prices. But it has since lost support among voters increasingly concerned about how their government will handle Trump.”
“The government under President Donald Trump is bending the arc of U.S. history in a new direction, away from the civil rights focus of the past 60 plus years,” CNN reports.
“The Department of Justice division created by the landmark 1957 Civil Rights Act to defend American’s rights has a new mission: rooting out anti-Christian bias, antisemitism and ‘woke ideology,’ the head of the division, Harmeet Dhillon, recently told conservative commentator Glenn Beck.”
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.
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