“Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is making the case that his primary race against Gov. Janet Mills is all but over, a full two months ahead of their primary election on June 9,” Axios reports.
“Platner’s team told donors and allies that he is pivoting to focus more on the general election and polls show him leading Mills by double digits.”
“To be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct.”
— President Trump, quoted by Bloomberg, on waging a war with Iran.
“The Education Department said Monday it has terminated agreements that previous administrations reached with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding rights and protections for transgender students,” the AP reports.
“The decision means the department will no longer play a role in enforcing those agreements, which called for schools to take steps to comply with federal civil rights law.”
CNN: “Far from shying away from the idea that there is a religious aspect to the US-Israeli war on Iran, US government leaders are leaning into it, invoking God and promising fire and brimstone for Iran’s civil society if its leaders do not buckle to US demands.”
President Trump told reporters he isn’t sure if the Iran War is winding down or ramping up six weeks into the conflict — a fact he readily acknowledged this afternoon, Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “I don’t know. I can’t tell you. It depends what they do.”
Idrees Kahloon: “America is now an energy superpower, largely insulated from the economic pain caused by its actions, which instead are now being borne by Asia and will soon reach Europe.”
“The dynamic is like a psychology experiment played out on a global scale: America can administer shocks to other countries without feeling much pain itself. The man at the control panel is Donald Trump.”
New York Times: “In the latest blow to Iran’s senior leadership, the intelligence chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Major General Seyed Majid Khademi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran overnight on Monday, Israel’s defense minister said.”
President Trump claimed that the Iranian people want the U.S. military to continue to bomb their country.
Said Trump: “We’ve had numerous intercepts. ‘Please keep bombing. Do it.’ And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding.”
Missy Ryan: “By the metrics the president cares about most—accessing oil and avoiding a protracted, politically damaging conflagration—Trump’s Venezuelan adventure is working…”
“Today, Venezuela remains ruled by unelected leaders—different ones, proceeding cautiously for now, but cut from the same authoritarian cloth. Trump-administration officials told me that they are steering Venezuela toward elections by late 2027 and slowly introducing potentially combustible factors, such as the return of the opposition leader María Corina Machado. Whether their bet that a more gradual transition can deliver democracy and avoid the pitfalls that wholesale political change brought in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt remains to be seen.”
Shane Harris: “Trump’s ‘excursion,’ as he calls the biggest U.S. military operation of his second term, has unleashed a parade of horribles…
“A regime that Trump claims to have replaced still remains in the hands of hard-liners, whose repression of the Iranian people will be strengthened for having survived a decapitation strike by the world’s only superpower. And neighboring countries in the Gulf, whose livelihoods depend on exporting energy and creating safe places for people to visit, live, and work, will amass new weapons and reconsider their strategic partnerships with the United States.”
President Trump at a news conference with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine:
TRUMP: How many men did you send altogether, approximately?
CAINE: Uhhhh. I’d love to keep that a secret.
TRUMP: It was hundreds.
NOTUS: “President Donald Trump said Monday that his administration is on the hunt for an administration official who last week shared information with media outlets about a U.S. military airman who was stranded in Iran after his fighter jet went down over enemy airspace.”
“During a press conference at the White House, the president also threatened to jail the reporter who spoke with U.S. officials about the story.”
Said Trump: “We think we’ll be able to find it out, because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security. Give it up or go to jail.’”
CBS News: “Jeffrey Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea deal for charges including soliciting a minor for prostitution has long drawn scrutiny, and newly released details are raising further questions about the months he spent on work release from a Florida jail.”
“The entire country could be taken out in one night. And that night might be tomorrow night.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters about the Iran War.
Playbook: “The world is holding its breath to see what happens in the war tomorrow. It’s a now-familiar tightrope walk after more than a month of war with Iran, as well as a year-plus of the Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine, Gaza, tariffs and more: U.S. threats of escalation against an adversary commingle with nods to diplomacy, a history of postponements and the prospect of an eleventh-hour deal.”
“This moment is particularly perilous, after Trump’s Easter warning that he could unleash ‘Hell’ on Iran. And the war may shortly explode into a new phase…”
“Trump’s profane vow to strike Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure and bridges if Tehran doesn’t fold by tomorrow night — which experts say would likely constitute a war crime — looms large.”
“This is one of our better Easters I think in a lot of different ways. I can say militarily, it has been one of the best.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who was forced to abandon his re-election bid after revelations of his sexual advances on a subordinate who later fatally set herself on fire with gasoline, prodded another staffer for sex and nude photos years earlier, the San Antonio Express News reports.
Said Gonzales in a text message: “I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it.”
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.
