Political Wire Members get the complete experience: exclusive analysis, a 24/7 trending news, no advertising, the weekly news quiz and more.
Join today for instant access.
“Donald Trump’s redacted tax returns will be made public on Friday,” Reuters reports.
“The Democratic-controlled committee obtained the returns last month as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes, after a lengthy court battle that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the committee’s favor.”
“Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an arch loyalist of Vladimir Putin given a new job this week, predicted war between Germany and France next year and a civil war in the United States that would lead to Elon Musk becoming president,” Reuters reports.
“Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s advisory security council, served as president during a four-year spell when Putin held the office of prime minister. He appears to have seen his fortune rise in the Kremlin, which said on Monday he would now serve as Putin’s deputy on a body overseeing the military industry.”
Elon Musk responds: “Epic thread!”
Longleaf Politics: “As Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) continues to lay the groundwork for a 2024 run for governor, his campaign is signaling that it will take an unprecedented amount of money to win.”
“In a fundraising email, the Robinson campaign said it expects $100 million to be spent on the race — which would be a North Carolina record by a long shot. ‘I’ve been told that the Governor’s race will be the most expensive we have ever seen,’ the email states, asking recipients to chip in.”
“Perhaps it’s simply fundraising hyperbole, but a $100 million governor race is definitely not out of the question. Governor races have steadily grown more expensive over the last few cycles, primarily driven by Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) fundraising prowess.”
You already know the problem with following the news today: the same story can look very different depending on where you read it — and some stories barely reach you at all because algorithms decide what you see.
That’s why I use and recommend Ground News.
It lets you compare coverage of the same story across the political spectrum, making it easy to see how the framing changes, what gets emphasized and what certain audiences may be missing.
I check it almost every day.
As newsrooms shrink and the media becomes more fragmented, the burden falls on us to make sure we’re seeing the whole picture. Ground News is one of the best tools I’ve found for doing that.</>
Right now, Political Wire readers can get 40% off Ground News Vantage when you sign up through my link.
Politico: “The U.S. has pledged to deploy so much firepower to the Indo-Pacific in 2023 that China won’t even consider invading Taiwan. Lawmakers and allies say it’s already too late.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s (R) staff gave her a flamethrower for Christmas.
“Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday dismissed his fourth minister in two months to patch a scandal-tainted Cabinet that has raised questions over his judgment of staff credentials,” the AP reports.
“Kenya Akiba, minister in charge of reconstruction of Fukushima and other disaster-hit areas, has faced allegations of mishandling political and election funds and of ties to the Unification Church, whose practices and huge donations have raised controversy.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition said Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) “deceived” the organization and “misrepresented” his Jewish heritage, adding the incoming lawmaker is no longer welcome at its events, The Hill reports.
Aaron Blake: The scale of George Santos’s deceit — and the remaining questions.
New York Times: “In recent weeks, after Mr. Biden helped impose a contract on railroad workers that four unions had rejected, partly over its lack of paid sick days, many labor activists and scholars have begun to ask: How supportive is the president, really?”
“To those reassessing Mr. Biden, the concern is that the president, by asking Congress to intervene and avert a strike, missed a rare opportunity to improve workers’ bargaining power in ways that could extend beyond the rail sector. They worry that the move essentially validated an employer strategy of waiting out workers in hopes that the pressure would fizzle.”
Politico: “With Republicans set to take control of the House in January, progressive plans to build on Obamacare at the federal level are going nowhere, leaving it to state lawmakers to inch toward Democrats’ goal of universal health coverage. The rocky implementation of the public option plans in these three western states illustrates the challenges the left faces in doing so as blue state ambitions run up against a powerful health care industry accustomed to getting its way.”
“Several U.S. Jewish leaders during a meeting with Israeli officials earlier this month warned that racist and extremist moves by the new Israeli government could seriously hamper support for Israel among Jews in the U.S.,” Axios reports.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin banned the supply of Russian oil and oil products to countries that impose a price cap, allowing deliveries to those nations only on the basis of a special permission for the Kremlin leader,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The European Union and the U.K. earlier this month banned the import of seaborne Russian crude, while the Group of Seven nations put a ceiling on other sales by barring Western companies from insuring, financing or shipping Russian crude at above $60 a barrel.”
“Wanted – a 51-to-65-year-old governor with business experience and willing to compromise to get things done. Military experience a bonus.”
— Pollster David Paleologos, quoted by USA Today, on what Americans tell pollsters would be the ideal presidential biography.
Associated Press: “When he ran for the White House, Joe Biden told voters his presidency would be a bridge to the next generation. His first two years on the job have revealed it to be a much more ambitious venture.”
“As he nears the halfway mark on his first term, Biden is pointing to legacy-defining achievements on climate change, domestic manufacturing and progress on the COVID-19 pandemic — all accomplished with razor-thin majorities on Capitol Hill and rather dim views from the public.”
“Pennsylvania’s top elections official fully certified results from the November vote late last week after recount petitions in some counties had delayed the process,” the AP reports.
“More than two years after his arrest, Adam Fox was sentenced to 16 years in prison for plotting the kidnap of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in what the government has described as one of the biggest domestic terrorism cases in recent American history,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
“The government had sought a life sentence for Fox, arguing he was part of a violent extremism movement that sought not only to kidnap the governor, but to spark a civil uprising.”
“But the judge gave Fox the mercy he was looking for as his lawyer, Christopher Gibbons, had long argued against a life sentence, maintaining: Fox was a follower, not a leader, and looked up to FBI informants and undercover agents who had accompanied Fox and others during training sessions and reconnaissance of the governor’s vacation home near Traverse City.”
Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY), “who reportedly lied about his Jewish heritage and has admitted he fabricated key details of his resume, said in an interview Monday evening that he never claimed to be Jewish,” the Forward reports.
Said Santos “I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”
“However, in a position paper shared with Jewish and pro-Israel leaders during the campaign and obtained by the Forward, Santos called himself ‘a proud American Jew.'”
Politico: “National case counts have plunged from an average of more than 450 a day to just five. The persistent vaccine shortages that drove fears of another entrenched epidemic have largely abated.”
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro won’t attend Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration as the country’s next president, and will instead spend New Year’s at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump.
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.