Washington Post: “Historic preservationists begged President Donald Trump in October not to rapidly demolish the White House’s East Wing annex for his ballroom project, urging him to wait for federal review panels and allow the public to weigh in.”
“Now a group charged by Congress with helping to preserve historic buildings is asking a judge to block construction until those reviews occur, arguing that the ongoing project is illegal and unconstitutional.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and his wife Erin Hawley “are launching a new dark money group to shine a spotlight on anti-abortion ballot measures and pro-family policies,” Axios reports.
“After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the Republican establishment quietly moved on from abortion politics. The Hawleys want to revive the issue.”
“As former special counsel Jack Smith is slated to give a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill next week, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding that the Justice Department release Smith’s final report about the classified documents stored at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club after his first term,” NOTUS reports.
Congressional Democrats have released a selection of photos obtained from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that include pictures of President Trump and former President Bill Clinton, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Trump administration wants to persuade four more countries to leave the European Union to ‘Make Europe Great Again’, according to reports of a longer, still-classified version of the U.S. national security strategy released last week,” the Times of London reports.
“There are also suggestions of creating a new elite C5, or Core Five, forum of world powers to sideline the G7, comprising America, China, India, Japan and Russia.”
“The four EU countries seen as targets to follow Brexit are Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland.”
Andrew Egger: “These pessimistic assessments of Republicans’ chances in next year’s midterms are the sort of thing you’d expect to hear from disgruntled GOP operatives outside the MAGA camp. This week, however, they’ve been coming from someone way crazier: Joe Gruters, the Trump-diehard chair of the Republican National Committee, who has been barnstorming conservative radio this week.”
“Gruters isn’t throwing Trump under the bus. Quite the opposite: As Democrats overperform in special election after special election and Republican confidence in the midterms craters, he’s trying to set expectations low—way low. After all, he says, the guys in power nearly always lose the midterms…”
“Still, it’s remarkably abnormal to see the chair of the institutional Republican party—the head of the party’s campaign apparatus!—openly predict doom for his candidates. It risks further depressing GOP voters and encouraging lawmakers to retire early. And, beyond that, it’s far from clear that the Republicans who actually need to get elected next year share Gruters’s assessment of how to fix their electoral predicament.”
“Only a holiday miracle can prevent ObamaCare subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1, setting up a major health care fight next month when lawmakers turn their attention to a 2026 spending bill and another potential shutdown fight,” NewsNation reports.
“The National Rifle Association is burning through its investment portfolio to pay its bills as legal perils increase and revenue from membership dues decline,” NOTUS reports.
“In 2024, the 154-year-old gun rights organization liquidated nearly $40 million worth of stock, fixed-income securities and other holdings. By the end of 2024, the NRA’s investment portfolio had shrunk to less than $33 million, down from more than $72 million the year before.”
“A federal judge on Friday barred U.S. immigration authorities from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego García, acting on fears raised by his lawyers that officials intended to take him into custody just hours after he was ordered released,” the Washington Post reports.
A new AP-NORC poll finds the vast majority of adults say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity and holiday gifts in recent months.
Most U.S. adults, 68%, continue to say the country’s economy is “poor,” which is unchanged from December 2024, before Donald Trump returned to the presidency.
Jonathan Bernstein: “Not only did Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting lose in the Indiana state senate on Thursday, but it got clobbered, with a majority of Republicans voting with all the Democrats against it. That will (presumably) save two House Democratic seats in 2026.”
“It also means that Trump now has a choice: Make good on his threats to go to war against Indiana, a GOP state, risking turning more Republicans actively against him there and perhaps elsewhere…or Don’t go to war against Indiana, revealing that it was a bluff and convincing even more people he’s a paper tiger.”
Aaron Blake: “In the end, the situation in Indiana demonstrated quite the opposite of what Trump intended. Indeed, the state Senate’s rejection of his redistricting push wound up being one of the most significant GOP rebukes of Trump to date, and at a particularly inauspicious time for him.”
“The upshot is that Trump’s hold over his party – his most important political asset – appears weaker than at virtually any other point in his two presidencies.”
Paul Krugman: “To update Samuel Johnson, these days national security is the last refuge of a scoundrel. According to Donald Trump, anything he doesn’t like is a threat to national security. Question his clearly illegal tariffs? You’re a dark and sinister force trying to undermine America. When the New York Times reported on signs that age may be taking a toll on Trump’s stamina, he denounced the reporting as ‘seditious, maybe even treasonous.’”
“But some of America’s allies — and many of us here at home — are becoming increasingly open about saying that the real danger is coming from inside the White House: Trump himself has become the biggest security threat facing the U.S. and, indeed, all the world’s democracies.”
As Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) prepares to take her leave from Congress in early January, she’s thinking about “one last act of defiance: a longshot bid to topple Speaker Mike Johnson,” MS NOW reports.
Greene has been “working behind the scenes to gauge whether there’s support for a motion to vacate the chair,” a gambit that requires nine Republicans to trigger a vote.
Playbook: “The White House is waking up this morning to some brutal headlines and questions about whether President Donald Trump’s power over the GOP is waning after Indiana state lawmakers summarily rejected his redistricting push in the Hoosier State.”
“The president’s political team long set up what turned into the failed, blowout of a 19-31 vote against his proposed map that would have gerrymandered two more safe red seats as a loyalty test. The answer they got is not the one they wanted. The results imperil the party’s chances of holding control of Congress next November.”
New York Times: “In Congress and across the conservative media sphere, cracks within the president’s MAGA movement have appeared on issue after issue, including the Epstein files, military action in Venezuela, health care, tariffs — and redistricting.”
“In Indiana, Mr. Trump unloaded his full arsenal of persuasion tactics on Republicans. When his charm offensive failed, he turned to his familiar methods, unleashing bombastic attacks on lawmakers and threatening to support primary challengers.”
“Several Republican legislators also faced anonymous bomb threats and swatting of their homes. Through it all, they held firm.”
Punchbowl News: “At this point, Trump’s redistricting war is a wash at best. Right now, Republicans may net two or three seats, but even that outcome is uncertain.”
“A couple of key states — Florida and Virginia — won’t draw new maps until next year. And that’s only if state legislators in both states overcome some significant obstacles.”
“The Supreme Court also hasn’t ruled in a major Louisiana Voting Rights Act case, although the full ramifications of that decision may not be felt until 2028.”
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.