Political Wire

Become a member to get many great benefits -- exclusive analysis, trending news, a private podcast, no ads and more!

China’s Chokehold Obscure Mineral Threatens U.S. Military

June 10, 2025 at 8:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“China’s strict controls on the export of heat-resistant magnets made with rare earth minerals have exposed a major vulnerability in the U.S. military supply chain,” the New York Times reports.

“Without these magnets, the United States and its allies in Europe will struggle to refill recently depleted inventories of military hardware.”

“For more than a decade, the United States has failed to develop an alternative to China’s supply of a specific kind of rare earth crucial for the manufacture of magnets for missiles, fighter jets, smart bombs and a lot of other military gear.”

Letter Writing Campaigns Have No Impact on Turnout

June 10, 2025 at 8:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Russell Berman: “In a study set to be released later today, the group behind the letter-writing effort, the nonpartisan Vote Forward, found that personal messages sent to more than 5 million occasional voters deemed at risk of staying home last fall had no effect on turnout.”

“What’s unusual is not Vote Forward’s lackluster findings, but that the group is ready to tell the world about them. Every election, a constellation of progressive organizations sells donors and volunteers on the promise that their data-driven turnout programs will deliver victory at the polls. These mobilization efforts have taken on ever-greater importance in an era of tight elections, where the presidency and majorities in Congress can hinge on just a few thousand votes.”

“Progressive groups are only too happy to brag about their wins; they’re much less likely to divulge details about their campaigns that flopped.”

Quote of the Day

June 10, 2025 at 7:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“He’s decided to throw out all the rules. The thing that that has done, as far as I’m concerned, is make him very boring, because it’s like it’s all on the table. We know exactly what he’s doing. We know exactly what his intentions are. He’s blonde Berlusconi. This is, I mean, he’s just trying to do the same thing all the other strongmen and would be dictators do all over the country. I think the really interesting question is, what the country lets him get away with, and we’re seeing a really interesting test of that right now, all over the country, especially this week.”

— Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC.

Trump Is Acting Like an Authoritarian

June 10, 2025 at 7:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Stephen Collinson: “Donald Trump is talking and acting like an authoritarian as he escalates a constitutional clash with California over his migration crackdown.”

“Much now depends on whether he’s simply talking tough or if he’s ready to take an already-tense nation across a fateful line in his zeal for strongman rule.”

“In a mind-boggling moment, on Monday, the president of the United States — the country seen as the world’s top steward of democracy for 80 years — endorsed the arrest of the Democratic governor of the nation’s most populous state.”

Trump to Keep Starlink at the White House

June 10, 2025 at 7:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump said he “has no plans to discontinue Starlink at the White House but might move his Tesla off-site, following his announcement over the weekend that his relationship with Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of both companies, was over,” CNBC reports.

Said Trump: “I may move the Tesla around a little bit, but I don’t think we’ll be doing that with Starlink. It’s a good service.”

Trump’s Chaos Isn’t a Cover

June 10, 2025 at 7:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

There’s a long-running theory that President Trump deliberately floods the news cycle with outrage after outrage to distract from more dangerous moves happening beneath the surface.

But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the flood of tell-all memoirs and insider accounts from his first term, it’s this: there was no grand strategy — just chaos.

Jonathan Bernstein notes that not a single account describes a disciplined effort to deflect scrutiny. What they do describe, over and over again, is a president ruled by impulse and grievance.

That’s the simplest — and most consistent — explanation for Trump’s behavior: he can’t help himself.

Yes, the effect of his constant provocations is distraction. But it’s not necessarily deliberate.

It’s just what happens when a narcissistic president launches simultaneous attacks on his enemies while pushing a patchwork of radical policies.

Fetterman Rips His Own Party Over L.A. Protests

June 10, 2025 at 6:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his party’s response to protests in Los Angeles against raids by ICE agents.

Said Fetterman: “I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos.”

He added: “My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.”

Border Czar Does Not Intend to Arrest Gavin Newsom

June 10, 2025 at 6:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

White House “border czar” Tom Homan told CBS News “there’s no intention to arrest” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, after President Trump suggested he was open to the idea.

Said Homan: “That whole thing’s been taken out of context. They haven’t crossed a line yet … If you cross that line, I don’t care who they are — the governor, the mayor, whatever — and when you commit a crime against ICE officers, we will seek prosecution.”

Seizing Emergency Powers Is Central to Trump’s Strategy

June 10, 2025 at 6:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The specter of federally controlled troops in American streets has historically signaled a seismic social crisis, from forcing integration in Arkansas to protecting civil rights marchers in Alabama. But President Donald Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles at a time when state and local officials said they had protests there under control,” the Washington Post reports.

“The move reflects an increasingly evident pattern of his presidency: Trump declares an emergency or crisis where many others do not see one, enabling him to take sweeping actions, rally supporters and fight on political terrain he finds favorable.”

Funding Battle Collides with Reconciliation

June 10, 2025 at 5:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Punchbowl News: “All eyes are on Republican senators as they wrestle over the details of a massive GOP reconciliation package, a bill that includes the heart of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.”

“But the reconciliation fight is impacting what’s already going to be a brutal partisan struggle over FY2026 government spending. DOGE funding cuts, tens of thousands of federal employees laid off, a $9 billion-plus rescissions package, the end of USAID — these are all already in play, and it’s only early June.”

Bondi Says Violent Protesters Will Face Federal Charges

June 10, 2025 at 5:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Attorney General Pam Bondi said at least nine people are facing federal charges for their involvement in protests against immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, Politico reports.

Said Bondi: “We are going to prosecute them federally. If California won’t protect their law enforcement, we will protect the LAPD and the sheriff’s office out there.”

U.S.-China Trade Talks to Continue

June 10, 2025 at 5:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Trade talks between the US and China will continue into a second day, as the two sides look to ease tensions over shipments of technology and rare earth elements,” Bloomberg reports.

Trump More Than Doubles Deployments to Los Angeles

June 10, 2025 at 5:05 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Pentagon significantly escalated the federal response to the immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles on Monday, mobilizing a battalion of 700 Marines and doubling the number of California National Guard troops in what officials described as a limited mission to protect federal property and agents, even as President Trump described the situation as “very well under control,” the New York Times reports.

Xi Tightens Leash on Officials’ Lavish Living

June 10, 2025 at 5:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Wall Street Journal: “Beijing reinforced its message with updates to its frugality rules for party and state workers, published in May, adding provisions that included an explicit ban against serving alcohol, gourmet dishes and cigarettes at official meals.”

“Other clauses prohibit floral displays and elaborate backdrops at work meetings, and the purchase of extravagant equipment for events. The new rules, added to a 2013 frugality code, are meant to promote the view that ‘thrift is glorious.’”

Taiwan Indicts President’s Aide for Spying for China

June 10, 2025 at 4:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Prosecutors in Taiwan have indicted two former officials, one of whom worked closely with the president, for leaking national security information to China, as Taipei pushes back against Beijing’s growing efforts to undermine the self-ruled democracy,” Bloomberg reports.

Trump’s Parade Sends a Chilling Message

June 10, 2025 at 1:01 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

What might once have been dismissed as Donald Trump’s vanity project — a military parade planned for this weekend through the streets of Washington — now looks unmistakably like a threat.

The tanks and missiles set to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue aren’t aimed at foreign enemies. They’re aimed at Americans.

The warning signs have been there for years. From the moment Trump stepped into the presidency, critics feared he would one day turn the military inward — using its power not to protect democracy, but to suppress it.

That moment appears to have arrived.

Trump has already deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of California officials.

The parade in D.C. is simply the next step: a calculated effort to make the presence of military force on American soil feel routine.

In his first term, Trump’s authoritarian instincts were often checked by institutional resistance inside the Pentagon and the White House.

But those guardrails are now gone. He’s surrounded himself with loyalists who not only share his impulses — they enable them.

The parade this weekend sends a clear message: The military isn’t just part of Trump’s vision for national power. It’s part of his strategy for keeping it.

Kristi Noem Seeks Military Arrests in Los Angeles

June 10, 2025 at 12:08 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

One day before the Trump administration deployed U.S. Marines to confront protesters in Los Angeles, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to direct the military to detain or arrest “lawbreakers,” a move one expert called “a grave escalation,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

White House Struggles to Find People to Work for Hegseth

June 10, 2025 at 12:06 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a series of missteps that have shaken confidence in his leadership, but it has so far found no suitable takers,“ NBC News reports.