“The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into real estate transactions involving New York Attorney General Letitia James — the first known criminal probe of a law enforcement official who took action against President Donald Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has issued subpoenas over a mortgage application in which James attested that she intended to make a single-family home in Norfolk her primary residence.”
“House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) is set to meet Friday with President Donald Trump at the White House with the tax portion of the GOP megabill at risk of unraveling,” Politico reports.
“Smith will have to inform Trump that the tax portion of the megabill has been limited by the GOP’s inability to build support for deep spending cuts. That means Republicans will have to leave out some of Trump’s tax priorities.”
“Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft struck a deal with President Trump last month intended to secure the future of New York’s oldest law firm,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Instead the pact is backfiring, adding to an exodus of lawyers that has placed the firm on uncertain footing.”
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“Cardinal Robert Prevost, who became the first American pope on Thursday, frequently used social media to subtly push back on the Trump administration and its policies,” The Hill reports.
“Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, shared columns that disputed Vice President Vance’s interpretation of Christian ‘ordo amoris,’ ranking order of love, in February; linked to an article that lambasted Trump’s ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric’ as dangerous in 2015; and reposted messages against the death penalty, migrant deportations and Congress’s inaction on gun laws after deadly shootings.”
Daily Beast: New Pope Leo XIV bashed Trump and J.D. Vance on Twitter just weeks ago.
“Senate Democrats on Thursday voted down a procedural motion that would allow the upper chamber to take up landmark GOP-led cryptocurrency legislation, delivering a stunning blow to Republicans on one of their first major policy pushes since clinching a trifecta,” Politico reports.
“The upper chamber voted 48-49 not to proceed on the crypto bill, squashing the effort following a chaotic week of negotiations in which the GOP backers of the legislation sought to win over a group of key Democratic holdouts.”
Bloomberg: “Republicans rebuffed Democrats’ demands to include a provision barring Trump and other senior officials from profiting off of crypto ventures while in office.”
“President Donald Trump is strongly considering installing Fox News host and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia,” ABC News reports.
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is roasting Republicans as they joust internally for a deal on the state and local tax deduction cap,” The Hill reports.
Said Jeffries: “If nothing happens — if there is nothing done with respect to the state and local tax deduction cap by the end of the year — you know what happens? It goes away. So anything that Republicans are doing that relates to a cap actually will increase taxes on the American people, not lower taxes.”
“Former President Joe Biden denied he suffered cognitive decline while serving in the White House, saying allegations trickling out since he departed his position were off base,” NBC News reports.
Said Biden: “They are wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that.”
“The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was fired Thursday morning,” Politico reports.
“Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, has told people that he was terminated, leaving the nation’s disaster agency without a top official three weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and as Congress scrutinizes FEMA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2026.”
USA Today: Acting FEMA administrator fired after contradicting Trump on abolishing agency.
“At least 67,000 new or small-time crypto investors… have bet on Trump’s meme coin, pouring $15 million into the volatile venture endorsed by Trump and benefiting his personal wealth,” a Washington Post analysis found.
“But virtually all of them bought near the coin’s peak, just before the inauguration, and 80 percent of them have seen the value of their holdings nosedive.”
“The federal human resources agency at the heart of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to slash the federal workforce is poised to roll out software to speed layoffs across the U.S. government,“ Reuters reports.
“The software could turbo-charge the rapid-fire effort to downsize the government at a time when a number of larger federal agencies are preparing to execute plans for mass layoffs of tens of thousands of workers.”
“Yes, I do, because, look, I was in charge and he won, so I take responsibility.”
— Former President Joe Biden, quoted by Politico, when asked if he takes responsibility for Donald Trump’s return to power.
“The European Union on Thursday announced a plan to ramp up the pressure on the United States, hours before President Trump called the bloc’s top leader ‘fantastic’ and said that America would work with it toward a trade deal,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump’s tone was a marked shift from the one he has often struck toward the European Union, which he has said was formed to ‘screw’ the United States.”
“The change did not seem to be linked to the bloc’s announcement, but the pace of events underscored that Mr. Trump’s trade war is rapidly evolving and highly unpredictable.”
Associated Press: “Francis brought Prevost, 69, to the Vatican in 2023 to serve as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church.”
“As a result, Prevost had a prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals have.”
Derek Thompson: “Trump’s approach to countering China has been so scattershot, so inept, so face-smackingly absurd, that it sometimes seems like covert policy to destroy America’s reputation. Rather than build a global trading and supply-chain alliance to match the scale of China, we’ve threatened to invade Canada and slapped new tariffs on our European and East Asian allies.”
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was born in Chicago, was elected Pope.
He’ll be known as Pope Leo XIV.
He’s the first American Pope in history.
President Donald Trump privately urged Speaker Mike Johnson to raise taxes on wealthy Americans during a phone call Wednesday, Punchbowl News reports.
Trump urged Johnson to raise the top tax rate and restated his interest in having Congress close the carried interest loophole.
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 75% of Americans think that President Trump’s tariffs will increase the prices they pay, and most who do expect they will increase prices a lot rather than a little.
Majorities of Democrats and Republicans think Trump’s tariffs will lead to price increases. Among Republicans, the share who think tariffs will raise prices “a lot” has increased 8 percentage points in the past two weeks, to 22% from 14%.
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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