“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%.
Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate last year, claimed that someone else is controlling his decisions as health secretary.
She was reacting to news that President Trump had nominated Dr. Casey Means, a “wellness influencer,” as surgeon general and that her brother, Calley Means, was working for Kennedy.
Said Shanahan: “It’s very strange. Doesn’t make any sense. I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be).”
She added: “I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump).”
President Trump took questions in the Oval Office:
REPORTER: The ports here in the U.S., the traffic has really slowed and now thousands of dock workers and truck drivers are worried about their jobs.
TRUMP: That means we lose less money… when you say it slowed down, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
“White smoke puffed from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, signaling that the 133 cardinals sequestered inside for two days have elected a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics,” the New York Times reports.
“The identity of the new pontiff is not yet known but is expected to be announced shortly. A large crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City prepared for the new pope to emerge on a balcony overlooking the square.”
Annie Lowrey: “A tariff-induced recession is here and not here, visible and invisible—about to happen or already happening. The economy is in a state of imminence. And we should be preparing, even if we are not sure what we are preparing for.”
“President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will replace interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin, his embattled nominee to serve as the top prosecutor for D.C., after 15 tumultuous weeks in office marked by his threats to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and firings and demotions of career prosecutors who investigated the president and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “I just want to say Ed is unbelievable. And hopefully we can bring him in too, whether it’s DOJ or whatever, in some capacity. We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s going to be great.”
“House Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans are discussing raising the state and local tax deduction cap to $30,000 — among other options — as the party seeks to resolve disagreements on the details of President Donald Trump’s tax package,” Bloomberg reports.
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.