“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to say whether he would follow the courts if they ruled against President Donald Trump’s deployment of active-duty Marines to Los Angeles,” Politico reports.
Said Hegseth: “What I can say is we should not have local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was physically removed on Thursday from a Los Angeles press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Additional video showed Padilla being handcuffed and detained in the hallway outside the room.
“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sold off 23 stocks ahead of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement and the ensuing stock market plunge in early April,” NOTUS reports.
“Hegseth reported selling between $100,000 and $550,000 in stocks on March 24. Those stocks included Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Walmart, Lowe’s and about 20 other companies — almost all of which saw stock prices plummet after Trump’s April 2 announcement.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
President Trump indicated that he doesn’t want aggressive deportations to target the workforce of the hospitality and farming industries.
But border czar Tom Homan told Semafor “worksite enforcement operations are going to massively expand.”
“I don’t feel like a king; I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.”
— President Trump, quoted by The Hill.
A new Yale study find the combined economic policies of the Trump administration results in 80% of households paying more in taxes, while the richest 10% actually pay less.
“The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday told hundreds of thousands of migrants that their permission to live and work in the United States had been revoked and they should leave the country,” CNN reports.
“The termination notice was addressed to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came to the United States through a Biden-era parole program.”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused Thursday to answer a simple question about the Trump administration’s plans for Greenland, implying that the U.S. military has drawn up plans to take the country by force,” the New Republic reports.
Anne Applebaum: “The logic of revolution often traps revolutionaries: They start out thinking that the task will be swift and easy. The people will support them. Their cause is just. But as their project falters, their vision narrows.”
“At each obstacle, after each catastrophe, the turn to violence becomes that much swifter, the harsh decisions that much easier. If not stopped, by Congress or the courts, the Trump revolution will follow that logic too.”
David Frum: “The tariffs would do everything at once. They would protect U.S. industry from foreign competition without raising prices, and generate vast revenues that would finance other tax cuts. Americans could eat their cake, continue to have the cake, and trade the same cake for pie—all at the same time…”
“The advertising rapidly proved false. The U.S. economy is slowing because of the Trump tariffs; China’s is thriving in spite of them. Team Trump falsely promotes vague five-page outlines with alienated former allies as big deals; China is successfully wooing some of its former rivals, such as Vietnam. America’s standing in the world is measurably sinking; China’s is measurably rising. Courts are ruling that Trump’s tariffs are illegal; public opinion mistrusts the tariffs, regarding them as expensive and unproductive. The promise of huge flows of painless money from tariff revenues is evanescing as the fantasy it always was.”
Paul Krugman: “There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls.”
“What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.”
G. Elliot Morris: “If Trump gets away with this, he will absolutely do the same thing during the 2026 and 2028 elections. He will manufacture unrest just like in LA and send federal troops to every major city as a way to intimidate voters and decrease turnout. A functional end to fair elections.”
“President Donald Trump remains open to communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the White House said in its latest comments expressing willingness to resume dialogue with the nuclear-armed North, despite little signal from Kim seeking engagement,” Bloomberg reports.
“President Donald Trump’s long-touted ‘gold card,’ which offers foreigners a path to U.S. citizenship after paying $5 million to the government, is open for business,” USA Today reports.
“But even if you have the money, there’s a waitlist at trumpcard.gov. And read the fine print carefully: Your $5 million doesn’t buy you immediate citizenship.”
The Department of Homeland Security released a poster featuring Uncle Sam urging members of the public to report “foreign invaders.”
Los Angeles Times: “Uncle Sam posters were originally employed as a tool to urge Americans to enlist in the Army during WWI. The posters were revived during WWII to once again recruit soldiers and spread other government messages such as promoting war bonds and warning against foreign espionage.”
“Gen. Dan Caine, who since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April has assiduously avoided the public spotlight, on Wednesday broke with President Donald Trump’s assessment of the threat posed by Russia and the ongoing protests and violence in Los Angeles,” the Washington Post reports.
“Caine’s comments during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing were restrained but significant, coming from the nation’s top military officer who Democrats and moderate Republicans had feared might show little appetite for going against a president prone to pushing falsehoods in pursuit of his political agenda.”
“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named eight people to the influential federal panel that recommends vaccines to Americans on Wednesday, elevating several vaccine critics days after he purged the group’s entire membership,” the Washington Post reports.
Stat: A closer look at the new members of the CDC vaccine advisory panel.
U.S. officials have been told Israel is fully ready to launch an operation into Iran, CBS News reports.
New York Times: “The International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Thursday that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, the first time the United Nations’ watchdog has passed a resolution against the country in 20 years.”
Playbook: “Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom’s warring administrations go head-to-head in court today as the president’s use of troops in Los Angeles meets its first legal test.”
“The California governor wants judges to block what he claims is the illegal deployment of the National Guard in supporting ICE raids across his state. Trump administration lawyers are pushing back hard, dismissing Newsom’s lawsuit as a ‘crass political stunt.’”
“It’s shaping up to be yet another seismic courtroom battle over the power of the executive, one of the central themes of Trump 2.0.”
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.