“Hours after former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens released a video saying he would hunt members of the Republican party who he considered not conservative enough, the Republican floor leader of the Missouri state Senate said he had contacted law enforcement,” the Kansas City Star reports.
“The campaign video posted Monday showed Greitens with a shotgun while he talked about hunting for RINOs.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) claimed he broke his term limit promise because people were crying and begging him to run.
Said Johnson: “I didn’t want to do this… but people are literally coming up to me with tears in their eyes, streaming down their cheeks saying, ‘You got to run. You got to help us save this country!'”
“The most talked-about article in the British newspapers last weekend was one that featured juicy allegations of love, ambition and thwarted corruption at the pinnacle of the British government. Then it vanished abruptly from the pages of The Times of London in the early hours of Saturday,” the New York Times reports.
“Two days later, the circumstances of its disappearance remain cloaked in mystery.”
“The article reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, when he was the foreign secretary in 2018, proposed appointing his mistress at the time, Carrie Symonds, as his chief of staff, with a salary of $122,000. Ms. Symonds married Mr. Johnson in 2021, but in 2018, he was still married to his previous wife, Marina.”
The Daily Mail posted a version of the report on its website only to delete it a few hours later.
The Kremlin’s chief spokesman told NBC News that two American fighters who went missing in Ukraine were “soldiers of fortune,” and had been taken into custody.
The spokesman also claimed the two men were not protected by Geneva Conventions as prisoners of war.
Three self-proclaimed “sovereign citizens” — individuals who refuse to accept the legitimacy of the U.S. government — were arrested in California after authorities discovered weapons in their possession, including “an improvised military-grade explosive device,” NBC News reports.
Former President Donald Trump told the New Yorker he would defeat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if they both ran for president in 2024.
Said Trump: “I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him. It’s his prerogative. I think I would win.”
Trump added that DeSantis would not have been elected governor without his support.
“Palaces, yachts and vineyards reportedly provided to Vladimir Putin by friends and oligarchs can now be linked to what appears to be an informal network holding assets worth more than $4.5bn,” The Guardian reports.
“A digital paper trail appears to suggest that an array of holiday homes and other assets reportedly used by the Russian president, which according to available records belong to or have been owned by separate individuals, companies and charities, are linked through a common email domain name, LLCInvest.ru.”
“President Joe Biden said Monday he hopes to decide soon whether to support a temporary pause in the federal gasoline tax and is nearing a decision on student loan relief as he looks to ease the burden of high prices on Americans,” CNN reports.
A decision on the gas tax holiday is expected by the end of the week.
The House Jan. 6 committee plans to show that President Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows “had an intimate role… in this plot to put pressure on state legislators and on elections officials,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The committee “will release new information about Meadows’ appearance at a key election meeting in Georgia and text messages revealing that he wanted to send autographed Make America Great Again hats to people conducting the audit.”
“One of the Phoenix area’s best-known drag queens is calling his former friend — candidate for governor Kari Lake (R) — a hypocrite after Lake weighed in on drag performances, the latest front in the conservative culture war,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Richard Stevens, who has performed for 25 years as Barbra Seville, said he was disappointed and decided to speak out after Lake tweeted Friday that ‘they kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens. They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow.’”
“Stevens shared pictures and texts from Lake in several social media posts and said Lake had attended countless shows and private events over the decades of their friendship. He said he had performed as Marilyn Monroe in front of Lake’s daughter when she was 9 or 10 years old.”
Lake posted a response on Instagram which included calling the media the “enemy of the people” and “the right hand of the devil.”
Jack Goldsmith: “If Mr. Garland decides that a criminal investigation of Mr. Trump is warranted, Justice Department regulations require him to appoint a special counsel if the investigation presents a conflict of interest for the department and if Mr. Garland believes such an appointment would be in the public interest.”
“The department arguably faces a conflict of interest. Mr. Trump is a political adversary of Mr. Garland’s boss, President Biden. Mr. Trump is also Mr. Biden’s likeliest political opponent in the 2024 presidential election. Mr. Garland’s judgments impact the political fate of Mr. Biden and his own possible tenure in office. The appearance of a conflict sharpened when Mr. Biden reportedly told his inner circle that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, and complained about Mr. Garland’s dawdling on the matter.”
“Even if conflicted, Mr. Garland could keep full control over Mr. Trump’s legal fate if he believes that a special counsel would not serve the public interest.”
“Trump being front and center could affect GOP gains in the House by five seats or so…. But it could really affect the Senate, which could end up 50/50 again based on how the seats are looking.”
— GOP strategist Jeff Burton, quoted by the Washington Examiner, on the impact of Donald Trump announcing a 2024 presidential bid before the midterm elections.
“Israel’s governing coalition will vote to dissolve Parliament within the next week, bringing down the government and sending the country to a fifth election in three years,” the New York Times reports.
“The decision throws a political lifeline to Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister who left office last June upon the formation of the current government, and whose party is currently leading in the polls.”
“It follows weeks of paralysis caused by the defection of two right-wing government lawmakers and frequent rebellions by three others, removing the coalition’s majority in Parliament and making it hard to govern.”
Sources close to Prime Minster Naftali Bennett tell Haaretz that he is weighing retiring from politics altogether.
“The Supreme Court seems poised to take on a new elections case being pressed by Republicans that could increase the power of state lawmakers over races for Congress and the presidency, as well as redistricting, and cut state courts out of the equation,” the AP reports.
“The issue has arisen repeatedly in cases from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where Democratic majorities on the states’ highest courts have invoked voting protections in their state constitutions to frustrate the plans of Republican-dominated legislatures.”
“Already, four conservative Supreme Court justices have noted their interest in deciding whether state courts, finding violations of their state constitutions, can order changes to federal elections and the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional districts.”
Washington Post: “The flip-flop and its aftermath show how Trump’s freewheeling endorsement strategy in the midterms has at times scrambled the Republican battle lines, forcing some longtime allies to fight for his voters and leaving some staunch supporters of the former president feeling disillusioned. His uneven record and some surprise picks have stoked debate among voters, strategists and even candidates about his grip over the movement he claims to lead.”
“In the closing days of the race here in Alabama, Brooks has been accusing Trump of ditching his political movement to pick a winner after humiliating defeats in other states.”
Washington Examiner: “Top Republicans are keeping a wary eye on Donald Trump, worried the former president might announce a 2024 bid before Election Day this year, distracting voters from President Joe Biden’s embattled leadership and galvanizing Democratic turnout.”
“With speculation rising that Trump could declare for president before the midterm elections to box out GOP competitors, some Republican strategists and party insiders are anxious. They fret the move would transform a referendum on Biden poised to generate a massive Republican electoral wave on Nov. 8 into a more evenhanded debate between the president, reeling from skyrocketing inflation and myriad crises, and his polarizing predecessor.”
New York Times: “Nearly three months since an ultra-contagious set of new Omicron variants launched a springtime resurgence of cases, people are nonetheless dying from Covid at a rate close to the lowest of the pandemic. The spread of the virus and the number of deaths in its wake, two measures that were once yoked together, have diverged more than ever before, epidemiologists said.”
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.