As Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted former crypto mogul, tries to convince Trump to grant him a pardon, some of the biggest crypto supporters in Congress are warning the president to steer clear of his efforts, Politico reports.
Said Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH): “The guy’s a piece of shit. The guy shouldn’t be pardoned. The guy should go to jail for a long, long time.”
“The family of Rev. Jesse Jackson is withdrawing an eyebrow-raising posthumous announcement of an endorsement of Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton for U.S. Senate, saying on Monday that his primary choices were not finalized before his death last month,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.
“For weeks on Capitol Hill, there had been quiet murmurs about the health of an ailing veteran House Republican, Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL), and whether he would be able to serve out the duration of his term because of what was rumored to be a grave diagnosis,” the New York Times reports.
“On Monday, at a news conference called to discuss the Kennedy Center, President Trump aired the quiet part out loud, claiming credit for having saved Mr. Dunn’s life in an unusual and at times uncomfortable exchange that publicly laid out the congressman’s formerly private prognosis in new detail.”
Said Trump: “Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote. I did it for him first and the vote second. But it was a close second.”
Politico: Trump says Neal Dunn would’ve been “dead by June” absent surgery.
New York Times: “After all, Epic Fury captures the Trump presidency in its essence. Everything Mr. Trump does, at least as he sees it, is epic — the biggest, the most, the first, ‘like we’ve never seen before,’ as he likes to say. And much of what he does seems to be driven by fury, a deep and abiding enmity toward the forces arrayed against him or those he blames for what he considers the downfall of the country under other presidents.”
“Operation Epic Fury, therefore, is a quintessentially Trumpian choice for the name of a war. Not for him an Operation Just Cause (Panama), Operation Restore Hope (Somalia), Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti) or Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). While other military operation names in modern times have evoked broader American values or uplifting sentiments like freedom and hope, Mr. Trump prefers rage.”
“President Donald Trump is increasingly at the mercy of forces he unleashed but can’t control — so he’s taking aim at the umpires,” Politico reports.
“Gas prices surging. Unemployment climbing. War with Iran threatening to engulf his presidency. The fracturing of his political coalition. The collapse of his signature trade-negotiations-by-tariff strategy. Relentless scrutiny of the Epstein files. A public backlash to his agenda that could swamp Republicans in the midterms. Failure after failure to criminalize the conduct of his political adversaries.”
“So it was, in a fit of Sunday night fury that set Washington’s armchair psychoanalysts ablaze, that the president channeled his rage at the few functioning checks on his power: the media, independent regulators and — most pointedly — the federal judiciary.”
“Outspoken Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino is retiring from federal service at the end of this month, after being pulled away from a high-profile role leading immigration raids in major U.S. cities,” CBS News reports.
Officials in Cuba report an island-wide blackout in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen, the AP reports.
“Young voters, a key part of Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, are breaking with the president just a year into his second term,” the Washington Post reports.
“They told us exactly why when we traveled to North Carolina this month for a focus group. Many participants had voted for the president. They said they were exhausted, struggling to get ahead despite working multiple jobs, and confused about why Trump had gone to war with Iran.”
Ron Brownstein: “President Donald Trump’s choice to launch a joint military campaign with Israel against Iran represents the crowning achievement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-long campaign to court the Republican Party’s most conservative elements. But like the attack on Iran itself, that may prove a short-term success with heavy long-term costs.”
“Over Netanyahu’s three decades at the center of Israeli politics, support for Israel has plummeted among rank-and-file Democrats in America, which has liberated a new generation of party leaders to forcefully criticize Israel. Now, the Iran war threatens to widen an incipient generational divide within the GOP.”
New York Magazine catalogs all of the Donald Trump insults made at the Academy Awards last night.
“Trump usually has a lot to say about the Oscars, and he’s a frequent target of Academy Awards hosts. Considering that history and the events of the past few months, it seemed likely that we’d see some political fireworks during last night’s ceremony. But surprisingly, there was no real-time presidential brawling at the 2026 Oscars.”
Semafor: “The calls come in late at night, when the president can’t sleep. They come in when he’s watching TV in the evenings, and right after a game of golf, when he’s in a good mood. They come in early in the morning, as soon as he starts posting to Truth Social — but sometimes he’s a little snappy at that hour.”
“President Donald Trump’s iPhone won’t stop ringing because his Palm Beach number has become the ultimate status symbol in a town obsessed with proximity to power and influence.”
“This has produced a curious new form of journalism. In the two weeks since the US and Israel began military operations in Iran, Trump has done more than 30 cell phone interviews. He has become the presidential version of a drive-time radio host, picking up without screening his callers and conducting brief conversations with the public — in this case, journalists from outlets from The New York Times to Washington Reporter.”
President Trump announced on Truth Social that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.
He added that Wiles “will be spending virtually full time at the White House, which makes me, as President, very happy!”
Congressional leaders are in talks with the White House about a supplemental funding bill for the Iran war that could cost $100 billion or more, Punchbowl News reports.
New York Times: “Many people won’t see a significant change in how much tax they owe. The overall economic effect was expected to be minor. And even for people who were set to benefit from the new tax cuts, a larger refund this spring might not be enough to shape how they vote in the fall.”
“Now, a surge in oil prices, brought on by the war against Iran that President Trump chose to launch, is threatening to raise costs across the economy and cut into the already modest stimulus the tax cuts were poised to deliver in the coming weeks.”
“Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises,” New Scientist reports.
“The AIs were given an escalation ladder, allowing them to choose actions ranging from diplomatic protests and complete surrender to full strategic nuclear war. The AI models played 21 games, taking 329 turns in total, and produced around 780,000 words describing the reasoning behind their decisions.”
“In 95 percent of the simulated games, at least one tactical nuclear weapon was deployed by the AI models.”
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.
