“New Jersey and national Democrats had almost grudgingly accepted that Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the states’ most prominent Trump loyalist, was untouchable,” Politico reports.
“But with President Donald Trump’s popularity plummeting, sharp swings toward Democrats in special elections around the country and Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s landslide 2025 election — along with an unpopular new artificial intelligence data center in the heart of Van Drew’s district — that may be starting to change.”
“Iran warned they won’t attend crucial peace talks with the U.S. in Pakistan tomorrow if the ceasefire doesn’t expand to Lebanon,” Politico reports.
CBS News: “The U.S. is convening hastily arranged diplomatic talks next week in Washington, D.C., in an effort to craft a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have been pounding Iranian-backed Hezbollah targets with airstrikes and also killing Lebanese civilians.”
“There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”
— President Trump, on Truth Social.
Punchbowl News: “The two-term incumbent senator is at risk of not even making the primary runoff, and he’s fuming at the Senate Republican establishment for not helping him enough.”
“President Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidate has been unable to convert that golden-ticket endorsement into a definitive lead.”
“And a third candidate who said he ignored entreaties to drop out from people close to Trump has emerged as a real threat to win.”
“The uncertainty and chaos within just five weeks to the May 16 primary has caught the White House, Trump allies and the Republican establishment by surprise, throwing a wrench in what was supposed to be a low-drama contest. Republicans aren’t going to lose the Louisiana Senate seat, but it’s definitely not going the way GOP power players thought it would.”
Bloomberg: “Benjamin Netanyahu, by many accounts, helped push Donald Trump and the US into war.”
“Now he may be a major obstacle to the president’s effort to get out of it.”
“Long aligned by politics and personality, Trump and Bibi have different motivations on Iran. Trump appears ready to exit a fight that has damaged him politically and shaken the world economy, while Netanyahu faces sharp criticism at home for stopping too soon.”
CNBC: “Oil prices were higher on Friday amid persistent tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, with the vital shipping lane still largely closed despite a ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran.”
Iran enters peace negotiations with “powerful leverage” due to its control of the Strait of Hormuz, even as its military capabilities have been degraded, Bloomberg reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Tehran has said it intends to charge ships to transit the strait, weaponizing its control over the channel far into the future. It isn’t yet clear if the U.S., its Middle East allies or those in Europe and Asia that depend on energy supplies flowing through the strait will tolerate such interference in what previously was an open waterway, or how they might stop it.”
“In exploiting the economic pinch-point off its coast, Iran is following a trail blazed by the U.S. and China, which for years have used their dominance in key areas of global commerce to pursue their foreign-policy goals.”
Washington Post: “Party infighting and frustrating recriminations around Democrats’ 2024 losses had made 2025 a slog. Donors were avoiding fundraising requests from the committee. DNC officials, including chairman Ken Martin, told party officials that victories that November would boost their beleaguered fundraising, especially from top donors.”
“Democrats won resoundingly, flipping the Virginia governor’s mansion by 15 percentage points and sweeping other key races. But big checks did not flood back.”
“Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D) is facing second-guessing and intense pressure to come up with a new political plan in Maine, where his top recruit to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R) has struggled to gain traction even after launching a flurry of attacks against her upstart rival,” the Washington Post reports.
“Gov. Janet Mills, 78, is just one of several of Schumer’s favored candidates who are struggling to catch fire in Democratic primaries from Iowa to Minnesota to Michigan, raising the prospect that he may need to rally around candidates who have criticized his leadership in blistering terms in the general election.”
Politico: “While there are plenty of partisan disputes that have frustrated Capitol Hill — such as the nearly two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — divisions between House and Senate Republicans have been the more significant obstacle for a laundry list of stalled legislation that could otherwise sail to President Donald Trump’s desk.”
“Trump could intervene to settle many of these disputes, but he has kept his distance in most cases. That has left each chamber pushing ahead with their own proposals — and against their counterparts in the other chamber.”
New York Times: “The enduring strength of consumer spending, which powers two-thirds of America’s economic output, has been the main reason that the United States has evaded a recession through successive drubbings over five years: roaring inflation, a rapid run-up in interest rates and a barrage of tariffs.”
“But the war in the Middle East may prove one blow too many for even those hardy American consumers, who have also seen their balance sheets eroded by slowing wage increases, rising costs and a pullback in government safety net benefits. The personal savings rate is the lowest it has been since 2008, outside pandemic-era swings.”
An expected nomination hearing for Federal Reserve chair candidate Kevin Warsh has been delayed, CNBC reports.
New York Times: “Weeks after Vice President JD Vance privately warned President Trump of the costs of a full-scale U.S. war with Iran, he is now leading the charge to negotiate an end to the biggest foreign policy crisis that the president has faced during his time in office.”
“Mr. Vance, along with Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, are expected to travel to Pakistan on Friday to hold talks with the Iranians, as a cease-fire between the United States and Iran is under strain. It would be the highest-level meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials since 1979.”
“The stakes are enormous for Mr. Trump and for Mr. Vance, whose most high-profile assignments from Mr. Trump have involved domestic politics, most recently as the president’s ‘fraud czar.’”
“I don’t really know if I do consider myself one right now. I would say I’m definitely leaning more calling myself an independent… I haven’t changed yet. But I will probably think pretty deeply about doing that.”
— Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), talking to Politico, on whether she’s still a Republican.
New York Times: “As the Trump administration seeks to fill a national shortage of air traffic controllers, officials are targeting a new talent pool: gamers.”
“The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday is making a recruiting push aimed at avid players of video games, as the agency strives to fill thousands of vacancies that lawmakers have said leave the traveling public less safe. In a new YouTube ad, the agency is using flashy graphics and the promise of six-figure salaries to convince video game enthusiasts to apply their trigger fingers in service of air safety.”
President Trump called Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones — four conservative one-time allies of Trump who have been critical of his approach to the war in Iran — “losers” and “stupid people” in a nearly 500-word Truth Social post on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
He said they sought publicity and would “say anything necessary” to get it.
“Just hours after President Trump announced a sudden pause of strikes against Iran last month, the White House warned staff against improperly leveraging their positions to place well-timed bets in futures markets,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The warning came in a staff-wide email from the White House Management Office on March 23… Earlier that morning, Trump had announced the pause via Truth Social. About 15 minutes before the sudden shift in policy, a mysterious flurry of activity kicked off in the futures markets.”
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.