NBC News reports on a TV ad campaign by two liberal groups featuring a veteran named Leb from Virginia, speaking to Donald Trump and saying he voted for him to “lower costs and protect jobs.”
Said Leb: “You can cut taxes for billionaires and big corporations, or look out for us — the hard-working people who put you into office. So, my question to you is: Whose side are you on? Mr. President, choose families like mine. Don’t give billionaires even more tax breaks. Fight for us, not them.”
Wall Street Journal: “At both state and federal levels, the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again movement is backing efforts to prevent people from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages. Now, they are gaining momentum with an administration led by a man who enjoys soda so much that he had a red button installed on his desk for a valet to bring him a Diet Coke.”
“Beverage companies are nervous about the push and preparing a counterpush of their own.”
“The top spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department has abruptly quit, just two weeks after he rejoined the federal government,” Politico reports.
Associated Press: “The Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP, obscuring the impact of DOGE cuts.”
“Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because changes in taxes, spending, deficits and regulations by the government can impact the path of overall growth. GDP reports already include extensive details on government spending, offering a level of transparency for economists.”
“A senior career official at the U.S. Agency for International Development was placed on leave Sunday on the same day he disseminated a detailed memo to staff describing the U.S. government’s ‘failure’ to provide lifesaving assistance around the world because of actions by President Donald Trump’s political appointees,” the Washington Post reports.
ProPublica: The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway.
“A former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow,” the Financial Times reports.
Stephen Marche: “The takeover of the Kennedy Center may seem like an afterthought in the furious drama of President Donald Trump’s first month in office. The abandonment of the transatlantic alliance, proposals to annex territory on multiple continents, the evisceration of national institutions, and overt claims to kingship are such eye-popping departures from precedent that the leadership of a somewhat stuffy, self-consciously elite performing-arts venue seems negligible by comparison.”
“But Trump’s peculiar preoccupation with the Kennedy Center is symptomatic of a profound change in the nature of American power since his inauguration: America is undergoing a cultural revolution. ‘This is going to be great television,’ Trump said at the end of Friday’s stormy session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It may as well be the motto of his administration.”
“Crypto prices surged Sunday after President Trump said he would move forward on a U.S. crypto strategic reserve that would include bitcoin and ether, as well as three smaller and riskier tokens,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“It remains unclear how such a reserve would be created—or whether it could bring any benefit to the country.”
President Trump slammed H.R. McMaster after his former national security adviser said he is “being played” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Said Trump: “H.R. McMaster is a weak and totally ineffective loser!”
He added: “We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country – So that we don’t end up like Europe!”
CNN rejected the conspiracy theory that the cable network somehow had advance knowledge of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life last summer.
“Top U.S. officials are piling heat on Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting he may need to relinquish power after his disastrous Oval Office meeting — even as Europe embraces the Ukrainian president more tightly than ever,” CNN reports.
“The contrast highlighted the most damaging split in the Western alliance at least since the Berlin Wall fell and bolstered a sense that the “free world” has been pushed to the brink of fracturing early in President Donald Trump’s new term.”
“Yet the sight of Europe stepping into the impasse left by Trump’s first bid to end the Ukraine war could also represent hope that good could come out of the debacle of Zelensky’s visit. That’s if the continent can, as it promised Sunday, construct a peace plan to hand to the US president.”
For members: An Alternate Theory for What Happened in the Oval Office
“President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are confronting a trio of self-made crises as we enter a very big week for Republicans,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his priority in talks with King Charles on Monday will be protecting his country’s sovereignty after U.S. President Donald Trump recently suggested making Canada the 51st U.S. state,” Reuters reports.
“President Donald Trump is bending Congress to his will, hobbling minority Democrats with an everything-at-once strategy and rallying fractious Republicans behind his politically risky tax cut plan and billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crusade,” Bloomberg reports.
“That’s the backdrop for Trump’s scheduled address to Congress on Tuesday, five weeks into his second term and just over a week before a March 14 US funding deadline that would ordinarily serve as a point of political leverage.”
“Impending tariffs on Canada and Mexico risk driving up US car prices by as much as $12,000, further squeezing consumers and wreaking havoc across the intricate web of automotive supply lines spanning the continent,” Bloomberg reports.
CNBC: Warren Buffett calls Trump’s tariffs a tax on goods, says “the Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay ‘em.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) has moved for the state’s restaurants and groceries to change the name of the “New York strip” steak cut to the “Texas strip” in what he evidently hopes is a blow to liberals, The Guardian reports.
“President Donald Trump’s efforts to drastically cut federal spending and slash the federal workforce are already having an impact in North Carolina – a key swing state that voted for Trump in November but is also among the top recipients of funding from some of the agencies his administration has targeted,” CNN 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.