“President Donald Trump is ready to press House Republicans to vote for fixing the District of Columbia’s budget, after GOP leaders unexpectedly slashed the capital city’s spending powers,” Politico reports.
“If needed, he’s prepared to work the phones — or fire off a social media post — to get Speaker Mike Johnson to put the bill on the floor.”
“The Trump administration is crafting plans to reorganize the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had been dismantled by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency,“ the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The agency would be renamed the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance and fall under the control of the State Department to help enhance national security and counter adversaries like China… USAID had long operated as an independent agency with its own administrator.”
“The leader of a war-torn African nation has put a deal on the table for President Trump: Help his country defeat a powerful rebel force in exchange for access to a trove of minerals needed by U.S. high-tech firms,”the Wall Street Journal reports.
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’s angry call on Tuesday for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against his administration on deportation flights has set off a string of near-instant social media taunts and threats, including images of judges being marched off in handcuffs,” the New York Times reports.
“Canada is in advanced talks with the European Union to join the bloc’s new project to expand its military industry, a move that would allow Canada to be part of building European fighter jets and other military equipment at its own industrial facilities,” the New York Times reports.
“The budding defense cooperation between Canada and the European Union, which is racing to shore up its industry to lower reliance on the United States, would boost Canada’s military manufacturers and offer the country a new market at a time when its relationship with the United States has become frayed.”
“The chair of the Federal Reserve told the American public that much of the U.S. economy remains on solid footing, but uncertainty – and a lot of it – has clouded the central bank’s ability to forecast,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Chair Jay Powell hammered the word ‘uncertainty’ into the skulls of the Fed press corps this afternoon. At one point, Powell said the current moment’s economic uncertainty was ‘remarkably high.’ That has everything to do with the Trump administration’s first few weeks back in Washington.”
“Elon Musk has made the maximum allowable donation to Republican members of Congress who support impeaching federal judges who are impeding actions taken by President Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Musk has given the maximum hard-dollar donations he could to the campaigns of seven Republicans who have either endorsed judicial impeachments or called for some form of ‘action’ in response to recent rulings against the Trump administration.”
Washington Post: Elon Musk seeks to rally support for impeachment of judge who ruled against Trump.
“Articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites as the department has scrambled to comply with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order to scrub ‘diversity’ content from all its platforms,” CNN reports.
NBC News: Jackie Robinson’s Army career wiped from military website in DEI purge.
“The Agriculture Department has halted millions of dollars worth of deliveries to food banks without explanation,” Politico reports.
“USDA had previously allocated $500 million in deliveries to food banks for fiscal year 2025 through The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Now, the food bank leaders say many of those orders have been canceled.”
“The Trump administration is evaluating plans for the Pentagon to take control of a buffer zone along a sprawling stretch of the southern border and empower active-duty U.S. troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross into the United States illegally,” the Washington Post reports.
“Those discussions have been underway for weeks, and they center, in part, on a section of border in New Mexico.”
“In effect, the move would turn the buffer zone into an expansive satellite military installation, potentially allowing a greater portion of the Defense Department’s mammoth budget to pay for President Donald Trump’s border crackdown while creating new legal jeopardy for those caught trying to slip into the country from Mexico.”
“During the first Trump administration, when Stephen Miller’s immigration policy proposals hit obstacles in federal court, rumors would circulate about his plans to dust off arcane presidential powers. Government lawyers were wary of overreach; officials in the West Wing and at the Department of Homeland Security would sometimes snicker,” The Atlantic reports.
“No one is laughing now. Miller, Donald Trump’s Homeland Security adviser and deputy chief of staff, has returned to the White House stronger and more determined than ever to silence the derision and plow through legal constraints.”
“President Donald Trump’s firing of two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission sets up a showdown over a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision that Republicans long have wanted to undo,” Bloomberg reports.
“The dismissals of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya yesterday also will give the Trump White House greater influence over pending cases involving Meta, Amazon and Elon Musk’s X.”
“Slaughter and Bedoya contend their terminations were illegal and plan to sue. That will give the administration a vehicle to challenge a 1935 Supreme Court decision in a case known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and provide another opportunity for Trump to test the limits of presidential power.”
“A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against its Dakota Access Pipeline,” the New York Times reports.
“The verdict was a major blow to the storied environmental organization. Greenpeace had maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It had portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil-industry critics, but a jury apparently disagreed.”
Ruth Marcus: “We are witnessing a constitutional system on the brink. The crisis started on Saturday, when James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued an order that could hardly have been clearer: he told the Trump Administration to halt the imminent deportation of immigrants alleged to be Venezuelan gang members.”
“Federal judges are accustomed to being obeyed, but there is a new Administration in town, and it is dangerously and deliberately testing the limits of judicial power.”
“President Trump proposed a takeover of Ukrainian power plants as a form of protection, suggesting the U.S. could deter Russian attacks, amid a push for a partial ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow covering energy facilities and infrastructure,” The Hill reports.
“Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu had emerged as Turkey’s strongest political challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Bloomberg reports.
“But that threat may have dissipated after Imamoglu was detained by Turkish authorities on March 19 on charges of alleged corruption and aiding a terrorist organization.”
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Wednesday offered his colleagues a glimpse into his private Sunday discussion with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY),” Axios reports.
“Jeffries said on a virtual caucus call that he stressed to his Senate counterpart the need for improved coordination moving forward.”
“A group backed by billionaire Elon Musk is behind a set of deceptive attack ads and text messages targeting voters just weeks ahead of the election for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, employing a battleground state strategy it used last year against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris,” the AP 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.
“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.