“Israel resumed the war in Gaza with a series of massive airstrikes against what it described as Hamas targets all across the enclave overnight,” Axios reports.
“The strikes come exactly two months after the signing of the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal that the Biden administration brokered with the help of the incoming Trump administration.”
“Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House campus,” the New York Times reports.
“It is the latest installation of the Wi-Fi network across the government since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration as an unpaid adviser.”
“President Trump escalated his willingness to push legal boundaries as he aggressively pursues his policy objectives, declaring on Monday his predecessor’s pardons are void while members of his administration brush aside court orders and the text of federal law on other issues,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Trump’s envelope-pushing second term reached new heights on two of his top priorities: immigration and paying back his opponents. The administration stood its ground after deporting hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members despite a court order issued Saturday evening, with the White House disclaiming that a federal judge could force flights with the deportees to return to the U.S.”
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.
“Chuck Schumer is in damage-control mode. It isn’t going great,” Politico reports.
“The Senate minority leader and his aides in recent days have been talking privately with liberal groups in an apparent effort to ease tensions after sparking a civil war in the Democratic Party over a stopgap funding bill.”
“The minority leader is in a perilous position in the party, drawing furious backlash from Democrats after his vote last week. While maneuvering privately to repair relationships, he postponed scheduled book tour events this week, with a spokesperson citing ‘security concerns.’ The events would have taken him to heavily Democratic cities, including Baltimore and Washington, and activists had made plans to protest them.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams remains a registered Democrat, but on Monday he repeatedly refused to rule out running for reelection as an independent, Politico reports.
“A federal judge lashed out at the Trump administration Monday for not turning around planes as Venezuelan migrants sued over a plan to deport them under the Alien Enemies Act, and refusing to answer questions about the flights,” The Hill reports.
“It was a remarkable hearing in which a Justice Department attorney repeatedly declined to provide details about the flights that landed in El Salvador Saturday evening, saying he was ‘not authorized’ to do so, a rare instance of an attorney rebuffing a judge’s questions.”
New York Times: Judge seems skeptical of Justice Department’s defense of deportation flights.
President Trump announced he was pulling Secret Service details for former President Joe Biden’s adult children, Hunter and Ashley.
“Donald Trump is trying to show the world what he wants it to see: a president wielding unlimited and uncheckable power,” Politico reports.
“Trump’s challenge to the authority of Congress and the courts has increased in velocity and intensity in recent days. It reached a crescendo this weekend, when Trump invoked wartime powers to summarily deport Venezuelan nationals he deems to be terrorists, and his White House amplified a foreign strongman’s mockery of the judge who tried to pause the deportations.”
“That skirmish was only the latest in an increasingly ominous confrontation between Trump’s White House and the other two constitutional branches. In short, the most significant test of America’s system of checks and balances in Trump’s second term has arrived. And the outcome is less certain than ever.”
CNBC: Trump deportation order to face scrutiny at court hearing.
President Trump announced he will release 80,000 pages of unredacted files Tuesday about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, after promising on the campaign trail to declassify the documents, The Hill reports.
Said Trump to reporters: “You got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”
With FiveThirtyEight now shuttered, the New York Times has begun a new effort to track public opinion surveys, starting by collecting all polls on President Trump’s job approval.
“The Trump administration will not entertain a French politician’s request to return the Statue of Liberty to France,” Politico reports.
Said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt: “Absolutely not. My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. They should be grateful.”
The Justice Department made an extraordinary argument to a federal judge today that an oral order he issued during a court hearing Saturday afternoon “is not enforceable,” CNN reports.
The argument — submitted in a 6-page filing to US District Judge James Boasberg shortly before a hearing on the issue is set to get underway later today — argued that “an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction.”
Washington Post: Trump officials test limits of courts’ power to constrain their actions.
“Brown University is advising its international staffers and students to reconsider foreign travel plans after an assistant professor at its medical school was deported this weekend, the latest Trump immigration crackdown action to impact an elite American college,” The Hill reports.
“President Donald Trump said Chinese leader Xi Jinping would visit Washington soon amid brewing trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies,” Bloomberg reports.
“Nearly six weeks into her tenure, Attorney General Pam Bondi finds herself in the unenviable position of being the sole Trump Cabinet member absorbing consistent political heat from critics on both the left — who are decrying cuts to the nation’s top law enforcement agency — and on the right — who remain furious about her failure to deliver on one of their great white whales: The Jeffrey Epstein files,” the Miami Herald reports.
“By all indications, Bondi’s position remains secure with President Donald Trump, who called her ‘fantastic’ on Thursday and gave her a glowing review during a visit to the Justice Department Friday. The longer-term question is how much more patience and grace Trump’s base will grant Bondi, who already bears scars as the central figure in arguably the administration’s earliest blunder.”
“Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) said he would be pushing to impeach the federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to halt deportations of Venezuelan gang members over the weekend,” The Hill reports.
“The Trump administration is considering recognizing Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian territory as part of any future agreement to end Moscow’s war on Kyiv,” Semafor reports.
“Administration officials have also discussed the possibility of having the US urge the United Nations to do the same… Such a request would align the Trump administration with the position of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long seen Crimea as his nation’s territory.”
A French Parliament member is demanding that the U.S. return the Statue of Liberty to France, who gifted it to the Americans in the 1880s, Fox News reports.
Said center-left politician Raphaël Glucksmann: “We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So, it will be just fine here at home.”
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.