“We’re not walking out of there with a deal.”
— A White House official, quoted by Politico, downplaying expectations for today’s summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Election Denier to Run for Michigan Attorney General
“Republican Matt DePerno, a lawyer who’s facing criminal charges linked to an alleged plot to examine voting equipment after the 2020 election, formed a fundraising committee Wednesday to run for attorney general,” the Detroit News reports.
Said DePerno, after creating a fundraising committee: “Getting ready to roll…”
Now We Know Who’s Paying the Tariffs
From the Wall Street Journal editorial board:
“Inflation is a broad-based, persistent increase in the general price level. Tariffs in that sense aren’t inflationary unless the Fed accommodates them with over-easy monetary policy. But tariffs do raise prices on tariffed goods, which can mean a one-time surge with some potential downstream effects. What matters for voters, and for their confidence in the economy, is what they see in their own paychecks and cost of living.”
“Republicans are in the political danger zone if tariffs cause price increases—one-off or persistent—that aren’t offset by bigger wage gains. Republicans will make the same mistake as the Biden Administration if they keep telling voters everything is fabulous but the evidence at the grocery store or Applebee’s tells them something different.”
Texas GOP Senate Primary Is a Dead Heat
A new Emerson College poll of Texas’ Senate GOP primary shows Sen. John Cornyn leading Attorney General Ken Paxton by 1 percentage point, 30% to 29%, breaking a spell of public polling that had found the incumbent trailing by wide margins.
However, much of the Republican electorate is still up for grabs, with 37% saying they were undecided.
Trump’s Revenge Campaign Has a Weakness
Quinta Jurecic: “During the interregnum between his terms, MAGA’s would-be philosophers built out the intellectual architecture for a presidential takeover of the Justice Department. Once Trump was back in office, the new administration set about filling DOJ leadership with loyalists and firing anyone who might object to abuses of power. The president, insistent that he was the victim of persecution by federal law enforcement, now seeks to turn the same apparatus against his enemies. In a representative Truth Social post last month, he shared an AI-generated video of Barack Obama being handcuffed by FBI agents and dragged out of the Oval Office.”
“But Trump’s plan to leverage the DOJ for his campaign of revenge is not generating the results he might have hoped for, and not just because Obama remains a free man. The Justice Department has been slow to move forward with the investigations Trump demanded, hemmed in by the constraints of the legal system. Federal prosecutors targeting protesters and Democratic politicians have been dealt embarrassing defeats. American criminal law appears to be a less flexible tool in the hands of an authoritarian than Trump hoped—at least for now.”
Trump Wants to Set Up Nationwide Traffic Stops
“President Trump said on Thursday that a next step for nationwide immigration enforcement would be identifying undocumented immigrants during traffic stops,” Axios reports.
“The suggestion comes after Trump temporarily took control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and ordered the National Guard and FBI to aid law enforcement despite crime in the city being at a 30-year low.”
Said Trump: “That’s a great step, if they’re doing that. Yeah, I think that’s going to happen all over the country. We want to stop crime.”
Trump Invites Indiana Republicans to White House
The White House is inviting Indiana Republicans to D.C. later this month as President Trump tries to push them to flip a House seat through redistricting, Punchbowl News reports.
D.C.’s Highest Crime Areas Have Yet to See Troops
“President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops has produced Humvees on the National Mall and roving bands of agents in tourist areas as part of his stated effort to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital,” USA Today reports.
“But many residents of the city’s highest-crime neighborhoods say they haven’t yet seen the results of Trump’s surge in the places it is needed the most.”
Bannon Urges Republicans to Go Farther
Steve Bannon called for Republicans to go to “maximalist” political war against Democrats and institutions and expand their Texas redistricting effort to flip nine or 10 seats.
Details Leak on California’s Redistricting Plan
“More details on California Democrats’ proposed overhaul to the state congressional map are coming to light in advance of the official release of the new boundaries,” Politico reports.
“State lawmakers were briefed Wednesday evening on the expected partisan tilt of all 52 congressional districts, providing the clearest view yet of which Republican districts they are targeting. The changes, which are not yet final, were detailed in a chart obtained by Politico and confirmed by multiple legislators and staffers.”
Quote of the Day
“Honestly, if he could bring about the end to this terrible war… if he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor… could really stand up to Putin, something we haven’t seen, but maybe this is the opportunity… If President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Because my goal here is to not allow capitulation to Putin.”
— Hillary Clinton, on the Raging Moderates podcast.
Democrats See a Path Back to Senate Majority
“Democrats are starting to finally see their path back to power in the Senate — if they squint really, really hard,” Politico reports.
“Party leaders have landed top recruits in Ohio and North Carolina, both pickup opportunities. They hope a snowball effect will push their favorite candidate in Maine, another offensive target, into that race in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris won.”
“There are other, rockier potential targets: Perhaps they could finally win Texas, where Republicans are locked in a messy, expensive primary. Or Alaska, where senior Democrats are courting a dynamic former congresswoman. Or maybe, they hope, Iowa could become a purple state again.”
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America Is Stuck in Place
Wall Street Journal: “People are moving to new homes and new cities at around the lowest rate on record. Companies have fewer roles for entry-level workers trying to launch their lives. Workers who do have jobs are hanging on to them. Economists worry the phenomenon is putting some of the country’s trademark dynamism at risk.”
Obama Praises Texas Democrats
“Former President Barack Obama on Thursday joined a virtual meeting with Texas House Democrats who left the state to deny Republicans the ability to pass newly drawn GOP-favorable congressional maps, cheering on their efforts and stressing their work comes at a critical time in the fight against partisan gerrymandering,” ABC News reports.
Said Obama: “We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by and so because of your actions, because of your courage, what you’ve seen is California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering.”
He continued: “I want all of you to be returning feeling invigorated and know that you have helped to lead what is going to be a long struggle. It’s not going to be resolved right away, and it’s going to require, ultimately, the American people understanding the stakes and realizing that we cannot take our freedoms and our democracy for granted. You’ve helped set the tone for that, and I’m grateful for it.”
Pam Bondi Tightens Grip on D.C. Police
“Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday night rescinded Washington policies that restrict the local police from aiding in immigration enforcement as she moved to tighten the Trump administration’s grip on law enforcement in the nation’s capital,” the New York Times reports.
“The two-page order from Ms. Bondi also declared that Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who had already been overseeing the federal takeover of the city’s police department, was now the ‘emergency police commissioner,’ with ‘all the powers and duties’ invested in the city’s police chief, Pamela A. Smith.”
Washington Post: Muriel Bowser and D.C. attorney general reject push by Bondi to name emergency police commissioner.
Why Haven’t Tariffs Boosted Inflation?
“The highest tariffs in almost a century haven’t caused inflation to surge. The phenomenon has puzzled economists, some of whom suspect that companies have so far simply been reluctant to pass along the extra costs to their customers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But another argument for the limited impact is gaining traction: that tariffs being paid by importers are lower than advertised.”
How Putin Will Seek to Sway Trump
“When President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, the Russian leader and former KGB officer will draw on decades of experience seeking to charm and manipulate foreign leaders as he tries to convince the American president he is open to peace,” the Washington Post reports.
“One of Putin’s most important tasks will be to use these skills to drive a wedge between the American president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his supporters in Europe after they presented a united front Wednesday in support of a ceasefire and giving Kyiv a role in negotiations over its territory, Russian analysts said.”
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