“One of the nation’s most popular big-city mayors says he can’t be a Democrat any longer and is instead trying to test Elon Musk’s suggestion that America needs another option to the two major parties,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mike Duggan, this city’s mayor since 2014, ditched his longtime party in December and is running for Michigan governor as an independent.”
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “has positioned himself as the only candidate in the New York City mayor’s race who can forcefully go toe-to-toe with President Trump. But in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday with some of the city’s biggest business leaders, Mr. Cuomo suggested he might adopt a more conciliatory strategy,” the New York Times reports.
“As he made a case for his candidacy, Mr. Cuomo said he was not ‘personally’ looking for a fight with the president and compared their yearslong relationship to a ‘dysfunctional marriage.'”
Said Cuomo: “I think he wants to be accepted by New York City, and I think there’s an opportunity there.”
Wired: “Human judgement remains central to the launch of nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, artificial intelligence will get baked into the world’s most dangerous systems.”
“Top staff for Indiana’s lieutenant governor played a video showing a state lawmaker’s wife seemingly topless, apparently using an AI program to alter the woman’s real performance at a state talent show hosted on April 9,” 24sight News reports.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) remained noncommittal about a mid-decade redistricting push following his meeting with Vice President JD Vance in Indiana on Thursday, Politico reports.
Said Braun: “We covered a wide array of topics. We listened.”
Meanwhile, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) told Politico that “it would be just wrong” to do it.
Associated Press: “The loss of an estimated $2.6 billion in federal funding at Harvard has meant that some of the world’s most prominent researchers are laying off young researchers. They are shelving years or even decades of research, into everything from opioid addiction to cancer.”
“And despite Harvard’s lawsuits against the administration, and settlement talks between the warring parties, researchers are confronting the fact that some of their work may never resume.”
Suffolk County, New York Executive Ed Romaine (R) was clearly excited to announce plans to celebrate America’s 250th birthday next year — but someone might want to tell him what he actually said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel planned to take control of all of Gaza, “bucking the advice of the Israeli military and warnings that expanding operations could endanger the hostages being held there and kill more Palestinian civilians,” the New York Times reports.
“President Trump is expected to sign a memorandum on Thursday requiring colleges to submit admissions data to the federal government to verify compliance with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious policies,” the New York Times reports.
Bloomberg: “The government will also expand the scope of required admissions data reporting and increase data accuracy checks. The Education Department is directed to take remedial action over incomplete or inaccurate data.”
Harry Litman: “It’s difficult to overstate how dangerous this moment is. Using the machinery of criminal justice to pursue manufactured charges against political predecessors is the stuff of strongmen and collapsing democracies…”
“It corrodes trust in democratic transitions, chills dissent, and redefines political opposition as criminal subversion.”
Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) “has been accused by a beauty pageant titleholder of threatening to release intimate videos and private images of her after she ended their romantic relationship,” CBS News reports.
“The FBI is forcing out at least two agents, including a former acting head of the bureau, as the director, Kash Patel, continues a purge at the nation’s premier law enforcement agency,” the New York Times reports.
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Conservative podcaster Candace Owens recounted a conversation she had with President Trump about French president Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte:
TRUMP: She’s old and this is really, really impacting her. I saw her up close and she looks like a woman to me, I had dinner with her at the top of the Eiffel tower.
OWENS: Respectfully Mr. President, it’s not my fault that he married somebody with a penis.
Indiana state Rep. Matt Pierce (D) told CNN that Democrats will “use every procedural maneuver available” to “pushback” on Republican efforts to redistrict his state.
Said Pierce: “We are in a fight for democracy, a fight for our democratic lives. And I think that if the Republicans can have their will in these deep red states, the Democratic states have to step up. We have to have a national fight about this, and we have to preserve democracy.”
He added: “We have to have pushback. The Republicans have to learn that they can’t get away with this, because if they do, it’s all downhill from here. And we will not have a democracy.”
“Anybody who has been around me for the last few years saw this coming… Donald Trump has sucked the life and soul and the direction of the Republican Party out. And also, you know, all the solutions that I seem to want to use in public policy seem to be opposed by Republicans and there’s a — there’s a platform on the Democratic side. And so, for me, this switch has been inevitable and it’s an opportunity.”
— Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, in an interview on CNN, explaining his switch to the Democratic party.
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.