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“President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he is nominating Jay Clayton to become the next permanent director of national intelligence,” CNBC reports.
“Clayton is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and is the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Aaron Blake: “He painted Iran as desperate to cut a deal, which always seemed to be right around the corner. And he repeatedly gave Tehran the benefit of the doubt, relaxed his own deadlines, walked back his threats and downplayed Iran’s provocations and apparent ceasefire violations.”
“The problem with that approach was it made it pretty clear that Trump lacked the will to go back to war — that he preferred to just be done with it all, even as Iran played on his reluctance.”
“And it increasingly appears as though Trump hoping against hope just delayed an inevitable return to the kind of hostilities that have resumed this week.”
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that President Trump and many of his allies should be considered “traitors to the American people” for fighting against the release of the Epstein Files, The Wrap reports.
Said Greene: “I’m not surprised by this news… because I also had a very uncomfortable phone call with the president before the release of the Epstein Files, where he told me his friends would get hurt if the Files were released, and I’ll never forget that.”
“The Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, moving a significant step closer to solidifying President Donald Trump’s rebrand of the Defense Department as permanent,” Politico reports.
Helen Lewis: “How much grace should we extend to people who screw up—like, really screw up? After many years as an addict and a general failson, Hunter Biden’s history includes felony gun convictions, tax evasion, smoking crack, and smoking Parmesan cheese that he thought was crack. But in the past few weeks, the son of the former president has launched a new career as—a sober counselor? A life coach?”
“Since reviving his dormant X account on May 19, the younger Biden has fully embraced a persona he soft-launched last year, when the Gen Z influencer Andrew Callaghan interviewed him about his past drug addiction. His strategy is not to deny his past transgressions, but to flagellate himself so thoroughly for them that no one else can land a hit.”
NBC News: “Jacob Reses, the chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance, will leave the administration at the end of the summer.”
Risking little of their own money, President Trump and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they’ve wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.
Sarah Fitzpatrick: “Behind the scenes, Justice Department and other Trump-administration officials have quietly assured allies that plans for some form of payout remain on track.”
“I spoke with eight people familiar with the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund—including current and former Justice Department officials, current and former members of Congress, a defense attorney, and political operatives close to the administration. All said that Justice Department officials and people close to the White House have indicated that the payout idea has not actually been scrapped.”
“Rather, they say, officials are exploring whether elements of the fund can be reactivated while also examining alternative arrangements to make sure loyalists get compensated.”
Michael Scherer: “The Trump administration broke an agreement to fund the bipartisan semiquincentennial celebrations, saying they will not ‘light taxpayer money on fire.'”
New York Times: “Speaking to a conservative radio host on Monday, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles made an unusually pointed prediction that cast doubt on the results of California’s primary races, even as votes were still being counted.”
Said prosecutor Bill Essayli: “We will be charging some people. It will be election fraud charges in the next — I hate to put timelines on things — one or two months I believe. We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations.”
“The declaration, issued by an outspoken loyalist to President Trump, was a vivid example of the Justice Department’s approach to voting under the Trump administration. The agency is seeking to assert more control over elections and challenge how states conduct them, a shift that could have significant consequences in the midterm elections this year, when control of Congress hangs in the balance.”
Sen. Eric Schmidtt (R-MO) made quite a catch in the congressional baseball game last night.
New York Times: “Buried in the fine print of Obamacare regulations, the Trump administration is floating a novel idea for those who can’t afford to shell out tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs.”
“Why not borrow the money from your health insurance company?”
“In the dense 1,121-page final rule issued last month about how the Affordable Care Act market will operate next year, the administration suggested that insurers consider offering loans to cash-strapped customers.”
New York Times: “In the U.S. military, commanders do not typically speak publicly about future operations to avoid tipping off an adversary or jeopardizing the mission’s success and, possibly, American lives.”
“But that has not dissuaded America’s commander in chief from proclaiming when and how the United States will next attack Iran.”
“Vice President JD Vance will make his first appearance on The View next week,” Deadline reports.
“His guest spot comes as the show is the subject of an FCC investigation, led by President Donald Trump’s appointed chairman Brendan Carr, over the agency’s equal time rule.”
Missy Ryan: “Allies no longer believe Trumpism was an aberration and are unlikely just to pick up where Biden left off. Beijing and Moscow are asserting themselves in the belief that America is on the decline. Democrats broadly agree that Trump’s foreign policy—the disregard for allies, the solicitude toward autocracies, the muddiness of the Iran war—has been atrocious.”
“But there are wide differences in opinion over what positions the party should adopt heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election—and the divisions don’t play out in the ways one might expect. Some of the new Democratic proposals carry more than a whiff of Trumpism. Others call for a complete reset, especially on aid to Israel. Underlying everything is the widespread recognition that the establishment order, personified by Biden and his predecessors, left many Americans behind.”
Politico: “A group of senior House Republicans gathered at the Pentagon on Thursday morning to discuss the military funding portion of another party-line reconciliation bill with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.”
“It’s a sign conversations around ‘Reconciliation 3.0’ are heating up after President Donald Trump signed the GOP-only immigration enforcement funding measure earlier this week.”
New York Times: “The House on Thursday rejected a three-week extension of one of the government’s most powerful surveillance authorities for collecting information on foreign threats overseas, further raising the prospect that the law will expire on Saturday.”
“In a 218-to-198 vote, Democrats and Republicans both opposed even temporarily renewing a statute that underpins the government’s cornerstone electronic spying program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It left the law, now set to expire after midnight on Friday, facing its gravest threat in years, with the Senate also at an impasse over extending it.”
“They’re dying to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly. We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night. They’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet.”
— President Trump, on Fox & Friends.
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.
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