“President Donald Trump warned today that he’s prepared to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada that will go into effect on Feb. 1, which is Saturday. The move threatens to set off a trade war with two of the United States’ most critical trade partners,” Punchbowl News reports.
Said Trump: “Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade. They’ve treated us very unfairly on trade.”
“President Donald Trump has had so much to say since his return to the Capitol that White House stenographers, the individuals tasked with transcription his words, are now having a hard time keeping up,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Trump’s words, or rather their ferocious volume, also draw in stark comparison with former President Joe Biden, who is a man of very few words. Biden, for example, spent 2 hours and 36 minutes talking on camera and used 24,259 words during his first week in 2021, AP reported. By comparison, Trump has shared nearly 7 hours and 44 minutes of camera time. For those of you doing the math, that’s about 81,235 words just last week.”
“Fear, anger and confusion have swept across federal agencies as workers grapple with a deluge of orders from President Donald Trump that they see as an effort to ‘scare’ them out of their jobs,” NBC News reports.
“In conversations with more than a dozen federal employees across multiple agencies, civil servants said the Trump administration’s rapid changes have turned their day-to-day operations into ‘chaos,’ with their immediate higher-ups unable to answer questions about their employment and duties. A number of these workers also expressed surprise at what they saw as an underwhelming response from Congress and their union.”
“President Trump ordered a review of all federal aviation hiring and safety decisions in response to Wednesday night’s deadly air collision near Washington,” Axios reports.
“The order shows Trump is doubling down on his claim, without evidence, that DEI policies were a factor in the crash.”
“His memo explicitly mentions “diversity equity and inclusion,” and reflects how anti-DEI efforts are a centerpiece of his second administration’s policy.”
Emily Hernandez, a Missouri woman pardoned by President Trump over her ties to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, was sentenced in connection with a drunken-driving crash, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports.
Hernandez was sentenced to 10 years in prison in connection with a deadly crash in January 2022.
“When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s failed congressional campaign amended its filings last week — revealing that she appears to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in excessive donations that she never paid back — the campaign also revealed that it broke another fundamental rule of political fundraising: don’t take money from businesses straight to the bank, NOTUS reports.
“Before spending donations from businesses, campaigns are supposed to do due diligence to make sure the contribution is allowable. But according to years of reprimanding letters from the Federal Election Commission, Leavitt’s campaign frequently failed to follow these basic legal guidelines. And now, as Leavitt takes the briefing room podium, her unsuccessful campaign from 2022 still owes businesses tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid to lead the Department of Health and Human Services could come down to one senator,” Politico reports.
“That senator, Bill Cassidy (R-LA), said he was deeply torn about his vote during a hearing of the Senate committee in charge of health policy on Thursday.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff told Axios in an interview at the end of his trip to the Middle East that rebuilding Gaza could take between 10 and 15 years.
“Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee last year for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan who was backed by President Donald Trump, said Thursday that he is ‘strongly considering’ running again in 2026,” the Washington Post reports.
“A senator at Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing to be FBI director pressed him to articulate a simple truth: Joe Biden won the 2020 election,” the New York Times reports.
“Under three minutes of questioning from Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, Mr. Patel conceded only that Mr. Biden was ‘certified’ as the president.”
“A series of internal FBI emails released on Thursday showed that agents and officials followed standard procedure nearly three years ago when they opened the historic criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election,” the New York Times reports.
“The emails were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee in the middle of a contentious hearing for the nominee for F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, at which Republicans sought to paint the F.B.I. as a politicized agency that improperly went after targets like Mr. Trump.”
“But in fact, the emails showed that F.B.I. investigators took normal bureaucratic steps and precautions when opening the extraordinarily sensitive inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election using slates of electors pledged to him in states he had actually lost.”
“At least five senior FBI leaders who were promoted by former Director Christopher Wray have been notified they are being demoted or reassigned, extending a purge that began last week at the Justice Department across the street from the FBI headquarters,” CNN reports.
“The parents of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried are exploring ways to secure a pardon for the onetime crypto billionaire from President Donald Trump,” Bloomberg reports.
“Stanford Law School Professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried had meetings in recent weeks with lawyers and other figures considered to be in Trump’s orbit about clemency for their 32-year-old son, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud, the person said. It’s unclear if outreach has been made to the White House.”
President Trump took questions from the media on the plane crash last night in Washington, D.C.:
REPORTER: I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
TRUMP: Because I have common sense, OK? And unfortunately a lot of people don’t.
NPR: “While many people had no criminal record prior to committing crimes on Jan. 6, NPR has identified dozens of defendants with prior convictions or pending charges for crimes including rape, sexual abuse of a minor, domestic violence, manslaughter, production of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking.”
“Senators from both parties expressed doubt about Tulsi Gabbard’s judgment during her confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, renewing concerns about her prospects for Senate approval,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard came out swinging against her ‘political opponents’ as Democratic and Republican senators alike grilled the ex-Democrat about her previous statements and views on key national security issues, especially as it relates to Russia.”
“We also reported exclusively that Gabbard’s opening statement initially included references to Russia-related claims that Trump has pushed over the years, in addition to a swipe at President George W. Bush over the Iraq War. Those were removed from the final version of her opening statement.”
“President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun…”
“His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not.”
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.