“Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that he isn’t planning to make any changes to his budget plan to placate Republicans concerned about possible Medicaid cuts,” Politico reports.
Said Johnson: “Look, everybody needs to understand that the resolution is merely the starting point for the process. So there’s nothing specific about Medicaid in the resolution. The legislation comes later, so this is the important first start.”
“Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis had a message for donors and other important Republican backers over the last few weeks: Don’t throw your support to Rep. Byron Donalds, because Casey DeSantis was seriously considering jumping into the 2026 race for governor,” Politico reports.
“That message was upended last Thursday night with a single social media post by President Donald Trump emphatically endorsing Donalds. And Trump’s decision may have also derailed an effort to preserve Gov. DeSantis’ conservative legacy ahead of another potential presidential run.”
Aaron Blake: “One of the biggest legal questions looming over the Trump administration right now is whether Elon Musk is illegally wielding power over the American government.”
“This weekend suggested he is wielding significantly more power than the White House has let on in court. Either that, or President Donald Trump’s own political appointees are defying Trump’s wishes.”
“It’s all rather complicated, but the events of this weekend crystallize the chaotic and legally dubious nature of Musk’s sudden elevation to a hugely influential player in American politics and government.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said today that there “may be more” than one House Republican who plans to vote no on a massive multi-trillion dollar budget resolution this week, potentially a huge problem for GOP leaders, Punchbowl News reports.
Said Johnson: “There may be more than one. But they’ll get there. We’re going to get everybody there. This is a prayer request. Just pray this through for us, because it is very high stakes, and everybody knows that… I don’t think anybody wants to be in front of this train. I think they want to be on it.”
“House Republicans plan to hold a vote on the budget resolution Tuesday evening, but this timeline may shift.”
“The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a Tennessee law restricting some drag performances, allowing the first-in-the-nation law to remain largely intact,” The Hill reports.
“New York City’s new toll on motorists driving into Manhattan’s busiest areas raised $48.6 million in its first month, as President Donald Trump is seeking to end the congestion pricing program just weeks after it began,” Bloomberg reports.
Maureen Dowd: “I’ve been reading a book called How to Be a Bad Emperor: An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders, written by Suetonius and translated by Josiah Osgood. Osgood writes of Caligula’s “propensity to give in to every whim and the relish he took in putting down others with cruel remarks.”
“As Suetonius noted about Caligula, ‘To the Senate he showed no more mercy or respect. He allowed some who had achieved the highest offices to run alongside his chariot in their togas for several miles or to stand, dressed in a linen cloth, at the head or the foot of his couch as he dined.'”
“Sound familiar?”
President Donald Trump personally decided to bar The Associated Press from some White House events and spaces, Politico reports.
The decision to grant journalists “special access” is a “quintessentially discretionary presidential choice,” government lawyers wrote in a 23-page brief submitted in advance of an emergency court hearing Monday afternoon.
“The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for its occupied territory to be returned that passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday,” the Washington Post reports.
Jonathan Rauch: “Even those who expected the worst from his reelection (I among them) expected more rationality. Today, it is clear that what has happened since January 20 is not just a change of administration but a change of regime—a change, that is, in our system of government. But a change to what?”
“There is an answer, and it is not classic authoritarianism—nor is it autocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy. Trump is installing what scholars call patrimonialism. Understanding patrimonialism is essential to defeating it. In particular, it has a fatal weakness that Democrats and Trump’s other opponents should make their primary and relentless line of attack.”
Adam Serwer: “If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape. It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety. What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy. They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy.”
“Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly.”
Jonathan Chait: “The president’s public communion with the business titans who have submitted to him has been analyzed as a signal of his authoritarianism and his alliance with the rich. But it also reveals another emerging aspect of Trumpism: his rejection of the capitalist principles that ultimately generate prosperity.”
“Trump has never believed in the invisible hand—in leaving people alone to pursue self-interest in a free market; in letting market forces allocate capital and arbitrate any given company’s success or failure. Nor does he even believe in traditional mercantilist protection. He believes, like Putin, in political control of the economy’s commanding heights—success for those executives and companies who please him, failure for those who don’t. And he seems to be seeking that control more actively than he did in 2016.”
“Already, Trump’s words and actions have brought about a psychological transformation within the executive class. Presidents and business leaders have sometimes tangled, or formed partnerships, but the combination of fear and solicitousness that Trump now commands is wholly new.”
“House Democrats are sharpening their attacks on the Republican policy agenda ahead of an expected Tuesday budget vote, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laying out a plan for pushback in a letter to Democratic colleagues Monday,” Politico reports.
“With one House Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) already publicly opposing the plan and others privately dug in against it, Jeffries urged ‘maximum attendance’ from his caucus to keep the pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson and his minuscule GOP majority.”
“Top congressional Republicans will be huddling with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the White House for weekly discussions on how to advance President Donald Trump’s tax agenda,” Politico reports.
“Congressional Republicans have major differences they need to work through to advance Trump’s tax plans, which include an extension of expiring tax cuts and the enactment of several of his campaign promises.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) “has privately told fellow Republicans he’s very interested in mounting a bid to succeed outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell,” Politico reports.
“After McConnell announced his retirement, Massie polled his X followers on whether he should opt for reelection in the House or run for governor or the Senate. The majority said the Senate.”
“Elon Musk threatened to suspend federal workers who haven’t returned to in-office work by this week, the latest demand of government employees from the billionaire running President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting effort,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Musk: “Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning. Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.”
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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