“President Donald Trump says he beat inflation. But several conventional measures of rising prices paint a different picture,” the Washington Post reports.
“Most experts agree inflation has picked up in recent months, in part because of Trump’s tariffs. Economists expect more tariff-driven price increases in the months to come.”
Washington Post: “Claiming the power to summarily kill traffickers as though they’re enemy troops, Trump has authorized the U.S. military to strike at least six speedboats the administration has deemed suspicious, killing dozens of people since the beginning of September. At least half of the strikes and 21 of the killings, locals say, have transpired in the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago — nations so close that on clear days they’re within eyesight of each other.”
“But records and interviews with 20 people familiar with the route or the strikes, including current and former U.S. and international officials, contradict the administration’s claims. The passage, they said, is not ordinarily used to traffic synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, present in 69 percent of drug overdose deaths last year. Nor are the drugs typically headed for the United States.”
New York Times: Colombia’s leader accuses U.S. of murder.
“San Francisco is back. Or at least on its way,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Crime rates have dropped to their lowest levels in decades and continue to fall, with burglaries, a particular nuisance to homeowners and tourists, down 28% this year. The homeless tent encampments that block sidewalks and bedevil retail businesses have shrunk, while foot traffic and transit ridership have risen.”
“Rents overall are up 12% year over year in the city proper, with September marking the 13th month in a row of consecutive growth, according to Apartments.com. And the hotel industry is showing signs of recovery.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin told CNN that the uncovered Reddit posts from Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) shouldn’t force him out of the race.
Said Martin: “I don’t think they’re disqualifying, but certainly they’re not right, and I’m glad that he apologized for them. They’re indefensible, they’re hurtful and they’re offensive.”
President Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to give up swaths of territory to Russia during a tense meeting on Friday that left the Ukrainian delegation disappointed, Reuters reports.
The Financial Times reports the meeting descended into another “shouting match,” with Trump “cursing all the time.”
An EU diplomat told Politico that the meeting was not “as bleak as reported,” but admits: “With a single phone call, Putin appears to have changed President Trump’s mind on Ukraine once again.”
Punchbowl News: “We’ve written about how Nov. 1, the start of open enrollment for health insurance, could be a moment for Senate Democrats to declare “victory” and allow the government to reopen. Last week, top Democrats pushed back on this theory, saying Nov. 1 will only increase the pressure on Republicans to accede to their health care demands.”
“But now, there’s a sense within the Senate Democratic Caucus that this deadline is in fact their off-ramp to end the shutdown. Democrats can argue it’s no longer feasible for Congress to address the expiring Obamacare subsidies legislatively. The goal here would be to make Republicans own the soaring premium hikes and health-care coverage losses that millions of Americans would experience.”
“If Democrats are willing to accept a political victory without a policy win, this is a critical moment for Schumer to figure out what this looks like — and how he shields himself from inevitable criticism from the left.”
“Run For Something, a progressive candidate recruitment organization, is pitching major donors on a $50 million, five-year effort to expand Democrats’ footprint outside the Blue Wall,” Politico reports.
The group wants Democrats to “double down” in Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, while “reinvesting in long-abandoned states like Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.”
“Erez Reuveni, a fired Department of Justice lawyer who’s now blowing the whistle, says he witnessed a disregard of due process and for the rule of law at the DOJ,” CBS News reports.
“Reuveni previously won commendations for his work and was so effective defending President Trump’s first-term immigration policy that he was promoted quickly in Mr. Trump’s second term. But he says he was put on leave and then fired after refusing to sign a brief in the mistaken deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”
“President Trump listed rare earths, fentanyl and soybeans as the U.S.’s top issues with China just before the two sides return to the negotiating table and as a fragile trade truce nears expiration,” Bloomberg reports.
The three topics were all “very, you know, normal things,” he said.
President Trump on Sunday called this weekend’s “No Kings” demonstrations against him a “joke” and rejected suggestions that he is acting like a monarch, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “I’m not a king. I work my ass off to make our country great. That’s all it is. I’m not a king at all.”
He added: “The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked out. When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country.”
Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald Trump, an Associated Press-NORC poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.
President Trump will host Senate Republicans for lunch at the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday, Punchbowl News reports.
The lunch is intended to be a “thank you” to GOP senators for staying unified amid the government shutdown and for taking action to clear the nominations backlog.
“President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the United States of murdering an innocent fisherman in an attack on a boat American authorities claimed was carrying illicit drugs, prompting President Trump to declare on Sunday that he would slash assistance to Colombia, one of Washington’s top aid recipients in Latin America,” the New York Times reports.
“The feuding between the two leaders reflected rising tensions in the region over the huge U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean targeting Colombia’s neighbor, Venezuela. U.S. forces have killed dozens of people in recent weeks aboard vessels that the Trump administration says were ferrying drugs from Venezuela.”
For members: Trump Has Ordered the Execution of 27 People
“The White House is confronting academia’s most forceful pushback to its quest to remake American higher education, as top universities reject its proposal to reward schools that embrace President Trump’s priorities,” the New York Times reports.
“On campuses and in Washington, professors and policymakers alike are weighing whether Mr. Trump, who has reveled in his campaign to upend higher education, has overreached.”
“President Donald Trump and his top officials have repeatedly promised to tap the billions of dollars collected from their historic tariff hikes for key priorities like troop pay, nutrition assistance and farmer bailouts. That’s not how it works,” Politico reports.
“The administration has brought in about $200 billion in tariff revenue so far this year, cash the president and members of his Cabinet have boasted is a sign their tariff hikes are succeeding — and have suggested they can now use at their discretion.”
“Two days after his release from federal prison, George Santos, the disgraced former Republican congressman from New York, appeared on TV to thank President Trump for commuting his 87-month sentence after just 84 days and claimed that he was devoting his future to prison reform,” the New York Times reports.
“He also used his media appearances on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ and on Fox News’s ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to slap back at those who have condemned his release and to attack the warden of Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey, where he had been incarcerated.”
“And he chatted with Rachel Campos-Duffy of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ about the benefits of being out of prison, including that he is free to get Botox injections.”
Federal officials found what they have described as a “suspicious stand” near an area of Palm Beach International Airport used by Air Force One when President Trump travels to Florida, CBS News reports.
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.
