Become a member. Already a member? Log in.
President Trump says he is not seeking “regime change” in Iran, the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “We’re not looking for regime change. I want to make that clear. We’re looking for no nuclear weapons.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi to Reuters: “We currently see no prospect of negotiations with America.”
“GOP senators say that if the House passes articles of impeachment against President Trump they will quickly quash them in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has broad authority to set the parameters of a trial,” The Hill reports.
“While McConnell is required to act on articles of impeachment, which require 67 votes — or a two-thirds majority — to convict the president, he and his Republican colleagues have the power to set the rules and ensure the briefest of trials.”
“Supporters of an Obama-era plan to put abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill were disappointed last week by news that the Treasury Department has delayed the bill’s redesign,” CNN reports.
“But artist Dano Wall decided not to wait for the Trump administration to honor the Underground Railroad hero. He has created a stamp that can be used to superimpose Tubman’s image over President Andrew Jackson’s portrait.”
Said Wall to the Washington Post: “My goal is to get 5,000 stamps out there. If there are 5,000 people consistently stamping currency, we could get a significant percent of circulating $20 bills with the Tubman stamp, at which point it would be impossible to ignore.”
Ground News quickly shows you which news stories are drawing attention on one side of the media landscape — and far less on the other.
Here's what Democrats aren’t reading: A BBC investigation found that lawyers in the U.K. are advising migrants to claim persecution based on sexual orientation to strengthen their asylum cases.
Here's what Republicans aren’t reading: Two anonymous donors gave NPR a combined $113 million after federal funding cuts — a major lifeline for public media.
It’s a reminder that the biggest blind spots in political news aren’t always about what’s reported -- but what’s quietly left out. That's why I use Ground News.
Political Wire readers can now get 40% off a Ground News Vantage subscription with this link.
Steven Rattner looks at three different election models which predict Donald Trump wins the 2020 presidential election.
Use the interactive Electoral Vote Map to make your own forecast.
This weekend traditionally marks the beginning of summer. We’ve also been busy this year celebrating our oldest son’s graduation from college.
But let’s never forget the real purpose of this holiday. We should be forever grateful for the men and women who died while serving our country in the armed forces.
Thanks to them — and their families — for their tremendous sacrifice.
“President Trump’s tweets don’t pack the punch they did at the outset of his presidency. His Twitter interaction rate — a measure of the impact given how much he tweets and how many people follow him — has tumbled precipitously,” Axios reports.
“It’s a sign that his strongest communication tool may be losing its effectiveness and that the novelty has worn off. Trump’s interaction rate has fallen from 0.55% in the month he was elected to 0.32% in June 2017 — and down to 0.16% this month through May 25.”
Brian Stelter: “The question arises: Is Trump having to try harder and harder to get the public’s attention?”
Washington Post: Here’s former vice president Joe Biden’s agenda for the holiday weekend, according to his campaign: ‘Joe Biden has no public events scheduled.'”
“Those seven words are becoming familiar for the Biden team. Aside from a campaign swing right after announcing his candidacy, Biden has kept his head down while his rivals rush from state to state to state. Even when he has held public events, they have included only a handful of questions from voters or reporters.”
“The light public schedule reflects the unique position of his campaign, advisers say: With near universal name recognition and high favorability ratings among Democrats, the former vice president does not need to introduce himself to voters like nearly every other candidate. And as the leader in early polls, he can attract media attention without splashy events.”
Washington Post: “Pelosi’s allies said her taunting of Trump now is intentional, designed to get under his skin and elicit an angry reaction, according to officials close to her who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.”
“When a Democrat compared Trump to a fifth-grader, Pelosi responded that such a remark was an insult to fifth-graders, according to an individual who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the conversation.”
Said Pelosi: “Don’t say that. Children are wonderful!”
Renato Mariotti: “In the space of three days this week, two federal judges ruled decisively in favor of Congress’ right to subpoena President Donald Trump’s personal financial and business records. The speed of the decisions—unusual in complex federal litigation—demonstrates a significant flaw in the administration’s “fight all the subpoenas” strategy. More importantly, it suggests that Trump’s strategy of categorically fighting all congressional subpoenas will undermine his ability to stonewall Congress in subsequent cases.”
“Already, one of the rulings has been appealed by the Trump administration, and a three-judge panel is scheduled to hear the case in July. In the meantime, however, we are witnessing profound legal decisions in defense of congressional power. If Trump’s stonewalling strategy was intended to run out the clock by forcing Democrats into interminable court fights, it appears so far to be having the exact opposite effect—almost like a little league game that gets called early because one team is scoring too many unanswered runs.”
The Hill: Democrats claim victory as Trump gets battered in court.
“President Trump is so determined to sell his vision of peace with North Korea that he is prepared to back Kim Jong Un over his advisers, his allies and his fellow Americans,” the New York Times reports.
“At a joint news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump directly contradicted his own national security adviser, John Bolton, as well as his host, by arguing that Pyongyang had not launched ballistic missiles this month nor violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
“He also again sided with North Korea over former vice president Joe Biden, after his Democratic rival was branded a ‘fool of low I.Q.’ by North Korea’s state media for calling Kim a dictator and a tyrant.”
“Business leaders and communities around the country are expressing alarm that the bitter partisan impasse in Washington is paralyzing efforts to revamp the nation’s deteriorating and outdated infrastructure,” the Washington Post reports.
“Populists and nationalists who want to chip away at the European Union’s powers increased their share in Europe’s Parliament after four days of continent-wide elections, but it was not the deluge that many traditionalists had feared,” the New York Times reports.
“When the vote counting is done, the populists are expected to get around 25 percent of the 751 seats, up from 20 percent five years ago, figures released by the European Union showed on Sunday.”
“But a higher than usual turnout suggested that pro-European voters were also more motivated than before.”
“Taken together, the results indicated that the struggle over the future direction of the bloc — more integration among European countries, or less — would only intensify.”
Axios: 6 takeaways from the European elections.
“Joe Biden Jr. has built an early lead in the month since he entered the presidential campaign, confidently projecting himself as the Democratic front-runner and the candidate best positioned to defeat President Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“But beneath the surface of a seemingly placid race is a much more volatile contest, as a series of primaries-within-the-primary unfold along lines that reflect some of the most animating forces in the Trump era: race, gender, age and ideology.”
The Guardian: “Donald Trump’s war with the US press began as an act in the absence of effective Democratic opposition then spiraled out of control, according to an eagerly awaited new book by one of the chief targets of the president’s fury.”
“In The Enemy of the People, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta writes that after an early confrontation, close Trump aide Hope Hicks called him to say the president wanted him to know he was ‘very professional today.'”
“Trump, Acosta writes, had just called the reporter ‘fake news’ and ‘very fake news’ after being asked about Russian election interference at a press conference in February 2017.”
Said Acosta: “When he called us ‘fake news’, it was, in his mind, an act.”
“Pete Buttigieg is aiming to shake the Democratic presidential race with a massive fundraising total this quarter, staking his claim in the top tier of the primary and demonstrating staying power after rocketing to prominence two months ago,” Politico reports.
“Buttigieg is encouraging moneyed supporters to juice his campaign’s fundraising with a new bundling program… Members at different levels of the program pledge to raise anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000 for Buttigieg over the course of the primary campaign and receive special perks, including briefings with the candidate and senior campaign staff.”
Vice President Mike Pence warned West Point graduates on Saturday to expect combat at some point during their service in a “dangerous” world, the HuffPost reports.
Said Pence: “It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly compared President Trump to a dictator during the president’s inaugural address, the HuffPost reports.
Said Klobuchar: “I sat on that stage between Bernie and John McCain, and John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation. He understood it. He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.”
The Guardian: “Prominent figures on the Christian right in the US ranging from religious magazines to authors to elected politicians have warned that the fight over abortion rights could lead to a new civil war.”
“Though such dire predictions are not necessarily new on the extreme right wing in the US, the passing of a wave of hardline anti-abortion laws in numerous states this year appears to have amped up the conspiracy-minded predictions that depict abortion squarely as a root cause of a coming conflict.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.