“A newly surfaced video shows Katie Porter — the frontrunner in next year’s race for California governor — blasting a staffer who interrupted a meeting the former House member was taping for the Biden administration,” Politico reports.
Said Porter: “Get out of my fucking shot!”
In the video call, Porter also complained to Jennifer Granholm that she had not visited the White House despite raising a “shit ton” of money for then-President Joe Biden.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “broke sharply with her party leaders on Wednesday as they tried to project a united front in the deepening standoff with Democrats over health care and the government shutdown, calling on Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the House back into session and warning that Americans would be hammered by higher costs if her party doesn’t help right the ship,” CNN reports.
I spoke to the fantastic Julie Mason this afternoon about the latest on the government shutdown and Pam Bondi’s testimony before Congress.
Punchbowl News: “If you were wondering why Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session for the past two weeks, you got your answer today.”
“On Day Eight of the shutdown, Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both engaged in public spats in the hallways with members from the opposite party. The bickering was personal, animated and captured by throngs of reporters.”
“Now imagine if 435 House members were roaming these halls. This would be going on with hundreds of members all across the Capitol.”
“The longer the government stays shut down, the shorter House Republicans’ patience seems to be getting with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA),” Politico reports.
“Johnson’s decision to keep his chamber on an indefinite break in the middle of a government shutdown isn’t sitting well with some in his conference — and that could put pressure on the speaker to change course.”
For members: The More Trump Talks, the More He Screws This Up
A Public Policy Polling survey in New Jersey finds Mikie Sherrill (D) with a small lead over Jack Ciattarelli (R) in the governor’s race, 49% to 43% with 8% unsure.
Ciattarelli, now in his third bid for governor, came within 3 points of defeating Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021, despite polls showing Murphy with a larger single-digit lead.
“President Trump said on Wednesday he may travel to the Middle East at the end of the week as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy to the region Steve Witkoff try to secure a ceasefire deal in Gaza,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Jamelle Bouie: “Here, I will say that this effort to use the military against American citizens — an effort backed, it seems, by almost the entire Republican Party — makes a mockery of the longstanding conservative claim that theirs is a movement of small government and states’ rights.”
“Trump’s push to invade cities using the National Guard is as aggressive a use of federal power as one can imagine.”
“The Pentagon has investigated nearly 300 Defense Department employees, including service members, civilian workers and contractors, for comments appearing online after last month’s shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk,” the Washington Post reports.
“The sweeping, ongoing inquiry, which has resulted in a smattering of disciplinary action so far, follows an extraordinary directive by the department’s political leadership to silence criticism of a prominent, polarizing figure who was unabashed in his views and fervent support for President Donald Trump.”
“White House officials have held increasingly serious discussions in recent days about President Donald Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 19th century law that gives the president the power to deploy active-duty troops inside the U.S. for law enforcement purposes,” NBC News reports.
For members: Man Who Led Insurrection Threatens to Invent Another
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) sounds unlikely to keep the chamber in over the weekend.
Said Thune: “If enough Democrats start to come to their senses and want to have conversations about how to get the government open, then I’m certainly open to be here.”
He added: “If they’re just gonna continue to vote down keeping the government open, I’m not sure what purpose that’ll serve.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “was invited last month to attend the grand opening of Trump’s ‘Rose Garden Club’ at the White House, but she turned it down,” NBC News reports.
“Nearly a quarter of FBI agents across the country are currently assigned to immigration enforcement, with the number climbing to upward of 40 percent in the nation’s largest field offices,” the Washington Post reports.
“The intense focus on immigration has raised alarm among current and former FBI agents who say morale is low across the bureau as agents have less time to dedicate to the often complex cases they were hired to work on.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday had a heated, face-to-face exchange with two Democratic senators over the government shutdown and the swearing-in of Arizona’s Democratic Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva, who will be the 218th signature on an effort to end-run Johnson and force a vote on releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents,” Politico reports.
“Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly were talking to reporters outside Johnson’s office about what they said was the speaker’s failure to swear-in Grijalva.”
“But Gallego accused Johnson of wanting to ‘cover up for pedophiles on the Epstein list.'”
“The FBI has fired at least three special agents who worked in connection with former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of now-President Donald Trump,” NBC News reports.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) agreed to buy cookies from Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) kid during a one-on-one meeting between the two senators, NBC News reports.
Texas National Guard troops crossed into Illinois last night — against the explicit wishes of Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) — in what amounts to a state-on-state confrontation unprecedented in modern America.
President Trump this morning also called for both Democrats to be jailed.
This is no longer just a dispute between a president and a governor. It’s the extraordinary use of one state’s soldiers being deployed to impose the will of another state’s defiant leader.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) didn’t just obey Trump’s call — he volunteered his own troops to carry it out.
In the past, the federal government has used such power only in moments of genuine crisis — to enforce desegregation in Little Rock or suppress actual insurrection.
But no such crisis exists in Chicago. To the extent there is unrest, it stems from Trump’s surge of federal immigration agents into the city.
Trump’s deployment has nothing to do with public safety.
It’s an act of coercion — using one state’s National Guard to override the elected leadership of another.
That cuts to the heart of American federalism. A nation cannot call itself a union of states if its president can order troops from Texas to police Illinois citizens against their own government’s will.
Federal courts could still intervene to block Trump. But the president has already threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if they do.
The man who incited a real insurrection now threatens to manufacture a fake one.
“Late spending, exacerbated by a mid-battle candidate switch, and lack of attention to voters’ top concerns are among the reasons Democrats’ lost the White House last year, the Democratic National Committee says in its assessment of the defeat,” Politico reports.
“DNC officials argued Democrats didn’t spend early or consistently enough to engage and persuade voters, one of several problems the party faced in 2024… Swapping Joe Biden with Kamala Harris atop the ticket intensified those systemic, long-term problems for the party… So far, Biden’s age has not come up.”
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.