NOTUS: “The health inspector found wastewater flooding the floor of the main kitchen when three of the prep sinks drained… A dishwasher was also not properly sanitizing dishes and utensils.”
“Meanwhile, the inspector observed ‘small flies’ throughout a rooftop restaurant’s bar and dish area, as well as a cracked lid on the ice machine and debris buildup inside the prep cooler and on the floor beneath sinks.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is having rotator cuff surgery on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports.
“The department did not immediately respond to a query as to whether Mr. Kennedy’s injury was caused by the intense workouts he has promoted since taking the helm of the agency.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said he has discussed “our tone and our message” with the two House Republicans who have made anti-Muslim remarks in recent days but defended the right of the lawmakers to oppose “the imposition of Sharia law,” Politico reports.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told reporters the closed-door briefing on the Iran war left him “as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate,” the AP reports.
He added that he “left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned that the midterms could be “disastrous” for his party if the war in Iran continues, The Hill reports.
Said Paul: “Already, we are behind the eight-ball as far as the electoral process.”
He went on: “I think if you add in high gas prices, high oil prices and if we are still bombing Iran with kinetic action — people don’t want to call it war — if there’s still kinetic action that causes oil to be over $100, I think you’re going to see a disastrous election.”
President Trump has told aides he would back the killing of new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei if he proves unwilling to cede to U.S. demands, such as ending Iran’s nuclear development, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Atlantic: “This is an enormously consequential shift in the foreign-policy tools available to a president. Killing anyone, let alone a dangerous foreign leader, without a trial involves a moral choice. Killing a foreign leader involves a strategic calculation with questionable odds. A regime isn’t a chicken; decapitating it doesn’t necessarily bring about its death after a short dance. Indeed, in the modern age, no police state has died by assassination alone.”
“As killing foreign leaders gets easier for us, harming our leaders also presumably gets easier for others. The international taboo against foreign political assassination has arguably had a stabilizing effect, despite those states—Russia, for example—that have flouted it. To put a fine point on it, however tempting it may be to eliminate troublesome foreign leaders, no policy maker in a democracy wants to spark acts of retaliation that cost the lives of our own leaders in turn.”
“I said, ‘Why don’t we just capture the ship? We could use it. Why did we sink them?’ He said, ‘It’s more fun to sink them.’ They like sinking them better.”
— President Trump, talking to House Republicans.
“A voting machine company at the heart of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election accused the Justice Department on Tuesday of bringing a criminal case against it to further President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about that vote,” the Washington Post reports.
“The parent company of London-based Smartmatic asked a federal judge to dismiss foreign bribery charges filed against it last year, alleging they amounted to little more than a vindictive and selective prosecution.”
“An events company whose associates helped stage the January 6, 2021 rally has signed contracts worth over $26 million with the United States government,” Wired reports.
“Since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Event Strategies, a Virginia-based firm with deep ties to Trumpworld, has negotiated a contract with the General Services Administration that could be worth up to $100 million over the next 15 years.”
Russian leaders told President Trump during a phone call on Monday that they are not sharing intelligence with Iran during the United States’s war on that country, CNBC reports.
Said U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff: “We can take them at their word. Let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”
President Trump told Fox News he is “not happy” with Iran’s selection of Mojtaba Khamenei — the 56-year-old son of the supreme leader killed in the opening strikes of Operation Epic Fury — as the country’s new supreme leader.
Trump said he does not believe Khamenei “can live in peace” and called the operation’s progress “way beyond expectation in terms of results this early.”
“President Donald Trump has peppered aides in recent days about whether longtime adviser Corey Lewandowski profited personally from a $220 million federal advertising campaign featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired last week,” NBC News reports.
“The American public does not have a complete picture of senior Trump administration officials’ personal finances — and there’s no telling when they will,” NOTUS reports.
“Months after posting disclosures on the White House website, the Trump administration does not appear to have sent the financial information for some top White House officials to the Office of Government Ethics for a second and often more serious review.”
“There are currently no disclosures for top officials like border czar Tom Homan and House of Representatives liaison Jeffrey Freeland available on OGE’s disclosure database.”
A new NBC News poll finds majority of registered voters, 57%, said they believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits, compared with 34% who said the opposite.
What’s more, a plurality of voters view AI negatively and don’t believe either Democrats or Republicans are doing a good job handling policy related to the rapidly advancing technology.
Just 26% of voters say they have positive feelings about AI, compared with 46% who hold negative views.
Walter Mead: “One would be a clear and damaging American defeat. If a mix of global pressure and domestic opposition forces the Trump administration to end the conflict before full trade is restored through the Gulf, a battered Iran will emerge having demonstrated its ability to close the Gulf against everything the world’s greatest military power can throw at it. America’s power and prestige, not to mention Mr. Trump’s, would struggle to recover from such a fiasco.”
“Alternatively, the Americans could reopen the Gulf as a new Iranian government more focused on developing the country than on dominating its neighbors emerges. This would be a major victory for the Trump administration.”
“Most likely is an in-between scenario in which the U.S. largely clears the Gulf but the current regime survives. Operation Epic Fury would in that case be remembered as the Mother of All Lawnmowers, solving nothing fundamental but preserving a fragile balance of power in a vital part of the world.”
“Sometimes a lawsuit is more than a lawsuit. Sometimes it’s a campaign attack,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“Republican Rick Jackson filed a defamation suit against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones that appears aimed as much at grabbing attention and sending a warning shot to his GOP rival for governor as it is at winning in court.”
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.
