“The Trump administration is preparing to automatically enroll every American child in a Trump Account before the midterm elections, aiming to increase the impact of a program that has struggled with low take-up,” the Washington Sun reports.
“At the direction of the White House, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are preparing to use IRS data to create a Trump Account for all children.”
Paul Krugman: “One iron law of current politics is that nobody who associates themselves with Donald Trump emerges with a shred of credibility. For some, that’s not a big loss — it’s not as if anyone respected Pete Hegseth even before he decided that the key to military success in an age of drones and AI was more testosterone. For others, however, the costs are real. I’m old enough to remember when Marco Rubio was widely considered a reasonable, thoughtful politician.”
“Right now, however, my candidate for the biggest loser is Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury.”
“Peter Navarro, a longtime trade adviser to President Donald Trump, on Tuesday excoriated Canadian lobbyists, telling them during a conference in Washington to leave the U.S,” Bloomberg reports.
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 51% to 39%.
The same poll finds Donald Trump’s approval at 34%, while 61% disapprove.
“Adam Hamilton doesn’t plan to stay in Washington long if he gets there, and he doesn’t plan to spend his time investigating President Donald Trump,” MS NOW reports.
“The 62-year-old megachurch pastor, running a surprisingly competitive Senate campaign as a Democrat in Kansas, told MS NOW he would serve no more than two terms in the chamber if elected. He also said he had no interest in the investigations of Trump and his family that Democratic leaders have signaled they would pursue if their party wins control of Congress.”
Said Hamilton: “I’m not going to Washington to hold trials. I’m going to Washington to fight for the people of Kansas and make life better for them.”
“Sen. Darline Graham sought to take up her brother’s mantle Tuesday, going after former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining the late-Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone data,” Politico reports.
Said Graham: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota and former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has filed for divorce from her husband, Bryon Noem,” NewsNation reports.
“The couple has been married since May 23, 1992… Speculation about the Noem marriage has swirled around the couple for several months.”
“It’s almost the midterm elections, and you know what that means: a caravan of scary migrants is trekking toward the border, prepared to invade the nation with their foreign criminal ways — according to Donald Trump‘s administration and right-wing media, anyway,” Rolling Stone reports.
“With early voting set to begin in some states, and Election Day only a few weeks away, Republicans are using every tool in their arsenal to try to mitigate an electoral backlash to the president’s extremely unpopular first two years back in office. That means fear mongering about migration from South and Central America. But it’s hard not to notice that these supposed migrant caravans seem to only appear shortly before an election, and disappear from the right-wing media cycle immediately after votes are cast.”
“Right-wing accounts on social media began posting unverified videos of an alleged migrant caravan over the weekend.”
“A senior State Department official who helped negotiate the Trump administration’s controversial ‘third country’ deportation deals with African nations has been nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Cameroon,” the Washington Post reports.
“Christian Ehrhardt, 41, has served since last year as deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugee, and Migration. He oversees the Office of Remigration, created by the administration to facilitate the removal of migrants to countries where they are not citizens.”
“A federal judge on Monday blocked the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold some federal counterterrorism funding from states that don’t meet its election administration demands,” the Associated Press reports.
“Courts have largely rejected the administration’s previous efforts, which reflect untrue claims about widespread voting fraud and come ahead of November’s midterm elections where Democrats seek to take control of one or both chambers of Congress and check Trump’s power.”
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation. If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence.”
— Former special counsel Jack Smith, quoted by Mediaite. in testimony before the U.S. Senate.
“When Ted Cruz first arrived in the Senate in 2013, he achieved notoriety by reading Dr. Seuss’s ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ during an all-night speech on the chamber’s floor — part of a doomed campaign to defund the Affordable Care Act that angered Democrats and irritated some of his Republican colleagues,” the Washington Post reports.
“On Monday, the Texas Republican again spent hours on the Senate floor. But this time he was trying to pass a major bipartisan bill — and he emerged triumphant.”
“Let’s stop this nonsense that everybody that works in politics is all equal and everyone’s opinion needs to be respected. Oh shit, I listen to all this nonsense online. But do me a favor, if you’re that fucking delicate, if you’re that much of some kind of a honeysuckle or whatever it is, go do something else with your life, alright? Don’t get into a rough and tumble, live or die, win or lose, winner take all business — because you’re too weak. You’re too soft.”
— James Carville, quoted by Mediaite, on reports that staffers to former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) were upset she yelled at them.
“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stopped by ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Monday and addressed his friendly relationship with President Trump, prompting Kimmel to ask for advice on how to get on the president’s good side,” The Wrap reports.
Said Mamdani: “Sorry, brother. Look, the president and I have many disagreements. One thing we do agree on is this city, how much we love this city. So, from that first meeting in November of last year, I was just thinking of, ‘How can we make this meeting not about us but about New Yorkers? How can we spend that time talking about the things that could make life in this city that little bit easier?’ And that’s what it’s been.”
“The Trump administration used federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security to finance a set of controversial pro-Trump advertisements that recently began airing on television,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The taxpayer money used to fund the ads that started airing last week came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of DHS that oversees the Border Patrol and customs and immigration at airports.”
A new Opinion Diagnostics poll in Rhode Island finds Helena Foulkes (D) leading Ken Block (I) in the governor’s race, 41% to 24%, with Aaron Guckian (R) at 19%.
Chrystia Freeland: “As Canada’s international trade minister and foreign minister, I learned that the only thing that works with this president is strength.”
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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