A new Emerson College survey of California voters finds 57% of likely voters support Proposition 50, to authorize temporary changes to the state congressional maps, while 37% oppose the proposition.
Including undecided voters, the measure increases to 60% support, and 40% oppose.
“The Justice Department’s indictment of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is merely one part of a multipronged campaign that is helping define retribution in President Trump’s second term,” the New York Times reports.
“Over the summer, Ms. James’s office received a criminal subpoena demanding information about her yearslong civil investigation into the president. This month, a Virginia grand jury handed up charges accusing her of bank fraud and false statements to financial institutions stemming from her mortgage paperwork.”
“And in recent days, Trump-aligned media outlets have run scathing headlines about her relatives’ criminal records, amplifying the specter of wrongdoing created by the Justice Department.”
Washington Post: Trump targets enemies using mortgage records, a threat to D.C. elite.
“President Trump said late Thursday he was terminating trade negotiations with Canada, contending the country ran an advertisement featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump said on Thursday that he would bypass Congress rather than seek its approval to carry out military strikes against drug cartels that traffic narcotics to the United States, even as he vowed to expand the operation from attacks at sea to targets on land,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.”
“The House Republican campaign arm has a $720,310 edge against its Democratic counterpart in year-to-date fundraising, its first off-year lead since 2015,” Axios reports.
“The GOP lead is small. But it’s a huge upgrade for Republicans from prior years of Democrats dominating early fundraising, including during President Trump’s first term.”
“Graham Platner is shaking up his campaign amid a swirl of controversy, bringing in a longtime friend to function as his Maine Senate campaign’s new manager, hiring a compliance firm and sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers,” Politico reports.
Senate Foreign Relations Chair James Risch (R-ID) has no plans “at this time” to hold an oversight hearing on the Trump administration’s deadly strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela, Axios reports.
“The Trump administration on Thursday announced a plan to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest remaining tracts of pristine wilderness in the United States,” the New York Times reports.
“The decision was the latest twist in a long-running fight over the fate of the refuge’s coastal plain, an unspoiled expanse of 1.56 million acres that is believed to sit atop billions of barrels of oil but is also a critical habitat for polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other wildlife.”
“The federal mortgage fraud investigation against Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, one of President Donald Trump’s chief political foes, has stalled,“ NBC News reports.
“After months of investigating, the federal prosecutors in Maryland leading the probe have not produced enough evidence to bring charges.”
“Andrew Cuomo suggested Thursday that his main rival in the race for New York City mayor would cheer if the 9/11 attacks happened again — a serious escalation in the war of words between the former governor and front-runner Zohran Mamdani,” Politico reports.
“Photos taken on Thursday appeared to show that the Trump administration has not only torn down the East Wing, but the East Colonnade, which included a movie theater that has hosted screenings for decades,” Deadline reports.
“The theater — known as the White House Family Theater — is built in a former cloakroom, upgraded to a screening room by Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
“The 42-seat cinema has largely hosted private screenings for family members, with studios supplying major releases, but presidents have also hosted higher profile, publicized screenings with guests from the entertainment industry.”
“The Senate blocked a bill Thursday to pay federal employees who have been required to keep working during the shutdown,” the Washington Post reports.
“The bill, which failed to advance by a 54-45 vote along mostly partisan lines, was a political test for senators as the shutdown entered its fourth week. Only three Democrats voted with Republicans to advance the measure put forward by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).”
“Prosecutors who investigated New York Attorney General Letitia James for possible mortgage fraud found evidence that would appear to undercut some of the allegations in the indictment of James secured earlier this month — including the degree to which James personally profited from her purchase of the property — according to a memo summarizing the state of the case in September,” ABC News reports.
President Trump told Time that if Israel annexed the West Bank, it “would lose all of its support from the United States.”
President Trump invited Senate Democrats to a “Rose Garden Club” dinner with himself — but only after the government is reopened, Punchbowl News reports.
“At a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, some Democratic senators suggested that they hold a press conference outside the White House in an effort to highlight Trump’s refusal to negotiate with them. The idea was nixed.”
Barack Obama, Joe Biden and three Trump cabinet secretaries — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright — all dined at Cafe Milano in Georgetown last night, “all for separate dinners, totally coincidentally,” Axios reports.
“President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s backing off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after speaking to the mayor,” the AP reports.
“Trump posted on social media that Mayor Daniel Lurie said the city was making progress in reducing crime. Trump said he agreed to let San Francisco keep trying on its own.”
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.
