Axios: “Trump’s ‘announce first, details later’ approach to trade deals has caught some global leaders off guard and led to contradictions about the billions of dollars the administration says foreign nations have pledged.”
“These are not traditional, word-heavy trade deals with text agreed to by all negotiators.”
“Instead, news of deals comes via flashy announcements with big numbers and little specificity, leaving global investors wondering about the durability of such frameworks.”
“Roy Cooper raised $3.4 million in the first 24 hours of his Senate campaign — a record-breaking sum for the former North Carolina governor in one of the most competitive upcoming Senate races,” Politico reports.
“The fundraising haul includes more than $2.6 million raised directly to Cooper’s campaign account, with 95 percent of those donations totaling $100 or less, according to his team.”
Bloomberg: “In the first seven months of 2025, Moscow exported 4% less crude than it did in the comparable period of 2024, with an even sharper drop from the same timespan in 2023.”
“President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change,” the AP reports.
“The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.”
“The Trump administration has heard competing proposals that would significantly alter longstanding U.S. policy toward Myanmar, with the aim of diverting its vast supplies of rare earth minerals away from strategic rival China,” Reuters reports.
“Nothing has been decided and experts say there are huge logistical obstacles, but if the ideas are ever acted upon, Washington may need to strike a deal with the ethnic rebels controlling most of Myanmar’s rich deposits of heavy rare earths.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), “who often casts herself as the standard-bearer of MAGA politics on Capitol Hill, said a ‘genocide’ is underway in Gaza, becoming the first member of her party in Congress to use the term as she condemned the humanitarian disaster unfolding there,” the New York Times reports.
Said Greene: “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.”
“Former Rep. Wiley Nickel dropped his bid for North Carolina’s open Senate seat Tuesday and endorsed Roy Cooper, all but clearing the field for the former Democratic governor,” Politico reports.
“House Republican proposals to name the Kennedy Center after President Donald Trump and its opera house after first lady Melania Trump would violate the law by which the Kennedy Center was created,” NBC News reports.
“Republicans last week passed an amendment through committee that would rename the opera house after Melania Trump, saying it was a way to recognize her support for and commitment to the arts.”
“President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its powerful owner has taken a personal turn,” NPR reports.
“In the legal filings — and on social media — Trump says he personally told media mogul Rupert Murdoch that the racy birthday greeting he had supposedly sent two decades earlier to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein had been faked and did not exist. Murdoch’s Journal reported it anyway, despite Trump’s warning.”
Gallup: “Americans’ approval of Israel’s military action in Gaza has fallen 10 percentage points since the prior measurement in September, and it is now at 32%, the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023.”
“Disapproval of the military action has now reached 60%.”
Wall Street Journal: “Premiums for Medicare drug plans are set to increase sharply next year, due to rising costs, regulatory changes and cutbacks to a subsidy program. The subsidy program, which sent extra federal funds to the private insurers that offer the drug benefit — known as Part D — had largely shielded seniors from rising monthly bills in 2025.”
“The Trump administration is set to cut spending on that program by about 40% in 2026.”
“A wide swath of Defense Department officials fear that new rules banning employees from participating at think tank and research events — a key way the Pentagon delivers its message and solicits feedback — will leave the military muzzled and further isolated from allies,” Politico reports.
“The move, according to more than a dozen officials and think tank leaders, hampers the department’s ability to make its case both in Washington policy circles and to allies struggling to understand how they fit into President Donald Trump’s worldview.”
“For years, outlandish theories about the U.S. government’s using airplanes to spray harmful chemicals over U.S. homes or powerful elites controlling the weather were relegated to the fringes of society,” NBC News reports.
“As the internet has provided rocket fuel for such claims, Republican lawmakers across the country are introducing, passing and enacting laws to ban ‘weather modification’ and environmental geoengineering and allude to the use of ‘chemtrails,’ a longtime theory that planes are spreading chemical agents on an unsuspecting public. As more people are exposed to dangerous flooding, the GOP lawmakers have pointed to the fringe theories as potential explanations for extreme weather, pushing them further into the political mainstream.”
Wall Street Journal: “Commerce Department officials are discussing charging patent holders 1% to 5% of their overall patent value, a shift that could dramatically increase fees.”
“As of last week, Mark Green is no longer a member of Congress. But before he resigned — and in the months leading up to his announcement that he was stepping down to pursue a business opportunity — Green admits he was in a delicate position,” NOTUS reports.
Said Green: “Part of the reason why I was so cagey about it is if I go and tell you the name of the company while I’m still a sitting congressman, couldn’t you make the accusation that I’m using my position to advertise my new company? Wouldn’t that be inappropriate? Potentially unethical?”
“Green seemed to acknowledge that his position, serving as a representative while laying the groundwork for a mystery business venture, was a tricky one. But he maintained that he did nothing wrong, even as he suggested to NOTUS that he was pitching his idea to other members.”
“National Republicans want their House conference to sell President Donald Trump’s megabill during Congress’ August recess, rather than duck and let Democrats push a narrative that the bill is a tax cut for the rich,” Politico reports.
“The memo reveals how the party hopes to communicate a potential vulnerability ahead of next year’s midterms. In particular, the NRCC wants members to cast the bill’s Medicaid cuts — already a top target of Democrats — as an overhaul that will strengthen the program.”
“Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation Monday to provide tariff rebate checks of at least $600 per adult and child to American families, similar to the stimulus checks the government distributed during the Covid pandemic,” NBC News reports.
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.