President Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, telling NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”
Said Trump: “A lot of people want me to do it. But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”
Playbook: “The race to shape Joe Biden’s legacy is on. The former president’s extended orbit is bracing for a steady march of no fewer than four books dropping over the next few months that promise to excavate and relitigate not only the historic 2024 presidential campaign but the former president’s own physical and mental condition before dropping out.”
“Biden’s aides did not make him available to any of those books’ authors, Playbook has learned. According to a person close to the former president, he’s reserving the space to tell his story in his own book. That prospective work, whose existence was first reported by NBC, does not yet have a release date and could publish as early as 2026.”
This is the one that should generate the most buzz.
Jonathan Chait: “The recent fifth anniversary of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic put the difference between the contemporary right and left on stark display. Liberals have engaged in searching self-reflection—on school closings, the lab-leak hypothesis, the political aftereffects, and other unanticipated lessons.”
“Conservatives have used the occasion to engage in a round of self-congratulations and taunting of the libs.”
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“The resistance of 2025 may not be wearing a pink knitted cap — but it’s alive in town halls, streets, campuses and car dealerships across the country,” Axios reports.
“The early moves of President Trump’s second term have pulled a wide range of Americans into the political crosshairs, from National Parks Service workers to Social Security recipients to the transgender community.”
“Economic growth has flatlined so far this year. Inflation has picked up. And consumers expect both to get worse in the months ahead,” Axios reports.
“For the moment, it adds up to Wall Street’s least-favorite ‘s-word,’ stagflation — stagnant growth mixed with elevated inflation.”
“That pattern, most vividly seen in the 1970s, is particularly painful because it means people experience pain from both lack of job opportunities and higher prices.”
“President Donald Trump wants action now, unity later, on his legislative agenda. The result is a budget with numbers that don’t match up,” Politico reports.
“Republican leaders are expected to embrace a novel strategy as they seek to push forward as soon as this coming week with their partisan package of tax cuts, border security enhancements, military spending and more. Rather than align House and Senate committees behind the same savings targets in the budget framework for that megabill, they want to set different numbers for each chamber.”
“Trump administration economic officials had mixed message for consumers Sunday: Tariffs won’t raise prices, but even if they do you’ll be fine when we cut taxes,” Axios reports.
“The administration is gambling an increasingly unhappy consumer will eat a few months of worsening conditions for the promise of something better down the road.”
“Sentiment is plunging across the board — not just consumers, but also small businesses and some big ones too.”
President Trump threatened Iran with bombings and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, Reuters reports.
Said Trump: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”
He added: “But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”
“The White House plans to impose its own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room in coming weeks, taking over a function long managed by the reporters themselves through the White House Correspondents’ Association,” Axios reports.
“It’s the latest — but likely not the last — effort by the White House to take a heavier hand in shaping who covers President Trump. In public and private, White House officials make it clear they are determined to upend decades-old press corps traditions.”
Associated Press: “The episode showed not only Trump’s use of the power of the presidency to police dissent and punish adversaries but also his success in extracting concessions from law firms, academia, Silicon Valley and corporate boardrooms.”
“These targets were suddenly made to fear for their futures in the face of a retribution campaign that has been a defining feature of his first two months in office.”
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) told NBC News the Democratic Party’s brand “is really problematic.”
Said Bennet: “I think that it is a brand that it’s associated with New York and with California, is associated with the educated elites in this country, and not anymore with working people in this country.”
He added: “You know, the good news, for the party, I think, is that Donald Trump is pursuing the same trickle-down economics that he pursued the first time he was president… That’s really bad for America. But the Democratic Party ought to be able to come back, under those circumstances, with a pretty good argument about why we could leader better than Donald Trump.”
President Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” when Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, adding that the comments were “not going in the right location,” NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia.”
He elaborated: “That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, told NBC News it’s “not true” that he and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz never spoke prior to Signal leak.
Said Goldberg: “Well, this isn’t the matrix. Phone numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones. I don’t know what he’s talking about there. You know, very frequently in journalism, the most obvious explanation is the explanation. My phone number was in his phone because my phone number is in his phone.”
He added: “He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me. That’s simply not true. I understand why he’s doing it. But you know, this has become a somewhat farcical situation. There’s no, there’s no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone. He mistakenly added me to the group chat. There we go.”
Washington Post: “The order on elections is more than 2,500 words and at times densely written. It may have received less attention than warranted as it was issued amid the controversy over how sensitive military operational details were shared in a Signal chat group that accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic.”
“The order is illustrative of how the president is attempting to govern, largely through dictates rather than legislation. It is rooted in Trump’s long-standing, though false, claims that the election system is rife with fraud. Its legal foundations are questionable. But like other executive orders the president has signed, it could produce chaos and change before it is fully litigated.”
Wall Street Journal: “It is one of the setbacks—both big and small—that stem from President Trump’s unorthodox approach to the presidency, which gives priority to speed over drawn-out decision-making meant to avoid missteps and collateral damage.”
“Mistakes are seen by Trump’s team as a worthwhile price to pay, people close to the president said, as they enact their top priorities, including the Elon Musk-led dismissal of federal employees, the use of wartime powers to deport migrants and steep tariffs that have rattled markets.”
Said Trump: “You only have so much time and you can’t waste the time, and you have to get it done.”
“Elon Musk, whom President Donald Trump has tapped to shrink the government, said on Thursday he would finish most of the work to cut $1 trillion in federal spending when his tenure ends in as soon as 64 days,” Reuters reports.
“Louisiana voters soundly rejected all four proposed amendments to the state constitution on Saturday, shutting the door on changes to courts, government finances, teacher pay increases, juvenile crime, and elections for judicial seats,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
“The defeat of Amendment 2, a sprawling revision of the section of the constitution that deals with state taxes and budgeting, was a loss for Gov. Jeff Landry, who had stumped across the state in support of the change. He couched it as part of his larger effort to make Louisiana’s tax system more attractive to business investment.”
“Texas and New Mexico health departments said on Friday that the number of measles cases in their states rose 20% since their last reports three days ago, as experts warn they expect the outbreak to further spread in coming weeks,” Reuters 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.
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