“Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III is stepping down following more than a year of tension with President Trump over the way U.S. history is portrayed at the world’s largest museum and research complex,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Bunch’s departure marks one of the highest-profile shake-ups amid Trump’s broader cultural campaign to restore more ‘truth’ and ‘sanity’ to the retelling of American history.”
“Veterans and Democrats are escalating efforts to prevent construction on President Donald Trump’s planned arch as the anticipated start of site work approaches, arguing the project is illegal and would diminish the experience of visiting nearby Arlington National Cemetery,” the Washington Post reports.
NPR: Trump’s construction projects are transforming the capital.
“The Trump administration has removed language criticizing a memorial to the Confederacy formerly located in Arlington National Cemetery, part of its ongoing effort to reshape portrayals of the Civil War,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Confederate Memorial, a 32-foot bronze statue commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and unveiled in 1914, was removed from the military cemetery in 2023. Its removal followed a congressional mandate to rid U.S. military property of names and symbols honoring the Confederacy and its leaders.”
“Hours after Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate nomination last month, President Donald Trump characterized the former public health official as a ‘Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel,'” NBC News reports.
“Five days later, Trump latched on to a new label, suggesting from the Oval Office that ‘jihadist’ might be a better term for Democrats and falsely claiming that ‘we have jihadists being elected all over the place.’ A day after that, in an interview with the conservative Real America’s Voice, he warned of the U.S.’ becoming a ‘jihadist-run country.'”
“For Trump and other Republicans, the missives represented an escalation of messaging designed to raise alarm about Muslim Americans and Muslim candidates like El-Sayed.”
“A super PAC working to reelect Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is plowing $1.1 million into an ad campaign attacking Democrat Troy Jackson for supporting state legislation that allows transgender women to be housed in women’s prisons,” Axios reports.
“The ad is the latest example of Republicans using visceral attacks on transgender policies to draw sharp contrasts with Democrats on a hot-button cultural issue.”
“It is an arresting, menacing image: the scarred face of Roy M. Cohn, the notorious New York City lawyer, fixer and master of the political dark arts, floating bodiless in a pool of black, his hooded eyes staring directly back at the viewer,” the New York Times reports.
“The photograph, taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1981, is an unforgettable depiction of its subject, and the celebrated author Kai Bird thought it would make the perfect cover art for his new biography of Mr. Cohn, American Scoundrel, which will be released by Scribner next week.”
“That the picture never ended up on the book’s cover is a matter of regret to Mr. Bird — and a small but telling illustration of the anxiety that has taken root in the nonprofit world because of Mr. Cohn’s most famed protégé, an ambitious real estate developer now serving his second term as president.”
“A federal judge in Texas struck down a 2023 state law Tuesday that sought to restrict drag shows, ruling it was unconstitutional,” NBC News reports.
Wrote U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, had advice for those opposed: “The solution is relatively simple… just don’t go.”
The Washington Post profiles the brother of White House aide Natalie Harp, whose obsession with President Trump put her in the headlines this week.
Preston Harp lives in Masaya, a city in western Nicaragua, and is “an ardent supporter of the Sandinistas, a Marxist-influenced revolutionary movement that has dominated Nicaraguan politics for decades under President Daniel Ortega.”
“Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest group representing gay conservatives and their allies, will no longer advocate for transgender rights,” NOTUS reports.
“Ross Hemminger, the group’s president, wrote that the organization’s board of directors voted to narrow its national advocacy focus on issues relating to sexual orientation and conservative values. The group will now focus on lesbian, gay and bisexual advocacy, officially dropping the ‘T’ from the widely used acronym LGBT.”
Robin Givhan: “The MAGA aesthetic has seeped into all the nooks and crannies of the culture as well as here in diplomatic Washington. You could just as easily find the look on the runway in Ronkonkoma, New York, where, in the fall of 2024, conservative women came to admire red-white-and-blue-bedazzled jewelry and skirts depicting the drafting of the Declaration of Independence at the America First Patriotic Designer Showcase…”
“MAGA is a style rooted in extremes. It is hostile to nuance and diversity. It views body positivity as a sign of weakness—but regards the president’s puffy, aging body through an exceptionally kind lens. And it believes gender fluidity is something to be stamped out.”
“A leader within the Democratic Socialists of America admitted he and his organization have a burning ‘hatred’ for the U.S. Constitution and view it as an ‘obstacle’ which must be overcome by a socialist revolution,” Mediaite reports.
Peter Wehner: “So what explains the rage directed at one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation? Some of it is the result of an era in which a major political party—in this case, the Republican Party—has become deranged and captive to conspiratorial thinking. It draws energy from the dark passions.”
“Many people within the party, especially within its leadership and the right-wing ecosystem, delight in destroying institutions and individuals. Fauci has a target on his back because during the pandemic, he refused to live in the Twilight Zone. He called out those who did. And for MAGA world, that is unforgivable.”
Rolling Stone: What the Fauci fixation reveals about our political system.
“When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video Saturday giving herself a shot in preparation to freeze her eggs, she instantly injected issues of fertility, family and feminism into political discourse,” Axios reports.
“And some of the online backlash from the conservative right is making Republicans, including some in the White House, a little nervous.”
Fox News: AOC documents egg-freezing journey, takes aim at Trump admin over women’s reproductive choices.
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s blocking of promotions for high-ranking women in the military has contributed to the lowest percentage of such nominations for women in at least 25 years, according to a New York Times analysis,” the New York Times reports.
“Eight of 201 candidates for high-ranking posts this year have been women, or 4 percent — less than half the average percentage of the past 10 years.”
“The next great First Amendment battleground is just six inches high and is attached to about a million motor vehicles in Virginia alone. It is the vanity license plate, and courts are splintered over whether and how states can censor the messages the plates convey,” the New York Times reports.
“The latest decision landed Friday. It involved Curtis Whateley, who paid Virginia $10 in 2023 for a personalized license plate. He had seven characters to work with, and he sought to convey a statement ‘expressing my opinion on the current state of policing in this country,’ as he would later put it in a lawsuit.”
“He settled on FTP & ATF. No one disputes what those letters stand for. ‘TP’ is the police. ‘ATF’ is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ‘F’ is what you think it is.”
“The Covid-19 pandemic was a historic stress test that revealed American politics as too broken to deal with a national crisis,” CNN reports.
“Six years later, a new political storm over Dr. Anthony Fauci, once the nation’s most prominent health official, suggests those fractures are now even more toxic. And a long-delayed reckoning over the worst public health emergency in 100 years is more distant than ever.”
NBC News: Senators to vote on holding Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for pleading the Fifth during tense hearing.
New York Magazine: “One good thing about Donald Trump’s many projects celebrating himself is that they’re often pretty easy to avoid. Don’t want to think about the president throughout your flight? Fly to Miami or Fort Lauderdale rather than Palm Beach’s President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Not interested in basking in the glow of a gold 22-foot Trump statue? Just steer clear of Trump National Doral Miami golf course.”
“You might think that’s true of Trump’s planned triumphal arch, too, if you’ve seen only his tiny models and the sad plywood mock-up at the Great American State Fair. But a new assessment from the National Park Service concluded that the 250-foot structure — which would be nearly as tall as the U.S. Capitol building — would drastically impact views from landmarks all over Washington, D.C. So if you live in the capital area, plan to visit, or occasionally catch views of the city in TV and movies, this thing is going to be pretty unavoidable.”
“President Trump on Friday ordered warning signs and exhibits installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history,” the New York Times reports.
The Guardian: Trump escalates Smithsonian attack with order for signs outside history museum.
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.
