Playbook: “The first reviews are in … and it seems Donald Trump’s performance at the Kennedy Center Honors wasn’t half bad. The president had expected to get panned by critics after appointing himself emcee of the center’s flagship annual awards.”
“But the president is nothing if not a showman.”
Dan Diamond: “He’s been loose and funny. And his delivery is far tighter and on-script than usual speeches.”
ProPublica: “For months, the Trump administration has been accusing its political enemies of mortgage fraud for claiming more than one primary residence.
“President Donald Trump branded one foe who did so ‘deceitful and potentially criminal.’ He called another ‘CROOKED’ on Truth Social and pushed the attorney general to take action.”
“But years earlier, Trump did the very thing he’s accusing his enemies of, records show.”
Washington Post: “Overall, Trump — who campaigned against America’s worsening drug crisis and promised to crack down on the illegal flow of deadly drugs coming across the border — has pardoned or granted clemency to at least 10 people for drug-related crimes since the beginning of his second term.”
“He also granted pardons or commutations to almost 90 others for drug-related crimes during the four years of his first term, the analysis showed.”
“President Trump on Sunday offered more insight into his decision to pardon former Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife Imelda, who were both indicted last year on bribery charges, but criticized the former congressman for opting to run as a Democrat in 2026,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be ‘running’ for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas (a State where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical Left Scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in Prison – And probably still do!”
He added: “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like. Oh well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”
New York Times: “Since Mr. Trump’s exemptions, a wave of companies have begun petitioning officials in Washington for similar relief. Businesses that depend on foreign materials — from factories that import machinery to retailers selling artificial Christmas trees — argue that tariffs on their products are simply raising consumer prices and adding to Americans’ dissatisfaction with the economy, rather than encouraging more manufacturing in the United States.”
“The petitions have raised questions about the strategic direction the president’s trade policy will take in the months to come. Mr. Trump has spent the past year introducing, pausing and then reinstating more tariffs than the United States had seen in nearly a century.”
“Only two decades ago, all nine Supreme Court justices agreed that extreme partisan gerrymandering could violate the Constitution, though they differed on what courts should do about it,” the New York Times reports.
“On Thursday, by contrast, the court’s conservative majority allowed Texas to use voting maps made to disadvantage Democrats in the 2026 election, without a hint of constitutional difficulty. To the contrary, the majority chastised a lower court for not taking the state at its word that politics, not race, motivated the maps. The court, it said, had ‘failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith.’”
The Atlantic: “So far, Trump continues to profess support. But he, too, is starting to tire of the scandals surrounding Hegseth and does not push back when others suggest Hegseth is not up for the job, an outside adviser to the White House and a former senior administration official told us.”
“Trump has not been happy that a number of Republicans on Capitol Hill are using Hegseth’s record as a reason to stand up to the White House, a further sign of cracks in what had until recently been unwavering GOP fealty to Trump.”
“Donald Trump is going on the road next week as he tries to break through Americans’ gloom about the economy,” Bloomberg reports.
“The president is heading Tuesday to Pennsylvania — a key swing state he beat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election but lost to Joe Biden in 2020 — to talk up his economic record and what his administration is doing to tame inflation.”
“Since returning to office in January, Trump has made few of the campaign-style domestic trips that marked his first term, instead focusing more on his foreign policy agenda.”
“The Trump administration has changed which holidays qualify for free entrance to national parks, removing two holidays celebrating Black people and adding the president’s birthday,” SFGate reports.
“Now, visitors to the 116 parks that charge entrance fees will no longer get in for free on MLK Day or on Juneteenth, a federal holiday on June 19 that celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. They will, however, on Trump’s June 14 birthday, which was added to the list this year.
“President Trump has made increasingly sweeping claims about new investments flowing into the United States, citing figures as high as $21 trillion since taking office,” CBS News reports.
“But a CBS News review found no evidence that total commitments or new investments approach the scale the president has cited.”
“A political group tied to President Trump is quietly spending millions to help Republicans in Utah in the 2028 election cycle, offering a window into how Mr. Trump could keep wielding influence in his party even after he is no longer president,” the New York Times reports.
“The effort is focused on recapturing a House seat that Republicans anticipate will flip to Democrats next year. All of Mr. Trump’s other moves this year on redistricting are meant to help Republicans maintain control of the House after the 2026 midterm elections, which would help him stave off Democratic investigations and continue to advance his agenda.”
“The Utah effort, by contrast, would redound to Republicans’ benefit only in 2028, when Mr. Trump will be constitutionally ineligible to run for re-election.”
“President Donald Trump is raging over snowballing reports on his apparent cognitive and physical decline,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Sources familiar with internal discussions say Trump, 79, was left fuming as a growing stream of reporting from publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN, scrutinized the signs of his apparent deteriorating health.”
Vice President JD Vance was asked by NBC News whether he was frustrated over a recent rash of tabloid-style headlines about his wife being spotted without her wedding ring.
Said Vance: “With anything in life, you take the good with the bad.”
He added: “You accept that there are some sacrifices and there are some very good things that come along with it, too. But our marriage is as strong as it’s ever been, and I think Usha’s really taken to it, and it’s been kind of cool to see how she’s developed and evolved in this new role.”
“FBI Director Kash Patel has — on more than one occasion — ordered that the security detail protecting his girlfriend escort one of her allegedly inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville,” MS NOW reports.
“After months of holding steady, President Trump’s approval rating has taken a dip over the past several weeks,” according to a New York Times analysis of public polling.
“As Americans voice broad concerns about the economy, Mr. Trump is facing discontent from across the political spectrum, with even some of his longest-serving allies raising complaints and urging the administration to refocus on economic issues.”
“When Donald Trump issued a sweeping pardon for allies in his bid to subvert the 2020 election, he stretched the boundaries of the pardon power in unprecedented ways,” Politico reports.
“The pardon’s language is so vague and limitless that it could apply to thousands of people. And now Trump’s Justice Department says it’s up to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Pardon Attorney Ed Martin to decide who, and which possible crimes, Trump actually meant to cover.”
“There’s no modern precedent — and maybe no historical precedent, either — for a president to delegate his pardon power to subordinates on a pardon this vaguely worded.”
“President Trump has hired a new architect to help design the White House ballroom, but the current architect, with whom the president has had some disagreements, will remain on the team,” CBS News reports.
The Wall Street Journal reports the White House “intends later this month to formally submit plans for a new White House ballroom to a key planning commission, as President Trump moves quickly to begin construction on the massive project.”
Joe Klein: “I don’t know what is wrong with Donald Trump, but something clearly is. Yes, yes, he’s never been what one might call stable, but his instability is more apparent now, dangerously so. I mean, 150-160 overnight tweets on December 1—some incomprehensible, others just crazy. Michelle Obama controlling Joe Biden’s autopen?”
“And yet—this is kind of crazy, too—none of the great legacy newspapers have done, to my knowledge, an in-depth analysis of what he may have been thinking, what caused these effusions, whether there was any kind of pattern or explanation—or linked them to Trump’s nappiness at the Cabinet Obeisance Festival the following day, where, struggling not to doze off, he called Minnesota’s Somali community ‘garbage.'”
“Crude is on the crazy spectrum. Crazy is being defined down before our eyes. Trump is in a spitball lather, damp, mushy projectiles exploding in every direction.”
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.