President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday harshly criticized the House GOP, and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), for voting to raise the debt ceiling in 2023 through Jan. 1, 2025, The Hill reports.
Trump in a post on Truth Social called McCarthy “a good man and a friend of mine,” but said it would go down as “one of the dumbest political decisions made in years.”
“We’d all do well to try to be a bit more like Jimmy Carter. Everytime he was summoned, he stepped up.”
— President Biden, quoted by the New York Times.
President Joe Biden said he’ll order a state funeral in Washington for Jimmy Carter, calling the former Democratic president who died Sunday “an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian,” Bloomberg reports.
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Washington Post: “Jimmy Carter was delivered on Oct. 1, 1924, in a 60-bed hospital in Plains. — becoming the first future president to be born in such a setting.”
“A hospital birth may seem unremarkable today — but at the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all childbirths still took place at home, including the majority at the time of Mr. Carter’s birth.”
President-elect Donald Trump said former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday, did “everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Trump added that while he “strongly disagreed” with Carter “philosophically and politically,” he also realized that Carter “truly loved and respected our Country and all it stands for.”
New York Times: “When he exited the White House, Carter’s job approval rating was only 34 percent, according to Gallup. But in more recent years, as people reassess past presidents, Carter’s retrospective approval rating has risen to 57 percent.”
New York Times: “There is something about former presidents departing during the holidays. The last three presidents who died all passed away between Thanksgiving and New Year’s — Gerald R. Ford died the day after Christmas in 2006, George H.W. Bush died on Nov. 30, 2018, and now Jimmy Carter died four days after Christmas.”
“Former President Jimmy Carter, a man who redefined what a post-presidency could be, died Sunday. He was 100,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The only Georgian ever elected to the White House, Carter left office after a single term that was highlighted by forging peace between Israel and Egypt, but was overshadowed by the Iran hostage crisis.“
Washington Post: “As the nation’s 39th president, he governed with strong Democratic majorities in Congress but in a country that was growing more conservative. Four years after taking office, Mr. Carter lost his bid for reelection, in a landslide, to one of the most conservative political figures of the era, Ronald Reagan.”
New York Times: “He presided over four tumultuous years plagued by long gas lines, high inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. But he also signed a strategic arms limitation agreement with the Soviet Union and helped forge the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Mr. Carter cemented his legacy with a deeper engagement in public affairs than any other former president of modern times and was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.”
Axios notes Carter has often been called the “nation’s greatest former president” for the humanitarian work he conducted in his more than four decades after Washington.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY.) warned his Republican colleagues on Sunday about potentially removing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his post when the 119th Congress is sworn in this week, Axios reports.
Said Lawler: “The fact is that Mike Johnson inherited a disaster when Matt Gaetz and several of my colleagues teamed up with 208 Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy, which will go down as the single stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in politics.”
He added: “Removing Mike Johnson would equally be as stupid. The fact is that these folks are playing with fire. And if they think they’re somehow going to get a more conservative speaker, they’re kidding themselves.”
Judd Legum: “Musk spent nearly $300 million to elect a president with a virulently anti-immigrant agenda and now is telling Trump’s anti-immigrant supporters to ‘Fuck yourself in the face.’”
“Unclear who Musk thought was voting for the guy who blamed immigrants for all of America’s economic problems.”
Washington Post: “The country is girding for the return of Donald Trump, who many here see as an existential threat to Canada’s security. He has threatened to slap 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, levies that could crush the economy of a country that sends nearly 80 percent of its exports to its southern neighbor.”
“And he has taken to mocking embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the ‘governor’ of the ‘great state of Canada’ in middle-of-the-night social media posts that officials here have sought to cast as lighthearted ribbing but others view as not-so-neighborly and not-so-funny. On Christmas, he said he’d pitched hockey great Wayne Gretzky on becoming Canada’s next prime minister.”
“Losing to a twice-impeached convicted felon has left a small, but growing, number of Democrats wondering if their party brand is so toxic that they should shed the label — particularly in battleground and red states,” Politico reports.
“The deliberations, some of which are taking place in private, reflect the extent to which Trump’s win has made the party unsure of what to do next. Few Democrats are dismissing Trump as a fluke anymore after he carried the popular vote and expanded his support among key parts of their base.”
“Democrats who have jumped ship are making the bet that voters are so frustrated with the existing political parties that they will reward them for shaking things up.”
“In the weeks since the election, China has flaunted the ways in which it could hit back at the U.S. in the event of a new trade war with the U.S., including everything from choking off the metals needed for everyday products to punishing American companies that do business in China,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But using such tools too aggressively risks backfiring on Beijing.”
“The big danger is that taking shots at Western companies and restricting exports of critical minerals and other essentials will only encourage the U.S. and its allies to double down on their efforts to untangle their economies from China’s.”
“Justice Department lawyers who have angered President-elect Donald Trump and his allies are facing tough decisions about whether to stay in government—and how to best protect themselves from threats of retribution after Inauguration Day,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Law firms say they have seen an unprecedented flood of résumés from department lawyers looking for the exits.”
Seth Masket picks the biggest political story of the year:
“Democrats: In the seven weeks between the Trump/Biden presidential debate and the Democratic National Convention, the Democrats pushed their scandal-free, well-accomplished incumbent president off the ticket because they thought he would lose. That’s an amount of party power we don’t often see in the U.S. Yet it was not completely without precedent — similar things happened when Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson declined to run for reelection in 1952 and 1968, respectively. In all three cases, the exact same thing happened: a replacement candidate almost certainly did better than the incumbent would have (possibly saving some congressional seats in the process) but still lost.”
“Republicans: In the seven weeks between Trump’s felony criminal conviction in a Manhattan courtroom and the Republican National Convention, the Republicans absolutely did not push their expected nominee off the ticket, instead doubling down in their support for him. This despite polling suggesting that some independents were moving away from Trump as a result of the conviction and they could lose the presidential race as a result. It nicely depicted the two very different attitudes across the parties about just what an electable candidate looks like and how important that trait is.”
“Right up until he was assassinated, Hassan Nasrallah did not believe that Israel would kill him,” the New York Times reports.
“As he hunkered inside a Hezbollah fortress 40 feet underground on Sept. 27, his aides urged him to go to a safer location. Mr. Nasrallah brushed it off, according to intelligence collected by Israel and shared later with Western allies. In his view, Israel had no interest in a full-scale war.”
“What he did not realize was that Israeli spy agencies were tracking his every movement — and had been doing so for years.”
Mexico is launching a smartphone app that allows Mexican migrants to warn relatives and instantly alert the nearest consulate if U.S. immigration agents detain them, Axios reports.
Britain’s ruling Labour Party would lose nearly 200 seats if elections were held today as the populist Reform UK Party surges, according to a Sunday Times poll.
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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