Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball: "It seems unlikely that there will be several additional Republican resignations/vacancies over the next couple of months—and if the GOP ever got to just a bare majority, there would be immense pressure on the remaining members to stay put. But there's also clearly a lot of discontent on the GOP side after an exhausting time in the majority following the 2022 elections; plugged-in Fox News congressional reporter Chad Pergram reported a few days ago that 'other Republicans are fed up and could leave before the end of the Congress.'"
"One could also reasonably argue that the Republicans currently are not operating as a real majority party. Because of the fissures within his own party, Speaker Johnson has had to pass some must-pass legislation under a suspension of the rules, which requires 2/3rds majorities (and, thus by definition, significant buy-in from Democrats). The Wall Street Journal recently explored this unusual situation in depth."
"In the longer term, we have to also remember that we have just had consecutive regular House elections that produced small 222-213 majorities, first for the Democrats and then for the Republicans. The House is competitive enough that we could have an even smaller majority in 2024 or in the future—perhaps even 218-217. If that happens, the odds of a majority party change occurring between regular elections goes up dramatically."
Donald Trump went after the flurry of Republican House members leaving their seats this year, throwing the already razor-thin GOP majority up in the air, The Hill reports.
Said Trump:"Never forget our cowards and weaklings! Such a disgrace."
"Days after his speakership was put on notice by a far-right member, Mike Johnson strategized with a key – and perhaps surprising – source: firebrand GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the architect of the last effort to remove a speaker," CNN reports.
"Gaetz, who is making clear he is firmly in Johnson's corner, counseled the rookie speaker during a recent phone call to put some conservative wins on the board over the next few weeks as he navigates the threat of a potential motion to vacate the speaker's chair, according to sources familiar with the conversation."
60 Minutes: "For the first time, there's evidence of who might be behind the mysterious neurological symptoms known as Havana Syndrome, which has been reported by many American officials."
"Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has made no public statements on Russia's detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been held for one year without formal charges or a trial," the Washington Post reports.
"Asked directly to clarify Trump's position on Friday, his campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Trump has consistently gone out of his way to avoid criticizing Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Trump himself routinely demonizes reporters with terms such as 'the enemy' and 'criminals.'"
"His silence stands out among bipartisan condemnation of the detention and calls for Gershkovich's release."
"Within hours of opposition leader Alexey Navalny's death in February in a Russian prison, a group of anti-Kremlin hackers went looking for revenge," CNN reports.
"Using their access to a computer network tied to Russia's prison system, the hackers plastered a photo of Navalny on the hacked prison contractor's website."
"The men who killed Maksim Kuzminov wanted to send a message. This was obvious to investigators in Spain even before they discovered who he was. Not only did the killers shoot him six times in a parking garage in southern Spain, they ran over his body with their car," the New York Times reports.
"They also left an important clue to their identity, according to investigators: shell casings from 9-millimeter Makarov rounds, a standard ammunition of the former Communist bloc."
"Turkey's main opposition party kept control of the country's largest cities and rose to power in others while clinching a surprise victory in local elections that represent a rebuke to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reflecting discontent with the country's turbulent economy," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"Argentine President Javier Milei doesn't see his government dollarizing the economy before next year's mid-term elections, providing the first inkling of a timeline on his most ambitious economic proposal from the campaign," Bloomberg reports.
"Peruvian authorities raided the home of President Dina Boluarte as part of an investigation into possible illicit enrichment after she was spotted wearing luxury watches at public appearances," Bloomberg reports.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said that House Republicans are "probably nearing the conclusion" of their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, Axios reports.
"It reflects a growing feeling among GOP lawmakers that the probe has failed to uncover evidence linking the president to his family members' business dealings."
"House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is in discussions with at least one publisher about a book deal at the same time that he is leading the Biden impeachment probe," Axios reports.
"The project came to light when a source pointed Axios to a page on the HarperCollins website that shows placeholder cover for a book by Comer with a provocative title, All the President's Money, and a supposed publication date of Sept. 10."
CNN: "As the war in the Middle East continues, many Jews and progressives have increasingly found themselves at odds with each other over Israel's handling of the war and President Joe Biden's positions on it, only to expose painful underlying divisions by some over whether Israel even has the right to exist."
Philadelphia Inquirer: "Fetterman has alienated some of his supporters on the left with his defense of Israel's war against Hamas and his criticism of cease-fire activists. His office did not comment on the departures but chief of staff Adam Jentleson said the office has already hired replacements."
"Manhattan prosecutors suggested Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money criminal case this week by assailing the judge's daughter and making a false claim about her on social media," the AP reports.
USA Today: "Donald Trump's namesake social media company burst out of the gate on its first day of trading Tuesday, opening at $70.90 and soaring as high as $79.38 as Trump fans and opportunistic traders bought up shares. But the price faded late in the session and has bounced along at lower levels ever since, ending Thursday down $4.26 at $61.96 on the Nasdaq. The stock exchange was closed Friday in observance of Good Friday."
"Trump Media's market valuation, just over $8 billion, is still stunning for a social media fledgling with an unproven business model that has struggled to attract users and advertisers, burned through cash and racked up losses."
Correspondence reviewed by The Daily Pennsylvanian reveal that Joe Biden spoke with the then-President and then-Dean of Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania about his granddaughter's application.
The messages did not indicate that relatives of the president received any advantage in their application process, but demonstrate the close ties between the president and the Ivy League school.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) suggested that nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza, the Detroit News reports.
Said Walberg: "It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick."
He added: "We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid."
"Wall Street has always played a big role in politics, but never like this," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"Former President Donald Trump is tantalizingly close to tapping a multibillion-dollar windfall that could help pay his legal bills and give a much-needed cash injection to his presidential campaign."
"Almost no one saw it coming. Nearly everything went wrong with the get-rich-quick plan for Trump's social-media platform to go public by riding one of the biggest speculative waves in market history."
Associated Press: "In a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump's message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November."
"Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March."
"A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem."
Stephen Collinson: Trump's inflammatory rhetoric has been effective for him so far but poses real danger.
Nate Cohn: "We'll never know what would have happened if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to continue. But I don't think it's always appreciated that we probably do know that Mr. Gore would have won Florida, and therefore the presidency, if it weren't for the infamous 'butterfly ballot' in Palm Beach County."
"If you don't remember — it has been a while — the butterfly ballot was very unusual. Candidates were listed on both sides of the ballot, and voters cast a ballot by punching a corresponding hole in the middle. What made it so unusual was that the ordering of the candidates on the ballot didn't have the same logic as the corresponding punch hole: George W. Bush and Mr. Gore were the first two candidates listed on the left-hand side, but they corresponded to the first and third hole on the punch. The second punch corresponded with the first candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot: the paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, running as a Reform Party candidate."
"After the election, many voters from Palm Beach claimed they had inadvertently voted for Mr. Buchanan when they meant to vote for Mr. Gore. This is clear in the data."
Brian Beutler: "If the past seven years have taught us anything it's that these kinds of organizations—mainstream news outlets, think tanks, elite universities, civil-society organizations—aren't well calibrated to make moral choices when their mandates come into tension. Abstract values will more often than not yield to other considerations: mass appeal, revenue, brand management, and, given the bent of the modern right, insurance against organized retaliation."
"I'm not sure if or how the rest of us can change this calculus. The durability of the dynamic may simply underscore two things: First, how important it is for the Trump opposition to embrace politics that convey MAGA's incompatibility with democratic life; second, our collective obligation to defeat it so soundly that it shrivels on its own, before the corrosive effect it has on these mediating institutions destroys them."
Ryan Cooper: "The sheer comical excess of the Menendez indictment illustrates how rampant political corruption is in this country. The reason people getting nailed by law enforcement for corruption tend to be people with literal gold bars and stacks of cash sewn into their jackets is because of Supreme Court decisions making it impossible to prosecute instances of corruption that are somewhat more deniable."
"In McDonnell v. U.S., the Court unanimously overturned the conviction of a former Virginia governor and his wife who had set up meetings with officials for a pharmaceutical company while taking valuable gifts from the company's owner. In FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate, it ruled that candidates can loan their campaigns money, and then pay themselves back with donor cash after the election is over and the victor is known—effectively opening a window labeled 'bribes here.' And in Citizens United v. FEC, of course, they legalized effectively limitless corporate spending in politics…"
"So while Menendez was doing the kind of idiotic corruption that actually may have run afoul of the remaining shreds of anti-corruption law, now he is taking advantage of a more subtle variety: spending his campaign money on his legal bills. Should he actually contest the Senate election this year, he is absolutely certain to lose—a recent poll found him with 75 percent disapproval among New Jersey residents—and he's already given up on seeking re-election as a Democrat. But pretending to be running allows him to spend his remaining campaign funds on his legal defense."
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