Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets. As usual we have our weekly White House report cards FROM a Democratic pollster and a Republican strategist, plus we have the inside details on where Donald Trump will host King Charles for his state banquet NEXT week, and why there is no comedian at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday …
No two weeks are alike under this administration. In the past seven days we had psychedelics, Iran war and ceasefire, plus the White House Correspondents’ Dinner looming this weekend.
President Donald Trump spent last weekend at the White House, and unusually carried out some public business, signing an executive order TO direct $50 million in federal funds toward psychedelic treatments like psilocybin and ibogaine. Trump joked: “Can I have some, please?”
There were more memos signed on Sunday.
On Monday, he hosted more than 100 NCAA champions at the White House, while the clock down towards the end of the Iran ceasefire the following day. Reports circulated that JD Vance was on his way or about to head to Pakistan for talks.
On Tuesday morning, Trump gave an interview to CNBC saying he did not want to extend the two-week ceasefire but then did exactly that amid signs that the Iranian leadership had fractured. Who would Vance be talking to if he traveled to Islamabad for round two of negotiations?
The following day he churned out a stream of Truth Social posts, claiming Iran had agreed to his request to spare eight women from execution. As well as attacking opponents, plugging a new biography of Justice Samuel Alito, promoting election conspiracies and talking up his “Apprentice juggernaut.”
On Thursday, he announced a three-week extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, and said he had ordered U.S. forces to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Before sitting down for dinner with bigwigs from Paramount and CBS.
Phew. So what did our two political brains make of it all?
John Zogby: Grade F
There is only so much that can be said about Iran, affordability, Epstein, Cabinet disarray, trash talk and so on. I am going to take a different approach this week by sharing a poll conducted last weekend by John Zogby Strategies. We made a simple request to the 1,001 likely voters we polled: “Please rate each of the following presidents as a role model for kids.”
We offered a scale of Excellent, Good, Not So Good, and Poor. Here is the ranking by the results:
President Excellent/Good % Not So Good/Poor %
Ronald Reagan 65 27
Jimmy Carter 63 27
Barack Obama 62 35
George HW Bush 56 33
George W Bush 55 35
Joe Biden 43 52
Donald Trump 37 59
Bill Clinton 36 60
Trump’s score of 37% suggests that his bedrock MAGA voter strength is cracking. Bill Clinton’s numbers are flipped upside from when he was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Strong support across the board for Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter’s rating is the opposite of his job approval rating when he was in office — also turning on its head Shakespeare’s Eulogy of Julius Caesar by Marc Antony. “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” I am not so sure about any Carter evil, but I would certainly like his legacy.
What is interesting here is that there is some nonpartisanship here. But back to Trump, allow me to quote Jesus Christ: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” A simple poll question but a revealing set of responses.
Jed Babbin: Grade B Minus
This wasn’t a particularly good week for Trump and his team. The Iran war is still on pause, gas prices are up but, on the other hand, the Senate is passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security which the Dems are still – after several months – trying to block.
The Iran war bombing pause isn’t enough to bring the ayatollahs to the bargaining table. They’re still insisting that their enriched uranium (about a half-ton of it) isn’t for nuclear weapons purposes. But what else can you do with uranium enriched to 60% other than making nuclear bombs? Nada. With no negotiations planned or even in sight, how the war ends is clearly up for grabs.
The Dems, on the other hand, are trying to block arms shipments to our only Middle Eastern ally, Israel. It’s part Trump Derangement Syndrome and part anti-Semitism but, any way you slice it, stopping arms sales to Israel is bad for US national security.
The only good part of the week is that the Senate is passing DHS funding as part of a budget reconciliation bill, which requires that the House also pass a budget. The budget reconciliation bills only require a simple majority vote and are otherwise filibuster-proof. DHS funding needs to be done. It needed to be done months ago when the Dems blocked it. Time to end this charade.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. His podcast with son, managing partner, and pollster Jeremy Zogby, can be heard here. Follow him on X @ZogbyStrategies.
Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X @jedbabbin.
White House dodges a right royal porta potty quandary
You can just imagine the conniptions at Buckingham Palace.
After King Charles III accepted President Donald Trump’s invitation for a state visit to Washington, a most awkward question of lavatorial etiquette presented itself.
Just what exactly are the toilet – sorry, lavatory – arrangements for VIP guests at the state banquet when it is held in a tent?
That was the sticky issue raised by one of the president’s top aides during a hearing of the National Capital Planning Commission at the end of last year, as it considered plans to build a ballroom at the White House, where the East Wing used to stand.
“I think it’s notable that when the president of the United States of America flies to the United Kingdom, he’s hosted at Windsor Castle,” said Will Scharf, White House staff secretary and (as luck would have it) chairman of the NCPC, the board that oversees federal construction in Washington.
“And when … the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland comes to the United States, more likely than not, he will be hosted in a tent on the South Lawn with porta potties.
“That, to me, is not a good look for the United States of America.”
The president agrees. This is exactly why he is intent on building a $400 million ballroom addition to the people’s house.
The problem is that it and its bathrooms will not be ready until 2028 at the earliest.
So Secrets has excellent news for His Royal Highness. Tuesday’s state dinner will not be held in a tent. We can reveal that the first lady (who runs these occasions) has opted instead to hold the dinner in the East Room of the White House.
“The president and first lady will make excellent use of the historic and beautiful White House East Room,” said her spokesman.
It will make for a “more intimate” occasion, said a Secrets source. The room can hold a maximum of 200 guests. And guests don’t have to use porta potties.
Mind over mockery at correspondents’ dinner
Trump is making his first appearance in a decade at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner on Saturday.
His presence has divided journalists between those who think it makes a mockery of the evening’s focus on the First Amendment, and those who think the whole dinner is an excruciating embarrassment anyway, so who cares?
One notable change to the event is the absence of a comedian to gently (or not so gently) skewer journalists, dignitaries, and president. Trump has famously been the target of mockery in the past (in 2011 when President Barack Obama did the honors) and has angrily defended his staff, such as then Press Secretary Sarah Sanders when she was singled out by Michelle Wolf in 2018.
Instead of mockery, expect mindreading when Oz Pearlman fills the entertainer slot on Saturday night.
“My job is not to come in and roast,” Pearlman told ABC News. “I think I was brought in to unite, unite in a sense of wonder and amazement.”
Journalists have been wondering whether that was the price they had to pay to get Trump to attend.
Congratulations to Politico Playbook
Secrets‘ so-called rival newsletter reveals today how no single person will fill in for Karoline Leavitt as White House Press Secretary when she goes on maternity leave in the coming days. Apparently several different big hitters will brief journalists.
Playbook even lists the item as a “scoop.” Which will of course be something of a shock to Secrets subscribers, who read all about it in February.
Lunchtime reading
Correspondents’ Dinner’s biggest moments involve laughs, cringing and high-stakes politics: Ronald Reagan refusing to make jokes after a somber day. George W. Bush joking about intelligence failures that led the Middle East into catastrophe. Is there anything weirder than this navel-gazing celebration of journalists?
South Africa’s new Trump whisperer: This is paywalled. Apologies. But if you can, it is well worth checking out. “It is more than 30 years since Cyril Ramaphosa, as chief negotiator of the then liberation movement, the African National Congress, helped finesse the end of apartheid. His opposite number from the National Party, for over four decades the enforcer of white rule, was a soft-spoken Afrikaner called Roelf Meyer. Now Ramaphosa has summoned Meyer from retirement to another ticklish mediating role.”
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