As polarisation increasingly divides America, violence is becoming embedded in its politics.

“We do believe it was administration officials,” said Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche, when asked for the target of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington. “But as far as exacting threats that may have been communicated beforehand, we’re still actively investigating that evidence.”

For many Americans, Saturday night’s events were “at once shocking and familiar”, said Lisa Lerer in The New York Times. Politically motivated violence has become a “routine intruder” into our lives, bringing with it a “numbing narrative of assaults, bomb threats and assassination attempts”.

What did the commentators say?

“Instead of a speech stacked with heated barbs against the media, the event ended like many in the US do: with gun violence,” said Rachel Leingang in The Guardian.

The association’s initial decision to continue the event (it was later rescheduled) may have surprised some, but for many it “struck a chord about the regularity of gun violence in American life”. Trump said afterwards that the presidency is a “dangerous profession”, but the fact that violence in the political domain is a “feature”, rather than an “outlier, rang true on a night meant to celebrate the freedom of the press”.

Attacks like these are “convulsing” American politics from both sides of the partisan divide, said Guy Chazan in the Financial Times. The suspected gunman had barely been apprehended before “ranks of Maga influencers” were blaming Democrats, and left-leaning conspiracy theorists claimed it was a “staged” hoax to “advance Trump’s political agenda”.

So-called “conflict entrepreneurs” are “getting rich by making us angry at one another”, fuelled by a “loss of trust in democratic institutions that makes it easier to see illegal violence as a solution”, said William Braniff, from the American University. Modern assassination attempts are “backed by a growing public acceptance of the use of violence in the pursuit of political ends”, said Chazan. “Things could get even worse.”

Saturday’s events reveal how “dangerous” US politics has become over the last few years, said James Piazza, political science professor at Penn State, on The Conversation. Intense polarisation means opponents are “suspicious and hostile” towards each other, believing others to be “evil or immoral” instead of merely sharing a different view.

In turn, this has made violence more “normalised”, and because public backlash is “dampened” at each attempt, further violence becomes even “more likely”. Disinformation and social media have also accelerated this trend. Disinformed users are “hermetically sealed off” from alternative sources and this “facilitates radicalisation” for isolated communities.

Even with America’s “grim history of political violence”, Trump “certainly seems to attract a higher share than others of would-be assassins”, said Edward Luce in the Financial Times. He has now been the target of three assassination attempts: his “ear was grazed” by a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania; there was the Mar-a-Lago golf course incident that was foiled by Secret Service agents; and then Saturday’s Washington dinner.

Nearly following in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, Trump said that he was “honoured” by comparisons with the four assassinated presidents because he’s “done a lot”. Let’s not forget that eight children were killed in Louisiana last week, but it “only briefly made the headlines”: mass shootings are now “part of the texture of American life”, said Luce.

What next?

It is “absolutely critical” that both Democratic and Republican politicians “unite to condemn this attack and all political violence”, said Piazza on The Conversation.

Commentators should condemn any violence with political aims and political elites should “adopt rhetoric that does not normalise this sort of behaviour. If the message comes from across the political spectrum, it will be that much more effective at reducing the public attitudes that nurture political violence.”

Following the Pennsylvania assassination attempt the image of Trump with a bloodied face raising his fist “partly defined his campaign”, said Luce. This time around, “any sympathy wave is likely to be more limited”.

Before the incident at the Washington Hilton Hotel, Trump’s approval ratings hit a “personal low of below 40%” in some polls last week, and the “rising unpopularity” of the war in Iran is “driving his nadir”.

Though there is no doubt Trump will “try to make political hay” from the attempt on his life, “ironically” it has been his “early zeal for assassinating senior Iranians” that is “shaping his political future”.

From his podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump reminded his base how he differed from past presidents. “It turned out that I was able to stop wars from happening,” he said.

That was in 2024, said Natalie Allison at The Washington Post. A year later, the newly installed president was back at CPAC, boasting about being “a peacemaker, not a conqueror”.

Notable absences

This year, Trump skipped the jamboree for the first time in a decade: he was too busy managing the war with Iran he’d launched a month earlier. And he wasn’t the only high-profile no show, said Katy Balls in The Sunday Times. At the last event, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio spoke, and Elon Musk ramped up the carnival atmosphere by brandishing a chainsaw on stage; this time, one attendee noted that there were more journalists present than politicians. That the event was rather more subdued than usual was due to several factors – including its relocation from DC to Texas; but the lack of buzz was indicative of the troubled state of the GOP as it gears up for the midterms.

A little over a year into his second term, Trump is discovering that for all his efforts to extend his authority, there are still constraints on what he can do, said Gerard Baker in The Times. Public revulsion has forced him to temper his migrant deportation policy; the Supreme Court has struck out his signature tariffs policy; the markets are squealing about the war in Iran. And even in his own backyard, the voters are restive: in late March, a Florida Democrat seized a red seat that takes in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Base betrayal

The die-hards remain intensely loyal, said Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic, but polls show that Trump is losing support among the coalition of younger Americans and Latinos that gave him his victory in 2024. Many already felt betrayed by his attempt to block the Epstein files and by the impact of his Big Beautiful Bill on the deficit. Now, they’re furious that he has taken the US into a war that is costing billions and further driving up the cost of living.

In the manosphere, prominent voices who rallied behind his “anti-woke” rhetoric in 2024 are complaining that Americans were duped. The podcaster Joe Rogan has called the war “insane, based on what [Trump] ran on”. There is dissent within Maga too, some of which has veered into antisemitism: Tucker Carlson and others have been peddling the line that Israel manipulated Trump into the war. Disenchanted Trump fans are unlikely to vote Democrat in November; but they might easily just tune out of the election – and so inadvertently deliver a “blue wave”.

It’s too early to tell how the military intervention in Iran is going to play out, said Emma Ashford in Foreign Policy, but we can already state one thing with certainty: this is not what Donald Trump’s “base or the American people wanted”.

Trump campaigned as a peace candidate. He promised an “America First” agenda that prioritised pocketbook issues and kept the US out of dangerous foreign entanglements. His adviser, Stephen Miller, depicted him as the opposite of Kamala Harris, whose team was, he said, made up of “warmongering neocons [who] love sending your kids to die for wars they would never fight themselves”.

‘Disgusting and evil’

But it seems Trump is not so different after all. Although only a quarter of Americans polled last week said they’d support military action against Iran, the president ploughed ahead with strikes without even bothering to make the case for war. Several Republicans, including former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have condemned the attack on Iran as a betrayal. The populist commentator Tucker Carlson called it “absolutely disgusting and evil”.

Trump is hardly the first president to grow more hawkish in office, said Jim Geraghty in The Washington Post. It has been the pattern with every US leader since Bill Clinton: they campaign on domestic issues, then get drawn into foreign interventions. Their previously expressed fears about military overreach tend to dissipate once power is in the hands of someone they trust completely: themselves. But they’re also more aware, once in office, of the gravity of the threats facing the US.

Military muscle

While the Iran strikes have upset some of Trump’s erstwhile backers, he has “calculated that he can strong-arm his base into line”, said Hugh Tomlinson in The Observer. As one Republican strategist noted over the weekend: “Maga is still whatever Trump says it is.” The important thing, said Jim Antle in The Daily Telegraph, is that Trump has so far limited his military actions to things that US forces are good at, such as killing enemies, rather than trying to emulate the neocon agenda of nation-building and democracy promotion.

As long as he can avoid a protracted conflict, he’ll be OK, said Mikey Smith in the Daily Mirror. Displays of US military muscle play quite well with his base: polls suggest that Maga supporters were not that averse to the idea of quick, punitive action against Iran. However, the second this military adventure “stops looking like a surgical strike and starts looking like a forever war”, Trump will find himself in a lot of political trouble.

What happened

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), a married father of six, acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that he had an affair with a congressional staffer who died in September after setting herself on fire. He had previously denied having a sexual relationship with the woman, Regina Santos-Aviles. Hours before Gonzales made his admission during a radio interview, the House Ethics Committee said it had opened an investigation into his conduct. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) on Wednesday filed a resolution to censure Gonzales, and several other Republicans have called on him to resign or abandon his re-election bid.

Who said what

“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment” and “take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales told conservative radio host Joe Pagliarulo. “I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has.” Gonzales said he “had absolutely nothing to do” with Santos-Avila’s “tragic passing.” But he “spent only a few moments expressing contrition before lashing out at the media, his political opponents and the widower of the aide,” The New York Times said.

The scandal — fueled by leaked text messages in which Gonzales appeared to pressure Santos-Avila to send him a “sexy pic” and her favorite sexual positions — “dogged him through his bitter GOP primary race” and helped force him into a May runoff, The Washington Post said. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both endorsed Gonzales.

What next?

The Ethics Committee is investigating whether Gonzales “engaged in sexual misconduct toward an individual employed in his congressional office” and “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges,” the body said in a statement. Luna said she had reviewed fresh evidence that Gonzales forced a relationship on his subordinate, and “I will just tell you that there’s a lot there.” She said she had no doubt her censure resolution would pass.

The war in Iran has probably ended any debate over whether President Donald Trump is an isolationist. He is not. But his onetime promises of military restraint abroad were part of his appeal to MAGA voters, some of whom now find themselves alarmed.

Many Trump voters “didn’t want to attack Iran. Now he has to win them over,” said Politico. Polling taken before the war began showed that just half of those voters supported military action against Iran, but nearly a third did not. If the war “expands into a protracted conflict, or ends up with troops on the ground, it will be a liability,” said GOP strategist Jason Roe.

MAGA influencers were already feuding before the attack on Iran, which has caused them to “deepen their civil war,” said MS NOW. War with Iran “is AMERICA LAST,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on X. The administration’s shifting rationales for war are “to put it mildly, confused,” said right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh on the platform. Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson have also chimed in. But others are rooting for Trump. “Civilized people” in the West “will not bow down” to Islam, said influencer Laura Loomer on X.

Biggest war since Iraq

Trump and his pro-war congressional allies “think you’re stupid,” said Jack Hunter at The American Conservative. The president has failed to provide a “solid, pinpoint” reason for launching the war at “this very moment.” Most polls show that Americans “overwhelmingly” did not want this war, and the flailing justifications are “adding insult to injury.” No one should misunderstand: This is a war of choice “started by Donald Trump” that will reach its endpoint “only God knows how.”

The president in 2024 seemed to be the candidate “less likely to continue the Forever Wars,” conservative writer Rod Dreher said in his newsletter. Now the president has launched the United States’ “biggest war since Iraq.” When George W. Bush launched that 2002 invasion, he at least had 72% of the country behind him. Trump’s approval ratings these days are considerably lower. Congress is “sleepwalking” while Trump leads the country into a major war. “This is Caesar stuff. You know that, right?”

“Don’t confuse the Iran War’s MAGA critics with most Republicans,” David M. Drucker said at Bloomberg. Complaints from figures like Walsh and Greene “represent the minority opinion on the right.” The instincts of GOP voters are “little changed from the Reagan-Bush days,” said Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini. Even so, said Drucker, “cracks in the MAGA coalition may be showing.”

Trump embodies MAGA

While GOP voters have “largely supported” the war in Iran, the ongoing effort could still “challenge Trump’s ability to hold his base together,” Aaron Blake said at CNN. Polling suggests that while GOP support exists, that support is “pretty lukewarm.”

Trump may not be worried. Criticisms from Carlson, Kelly and other MAGA influencers are not a problem because “I think that MAGA is Trump,” the president said to independent journalist Rachel Bade. The MAGA movement “loves what I’m doing.”

What happened

The House Oversight Committee Thursday interviewed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for more than six hours as part of its Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Clinton told the Republican-led committee she had never met Epstein, had no knowledge of his crimes and was being used as a prop in “partisan political theater” aimed at protecting “one political party and one public official.”

Who said what

“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” Clinton told reporters after her deposition at a performing arts center near her home in Chappaqua, New York. “I never went to his island. I never went to his homes. I never went to his offices.”

The closed-door deposition was a “rancorous, partisan affair” from the start, CNN said. It “briefly went off the rails,” The New York Times said, after Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) violated committee rules by sending a photo of Clinton testifying to MAGA influencer Benny Johnson, who posted it on social media. Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) said the breach showed that Republicans were using this “incredibly unserious clown show of a deposition” to get “their photo op” of Clinton, not hold anyone accountable for Epstein’s crimes.

What next?

Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he “learned a lot” from Clinton but “we have a lot of questions for her husband,” former President Bill Clinton, at his deposition today. Republicans are “eager to make Bill Clinton their bogeyman,” Politico said, but the committee’s “focus on the Clintons” is “fueling accusations from Democrats that the GOP is deflecting from President Donald Trump’s own ties” to Epstein. Forcing Bill Clinton to testify “set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), and his party plans to use that precedent to depose Trump if they win control of the House.

What happened

The House Tuesday failed to pass a bipartisan aviation safety bill that won unanimous approval in the Senate in December. The 264-133 House vote fell just short of the two-thirds majority required under special fast-track rules typically used for non-controversial bills. Nearly all 133 no votes came from Republicans.

The bill would have required most aircraft to carry advanced location tracking technology, ADS-B In, that the National Transportation Safety Board said would have prevented last year’s deadly midair collision near Washington, D.C.

Who said what

The Senate’s ROTOR Act is strongly backed by the families of the 67 people who died in the January 2025 collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight. It was also supported by labor groups, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy and, until Monday night, the Defense Department. But it “ran into headwinds in the House from several powerful Republican committee leaders,” NPR said.

The bill’s defeat was a “major win” for Transportation Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.), a longtime advocate for smaller private aircraft, Politico said. Graves argued that his rival ALERT Act addressed all 50 NSTB recommendations to prevent future collisions. But Homendy and the victims’ families oppose his legislation because it does not require the use of ADS-B In, as the NSTB has advocated since 2008.

What next?

The victims’ families said in a statement they were “devastated” by the Senate bill’s defeat and urged “House leadership to bring the ROTOR Act back for a vote that lets the majority pass it.” Given that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his top lieutenants voted no Tuesday, “it is unlikely that the House will revive the bill,” The New York Times said. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the ROTOR Act’s lead sponsor with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), called Tuesday’s vote a “temporary delay” and predicted the bill will “become the law of the land.”

What happened

Christian Menefee on Saturday won a special election for an open House seat in the Houston-area 18th Congressional District, whittling down the chamber’s already thin Republican majority. In a second Texas runoff election, Democrat Taylor Rehmet scored an upset victory over Republican Leigh Wambsganss for a state Senate seat in Tarrant County. Rehmet, a union leader, beat the conservative activist by 14 points in the solidly Republican district, which President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024.

Who said what

Rehmet’s victory was a “stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense” of “panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections,” The Texas Tribune said. Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and Trump, “had been sounding alarms” about the “too close for comfort” race, The Wall Street Journal said, but “the 31-point swing leftward was a surprise across the board.”

Saturday’s victories “followed a string of wins in recent months for the Democratic Party in local and state elections across the country,” Reuters said. Strategists and analysts view special elections as a “barometer for measuring the national political mood and voter attitudes,” The Washington Post said. But Trump, who endorsed Wambsganss and sent out three get-out-the-vote alerts last week, “tried to play down any effort to connect the unpopularity of his presidency and policies” to the GOP losses. “I’m not involved with that,” he told reporters Sunday. “That’s a local Texas race.”

What next?

Once House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) swears in Menefee, 10 months after former Rep. Sylvester Turner (D) died in office, his majority will be so “razor-thin” he will be able “lose only one Republican vote,” the Post said. Rehmet’s “win will be short-lived,” the Tribune said, as he will face Wambsganss again in November for the full four-year term.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday told House Republicans “you got to win the midterms” or “I’ll get impeached.” If Democrats retake the House, “they’ll find a reason to impeach me” for a third time, he said, claiming that his two first-term impeachments were “for nothing.” The GOP “can own health care” as an issue in the midterms, he told House Republicans at their annual retreat in Washington, but “you gotta be a little flexible” on abortion funding to reach a deal on health insurance subsidies.

Who said what

Trump’s remarks were a “rare acknowledgment” of his “political vulnerability as Republicans prepare to face a Democratic Party buoyed by a string of off-year election victories, favorable polling and voter anxiety over an economy now fully under Trump’s stewardship,” The Washington Post said. A Democratic victory “could stall his agenda and expose him to congressional investigations,” Reuters said.

“They say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm,” Trump said. “I wish you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public.” Trump’s 84-minute “election-year pep talk,” Roll Call said, “veered between familiar topics” from his rallies and “verbal jabs at longtime political foes,” plus first lady Melania Trump’s advice that he stop dancing. “I think I gave you something,” Trump concluded. “It’s a road map to victory.”

What next?

Trump’s exhortation to lean in on health care puts House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “in a bind,” Axios said. The “vast majority of House Republicans” oppose extending Affordable Care Act credits without added abortion restrictions and “many Republicans see health care as a losing issue for the party, especially in the 2026 midterms.”

What happened

The Senate Thursday failed to pass competing plans to prevent a sharp rise in costs for people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act when subsidies expire at the end of the year. The Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative each drew a bare majority of 51 votes, but 60 votes were needed to advance under the Senate’s filibuster rule. A handful of Republicans voted for both plans.

Who said what

The dueling votes marked an “unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats” to extend the subsidies while Republicans “struggled to find an alternative,” The Associated Press said. Senate Republicans “eventually settled on” funneling up to $1,500 into health savings accounts for ACA customers who opt for a “lower-cost, higher deductible bronze or catastrophic health insurance plan.” That money could be spent on out-of-pocket health care expenses but not premiums.

The “stakes for American families are considerable,” but the “political stakes are also vast,” Politico said. For many Republicans, the “pressure posed by the subsidy cliff is rivaled by the anxiety they are feeling about the approaching midterms,” but “that sense of panic has not trickled up to Republican leaders, who appear ready to send lawmakers home next week until Jan. 6.” After “today’s vote,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, the “American health care crisis is 100% on their shoulders.”

What next?

Hope is “fading for any deal to extend the subsidies before the end of the year, if at all,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “next major legislative deadline is Jan. 30, when lawmakers need to pass a new bill funding the government.”

Congressional Republicans do not often love their leaders. They booted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 and replaced him with the then-nearly unknown Mike Johnson. Now Johnson faces a revolt from high-profile women in his ranks.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) hold on the speaker’s gavel “appears weaker than ever,” said The New York Times. Public anger has come from GOP figures like Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a member of Johnson’s leadership team, as well as Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), who circumvented Johnson to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. House Republicans are often fractious, “but it does seem like there is an unusually high level of discontent,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) to the Times. Johnson “wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” Stefanik said to The Wall Street Journal.

Female GOP lawmakers have “less representation in leadership” and hold just one committee chairmanship in the lower chamber, said NBC News. The women “feel they have been passed over for opportunities” and believe Johnson has repeatedly undercut them. “We aren’t taken seriously,” said one anonymous female Republican to NBC. Johnson’s team is pushing back. The speaker has “helped recruit and support women running for office,” a spokesman said. It is a conflict Johnson needs to resolve. Republicans have a slim majority in the House, and he cannot afford any defections.

What did the commentators say?

“The GOP women are humiliating Mike Johnson,” said Joe Perticone at The Bulwark. It started when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) backed the petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. It has come to a head with Stefanik, angry with Johnson over her proposal to require the FBI to disclose when it investigates congressional candidates. All of it is a sign that House Republicans are on the verge of “entering into open rebellion” against their leader. The party’s women are “giving Johnson the bird” while GOP men in the House are living with the “indignity of being subservient cogs in the party machinery.”

It is not shocking that a party built on President Donald Trump’s “macho, politically incorrect swagger” is having trouble with women in its ranks, said Matt Lewis at The Hill. Johnson in particular is an evangelical “fond of lecturing about ’distinct roles’ for men and women.” He also makes an easy target for Republicans frustrated by the party’s political challenges, but who will not challenge Trump directly. Is the speaker a “retrograde misogynist” or just a patsy? “Either way, the ending is the same.”

What next?

Johnson is “imploring” his members to “stop venting their frustrations in public,” said The Associated Press. If there are conflicts, “come to me, don’t go to social media,” he said to reporters Thursday. More and more, though, GOP members are “ignoring him,” said the AP. House Democrats are delighted. Republicans are the “gang that can’t legislate straight,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to the outlet.

What happened

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas Republicans can use the congressional map they approved in August, at President Donald Trump’s urging. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. A divided three-judge panel in Texas last month threw out the new map, which could flip up to five Democratic-held seats, with a Trump appointee ruling it an impermissible racial gerrymander.

Who said what

The ruling was a “major win for Republicans in Texas and nationally,” boosting their odds of keeping their “narrow majority” in next year’s midterms, The Texas Tribune said. The lower court “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the Supreme Court said in its unsigned “shadow docket” ruling.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing separately in an opinion joined by two other conservatives, argued that it was “indisputable” Texas Republicans were seeking “partisan advantage pure and simple.” Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s liberals, said the ruling “disrespects” the lower court’s diligent work and “ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.”

What next?

Trump’s push for Texas Republicans to redraw their map mid-decade sparked a nationwide scramble that has led to GOP-boosting maps in Missouri and North Carolina and a Democratic gerrymander in California. Other states are considering joining the battle. The high court just gave “a green light for there to be even more re-redistricting, and a strong message to lower courts to butt out,” UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen said at his Election Law Blog.

What happened

Republican Matt Van Epps won Tuesday’s special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th Congressional District, defeating Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn 54% to 45%. Van Epps will replace former Rep. Mark Green (R), who won the seat by 21 percentage points last year as President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points.

Who said what

Republicans won, maintaining their 219-213 advantage in the House, “but instead of celebrating, many are dreading what it means about the midterms,” Politico said. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) team “was bracing for a tighter-than-comfortable race,” but the “single-digit margin was still a hard pill to swallow after national Republicans pulled out all the stops — including a Trump tele-rally and Johnson visit to the district — to rescue Van Epps in the final days.” GOP-aligned groups spent $7 million in the race, versus $3 million for Democratic-aligned groups, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Trump hailed the “BIG Congressional WIN” on social media, calling it “another great night for the Republican Party!!!” Van Epps said his victory showed that “running from Trump is how you lose. Running with Trump is how you win.” Nobody in Washington “believed we could get even this close,” Behn said following her defeat. “Tonight isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a next chapter of Tennessee and American politics.”

What next?

The district’s “13-point shift toward Democrats” should be a “five-alarm fire” for Republicans “ahead of the 2026 midterms,” said elections analyst G. Elliott Morris. “A 13-point shift may seem extraordinary or jaw-dropping,” Nate Cohn said at The New York Times, but “for Republicans this year, it’s simply the norm.”

“Marjorie Taylor Greene just wrecked the cult of Trump,” said Greg Sargent in The New Republic. Standing outside the U.S. Capitol last week with a group of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, the GOP representative slammed the president for calling her a “traitor” and a “ranting lunatic” because she helped force a vote on releasing government files on the deceased sex trafficker. In a barb clearly aimed at Trump—who reversed his opposition to releasing the files as it became clear he couldn’t stop the congressional effort—the Georgia Republican said a traitor “serves foreign countries and themselves” while a patriot serves “Americans like the women standing behind me now.” This “rift is a big deal,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. That a “notorious Trump-slobberer” like Greene would openly resist the man who coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” is significant. But she’s also doing it while promoting the radical idea that MAGA “has discrete ideological content beyond the president’s whims and daily political needs.” If this notion catches fire on the Right, Greene could find herself leading “the first meaningful right-wing rebellion against autocracy of this era.”

The “MAGA crackup” goes far beyond Epstein, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. In recent weeks, Greene has chided Trump for being too focused on striking foreign deals while ignoring “the five-alarm fire” of affordability and health-care costs. Other MAGA types have been infuriated by the president’s un–America First defense of skilled foreign worker visas, which he told Fox News are needed because Americans lack “certain talents.” A few days later, Trumpist influencer Mike Cernovich was raging online about “how overt the corruption” is within this administration. It was against this backdrop of spreading disaffection that Trump rebuked Greene—rebukes she said led to death threats against her and her family. “Many right-wing influencers reacted with unusual fury” to Trump’s jabs. Some even posted images of burning MAGA hats, a sign “that the MAGA coalition is fragmenting.”

Perhaps, said Joan Vennochi in The Boston Globe. But if the last decade has taught us anything, it’s that Trump’s “base sticks with him,” no matter what, and so far there’s little reason to think that this time will be different. True, Trump’s average approval rating— about 40%—is at a second-term low. But it’s only down some 2 points from September, which hardly signals some imminent sea change in his political fortunes. Trump’s Epstein-files “U-turn” may read as weakness to D.C. insiders, said Jack Blanchard in Politico. But it could be a “path to redemption” with his base. If Trump fulfills his promises and now delivers “an all-out blitz on ‘affordability,’” slashing tariffs and mailing out $2,000 “rebate checks,” MAGA might forget its “disenchantment.”

But Trump isn’t “losing control of MAGA” because of the growing incoherence of his policies, said Jeet Heer in The Nation. Figures like Greene are breaking with Trump, and MAGA is “splintering,” because the GOP’s voters, donors, and leaders are already looking past Trump to 2028, when the party will need a new standard bearer. Can a political coalition “created and unified by a cult leader” survive “without that cult leader”? asked Andrew Sullivan in his Substack newsletter. We’re about to find out. It’s less than a year until the 2026 midterms and perhaps only months before Donald J. Trump, as a political force, finds himself “quacking lamely in the rearview mirror.”

The longest government shutdown in US history ended with a whimper, said Nitish Pahwa on Slate. For 43 days, Congress had been in a stalemate as Senate Democrats withheld support for a government funding bill in a bid to force the Republicans to extend Covid-era healthcare subsidies.

The subsidies are set to expire next month, at which point the average health insurance premiums of millions of Americans will more than double. But last week, enough Democrats – eight senators – “caved”, allowing the budget to pass in return for the mere promise of a future vote on whether to revive the subsidies.

‘Angry activists’

How pathetic, said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. The Democrats had been winning the stand-off. Polls showed that many voters blamed the GOP for the shutdown. Even as senators were preparing to capitulate, President Trump was booed by a crowd at an American football game. Talk about stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Democrats were right to back down, said Michael Powell in The Atlantic. The shutdown was hurting too many people. Poor families were going hungry without food stamps. Federal employees were struggling to pay mortgages and bills without paycheques. Unpaid air traffic controllers meant flight cancellations. The Democrats, who take pride in defending the less fortunate, couldn’t sustain their position.

It’s always the way with government shutdowns, said The Washington Post. Parties instigate them to placate “angry activists”, only to have to fold, prompting a backlash from those same activists.

Democrats ‘may have dodged a bullet’

The recriminations among Democrats have indeed been bitter, said Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine. There have been calls for the replacement of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But “losing” the subsidy-extension battle is no disaster for the party. On the contrary, the Democrats “may have dodged a bullet”. Securing the extension would have neutralised one of the GOP’s key political vulnerabilities: the Republicans have “emerged from the shutdown row having abundantly displayed their lack of interest in soaring healthcare costs”.

That’s not a good look at a time when “affordability” has become such a big election issue, and voters will remember it when their insurance premiums soar. “The short-term stakes of the shutdown fight may soon be overshadowed by more enduring public perceptions” of what the two parties stand for.

For as much as President Donald Trump seems the alpha and omega of Republican politics at the moment, a growing number of savvy conservatives are already eyeing a post-Trump world. Some are even starting to make moves accordingly. For Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), those moves include high-profile media feuds, conspicuous rhetorical pivots, and sending signs to potential donors that he may soon be running for the White House again. As Cruz plays coy with his plans, many political observers think he’s getting ready for something big.

‘Staking out turf’

Cruz has “positioned himself” for a second presidential run following his unsuccessful 2016 bid by framing himself as an “alternative to the more domestically focused wing of the GOP,” said Fox News. Questions surrounding the “issue of interventionism” have “divided figures in the GOP for months,” with Cruz having “gone against swaths of the party who have advocated for a retreat from international involvement.”

In particular, Cruz is “laying the groundwork” for a 2028 run, “staking out turf as a traditional, pro-interventionist Republican” by “leaning into his feud with Tucker Carlson,” said Axios. But while Carlson may be the immediate recipient of Cruz’s opprobrium for his relationship with antisemitic white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the senator is actually “putting himself on a collision course” with Carlson ally and fellow potential 2028 GOP frontrunner, Vice President JD Vance. And thanks to his “top-ranked” podcast and other broadcasting projects, Cruz has established a “formidable network for soliciting small-dollar contributors.” At the same time, Cruz’s pushback against Carlson and Fuentes is “endearing himself to powerful pro-Israel donors.” It’s “definitely getting noticed,” said Republican Jewish Coalition President Matt Brooks to Axios.

As host of “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the senator also sits atop the “most popular podcast by far of any sitting politician in the United States,” said Politico. Given both the ongoing struggles of traditional media and the trend of social media influencers who “increasingly have parasocial relationships with their fanbases,” Cruz’s podcast affords him a “much bigger platform than the average politician” that could serve as a “potential head start for a future presidential run.”

Playing coy for now

As the “last GOP candidate standing” against Trump in 2016, Cruz has signaled that he “expects to run again for president someday,” The Hill said, even as he “sidestepped” questions to that effect during a Monday interview on Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus.”

“You know, reporters are going to write headlines that get clicks and get eyeballs,” Cruz said when asked by host Harris Faulkner about 2028 rumors. “I got a job,” Cruz continued. “It’s representing 31 million Texans, and it’s fighting every day for 31 million Texans.” Without “denying the reporting,” Cruz then “highlighted his own contribution to Trump’s signature, sweeping tax and spending bill,” USA Today said.

Demure pivots aside, Cruz’s potential 2028 plans have earned plaudits, of sorts, from the epicenter of Republican politics today: Trump. It’s a “little early” to speculate about 2028, Trump said to a reporter who asked about Cruz’s potential plans this week. “It’s three-and-a-quarter years. That’s a long time.” But Cruz is a “very good guy. He is a very good friend of mine.”

Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Nick Fuentes, the Holocaust-denying white nationalist, has exposed a rupture on the right. The divide is between conservatives who would allow once-fringe views in the GOP coalition and those who reject Fuentes’ overt antisemitism.

The Carlson-Fuentes chat was “one of the most dangerous interviews ever in MAGA media,” Will Sommer said at The Bulwark. The country must overcome the challenge of “organized Jewry in America,” Fuentes told the former Fox News host. Such incendiary claims are a “catastrophe for more traditional conservative media figures,” Sommer said, and have drawn rebukes from Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan and writer Rod Dreher. (On Monday, conservative influencer Ben Shapiro posted a podcast episode titled “Tucker Carlson Sabotages America.”) By giving Fuentes a platform, Carlson “just accelerated the right’s already prominent tilt toward authoritarianism and hate.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts threw in his lot with Carlson on Thursday, said Politico. Fuentes’ views may be abhorrent “but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said in a video posted to X. The interview was not an isolated moment, coming after a “string of antisemitic incidents on the right” that included the revelation of racist comments on a Young Republicans group text, said Politico. The trend has “broadly divided” the Republican Party. Antisemitism is “rising on the right in a way I have never seen,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said recently.

Mainstreaming antisemitism

“The Groypers are at the gate,” Peter Laffin said at The Washington Examiner, using a term for Fuentes’ racist followers. Heritage’s Roberts compounded the problem with his public statement, which lent “credence to Fuentes’ and Carlson’s alt-right fever dream.” Groypers are threatening to take over the right and the “conservative movement, led by Roberts, is waving the white flag.”

Jewish conservatives “believe that Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous man in America to Jews,” conservative writer Rod Dreher said at his newsletter. That is because Carlson is the “most important mainstreamer of antisemitism on the right.” President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance could curtail the trend “by forthrightly denouncing it.” For conservatives and Christians, it is “time to find your courage” and push back now.

Fuentes is “shaping up to be the year’s major conservative breakout star” and is “clearly steering the right toward a wholesale embrace of bigotry,” Robby Soave said at Reason. The problem for his conservative critics is “their side is clearly losing.” Refusing to engage with him will not work, however. That would simply make his arguments “seem powerful, hypnotic and ultimately more appealing.”

Hostile toward Israel

Carlson, Fuentes and other influencers are trying to make the GOP “hostile toward Israel and the Jewish people,” National Review said in an editorial. But a version of America that is run by “anti-Israel zealots” is not one “any conservative should want to live in.”

The divide between Fuentes and conservatives is “narrower than it has ever been,” Ali Breland said at The Atlantic. His entry into the MAGA mainstream means his visions for a reactionary party “are closer than ever to being realized.”

We live in strange times, said Holly Hudson on The Daily Beast. Who’d have thought, for instance, that the day would come when Marjorie Taylor Greene began “sounding... kind of reasonable”?

The Georgia congresswoman has until now been best known as a conservative firebrand and conspiracy loon. She famously suggested that wildfires might have been started by “Jewish space lasers”, and railed against the “Gazpacho police” (she meant “Gestapo”).

Over recent weeks, however, this once-staunch Donald Trump loyalist has started taking the administration to task. She has blamed Republican leaders for the government shutdown; sided with Democrats in calling for an extension of tax credits for health insurance; railed against high inflation; and stated that her party has “no plan”.

‘Dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance’

Greene’s independent streak has not gone unnoticed by Trump, who has apparently been calling around and asking: “What’s been going on with Marjorie?” Trump is right to ask, said Melanie Zanona on NBC News, as Greene is “arguably more in tune with the Maga base than any other member of Congress”. Her attacks may, in fact, be partly motivated by pique: sources say she’s cross that the White House talked her out of running for the Senate, and is disappointed not to have been given a cabinet role.

But there’s also political calculation at work, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Greene is positioning herself for the post-Trump era. She can see that the president’s popularity is sliding and that the economy is not working well for most Americans. She’s a “gifted grifter dipping a toe in the pool of Trump defiance to see if it makes waves she can ride”.

‘Echoing the frustrations she’s hearing’

Greene’s rebellion is a warning to the Republicans, said Matt Wylie in The State. “She’s not going rogue; she’s echoing the frustrations she’s hearing from her own base.” Trump keeps insisting that prices are falling, yet it’s clear his trade tariffs are hitting people in the pocket. Grocery bills are rising; pay cheques are shrinking. Some voters, meanwhile, are unhappy about Trump launching legal assaults on his political enemies and deploying troops in cities.

“Economic pain, institutional mistrust and political exhaustion are converging into something volatile – a storm of disillusionment that no amount of populist rhetoric can overcome.” The GOP needs to start governing more effectively, or “the cracks in the Maga movement will only widen”.

The filibuster is keeping the government shutdown alive. Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, but filibustering Democrats have enough votes to prevent the GOP from reaching the 60-vote threshold now needed to pass most legislation. Some Republican officials think it might be time to kill the rule and finally end the shutdown.

A growing willingness among GOP senators to consider ending the filibuster is a “sign of just how stuck things are,” said NOTUS. Longtime defenders of the 60-vote rule are now weakening in their resolve. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is a “strong supporter” of the filibuster, “but obviously I’ll look at any plan that anyone puts out in order to reopen the government,” she said. Republicans may have no other choice. “If we can’t get anything done, that’s what they’re gonna force,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). There are skeptics, however. “Bad idea,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

Creating excuses for Democrats?

“Republicans can end the government shutdown today,” said Bill Scher at Washington Monthly. GOP senators in September used the “nuclear option” to end the filibuster for many of President Donald Trump’s nominees. If they do not do the same in order to get government back in business, it will show “how little they care about keeping it open” and how much they prefer “creating excuses for vilifying Democrats.” That means “we shouldn’t expect a shutdown to end anytime soon.”

The GOP is “already chipping away at the filibuster rule,” said Matt Yglesias at Slow Boring. That is a good thing, actually. The “filibuster rule is dumb,” and scrapping it altogether is better than creating “weird loopholes” for a few special cases. Ending the filibuster would let Republicans pass their preferred bills while allowing Democrats to “vote no on legislation they don’t like.” Democrats might not win the budget battle, but “we still end up with a better outcome.”

Ending the filibuster is the “most shortsighted way” to end the shutdown, said The Washington Post editorial board. The rule has a history of “frustrating presidents” but has also moderated legislation from the “more unruly House.” If neither side can find common ground to break the deadlock, the “world’s greatest deliberative body will break forever.” That would be a “disaster for Republicans.”

Moving first

Some House Republicans are pushing their Senate colleagues to act, said The Hill. GOP officials “need to be taking a look at the 60-vote threshold,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). The filibuster makes Republicans “beholden to a broken system right now.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” said Nick Catoggio at The Dispatch. If Republicans nuke the filibuster now, “it will stay nuked when Democrats eventually recapture control of the executive and legislative branches.” That is the argument against ending the filibuster. The counterargument is that Democrats are already likely to kill the rule when and if they return to power. If you are a Republican senator, “you might reflect on that and wonder why you shouldn’t move first.”

What happened

Senate Republicans Monday warned that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, would not get confirmed, following reports he repeatedly posted racist comments in a group chat last year. Republicans had already delayed Ingrassia’s confirmation hearing over discomfort with his history of inflammatory remarks and ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Who said what

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in a 2024 group chat with GOP operatives and influencers, according to Politico, which obtained the entire text chain from a participant. “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it,” Ingrassia, now 30, reportedly wrote a few months later, a comment that “was not taken as a joke” and drew pushback from three participants, Politico said.

“He’s not gonna pass,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.C.) told reporters Monday, urging Trump to pull Ingrassia’s nomination. At least three GOP senators — Rick Scott (Fla.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and James Lankford (Okla.) — said they wouldn’t support Ingrassia. It was a “rare repudiation of a Trump nominee by a Republican Senate that has largely gone along with the president’s staffing choices,” Semafor said.

What next?

Scott, Johnson and Lankford “will have a chance to question Ingrassia Thursday — if Ingrassia’s confirmation hearing goes on as planned,” Politico said. A leaked racist and antisemitic group chat between Young Republicans leaders revealed last week led to the disbanding of chapters in Kansas and New York, the firing of several participants and the formal resignation Monday of Vermont state Sen. Samuel Douglass (R).

What happened

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority Wednesday appeared inclined to neuter the last remaining major provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The justices heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a challenge from a group of white voters to the state’s court-mandated creation of a second majority-Black congressional district. If the high court strikes down Section 2 of the landmark civil rights law, states would no longer be required to consider race when drawing congressional maps.

Who said what

The “increasingly conservative Supreme Court” has already “largely dismembered” the Voting Rights Act over the past 12 years, but they upheld Section 2 “just two years ago,” Nina Totenberg said at NPR. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the “decisive fifth vote” in that case, said Wednesday he thought “there should be an endpoint to racial remedies like this one.” Notably, said CNN, Kavanaugh “signaled an interest” in a Trump administration solution that would “erode” the provision’s power “while not gutting it entirely.”

Even weakening the law’s protections for Black voters would “potentially trigger a political avalanche,” The Associated Press said. Without Section 2, Republicans could “eliminate upward of a dozen Democratic-held districts across the South,” The New York Times said, leaving Republicans perennially “favored to win the House even if they lost the popular vote by a wide margin.”

What next?

The Supreme Court “typically issues major rulings by late June or early July,” the Times said. But if it “acts quickly,” NPR’s Totenberg said, the court “could facilitate the elimination of Louisiana’s second majority-Black district prior to next year’s congressional election.”

‘The Supreme Court left no doubt: it will gut the Voting Rights Act’

Elie Mystal at The Nation

Republican justices are “going to declare the Voting Rights Act inert and allow the dilution of Black voting rights through racist gerrymandering,” says Elie Mystal. “Some analysts believe that this Supreme Court ruling could result in as many as 19 congressional seats being shifted to the Republicans.” The Democratic Party “cannot survive the loss of Black voting rights,” and “we are now suffering the consequences of the Democrats’ past inaction.”

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‘Something is stirring in Christian America, and it’s making me nervous’

David French at The New York Times

The “steady decline of Christianity in America seems to have slowed, perhaps even paused,” and “younger generations of Americans are now attending church slightly more regularly than older generations,” says David French. But there is a “darkness right alongside the light” of “America’s religious surge.” Christians are “attacking what they call the ‘sin of empathy,’ warning fellow believers against identifying too much with illegal immigrants, gay people or women who seek abortions.”

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‘How Trump got his Nobel Peace Prize after all’

Steve Striffler at Al Jazeera

The Trump administration had to be “pleased that the award went to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado,” says Steve Striffler. Trump and Machado are “cut from the same right-wing authoritarian cloth, which in part explains why the president quickly congratulated her, and why Machado, in turn, dedicated her award to him.” In “awarding the prize to Machado, the Nobel Committee has provided an open invitation for Trump to continue, and even escalate, military intervention and gunboat diplomacy in Latin America.”

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‘“Dancing patients” aren’t the biggest problem with drug ads’

Steven Woloshin and Baruch Fischhoff at The Washington Post

The Food and Drug Administration has “issued dozens of warning letters to companies about ads ‘filled with dancing patients,’” and “‘glowing smiles,’” say Steven Woloshin and Baruch Fischhoff. “But misleading images are just the tip of the drug-promotion iceberg.” The FDA should address a bigger problem: These ads “fail to communicate what consumers most need to know — how well a drug actually works.” Unless “consumers learn how big the risks and benefits are, a drug ad has simply not informed them.”

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The government shutdown is about health care. Democrats say they want to extend tax subsidies for the Affordable Care Act's insurance plans or else premiums will spike. Republicans are refusing, saying they want to replace Obamacare with something better. The details are elusive, though, and so is an end to the shutdown.

GOP leaders “don’t appear to have an alternate plan for what happens next,” said The Hill. When the shutdown ends, “we wil be open to have good conversations, productive conversations” about the future of health care, said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). He did not offer details. There are a “lot of options there,” he said.

Such vagueness has “increasingly emboldened” Democrats as the shutdown drags on, said The Hill. Democrats are vowing not to “back off their health care funding demands” as a condition of ending the shutdown. Republicans will not "even entertain the idea of an extension in the context of ending the shutdown.” So the stalemate continues.

What did the commentators say?

“Millions of consumers” have received notice that their health insurance premiums are “expected to spike next year,” said The Washington Post. Republicans are worried that Democrats’ demands to renew Obamacare subsidies are “proving salient with voters — including their own.” That is because GOP voters will be “disproportionately hurt” by rising costs: Residents of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina are all “more dependent on tax subsidies” to obtain health insurance.

Democrats have the upper hand in the shutdown fight “because Republican voters like Obamacare,” Chris Brennan said at USA Today. Researchers say that three-quarters of the 24 million Americans enrolled in the program live in states won by President Donald Trump in 2024. That is why Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is now warning that “insurance premiums for her adult children will double” if the subsidies are not extended into next year. But Trump does not “sound like a man with a plan,” said Brennan, perhaps because he is a “billionaire who doesn’t have to worry about the cost of his health insurance.” The question is whether GOP leaders will “keep marching along to Trump’s disastrous orders.”

A Republican deal to extend the subsidies “would be a stunning move for a party that spent years campaigning on repealing" the ACA, Audrey Fahlberg said at the National Review. Republicans do not even have to take action now — they can “simply let the credits expire.” But “political pressure” ahead of next year’s midterm elections “may just be too much for Trump and moderate Republicans to bear.” For now, there is a “huge chunk of GOP lawmakers and policy experts” ready to let the health subsidies end.

What next?

There are several possibilities for compromise, said Politico. Congress could extend the subsidies, but with new income limits for eligibility. Or they could “grandfather” current enrollees into the program while cutting off subsidies for new enrollees. Whatever the solution, it has to be “something not only Democrats can accept but also Republicans.”

Even before the invention of the printing press, books have been deemed subversive and threatening by authoritarian rulers. And maneuvers like book banning, confiscation and burning have been used repeatedly by tyrants fearful of a fully informed citizenry.

Book banning also has a long history in the U.S., from censors seeking to keep Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” out of the hands of readers to the targeting of birth control advocacy under the 1873 Comstock Act. But the country has never seen anything quite like today’s national campaign to silence voices disfavored by many in the contemporary Republican Party.

When did the recent book purge begin?

After the Covid-19 pandemic, far-right activists created a series of ideological bogeymen to wage war against, including critical race theory and what President Donald Trump calls “gender insanity” — a catch-all term that he and his allies use to describe anything that involves LGBTQ+ identity. Activist organizations like Moms for Liberty sought to take over local school boards and police the content of books in school libraries, sifting through literature to identify and eliminate race and gender-related content, arguing they were targeting material that was too explicit for children or young adults.

“Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country,” said PEN America, documenting what it claims has been nearly 23,000 book bans in the country since 2021. Most of these efforts are happening in public school districts nationwide, as conservative parents and activists identify an ever-growing number of ideas to which they do not want young people to have exposure. Many Republicans disagree. States and school districts are merely “providing students with a quality education free from sexualization and harmful materials that are not age-appropriate,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Increasingly, bans are being driven by elected officials rather than by parents raising concerns about a book. In November 2024, for example, the Florida Department of Education released a list of more than 700 books that had been banned in state public schools during the 2023-2024 school year, saying that “sexually explicit materials do not belong in schools.”

Which books have been targeted?

Some conservatives have challenged PEN America’s classification of book bans, arguing that many books the organization claims had been removed from schools in 2021 and 2022 were either under review or simply moved to a different age section of the library. In reality, there are “few actual book removals, and they are overwhelmingly based on parental objections to sexually explicit content,” said Jay P. Greene, Max Eden and Madison Marino in a 2023 report at The American Enterprise Institute. The organization’s definition of book bans focuses on “situations where objections or prohibitions result in previously available books being taken off limits,” said PEN America, replying to criticism of its methodology.

PEN America’s list of the most banned books of 2025 includes recent young adult novels and classics like Judy Blume’s “Forever.” The fourth-most-banned book is Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” about an immigrant teenager, Lily Hu, who goes to a lesbian bar with a friend. The book is “beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love,” said Kirkus Reviews. It wasn’t beautiful enough for the South Carolina Board of Education, which made it one of 22 titles forbidden from all public school libraries in the state in 2025.

Another frequent target of right-wing censors is Sarah J. Maas’ young adult book series “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” which is the “story of a poor, disenfranchised young woman who escapes an abusive, tyrannical boyfriend; finds an egalitarian wonderland; learns to read; takes contraceptives and has sex on her terms,” said Jezebel. Book-banners hate it because there's “nothing as dangerous to the dried up strictures of the status quo as a mind on fire.”

What happened

Leaders of Young Republican groups across the country peppered a group chat with racist, antisemitic and violent comments, Politico reported Tuesday, citing 2,900 pages of leaked Telegram posts from January through mid-August. The comments, including half-joking praise of Adolf Hitler and calling rape “epic,” drew broad bipartisan condemnation and led to at least four of the participants losing their jobs in state government and politics.

Who said what

The exchanges between Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont “offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening,” Politico said. “They referred to Black people as monkeys,” mused about “putting their political opponents in gas chambers” and “lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.”

The messages “reveal a culture” within President Donald Trump’s Republican Party where the “loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders,” Politico said. The use of racial slurs and white supremacist codewords was similar to online discussions among neo-Nazis, said University of Dayton professor Art Jipson. “You say it once or twice, it’s a joke, but you say it 251 times, it’s no longer a joke.”

What next?

The Young Republican National Federation board told all of the chat participants to “immediately resign” from the organization. Vermont Republicans urged state Sen. Samuel Douglass (R) to step down for his contributions to what Gov. Phil Scott (R) called the “vile, racist, bigoted and antisemitic dialogue.” The Kansas GOP said its Young Republicans chapter was now “inactive.”

Israel confirmed today that the proposed Gaza ceasefire – the first of the 20 points in the agreement – has gone into effect, with the Israel Defense Forces beginning its withdrawal from parts of the strip.

If the peace plan is successful, it would be a “massive blow to Joe Biden’s legacy”, said The Independent. Few Democrats still defend his administration’s “hug Bibi closer” strategy, and recent developments appear to have validated Donald Trump’s “brash, demanding approach” towards Benjamin Netanyahu.

What did the commentators say?

If this agreement holds, it could stand as the “signature achievement” of Trump’s second term, said the BBC. Where Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu was more “tenuous”, Trump’s friendship with Israel’s prime minister and popularity with Israeli voters allowed him to put “pressure” on Netanyahu after the strikes on Iran and Qatar. Trump’s close ties to the Gulf states, business agreements with Qatar and the UAE, and presidential visits to Saudi Arabia have all won favour with leaders in the region.

Though much of the diplomacy has been conducted far outside the US, near-unconditional party support at home played a significant part, said Gerard Baker in The Times. In the last 50 years, no Republican president has “enjoyed such a level of trust” from his administration. With the party becoming something of a “personality cult”, if Trump “wants to move diplomatic mountains, he faces no resistance” from within.

That was an advantage certainly not shared by his Democrat predecessor, said the BBC. While Trump’s “solid Republican base” has allowed him “room to manoeuvre”, “every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support”, due to split opinion on the Gaza conflict within the Democratic Party and voter base.

Trump’s diplomacy skills may even be evolving, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. In addition to his familiar “imperious”, “go-it-alone” personality, the president arguably displayed “more flexibility and cooperation than are typical of him” by involving Middle Eastern partners like Turkey, Egypt and Qatar in diplomatic discussions.

The “boldness” of the president’s recent tactics left little room for “interagency”, Joel Braunold, managing director at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told Lawfare. But Trump’s “just try and get it done” attitude – “there’s something to be said for that”. Of course, Trump is no stranger to an eye-catching announcement, so the “proof will be in the pudding” as to whether his unique brand of diplomacy creates fair and lasting change.

“There are many unresolved details” and a degree of scepticism is in order, said Baker in The Times. The recent past is “littered with too many ceasefires, accords and peace deals” in the Middle East, and it would be misguided “to express any confidence now that this latest one will endure”.

What next?

The history of political turbulence in the region suggests that there is a long road ahead, said The New York Times. Questions over the proposed interim “technocratic” leadership in Gaza overseen by the US, and the extent of Palestinian Authority involvement, have yet to be answered satisfactorily.

Working out peace deals in the region is “a little like cleaning up after volcanic eruptions: There is a certainty it will happen again. It is just hard to know when, or how ferociously.”

A Reform government would turn Britain into “Trump’s America”, Ed Davey has said, as he tried to tie the policies of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump together in voters’ minds.

“Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become,” said the Lib Dem leader in his keynote speech at his party’s conference in Bournemouth. Davey painted “a nightmarish vision”, said the BBC, of the end of the NHS, a countryside destroyed by fracking, lax gun laws, racism, misogyny and “a constant state of chaos”.

Farage duly rubbished those claims but Davey’s warning about the Trumpification of British politics should be taken seriously, said Peter Geoghegan in Prospect: the American president is a “lodestar, the harbinger of a populist revolution that could be emulated on this side of the pond”.

What did the commentators say?

The year is 2029, and Donald Trump “holds two titles”, said Politico’s Paul Dallison: “US President-for-Life and UK prime minister”.

That sentence “would have been firmly in the realm of science fiction even a couple of years ago. But now, it doesn’t sound quite so far-fetched.” After all, the US president, with his British mother, would be eligible for the UK premiership, as former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out on GB News during Trump’s state visit.

For the past decade, “some of Trump’s biggest donors have been secretly funding a clutch of the most influential groups on the right of British politics”, said Prospect’s Geoghegan.

Former Conservative bigwigs Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Liz Truss have “all traipsed to Washington” and spoken at the Heritage Foundation, the “hugely influential” think tank behind Project 2025, the “blueprint for a state-eviscerating” second Trump administration.

But few UK politicians are “as close to Trump as Nigel Farage”. He is “plugged into the very top” of the Republican party and has recently claimed Trump “knows” that he will be Britain’s next prime minister. He told the Harry Cole Saves the West YouTube show that Trump’s team saw “similarities in what they’ve done and what we’ve done, and you know what, we speak the same language”.

Farage has “enjoyed a friendship with Trump for almost a decade”, said Dominic Penna in The Telegraph. He joined him on the US presidential campaign trail in 2016 and told his supporters that a Republican victory would be “Brexit plus, plus, plus”.

What next?

Regardless of Trump’s next political endeavour, it’s clear that the tech billionaires who have supported him are already having their own impact on politics abroad.

Palantir founder Peter Thiel and his fellow Silicon Valley “political kingmakers” are heavily influenced by far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin’s “dark enlightenment” ideas, said The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi. They believe “super-rich elites should have dictatorial powers” while the “hoi polloi should suck it all up”.

Elon Musk, Tesla boss and Trump’s former “first buddy” is “increasingly taking his political meddling worldwide”, from Canada and Germany to the UK. He “spent January posting about grooming gangs”, then, at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, called for a “change of government”. Over a video link, he told the crowd, “Violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.”

It feels as if Musk is increasingly trying to “destabilise democracies worldwide so he can accumulate more power”, said Mahdawi. It is “not inconceivable” that a tech mogul “could effect regime change in Britain”.

What happened

Tens of thousands of people gathered at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday for a memorial service for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The speakers included President Donald Trump and many of his administration’s top officials, plus Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, who has assumed leadership of his Turning Point USA organization.

Who said what

The five-hour service “had the feel of a religious revival mixed with a ‘Make America Great Again’ rally,” Reuters said. Many of the speakers “invoked religious warfare” and “extolled” Kirk as a “religious leader of almost biblical stature,” The Washington Post said, and “the crowd rose to its feet in applause” when his widow said she forgave his killer. “I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” Erika Kirk said. “The answer to hate is not hate.”

Trump, whose 45-minute speech closed the event, called the murder suspect a “radicalized, cold-blooded monster” and said that unlike Charlie Kirk, “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.” He honored Kirk as a “martyr for American freedom” but “pivoted swiftly to blunt politics,” The New York Times said. As his “speech veered increasingly” into political point-scoring, “hundreds of people started leaving the arena.”

What next?

Trump was “just one of several speakers to use the word ‘revival’” at Kirk’s memorial, The Wall Street Journal said. The who’s who of GOP leaders “appeared hopeful it might unify and fortify a conservative movement that had shown signs of cracking” before Kirk was assassinated.

What happened

The Trump administration has instructed prosecutors in Washington, D.C., to seek maximum criminal charges against people caught up in President Donald Trump's federal clampdown in the capital, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office told Reuters Tuesday. At the same time, prosecutors in Pirro's office have been "instructed not to seek felony charges against people who are carrying rifles or shotguns" in the city, The Washington Post said, even as the White House "boasts of seizing dozens of guns" as part of Trump's D.C. operation.

Who said what

The Justice Department Tuesday said 465 arrests had been made in D.C. since Trump federalized law enforcement there Aug. 7, including 206 people nabbed for being in the U.S. illegally. But neither the feds nor the D.C. Metropolitan Police have provided a "full picture about who has been arrested, where, for what and by whom," leaving a "black hole" that makes it difficult to assess the efficacy of the operation, The Washington Post said. In the same two weeks last year, "D.C. police alone made 667 arrests."

Local officials have "criticized the aggressive intervention in the city's affairs," noting that violent crime in D.C. was already at its lowest level in 30 years, though Pirro's office Tuesday "opened an investigation into whether police officials have falsified crime data," The Associated Press said. Meanwhile, the surge of federal agents and National Guard troops has "rippled through the city," leaving "abnormally quiet" streets. "The city is dead," restaurateur Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld told the Post.

What next?

National Guard members from Republican-led states "began arriving in Washington" Tuesday to "assist in the crackdown," and hundreds more are on their way, the AP said. But it's "unclear what kind of help the National Guard will be able to provide when it comes to crime." So far, "Army officials appear to be trying to keep the troops on the sidelines of the mission," said The New York Times, but "the answers to even basic questions, including whether they will be armed, have shifted" by the day.

What happened

The Senate Tuesday night confirmed Emil Bove, the controversial Justice Department official who previously served as one of President Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyers, to a lifetime seat on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 50-49 vote followed allegations from three whistleblowers that Bove lied in his Senate hearing and told Justice Department officials they might need to ignore court orders in immigration cases.

Who said what

Trump has "indicated he expects" a "degree of loyalty" from "his judges," Politico said, and "Bove's allegiance to Trump goes deeper than those of Trump's previous judicial picks." Bove denied being Trump's DOJ "enforcer" or "henchman," but his confirmation "provided at least a tacit Senate endorsement of the president's efforts to bend the justice system to his will," The New York Times said.

Most Republicans — including Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime whistleblower defender — "dismissed" the whistleblower complaints about Bove's "conduct at the Justice Department," The Associated Press said. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said his actions at the DOJ led her to conclude he "would not serve as an impartial jurist." Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she voted against Bove because nobody who "counseled other attorneys that you should ignore the law" should get a "lifetime seat on the bench."

What next?

Bove will serve as one of the 14 judges on the 3rd Circuit court, hearing cases from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Senate Republicans are poised to confirm "one of the worst judicial nominations ever," said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times. The chamber's GOP-led Judiciary Committee voted last week to advance the nomination of Emil Bove— President Trump's former personal attorney "and for the past six months his enforcer in the Justice Department"—to a lifetime post on a federal appeals court. Democrats stormed out of the vote after the panel's chair, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), refused to let some of them air objections or to hear from a whistleblower who alleged that Bove told Justice Department lawyers they'd need to consider saying "F--- you" to judges who block Trump's deportation agenda. That's not the only time Bove, 44, has shown utter contempt for the law: He engineered the pardons of Jan. 6 insurrectionists and the purge of DOJ lawyers who worked their cases, and forced through the dismissal of corruption charges against New York City Mayor—"and sometimes Trump ally"—Eric Adams. Bove is "not merely unqualified to be a judge but disqualified." Yet his nomination is likely to meet little resistance from Trump-fearing Republicans when it reaches the Senate floor.

"The concerns about Bove's nomination aren't frivolous," said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The former federal prosecutor hasn't exactly denied the whistleblower's allegations, saying merely that he didn't recall dropping the f-bomb and that at the time there were "no court orders to discuss" or consider violating. Then there's his nixing of Adams' prosecution, on the grounds that the case was hampering the mayor's cooperation with Trump's migrant crackdown, "an implicit quid pro quo" that led to a series of resignations at the DOJ. Bove clearly has a talent for "pushing legal boundaries," but that's not a desirable quality in a judge.

As a former district attorney, I can't "recall such fierce and widespread opposition" to a nomination, said Mimi Rocah in MSNBC.com. More than 900 former DOJ attorneys and 75 retired judges from across the political spectrum have written the Senate to oppose the confirmation of Bove, who has shown he cannot be trusted "to uphold the Constitution and act with integrity." That's exactly why Trump wants Bove and others like him on the bench, said Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times. The president has griped that the three conservative Supreme Court justices he appointed in his first term have not sufficiently stood behind his agenda. That wouldn't be a problem with Bove, who has "proved that he belongs to the president" and who Trump is now likely "grooming for bigger things"—including a possible high court seat.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has released the first major report for his "Make America Healthy Again" platform, and it has provided some insight into where he wants to focus the agency. RFK Jr. has pledged to make sweeping changes to the country's health care system, but not everyone agrees with the report's conclusions.

Targeting processed foods and vaccines

The full report describes various factors that it claims cause chronic illnesses in American children. It lays out "some of the most contentious views on vaccines, the nation's food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs," said The Associated Press. Some of the report's main findings include calling for an "increased scrutiny of the childhood vaccine schedule, a review of the pesticides sprayed on American crops and a description of the nation's children as overmedicated and undernourished."

The report came at the behest of President Donald Trump, who tasked RFK Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services with "investigating chronic illness and delivering an action plan to fight childhood diseases, starting with a report," said USA Today. The report blames "ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and 'overmedicalization'" for chronic diseases. It also claims this is "partly propelled by corporate influence and government lobbying."

The "proposition that nutrition, lifestyle and exposure to pollution and other harmful chemicals are conspiring to harm children's health is not controversial among longtime researchers in public health," said NPR. But the report "doesn't resolve some of the central tensions that have characterized Kennedy's MAHA platform from the outset." It also doesn't weigh in socioeconomic factors like poverty levels, which are a "key predictor of chronic disease."

'New regimen of standards'

The "MAHA" report is "likely to face diverse pushback," especially from "agricultural and chemical lobbyists wary of how the report would criticize their products," said The Guardian. This could put the agricultural industry at odds with the Trump administration. Bringing up concerns over chemical additives in farming is "sure to make for strange political bedfellows and consternation within the Republican Party."

Both agricultural lobbyists and politicians have already raised doubts about the report. There is "enough in the report to cause plenty of worry about how key crop protection tools will be regulated in the future," said Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) in a statement, adding that the report could "set the stage for a new regimen of standards based on fringe theories."

Given that the report calls into question vaccine schedules and pharmaceuticals that have been "deemed safe by mainstream medicine," it "also stretched the limits of science," said The Washington Post. Large chunks of the report "offer misleading representations of findings in scientific papers." Gun violence, which the CDC cites as the leading cause of death for children in 2020 and 2021, was "not mentioned in the report."

There is "little biological basis to argue" vaccine regimens "could be harming children by overwhelming their immune systems," said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University associate professor of public health, to the Post. Now, doctors are "seeing a very familiar playbook" from the "highest levels of our government's health agencies rather than the margins of the anti-vaccine conversation."

Donald Trump wasn't kidding when he promised "the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history", said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Since his 20 January inauguration, Trump has passed an avalanche of executive orders (139 and counting) designed to dismantle traditional constraints on presidential power, and to advance his agenda: threatening law firms, universities and media owners into compliance; authorising Elon Musk's Doge to "cripple" the federal bureaucracy; firing the heads of 18 federal watchdogs; "disappearing" innocent migrant workers; and deporting foreign students who have written anti-Israel articles.

It's "less a new administration", said Andrew Sullivan in The Times, and more a "vengeful monarchy". The "trappings of a republic remain", but they are increasingly mere "facades". And for what, asked Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. King Donald's assault on US universities has triggered a brain drain. His attack on the global order has been "ruinous" for the reputation of the US. He promised Americans he would bring down costs, but his trade war is set to fuel inflation and perhaps trigger a recession. "Make America Great Again? Trumpism doesn't do what it says on the baseball cap."

Tell that to Trump's supporters, said Kimberley A. Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. "Creative destruction" is exactly what they wanted: they're fed up of the waste and "indolence" of Washington elites, and they voted for Trump to tear it all up. Besides, said Harry Cole in The Sun, who says his "manic" approach isn't working? "Woke and trans sacred cows have been slaughtered" by presidential decree; wasteful spending has "gone up in smoke". Countries are begging for new trade deals, and illegal border crossings, according to the administration, are down by 95%.

I've "detested" almost all of Trump 2.0, said David Brooks in The New York Times, but even I have to admire his team's "energy". It's like "a supercar with 1,000 horsepower", while his Democratic opponents coast around on "mopeds". If they want to win back power, they'll need to whip up some of that élan vital.

The resistance is already building, albeit not yet in Congress, said the FT. The bond markets have forced Trump to rein in his tariffs. The Supreme Court has taken a stand against illegal deportations. American voters, fretting about their wallets and retirement plans, are starting to abandon him too: Trump has one of the lowest approval ratings of any president after 100 days, at 40%.

If Democrats win next year's midterm elections, said Katie Stallard in The New Statesman, he could spend his last two years in office fighting off investigations and impeachments, ensuring his authoritarian agenda is derailed. But that's assuming, of course, the midterms actually happen. On the current trajectory, we may not get "free and fair elections in 2026, let alone a peaceful transfer of power in 2028".

"Few public figures have exploded onto the world stage quite like US Vice-President J.D. Vance," said Dominic Sandbrook in The Times.

In his first major foreign speech, at the Munich Security Conference, he caused a stink by berating European leaders about free speech. After that, he laid into Ukraine's President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office for supposedly showing insufficient gratitude to President Trump. And he then upset more people by dismissing talk of UK and French peacekeepers in Ukraine, saying a US mineral deal would protect the nation better than "20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years". One assumes copies of Vance's misery memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy", aren't "flying off the shelves in Royal Wootton Bassett". Vance has swiftly established himself as a hate figure among critics of the Trump administration, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. The internet is so awash with parodies that he is now "more meme than man".

This mockery by progressives won't bother Vance, said Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic. He's used to being "the outlier in the room – whether as a conservative in liberal spaces" such as Yale Law School, or as a self-styled hillbilly "in the halls of Washington and Silicon Valley". The vice-presidency has traditionally been the "booby prize" of US politics, but Vance has proved effective and versatile in the role so far. He has "played the pugilist provocateur on conservative podcasts and the civil conciliator on the vice-presidential debate stage"; he also spends a lot of time on X/Twitter deftly skewering Trump's opponents. If the administration completes its term in decent shape, he'll be well-positioned to replace Trump in the White House.

I suspect Vance and his boss will fall out before then, said Alison Phillips in The i Paper. That partly comes from reading Vance's memoir, in which he angrily relates how, in his youth, he tried to ingratiate himself with his mother's successive boyfriends in a vain attempt to stop them leaving. He got his ear pierced to impress Steve, "a midlife-crisis sufferer", pretended to love police cars to please Chip, an alcoholic police officer, and was kind to the children of Ken, an odd-job man.

Reading this, one can't help but see Trump as just another "father figure" who is destined to let Vance down. The president is "the ultimate transactional politician" – for him, it's all about deals. Vance, at heart, is an "ideologue", with little interest in deals. Sooner or later, that difference in outlook will lead to a rupture.

What happened

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he will not seek an eighth term in 2026, ending more than 40 years in the Senate, including the longest tenure for a Senate party leader in U.S. history. He announced his coming retirement from the Senate floor on his 83rd birthday.

Who said what

McConnell is ending his "decadeslong tenure as a power broker" and conservative "master strategist" having "ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism" of President Donald Trump's MAGA movement, said The Associated Press. His announcement "did not come as a major surprise" to many in Washington or Kentucky, said Politico.

Since stepping down from leadership last year, McConnell has "distinguished himself" as one of the few GOP lawmakers "willing to challenge" Trump, said ABC News. He seemingly made light of that role Thursday. "These are the new moderates," he quipped with an arm around fellow Republicans Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the "first to embrace him" following his announcement, said the Louisville Courier-Journal. The trio are "among the few" in their party "willing to speak out" about Trump's "early executive actions" and the "only three Republicans" to vote against any of his cabinet nominees.

What next?

Several Republicans have already expressed interest in seeking McConnell's seat, including Rep. Andy Barr (R) and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has said he is not interested in running for Senate.

Less than six years ago and before she became President Donald Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, then a Hawaii Democrat, ran for the Democratic nomination for president. She had raised her national profile in 2016 as a backer of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (D-Vt.) campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During that era, Gabbard was known as a critic of U.S. military interventions and domestic surveillance.

Gabbard dropped out of the race after failing to gain traction following her participation in televised debates and endorsed eventual nominee Joe Biden. After leaving Congress, she became a frequent guest on Fox News, where she criticized the Biden administration. In 2022, she left the Democratic Party, saying that it was "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness." Even before she switched parties, Gabbard was a controversial figure whose frequent ideological shifts have left many observers wondering about the nature of her core principles.

Has a history of hostility to LGBTQ rights

Gabbard's father founded an organization called the Alliance for Traditional Marriage that helped pass a constitutional amendment in 1998 giving the "Hawaii state legislature power to 'reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples,'" said CNN. She continued to oppose same-sex marriage as a member of the Hawaii state legislature. Her past work and comments about LGBTQ issues came under fresh scrutiny during her 2019 run for the White House. She was "viewed suspiciously by many on the left because of her opposition to civil unions for same-sex couples while a state legislator," said The Washington Post.

In January 2019, she posted a video apologizing for many of her past views. "In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones," said Gabbard in the video. Gabbard "has repeatedly voted in Congress to protect gay rights," said Politico in 2019 about her record in the U.S. House. Near the end of her final term in the House, she received criticism from trans-rights organizations "after she joined Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin to introduce legislation specifying that Title IX protections for female athletes are based on "biological sex," said USA Today.

Resurrected anti-LGBTQ rhetoric after leaving the Democratic Party

After switching parties, Gabbard's rhetoric about LGBTQ issues seemed to change again. At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference, Gabbard "baselessly claimed that the LGBTQ+ community was trying to gain acceptance for pedophiles," said the Anti-Defamation League. In 2022, she backed Florida's controversial parental rights bill that "prohibits schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity with students from kindergarten through third grade," said Fox News. Critics dubbed the law "Don't Say Gay."

Connected to a controversial religious leader

Gabbard also has ties to Chris Butler, the leader of the Science of Identity Foundation, who has adopted the name Siddhaswarupananda. The Foundation is "a secretive offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement vehemently opposed to same-sex relationships and abortion, and deeply suspicious of Islam," said The New York Times. Gabbard's parents were "both deeply enmeshed in Butler's movement" and had sent her to a boarding school in the Philippines operated by Butler when she was a teenager, said The Daily Beast. Butler has "a long history of espousing anti-gay rhetoric," said Honolulu Civil Beat. While Gabbard claims to no longer be associated with the group, she included a blessing from Butler in her 2015 wedding ceremony. "Some ex-members describe the Foundation as an abusive cult," said Business Insider.

Held a clandestine 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

In 2017, Gabbard participated in a weeklong junket to Syria, which was embroiled in a long-running civil war that had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. According to Gabbard, she visited "refugees, Syrian opposition leaders, widows and family members of Syrians fighting alongside groups like al-Qaeda, and Syrians aligned with the Assad regime," said the Associated Press. She also secretly met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose embattled regime had repeatedly deployed chemical weapons in attacks against Syrian rebels and civilians in an effort to maintain power. Her visit with Assad drew flak from both Democrats and Republicans. Her visit with Assad was "so dispiriting" because she returned to the United States "with an assessment that undoubtedly pleases the Assad regime," said National Review. Gabbard "viewed it all as a 'regime change war' fueled by the West and aimed at removing the dictator from power," said the Independent.

Maintains ties to Hindu extremists

While Gabbard's views on a number of issues have changed over time, "she has held steadfast in her Islamophobia, one of the few consistent commitments in her volatile political career," said Jeet Heer at The Nation. In her campaigns for Congress, Gabbard received "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in donations from supporters of Sangh Parivar, "a network of religious, political, paramilitary and student groups that subscribe to the Hindu supremacist, exclusionary ideology known as Hindutva," said The Intercept.

Hindu supremacists are known for their hostility to Islam, particularly in India, where Muslims constitute a significant and persecuted minority. Gabbard is a supporter of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been accused of "stoking the othering of Muslims via disinformation, hate speech, opening old religious wounds, manipulating a servile media, silencing progressive voices and empowering Hindu supremacist vigilante groups," said Time.

Shared Russian propaganda

Gabbard shared false claims from her account on X shortly after Russia's unprovoked February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. There are "25+ U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to the U.S./world," said Gabbard in the video. There is no evidence to support these claims, which were "widely debunked and identified as Russian propaganda," said Fox News. "This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns," said Gabbard in a post on X immediately following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a claim that echoed Moscow's rationale for the invasion. Such comments "were taken seriously in Russia, where the state-controlled media has often praised Gabbard," said the Associated Press. In an October 2022 episode of her podcast, Gabbard referred to U.S. backing of Ukraine as a "regime-change war that the United States and NATO are waging via their proxy in Ukraine," said National Review.

Publicly supported leakers of classified information

In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked "a trove of highly classified documents accessed while working as a contractor at the National Security Agency," said The Guardian. Gabbard has repeatedly declined opportunities to denounce Snowden's actions since becoming the nominee to lead U.S. intelligence operations. Snowden currently lives in exile in Russia. Toward the end of her time in Congress, Gabbard cosponsored a resolution with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asking for all charges against Snowden to be dropped. During her Senate confirmation hearings, a number of senators "pressed Gabbard to call Snowden a traitor. She steadfastly refused," said Time. Instead, she "​​conceded Snowden broke the law and that she would no longer push for his pardon," said Responsible Statecraft.

A few years ago, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and her brand of conspiracy-minded, populist politics seemed to be on the outside looking in. One of several members of the House who was openly aligned with the January 6 Capitol rioters, Greene's close relationship with President Trump looked less like an act of strategic genius and more like she had lashed herself to the bow of a sinking ship. With the then-former president facing a litany of legal and financial difficulties and Democrats holding a trifecta in Washington, D.C., her story might have ended there — if not for Trump's stunning political comeback in 2024. This ultimately led to pardons for everyone convicted in connection with January 6 and the sudden elevation of once-fringe figures like Greene into the political mainstream. After serving as mocked and maligned sidekicks to more serious GOP figures during the first Trump administration, Greene and her allies are now firmly in the driver's seat of national politics. While she has left some of her most outlandish theorizing behind, she continues to say things out loud that most people might leave tucked safely away in the nooks and crannies of their internal monologues.

The co-owner of a general contracting firm and CrossFit franchise before she was elected to the House, Greene rose to prominence as a conservative media figure during the first Trump administration when she published a series of articles for a website called American Truth Seekers. At the now-shuttered website, she "wrote favorably of the QAnon conspiracy theory, suggested that Hillary Clinton murdered her political enemies and ruminated on whether mass shootings were orchestrated to dismantle the Second Amendment," said NBC News. She further boosted her profile prior to her 2020 House campaign with viral stunts, including "a since-deleted Facebook Live" video in which she tried to visit Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in her office and referred to it as "a day care" while "mocking the staff for keeping the door locked," said CNN. But her relentless antics have never seemed to bother voters in her district — she ran unopposed in the 2024 Republican primary for her seat and won a third term in the general election by almost 30 points.

Allegedly conducted extramarital affairs at a CrossFit gym

In 2012, Greene reportedly had affairs with two men at the CrossFit gym where she was employed in Alpharetta, Georgia, "one with a tantric sex guru named Craig Ivey, and another with a gym manager named Justin Tway," said the Independent. She filed for divorce from her husband, Perry, that year but the couple got back together before finalizing a divorce in December 2022. Greene denied the allegations. The episode did not prevent Greene from publicly accusing Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) of having an affair with a Chinese spy during a House Homeland Security committee meeting on April 25, 2023. Republicans had hoped to land blows against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whom they would later impeach, but "Greene's performance sidetracked that conversation," said Fox News.

Promoted QAnon and other conspiracy theories

The QAnon conspiracy theory held that an "anonymous person called Q was revealing secrets about a child trafficking ring orchestrated by Democrats and global elites," said The Washington Post. Prior to her election to Congress, Greene contributed to the extremist website American Truth Seekers, where she promoted QAnon beliefs. She also "further pushed conspiracy theories on her Facebook page," including the idea that the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people was a false-flag operation designed to undermine American gun rights, said Rolling Stone. Greene also used social media to back conspiracy theories about 9/11 as well as "casting doubt on school shootings," said The Washington Post. "I was allowed to believe things that weren't true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret," said Greene when her past behavior caused Democrats to strip her of her committee assignments in February, 2021.

Blamed California wildfires on space lasers

In a 2018 Facebook post written before her election to Congress, Greene speculated that the deadly Camp Fire was deliberately sparked by Jewish elites in cahoots with the governor of California and power company PG&E to clear land for a high-speed rail project. Her conclusions were based on the observation that "oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams causing the fires," leading many observers to claim that Greene believed in "Jewish space lasers." Critics blasted the ludicrous ideas in her post. "Aren't there easier ways to get your rail stations approved by the state legislature?" said Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine. Greene's post was not just absurd but also anti-semitic because "people have used claims that this one particular wealthy family controls the world to cast aspersions on Jews in general" for centuries, said Zack Beauchamp at Vox.

Compared masks and vaccine mandates to the Holocaust

On May 20, 2021, during an interview with David Brody of the far-right news network Real America Voice, Greene complained about the requirement to wear masks during House proceedings. Forcing Jews to wear gold stars and sending them by rail to concentration camps "is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about," said Greene. She later apologized, saying "there are words that I have said, remarks that I have made, that I know are offensive, and for that, I want to apologize." She continued to use analogies to compare vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. "People have a choice, they don't need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations," said Greene in a July 6, 2021, post on X.

Opposed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election

Following President Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Greene quickly embraced his lies about Democrats using fraud to change the outcome. "I will not certify a stolen election," she wrote in a January 3, 2021, post on X. There remains no credible evidence that there was systematic fraud in the 2020 election. "Biden won the election, fairly and legally," said CNN.

Greene was one of the 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election during the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, a process which was interrupted by the Capitol insurrection. Greene continued to insist that the 2020 election was stolen, and prior to the 2024 election claimed in an interview with far-right extremist Alex Jones that voting machines were switching early votes in Georgia. After Trump's victory in 2024, she did not make any further accusations of election fraud.

Blamed the January 6, 2021, insurrection on Black Lives Matter and Antifa

Greene has vacillated between blaming the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot on left-wing agitators and complaining about how Black Lives Matter protesters allegedly got away with violence during the summer of 2020. Initially, she scoffed at the idea that Trump supporters could really have been behind the riot. "If the #Jan6 organizers were Trump supporters, then why did they attack us while we were objecting to electoral college votes for Joe Biden?" she said in a February 9, 2021, post on X. Greene still sometimes groundlessly blames the insurrection on left-wing agitators. "I fully believe they were Antifa/BLM [Black Lives Matter] rioters," said Greene in a November 2023 appearance on Triggered, Donald Trump, Jr.'s podcast.

Endorsed violence against Democrats

In social media posts prior to her election to Congress, Greene repeatedly endorsed violence against prominent Democratic officials, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In one video posted to Facebook in 2019, Greene accused Pelosi of treason, which is "a crime punishable by death," said Greene. In another 2020 Facebook post prior to her election, Greene posted a picture of herself holding an assault rifle next to pictures of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (R-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-MInn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with the caption "Squad's Worst Nightmare." That history of violent rhetoric and imagery was part of the reason Democrats voted to remove her from committees in 2021.

Suggested Democrats manipulated Hurricane Helene to influence the 2024 election

Greene's history of building conspiracies around natural disasters got longer in October 2024, when Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the U.S. Southeast a month before the presidential election, including the electoral battleground state of North Carolina. "Yes they can control the weather," said Greene in an October 3, 2024 post on X. "It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done." The post remains live and undeleted on her timeline. The congresswoman "is no stranger to misinformation" and her comments were "met with a wave of criticism," said The Guardian. Her comments even prompted some in her own party to disavow the conspiracy, including Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.). "Nobody can control the weather," said Edwards in an October 8, 2024 press release. Many observers, however, were not shocked. "Some things in this world that are inevitable: death, sunrise and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene responding to tragedies with pure insanity," said Rolling Stone. Following the Texas flooding disaster over the July 4 weekend that killed 138 people, Greene introduced a bill that will "prohibit the release of chemicals into the atmosphere intended to change the weather, temperature, climate or block out sunlight," said Politico.

Traded stocks during the rollout of President Trump's new tariffs

Greene was one of a number of Republicans whose stock trading in April 2025, as President Trump was rolling out his "Liberation Day" tariff policies, raised suspicions. Greene "purchased between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock on April 8 and 9, the day before and the day of" the tariff rollout, said The New York Times. Those dealings caused even fellow Republican Congressman Mike Lawler to argue that "stock trading by members of Congress or their spouses should be banned." She has also drawn criticism for investing in the company Palantir shortly before it received a massive contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Greene has "has long been dogged by allegations of insider trading, which she denies," said The Independent. The issue may yet cause a more problematic rift for the GOP, given that Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna "will attempt to force a House vote on a congressional stock trading ban in September," said Politico.

Claimed the death of Pope Francis was a blow struck by God against evil

Following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, Greene posted inflammatory remarks on X suggesting that his passing was a deliberate part of God's battle against wickedness. "Today, there were major shifts in global leaderships," said Greene. "Evil is being defeated by the hand of God." Greene never elaborated on exactly what she meant and "did not issue any clarification after coming under fire for the post," said The New Republic. "While it's unclear if the post was directly referencing Pope Francis," she has "been critical of church leadership" during the reign of Francis, said Yahoo News. According to the congresswoman, she left the church years ago after she became a mother, "because I realized that I could not trust the Church leadership to protect my children from pedophiles," said Greene in an April 27, 2022 post on X. That post was itself an attempt to mitigate the fallout from an interview she had given in which she claimed that "Satan's controlling the church."

Feuded with Trump advisor Laura Loomer

In August 2025, a deposition of Laura Loomer stemming from her defamation lawsuit against HBO talk show host Bill Maher was leaked to the press. In the deposition, the conspiracy-theorist-turned-Trump-consigliere who wields extraordinary power inside the White House unleashed a series of wild accusations against Greene, including that the Georgia congresswoman routinely puts Arby's roast beef in her pants. When pressed for details about how she knows this, Loomer responded, "Because I know she likes to eat at Arby's." In the deposition, Loomer also accused Greene of being a "political prostitute" who performed sex acts on former House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as well as a "raging anti-semite" who is disliked by senior members of President Trump's staff. Loomer has also attacked Greene for her criticisms of the U.S. backing Israel. "It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation happening in Gaza," said Greene in a July 28 post on X. Loomer and Greene have traded accusations of corruption, with Greene claiming Loomer is an Israeli intelligence asset and Loomer accusing Greene of funneling campaign cash to her daughter. Given that Loomer appears to have the power to make consequential personnel decisions on bodies like the National Security Council, her feud with Greene may lead to her falling out of favor with President Trump, a cruel fate for those who yoke their political fortunes to the MAGA leader.

When 2024 started, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) seemingly had a good shot at becoming the next president of the United States. A year later, he's struggling to rein in his fellow Sunshine State Republicans.

Recent developments in Florida reveal "how much clout DeSantis has lost," said Politico. The governor this month called a special session of the GOP-controlled legislature to pass an anti-immigration bill. But legislators rejected DeSantis' proposal and passed a different version, saying their plan — which takes immigration authorities out of the governor's office — is "most in line" with President Donald Trump's vision. They also overrode DeSantis' veto of a $57 million budget for legislative support services. It's a stark pivot for a legislative branch that mostly followed the governor's directives as he geared up for a presidential campaign. "I guess the boxing gloves are on," said State Rep. Mike Caruso (R).

What did the commentators say?

DeSantis is "learning the price of burning bridges," said The Miami Herald in an editorial. The governor spent much of his tenure "running roughshod" over legislators, using his popularity with voters to "compel lawmakers to comply with virtually all of his requests" — while often ignoring the need to "foster relationships." The dynamic changed when DeSantis lost the GOP presidential nomination to Trump. Now he is "fighting the lame duck label" as he serves out his second term, the outlet added. "Building goodwill with other Florida political leaders might have served him well right about now."

There's also a lesson for national-level Republicans, Mary Ellen Klas said at Bloomberg. "Congress should take note" of Florida legislators' willingness to buck DeSantis. Their willingness to go against his demands is a "head-spinning about-face" that is "commendable for its attempt to revive the system of checks and balances" that had gone slack during the first six years of the governor's tenure. That's an important example, especially as Trump attempts to assert his own executive authority. "Now, Congress should give it a try," Klas said.

What next?

The battle between DeSantis and the legislature has sparked a "newfound impetus towards aggressive oversight," said The Palm Beach Post. House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican, vowed to create "workgroups to ensure the DeSantis administration is implementing laws correctly." Legislators also plan to more closely examine and perhaps override more of the governor's vetoes. That's welcome news to Tallahassee Democrats who have had little power in opposition. DeSantis is "already a weaker governor than he was two or three years ago," said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell.

DeSantis is "ready to take his dispute with the legislature to the ballot box," said Politico. The governor is prepared to put money into GOP primary races across the state — and to put his political and fundraising muscle to work to help anoint his successor in the Florida governor's mansion. Anybody who opposed him during the immigration special session is "not going to get elected governor in this state," DeSantis said. The question now is if he still has enough influence to make the threat stick.

Donald Trump, America's past and present commander-in-chief, was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, an unprecedented return to power for a former president who was ousted from office four years ago amid a raging pandemic, following two impeachments and an attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. Trump, 78, becomes the oldest person ever to be sworn in as president, and the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms in the White House.

Trump, who is also the first convicted felon to be elected president, will now begin serving his second and final term in office after defeating former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. He will serve as president through Jan. 20, 2029.

What happened at the inauguration?

For the first time since Ronald Reagan's swearing-in in 1985, the inauguration took place indoors due to cold temperatures in Washington, D.C., held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The inauguration was attended by outgoing President Joe Biden, as well as former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. All former first ladies also attended the ceremony except for Michelle Obama. Many of the world's wealthiest individuals were also in attendance, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla founder and Trump confidante Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Vice President J.D. Vance took his oath of office first, administered by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while Trump took his oath at 12:02 p.m. ET, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. The national anthem was performed by tenor Christopher Macchio. Minutes after taking office, Trump reportedly sent a text message to supporters stating, "I AM THE PRESIDENT NOW!" and announcing a "24-hour presidential fundraising blitz," according to CNN.

What did Trump say in his inaugural address?

Trump declared that the United States needs a "revolution of common sense," but also that the "golden age of America begins right now." Under his leadership, the U.S. "would be respected again all over the world," the president said during his address, and he said he was "saved by God" from his July 2024 assassination attempt to lead the country.

The president will "put America first" during "every single day of the Trump administration," Trump said. He also took aim at large swaths of the federal government, most notably the U.S. Department of Justice. The "scales of justice will be rebalanced," and the "vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end."

The president often used large, sweeping comparisons that have become a hallmark of his vocabulary. We are "at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country. Sunlight is pouring over the entire world," Trump said.

The U.S. "can no longer deliver basic services," Trump said, though he noted that "some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country" are "sitting here right now." The president also cited executive orders he planned to sign, and said he would "declare a national emergency at our southern border" and halt all illegal immigration.

Trump said he would "direct all members of my Cabinet" to use the "vast powers at their disposal" to bring down inflation. The U.S. will also "end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life," Trump said. He also pledged to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and change the name of Alaska's Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley.

The speech itself was a "lot more specific than you usually hear in an inaugural address," as Trump "avoided the lofty themes and language you normally hear in these speeches, and instead went through a detailed roster of his priorities," said CNN's Kevin Liptak. However, "many of the things Trump is calling for are not supported by all Americans," said NPR, as the outlet's latest poll "found Americans split evenly on deportations and think tariffs will hurt the economy more than help it."

Democrats are in a fragile period of possibility and peril following their monumental drubbing in the 2024 national elections and ahead of Donald Trump's return to office with a unified Republican Congress. Amid this period, several Democrats have tossed their hats in the ring to lead the party as the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Some in the running already enjoy a national profile, like former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. Others, like Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin and his Wisconsin counterpart Ben Wikler, are less known outside their respective circles. But all the candidates have an eye on the party's precarious future in a new era of American politics.

An 'out-of-touch' party?

After the Democrats' stinging loss to Trump and shedding of "non-white, non-college educated" supporters that once made up the party's grassroots backbone, "fixing the DNC's culture and structure must be at the top of the list of priorities," said DNC members David Atkins and Michael Kapp at Washington Monthly. As it exists now, the institution is "top-heavy, lacks transparency (even to its members), relies on often-out-of-touch Beltway consultants, and endows its chair with too much power."

"Many insiders" see the race as a two-man contest between Wikler and Martin, said Politico. Both are "white guys from Upper Midwestern states" with "little daylight between them." Martin, considered more of a "behind-the-scenes political operative" wants to see the party "focus more on economic issues and less on culture war topics," said The Wall Street Journal. Voters think the GOP "best represents the interests of the working class and the poor" and "don't believe the Democratic Party is fighting for them anymore," Martin said to the Journal.

By comparison, the recent candidacy of Faiz Shakir, former campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), could "shake up a contest that has largely focused on party mechanics rather than its ideology," Politico said. "We cannot expect working-class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support," Shakir said in a letter to DNC members announcing his candidacy obtained by The Nation.

Ending a 'deference to economic elites'

Acknowledging it "may be too late for him to win," Shakir justified his candidacy as something "needed to shake up the race," said The Associated Press. There seemed to be an appetite for Shakir's brand of progressive populism even before he entered the race. Just days earlier, the progressive Sunrise Movement group challenged candidates to "revive President Obama's ban on contributions from corporate lobbyists and PACs to the DNC." Simply by entering the race, Shakir has ensured the contest "will be more sharply focused on ending the DNC's deference to economic elites," said The Nation.

For others, the choice of DNC chair is a question of sheer political skill, rather than an ideological refocusing. Supporters of O'Malley "see him as someone who brings about real change" and a "proven political winner," said The Baltimore Sun. At the same time, he has "expressed some degree of openness to working with the Trump administration."

Members of the DNC are set to meet in early February to elect their new chair. Whoever wins "must be open to reforms and help the organization adapt to modern campaign and media environments," said Atkins and Kapp. It's the only way Democrats can "regain their lost footing."

In his farewell address to the US nation on Wednesday, Joe Biden listed the accomplishments of his presidency but acknowledged "it will take time to feel the full impact of all we've done together".

The outgoing president opened his 17-minute speech by stressing that the new ceasefire deal in Gaza had been "developed and negotiated by my team". It remains to be seen if this tentative truce will be a lasting legacy of Biden's term but his administration's support for Israel "at every turn", despite its "relentless outpouring of violence", has left an "indelible moral stain", said Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy.

Presidential legacies are "complicated matters", said The Atlantic, but, as Biden leaves The White House, he seems "less a transformational figure than a historical parenthesis". His four years in office will be remembered for his failure both to "grasp the political moment" and to achieve "the essential mission of his presidency": to "preserve democracy by preventing Donald Trump's return to power".

Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Biden's "first misstep as president came half a world away", with the shambolic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, said the BBC's North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher. Backing the Trump-negotiated end to "the forever war", Biden promised there would be no "a hasty rush to the exit" but "we'll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely".

The reality was anything but, as "scenes of chaos at Kabul airport dominated world news", said The Guardian. Despite the majority of Americans backing the US exit plan, the chaotic and hurried withdrawal painted a picture of a great power in decline, and Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee claimed it "degraded" US national security.

For a president who prided himself on his foreign-policy experience, it was a particularly disastrous moment. Biden's Gallup approval rating dipped below 50% for the first time – a mark it would never reach again.

Inflation hitting hard

On the domestic front, Biden "has much to point to", said The Washington Post, perhaps most notably "an economic recovery out of the pandemic" that is "the envy of other countries".

Biden's landmark "American Rescue Plan" delivered nearly $2 trillion in new government spending, and was quickly followed by a trillion-dollar bi-partisan infrastructure investment bill. But rampant inflation – due, in some part, to these policies – proved stubborn to shift, and voters came to blame Biden's presidency for the high prices in stores.

The fault lay with Biden's focus on policies that took too long to translate into economic benefits for the average American worker. By the summer before the 2024 presidential election, the monthly inflation numbers had dropped below 3%, economic growth was steady, unemployment rates low, and "the US had outperformed the world's other industrialised nations" but "voters continued to have a pessimistic view of the economy," said the BBC's Zurcher. And "they did not forgot nor forgive" at the ballot box.

"The time horizon" associated with Biden's major pieces of legislation was "way out of sync with the exigencies of the presidential election," Brent Cebul, associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, told the BBC.

Support for Ukraine

The Biden administration was quick to support Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February 2022. And Biden's continued support, including $183 billion in military aid, "has been critical to Ukraine's effort to repel the Russian invasion, and has inspired Nato allies to do the same", said international security expert Dafydd Townley on The Conversation.

But fierce fighting "continues on the frontlines with no clear plan for a peace deal", said CBS News.

Biden also faced criticism early in the conflict "for holding back on sending the most lethal weapons", and then, later, Republicans attacked him for "spending too much money on Ukraine aid".

The White House was pursuing a "Goldilocks strategy," said Phillips Payson O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in The Atlantic. Biden and his aides were "hoping to help Ukraine fight without provoking Putin too much".

What this meant in practice is that the Biden administration "has treated the Ukraine conflict like a crisis to be managed, not a war to be won".

Decision to run in 2024

Biden ran for president in 2020 as a transition candidate – an "implicit but clear pledge that he intended to serve a single term", said The New York Times. Yet, despite record low approval ratings, voters' concern about his age and clear signs of physical and mental decline, Biden made the decision to run again in 2024, claiming that he was the only person capable of beating Donald Trump.

A disastrous first presidential debate in June led to pressure from Democrat big-hitters for him to stand down but the damage to the party's re-election hopes had already been done. His replacement, Kamala Harris, had only 100 days to introduce herself to the electorate as presidential candidate, and distance herself from Biden's more unpopular policies.

While history may judge Biden's record more favourably with the passing of time – as it has fellow one-term president Jimmy Carter – the fact that he ran again in 2024 "in the face of voters' broad discontent and on top of the specific concerns they had about his age" will surely "be a part of" his legacy, said The Washington Post.

"He'd like his legacy to be that he rescued us from Trump," Democratic strategist Susan Estrich told the BBC's Zurcher. "But sadly, for him, his legacy is Trump again. He is the bridge from Trump One to Trump Two."

The Hunter pardon

Having repeatedly vowed not to pardon his son Hunter, who was convicted of three felony gun charges, Biden did just that, only weeks after Trump was voted back in. His decision was widely criticised by both Republicans and Democrats, with The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait branding it the "hypocrisy of fatherly indulgence".

Biden said he would "abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle", Chait wrote, but "in breaking his promise" and "issuing a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period", he has prioritised "his own feelings over the defence of his country".

The Hunter pardon put Democrats in the "almost impossible position of demanding equal treatment under the law for convicted felon Trump, while trying to excuse Biden's whitewashing of his son's own criminal record", said Time.

"A father’s love is admirable; a president's lie is not," said The New York Times, "In one of his last major political acts in office, Joe Biden forgot who he was." And the consequence? "History won't be kind."

Republicans are poised to take control of the House of Representatives this month by the narrowest seat margin in nearly 100 years, with a 220-215 majority that will be thinned out even further in the coming weeks as two members take roles in the Trump administration. And if the drama on the floor of the chamber surrounding the election of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was any indication, Republicans might be in for a wild ride, including the possibility of losing their majority.

Republicans' challenge

Johnson's victory is a "chance for the Republican majority in the House to show the American people it can govern," said Roll Call. But the procedural struggle to choose Johnson as speaker "seems like a skirmish in a wider fight that will go on for the next two years," said David Dayen at The American Prospect. Republicans will have "no wiggle room to push their agenda through the House of Representatives," especially given a "rather unruly caucus that feuded bitterly in the past," said the New York Post. Johnson's job will be especially hard until special elections are held to fill the vacancy of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), as well as Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), who have been tapped for jobs in President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet.

If Trump "were to continue to raid" the narrow House majority to "fill out his White House and Cabinet, Republicans could lose their edge altogether," said The New York Times. If Democrats were to win all three of the special elections, control of the chamber would flip. It is also possible that unforeseen events could make the GOP's hold on the chamber more secure. The history of such narrow majorities may offer us some insight into what will unfold over the next two years.

Lessons from the past

The last time the House was this closely divided, the United States was in crisis. As the Great Depression deepened, it was not clear if Herbert Hoover's Republicans had maintained their majority in the 1930 elections. While Democrats gained 52 seats, when the dust settled Republicans still held a 218-216 majority, with one third-party lawmaker joining the minority. But a "truly insane thing happened" between the election in November 1930 and when Congress convened in March 1931, which is that 14 members-elect of the House died, said The Washington Post. After a series of special elections were held to fill the vacancies, Democrats emerged with a narrow majority for the remainder of the term. But with Republicans still in charge of the Senate, it is remembered as the "do-little Great Depression's 72nd Congress" that failed to address the horrors of the unfolding economic crisis, said The Hill.

Sixteen years earlier, Republicans won a 215-214 plurality of the chamber's 435 seats in the 1916 elections, but with neither party winning a majority, it gave enormous power to four third-party representatives who sided with Speaker Champ Clark's Democrats, "thus enabling the Democrats to — just barely — retain control of the chamber," said Pew Research Center. In April 1917, the House voted to declare war on the Central Powers by a 373-50 vote. While the narrow margin and coalition-government might have seemed like a recipe for gridlock, a rally-around-the-flag effect made the new Congress "remarkably productive," as the two parties worked together on several issues including alcohol prohibition, said the Post.

The House elections in 1848 resulted in neither Democrats nor their major-party counterparts the Whigs gaining an outright majority of seats in the House. The anti-slavery Free Soil Party won 9 seats but even adding them to the Whigs' 106 did not produce a majority. It therefore took 63 ballots to elect a speaker, Georgia Democrat Howell Cobb, who "played an important role in negotiating and securing the passage of the Compromise of 1850," which temporarily defused tensions that would later erupt in the Civil War, said The Miller Center.

'The internet is worse than a brainwashing machine'

Charlie Warzel and Mike Caulfield at The Atlantic

The "revision of Jan. 6 among many Republicans is alarming," but it is "also a powerful example of how the internet has warped our political reality," say Charlie Warzel and Mike Caulfield. The internet "may function not so much as a brainwashing engine but as a justification machine." As the "mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, the justification machine spun up, providing denial-as-a-service to whomever was in need of it, in real time."

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'Ramaswamy is right: America needs more 'tiger moms' for the sake of our kids'

Neetu Arnold at USA Today

Vivek Ramaswamy has "identified a real problem, despite the poor messaging," as "reading and math scores among American students have been declining for years," says Neetu Arnold. Despite "people's fears about so-called tiger parenting and its prevalence in the Asian American community, those parents must be doing something right." Instead of "fearing the excesses of tiger parenting culture and settling for the current state of American education, we should adopt its best features" and "Americanize tiger parenting."

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'A last chance for Iran'

Richard Nephew at Foreign Affairs

There are "still many good reasons to not bomb Iran," as "striking the country would inject more chaos and instability into the Middle East," says Richard Nephew. The "odds of failure are high: even the most accurate strikes might only delay Iranian nuclearization." The "best, most durable solution to the issue remains a diplomatic agreement." The U.S. "must make a final, good-faith attempt to negotiate a halt to Tehran's nuclear program early in the Trump administration."

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'Veganuary' is just the beginning'

Scott Miller at the Miami Herald

Eating "meat, eggs and dairy is cruel, unnecessary — and bad for you," so "why limit yourself to Veganuary"? says Scott Miller. You can "celebrate 'Flaxbruary' by loading up on ancient grains, like chia, hemp and flax seeds," while "'Meat-Is-Murder March' is a reminder that animals endure horrific suffering when they're raised and slaughtered for food." Twelve "months of integrity, kindness and empathy will fill your spirit with a sense of hope and joy."

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President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights is an attorney, conservative activist and Fox News personality who raised her national profile during the Covid-19 pandemic by challenging stay-at-home, quarantine and mandatory face mask policies. Harmeet K. Dhillon, 56, has long served as a key part of the right-wing culture war's legal arm and will now be tasked with leading the Department of Justice's civil rights program, which she is expected to reorient toward conservative positions on a variety of hot-button issues.

Corporate attorney turned MAGA warrior

Dhillon was born in Chandigarh, India, to a Punjabi Sikh family and moved to the United States as a child. She was awarded her BA in Classical Studies at Dartmouth College, where she "bristled at the political correctness of liberal classmates," said SF Gate. She obtained her JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which she served a clerkship on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. After joining a series of law firms working on issues from securities to employment, Dhillon founded a private California law firm in 2006.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Dhillon worked with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in cases involving discrimination or harassment of Sikhs. Dhillon served as vice chair of the Republican Party of California from 2008 to 2010 and was one of San Francisco's leading Republican voices, which was the "loneliest job in politics," said SFGate. In 2018, she founded the Center For American Liberty, a legal nonprofit that maintains "nationwide network of attorneys to zealously advocate for individual liberty and to combat illegal discrimination," said the organization.

During the first Trump administration, she took on a number of conservative legal causes and clients, including Google employee James Damore, who was fired after writing a memo which "which said that biological gender differences make women less effective programmers" said Time. The National Labor Relations Board rejected his claim in February 2018, ruling that "companies are allowed to set their own policies and enforce them," said Inc.

Dhillon also filed lawsuits against California early in the Covid-19 pandemic, representing "pastors, gun shop owners, protesters, cosmetologists and beachgoers" who claimed they were harmed by Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home orders and business closures, said Politico. After the 2020 election, Dhillon "emerged as a fierce advocate of Trump's baseless assertions of widespread election fraud" and asked the Supreme Court to intervene and overturn the result, said The Washington Post. She also challenged Ronna McDaniel for the leadership of the Republican National Committee in 2023, "seeking to make the party organization more Trump-friendly," said The Guardian.

Reactions split along familiar ideological lines

Conservatives lauded the pick. She is "regarded as smart, articulate and tough," said National Review. Dhillon is an "ardent opponent of the left and a proven legal fighter," and her appointment means that "Trump is seizing what may well be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to undo all of the damage" that the left has done with the power of the DOJ, said Jonathan Tobin at Jewish News Syndicate. While it is "not unusual for Republican administrations to significantly scale back the work in the Civil Rights Division," Dhillon is a "lawyer active in the culture wars" who is expected to target DEI practices and shut down investigations of police violence and misconduct in her new role, said The New York Times.

Dillon's nomination was met with hostility in liberal and progressive circles. The pick "signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide," said Erin Reed at Truthout, citing Dhillon's work representing detransitioners. Dhillon is "one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country" through her involvement in cases "challenging voting rights laws, redistricting, election processes or Trump's efforts to appear on the ballot in the 2024 election," said Democracy Docket. Her career has been spent "eroding public trust in our electoral process and participating in a larger effort to undermine racial equity initiatives," said the Legal Defense Fund.

What happened

The House Thursday rejected a Republican spending package, pushed by President-elect Donald Trump, that would have kept the government running through March 14 and suspended the debt limit for two years. The 174-235 vote, with 38 Republicans joining 197 Democrats to sink the bill, fell short of a simple majority, much less the two-thirds support needed to pass it under fast-track rules. Without a spending bill signed by President Joe Biden, the federal government shuts down at midnight Friday.

Who said what

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) put together the spending bill with other Republicans Thursday, after a 12-hour online barrage of criticism from Elon Musk and, later, condemnation by Trump made him scrap a more expansive bipartisan package.

The 38 hardline conservatives voted against Johnson's new bill because it raised the debt ceiling — a last-minute demand from Trump. Democrats were "largely frustrated over how Republicans abandoned their previous agreement," The Washington Post said. Lawmakers had been preparing to leave for the holidays, Politico said, and the "shutdown blame game" began immediately.

"Musk and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance tried to blame Democrats," arguing that Johnson's package had most of what they wanted from the bipartisan deal, The Associated Press said. Democrats, partly to "get under Trump's skin," aimed their criticism at the unelected Musk, The Wall Street Journal said. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said on the House floor that Republicans "got scared" because "President Musk said, 'Don't do it, don't do it, shut the government down.'" On X, which Musk owns, "'President Musk' became a trending topic," the Post said.

What next?

Johnson and other House GOP leaders "planned to work through the night and into Friday on a Plan C for funding the government," Politico said. "We will regroup, and we will come up with another solution," Johnson told reporters. "So stay tuned."

The Senate will look different in 2025. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has led the chamber's Republicans for nearly a generation. Now he's stepping down from leadership after a record-setting run — and leaving a divisive legacy that will be debated for years to come.

McConnell used his power to "shift the country to the right during his 17-year tenure" as leader, Alex Rogers said at Financial Times. He blocked Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court during Barack Obama's presidency, paving the way for conservatives to cement a 6-3 supermajority on the court that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade. He also pulled back from voting on Donald Trump's impeachment after the Jan. 6 attack. That's "characteristic" of McConnell's politics, Rogers said. "He prizes GOP power above almost all other considerations."

Preferring 'pragmatic Reaganism'

His is a "lamentable legacy," Cornell University's Glenn C. Altschuler said at The Hill. As GOP leader, McConnell was a key figure in passing bipartisan legislation, including bank bailouts during the Great Recession, military aid to Ukraine and Joe Biden's infrastructure bill. But McConnell also did "considerable damage to democratic norms, practices and institutions" in Washington — notably helping clear the way for massive campaign spending by billionaires and special interests. McConnell's refusal to endorse Trump's impeachment, though, stands alone as a "catastrophic miscalculation," Altschuler said.

McConnell's legacy is "pleasing to conservatives," Kevin R. Kosar said at The Washington Examiner. But the GOP leader "struggled with the rise of populism in his party," preferring "pragmatic Reaganism" instead. He never liked Trump, and the feeling was mutual. That dislike came to a head during the Jan. 6 insurrection, as the Capitol attack "appalled McConnell," Kosar said. But McConnell ultimately felt he couldn't break with "Trump's millions of fervid supporters" and refused to join the impeachment. McConnell "hoped Trump would fade away." That didn't happen.

"In some ways, McConnell's political career is impressive," Malcom Kyeyune said at UnHerd. He is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, after all. But he remains unpopular with Americans broadly, and his own party seems to have moved on. The bigger problem is that McConnell's generation of politicians — including Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden — "essentially calcified American politics," holding onto power long past the moment when it was time to move on. That helped make the system "immune to reform," Kyeyune said. The result is a "broken Senate."

'Ready to pick fights'

McConnell will remain in the Senate even though he's leaving leadership. He is "ready to pick his own fights," said The New York Times — and perhaps even more ready to scrap with Trump. McConnell said he is "liberated" from having to keep GOP senators together, and can now strike out on his own more often. He seems particularly inclined to combat Trump's willingness to pull America back from NATO and the defense of Ukraine. "America's national security interests face the gravest array of threats since the Second World War," McConnell said in a recent speech.

His colleagues expect McConnell to play a compelling role going forward. "He'll always be having a role of sage," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). "And he won't do it passively — he will pick a few things."

Conservative Christians backed Donald Trump's presidential campaign solidly and vociferously; many even suggested that he had been chosen by God. Weeks before the vote, Franklin Graham, son of Billy and one of America's most famous preachers, prayed aloud for him to win the election at a Trump rally in North Carolina while supporters cried: "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!".

The TV evangelist Hank Kunneman described the election as "a battle between good and evil", adding: "There's something on President Trump that the enemy fears: it's called the anointing." Another celebrity evangelist, Lance Wallnau, prophesied his victories, describing them as "part of God's plan to usher in a new era of Christian dominion around the world".

Trump, for his part, has embraced the role. Referring to his attempted assassination in July, he declared on election night: "Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness."

How important was their support?

Very. About 13% of Americans are white white evangelical Protestants, and they have been a crucial section of the Republican Party's political base since the 1960s (black evangelicals, by contrast, tend to support the Democrats). White conservative Christians in general tend strongly to lean Republican, and their support has recently become more pronounced as the demographics of the US have changed. (According to Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, polls suggest that the Republican Party is now "70% white and Christian", and the Democratic party is "only a quarter white and Christian".)

The strong backing given to Trump by white Christians was a bedrock of his recent victory. According to the official exit polls, 82% of white evangelicals backed Trump, along with 63% of white Catholics and similar numbers of white non-evangelical Protestants.

Isn't Trump an odd choice for religious voters?

As a divorcee, a philanderer and a convicted felon, perhaps he is. He's not a regular churchgoer, either, though in recent years he has identified himself as a "true believer" (and a "non-denominational Christian"). Politically, though, he has promised to champion Christianity. In his first term, he made good on his promise to appoint conservative Christians to the Supreme Court; this led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had protected the right to abortion. He has also often played up fears of a cultural takeover by the Left that would undermine Christian values. "They want to tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags," he has said. He has pledged to tackle "anti-Christian bias", and "to bring back Christianity in this country".

What does he mean by that?

It has been taken as an endorsement of "Christian nationalism": a broad movement based on the belief that the United States is a country founded by and for Christians, and that Christianity is under attack in modern America.

Christian nationalists demand a bigger role for the religion in the government of the US (although the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion). They see being a Christian as an essential part of being a "real American". Such beliefs have permeated large swathes of government across the US, from school boards to state legislatures.

How influential are such beliefs?

Recent surveys suggest that only about 10% of the population are committed Christian nationalists; according to Pew Research, a majority of Americans support the separation of Church and state, but think the US should be informed by Christian values. Critics worry that Christian nationalism nevertheless may form a threat to democracy, because its fusion of theology and right-wing politics has become so influential in the Maga movement: as America becomes less white and less Christian, a minority cling fiercely to the idea that it is a divinely ordained promised land for European Christians. There is evidence, for instance, that some 6 January rioters were inspired by Christian nationalism.

What will Trump do for conservative Christians?

He has promised to "bring back prayer" in schools (until recently prayer was deemed unconstitutional in some circumstances); and to create a federal task force to fight anti-Christian bias. He says he will affirm that God made only two genders, male and female. And he will give enhanced political access to conservative Christian leaders. "It will be directly into the Oval Office – and me," Trump told pastors in Georgia in early November.

He has, though, pushed back against some demands from the evangelical movement: he has distanced himself from the prospect of a federal ban on abortion, saying that he supports leaving the issue to individual states. Perhaps most significant, though, will be the appointments of conservative Christians to important roles.

Which appointments?

He has selected Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor, as ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, like many in the evangelical movement, believes the US has a divine mandate to protect Israel. "Without any apology, I believe those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed," he has said.

Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for secretary of defence, is an avowedly militant Christian, who has the Crusader battle cry "Deus vult", meaning "God Wills It" tattooed on his bicep, and wants to create a network of Christian schools so as to provide the "recruits" for an army that will eventually launch an "educational insurgency" to take over the nation. Probably most influential, though, are the religious conservatives, such as Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump has already appointed to the Supreme Court.

President-elect Donald Trump might be looking to add a long-dormant tool back into the executive branch's arsenal, and it could allow him to circumvent checks on his power by Congress: impoundment. This little-known executive move occurs when the president refuses to spend money that Congress has already allocated, giving the president unilateral power over the federal budget.

One reason many people may be unfamiliar with impoundment is that it has mostly been illegal since 1974; that year, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act to "prevent the president and other government officials from unilaterally substituting their own funding decisions for those of the Congress," said the House Committee on the Budget. However, Trump said several times during his 2024 campaign that he would use impoundment to implement budget cuts, claiming the law that prevents impoundment is unconstitutional.

The incoming president already tried to use impoundment during his first term when he blocked aid to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unless he opened an investigation into Joe Biden. While this act led to Trump's first impeachment, pundits are wondering whether impoundment could play a major role in Trump's next go-around.

What did the commentators say?

Even with the GOP controlling both chambers of Congress, impoundment "threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president's control over the budget," said Franco Ordoñez at NPR. One of Trump's major projects as president-elect has been the establishment of a federal commission aimed at cost-cutting led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

If Trump, Musk or Ramaswamy "were to assert a power to kill congressionally approved programs, it would almost certainly tee up a fight in the federal courts and Congress and, experts say, could fundamentally alter Congress' bedrock power," said Molly Redden at ProPublica. Impoundment would be an "effort to wrest the entire power of the purse away from Congress, and that is just not the constitutional design," Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown Law professor, said to ProPublica.

Trump faced hurdles and an impeachment over impoundment in his first term. But this time, if Trump were to mount a major effort to overturn the impoundment law, he "might think he'll fare well challenging impoundment at the Supreme Court, which now leans to the right and is skeptical of the federal bureaucracy," said Zachary B. Wolf at CNN. But even among GOP politicians who support Trump, it "does not take a leap of faith to guess that even many Republican lawmakers may not want to cede the power of the purse back to the White House."

Given the aforementioned court challenges, it would likely take a long time before impoundment could be legally used in the way Trump suggests. However, if the Supreme Court overturned the impoundment law, it "could set the precedent that presidents can effectively cut spending without Congress, which could have vast, far-reaching implications for everything from health care to defense to science," said Dylan Matthews at Vox.

What next?

Trump himself spoke several times about impoundment during his campaign. "I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it," the president-elect said in a 2023 campaign video. "I will then use the president's long-recognized impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings," adding that impoundment "is the only way we will ever return to a balanced budget."

Reinstating impoundment powers isn't a new idea, and has been supported in the past by presidents from both parties. But politicians are bound to be skeptical. If something "further weakens Congress' ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said to Business Insider.

Congress "can't just be pushed aside," Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) said to Business Insider. Members of Congress are "always very mindful of the fact that this court has broken tradition on a whole host of issues, whether it's reproductive rights or immunity," but "when we talk about how the American people have not elected a king — we don't have a sovereign — this is what we're talking about."