What happened

Republican Clay Fuller on Tuesday night won the special election to fill former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R) seat in Georgia’s heavily Republican 14th Congressional District. But he beat Democrat Shawn Harris by only about 12 percentage points, far short of President Donald Trump’s 37-point margin in 2024. That 25-point shift was the “largest leftward swing in a special election since the start of 2025,” The New York Times said. In Wisconsin, Democratic-backed Judge Chris Taylor won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Democrat Alicia Halvensleben narrowly won the mayoral race in Waukesha, a GOP-leaning Milwaukee suburb.

Who said what

Republicans were relieved to bolster their narrow House majority in Georgia’s “deep red” 14th District, The Associated Press said, while Democrats were hopeful this latest in their string of better-than-expected electoral results “will create momentum toward November’s midterm elections.” Democrats “notched their best Trump-era overperformance” even after “national Republicans made the remarkable decision to actually spend money on the race,” said CNN.

What next?

Taylor’s victory over Republican-backed Judge Maria Lazar means “liberals will have a 5-2 edge on the swing state’s highest court, putting the majority out of reach for conservatives until at least 2030,” NBC News said.

Traditionally seen as occupying a more staid, straight-laced and “conservative” end of the American political spectrum, the modern Republican party has, under President Donald Trump, become a hub for many of the theories formerly relegated to the fringes of national discourse. Over the past decade, the conservative movement has elevated adherents to claims of demonic possession, extraterrestrial infiltration and, most recently, instantaneous transportation.

Just months after being nominated to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s core Office of Response and Recovery in late 2025, top FEMA official Gregg Phillips became the subject of an investigation into his “rise to prominence” as a “far-right activist” who “spread conspiracy theories,” said CNN. Phillips’ claim that he’d spontaneously teleported to a Waffle House restaurant in the city of Rome, Georgia, has “generated numerous headlines and at least one biting late-night comedy segment,” The New York Times said.

Rep. Tim Burchett: UFO disclosures the country would ‘come unglued’ over

“We need full disclosure,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) said to Newsmax in April. “The public has a right to know, dadgummit, it’s your tax dollars. Let’s get it out there.” Asked by host Rob Finnerty about the aliens-exist claims from former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Burchett, who sits on both the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, said he’d been “briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is.” If the national security apparatus were to “release the things that I’ve seen, you’d be up at night worrying about or thinking about it.”

One of Burchett’s recent classified briefings “would have set the earth” on fire and cause the country to “come unglued,” the Tennessee lawmaker said. Outer space revelations are “getting covered up, and the people that know are dying or disappearing.”

Tucker Carlson: demonic origins of atomic weaponry

Onetime Fox News juggernaut Tucker Carlson insists a nocturnal attack from supernatural forces once left him bloody and scarred while his family slept unmolested. The claim, made in footage from the unreleased “Christianities?” documentary, was accompanied by “creepy music, reenactments of Carlson firing a gun and dogs running through the woods in slow motion,” The Seattle Times said.

Nuclear weaponry is also “demonic,” Carlson said on the Bannons War Room podcast to former White House advisor Steve Bannon. Anyone who “claims otherwise” is “either ignorant or doing the bidding of the forces that created nuclear technology in the first place, which were not human forces obviously.”

Matt Gaetz: alien hybrid breeding program

Once a front-runner to lead the Trump administration’s Justice Department, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed on The Benny Show podcast in late March that the U.S. government is engaged in a human-extraterrestrial breeding program, with eyes on making inroads to the broader galactic community.

“An actual uniformed member of the United States Army briefed me,” Gaetz said to right-wing political commentator and podcaster Benny Johnson. Despite taking place in a “non-classified setting,” Gaetz said the soldier showed him “locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication.” During the interview, Gaetz “admitted he didn’t verify the whistleblower’s claims,” HuffPost said, but added he was told there were “between six and 12 breeding facilities around the country.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Jewish space lasers

Perhaps the most infamous Trump-era Republican flight of sci-fi fancy is that of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who in 2018 claimed in a since-deleted Facebook note that a series of catastrophic California wildfires were potentially started by a beam from “space solar generators” under the nebulous control of the Rothschild banking firm — itself a longstanding shibboleth for antisemitic conspiracy theories. In a 2025 interview on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Greene said she “didn’t even know the Rothschilds were Jewish” and also claimed UFOs “could be fallen angels.”

Roger Stone: demon portal above White House

In 2022, longtime Trump ally and conservative operator Roger Stone claimed on the Eric Metaxas Radio Show that a “demonic portal” had appeared above the White House “around the time that the Bidens moved in.” Insisting he’d been initially skeptical, Stone said he was convinced, in part, by a friend’s sending him a “bunch of documents and also a bunch of notations from the Bible about portals,” adding that he had seen the alleged 1600 Pennsylvania Ave vortex “swirling like a cauldron.” Asked why the apparent rift in space-time hadn’t been reported on by mainstream news outlets, Stone said simply that the media “doesn’t cover a lot of things that are true.”

JD Vance: UFOs as demons

Asked during a recent interview with Benny Johnson about federal tracking of UFOs and other potentially extraterrestrial phenomena, Vice President JD Vance offered a slightly different take on whether or not advanced civilizations were visiting Earth: “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons,” Vance said. Pressed to expand on his assertion about “celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people,” Vance said there is a “desire to describe everything celestial, everything otherworldly” as “aliens.” Put simply, said Slate, Vance “appears to believe that aliens visit Earth” and that those aliens “are actually demons.”

President Donald Trump won the White House in 2024 on a promise to expel just about every undocumented immigrant. Attendees at that year’s Republican National Convention waved signs emblazoned with “Mass Deportations Now!” logos. But ahead of this year’s midterm elections, the GOP’s message is changing.

The White House wants House Republicans to “stop emphasizing ‘mass deportations,’” said Axios. “Nearly half” of Americans say the Trump administration’s deportation campaign has been “too aggressive” following the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota. Perhaps more concerning to Republicans: One of every five voters who backed the president in 2024 agrees, according to a Politico poll from January. House members should “focus their messaging on removing violent criminals” going forward, said White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, per Axios. The “change in rhetoric” is coming as GOP “fears of election losses mount” as the midterms approach, said The Washington Post.

What did the commentators say?

The administration “wants to rebrand its mass-deportation push,” Ed Kilgore said at New York magazine. Trump and his allies argued for widespread expulsions while also creating the impression “that virtually all its targets would be hardened criminals.” The problem? “All sorts of peaceable legal immigrants” have been swept up in ICE roundups, including health care personnel, farm workers and innocent U.S. citizens. Trump’s challenge now is that backing down on mass deportations “could discourage the MAGA base.”

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “turned a popular issue” for Republicans “into a PR nightmare,” Caroline Downey said at National Review. Her “aggressive and expansive approach” to deportations is “consistent” with Trump’s desires, but an approach focused on criminal migrants is “more politically prudent.” Americans “have ambivalence about deportation,” said Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review. Even Fox News polls show a majority of Americans think ICE has been too aggressive. Conservatives may wish otherwise, but Americans “don’t seem to believe they’re getting what they want” from Trump on immigration.

Trump “knows he’s losing on immigration,” Zeeshan Aleem said at MS Now. But efforts to rebrand his deportation push are “doomed” because the president’s political persona is “predicated on a sweeping nativism.” He has never merely targeted “worst of the worst” criminals but instead has used expulsions to “restrict and reshape American identity.” That makes it “implausible” that Trump could convince the public he is shifting on the issue. Deportations may be unpopular, but “that doesn’t mean a leopard can change its spots.”

What next?

Trump’s MAGA allies are “furious” about the administration’s deportation rebranding, said Politico, asserting that narrowing the focus to criminal migrants is “not a winning policy.” The administration “has a mandate on mass deportations,” said Chris Chmielenski, the president of the Immigration Accountability Project. Trump voters “expect” to see mass expulsions. White House officials are trying to strike a balance. “Nobody is changing” the deportation agenda, said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement.

President Donald Trump’s top domestic priority is the SAVE America Act, a bill to create new voting restrictions in the name of “election security.” But the bill does not have the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and pass the Senate. Trump’s solution: The Senate should return to Jimmy Stewart-style talking filibusters.

Senators these days rarely speak for hours to obstruct legislation like Stewart did in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Procedures since the 1970s have allowed them to trigger a filibuster “simply by announcing they wanted to block a bill,” said PBS NewsHour.

Trump and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) are now pushing to impose a “marathon talking filibuster” requirement to wear down Democratic opposition to the SAVE Act, said The Associated Press. That would not guarantee passage of the bill, Lee said, but “we can be certain that failure will be the outcome if we don’t try.”

Under the Senate’s current rules, a talking filibuster “would require 51 GOP senators in or near the chamber at all times” to be ready to vote if a Democratic speech faltered, said NBC News. Just one Democrat would be needed to hold the floor. That sets up an “endurance test” that’s difficult for a Senate majority to win if it’s “not willing to go the distance” for days or weeks, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University.

What did the commentators say?

“Make them talk,” Brian Darling said at The Hill. The Senate has been “dysfunctional for decades” thanks to “procedural tactics” that make it easier to block a bill than to pass it. A talking filibuster would change the dynamic. Democratic senators would “stop talking at some point.” When and if that happened, the Senate could just “vote and pass the bill with a simple majority.”

The talking filibuster is a “mirage,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. The 60-vote threshold “always frustrates the party in power,” but Republicans may benefit disproportionately: Without the filibuster, Democrats would restructure the Supreme Court and create “new states out of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.” The talking filibuster’s requirements would turn legislative battles into an “endless GOP campout,” forcing senators to wait around endlessly for Democrats to tire of speechifying. “Bring your pajamas, toothbrush and CPAP machine.”

What next?

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has been a longtime defender of current filibuster rules. But he’s in a runoff with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race to keep his Senate seat and angling for Trump’s endorsement. On Wednesday, he reversed himself. The SAVE Act “matters more than the filibuster,” Cornyn said in a New York Post op-ed.

Cornyn aside, there are not enough GOP votes to change the rules and force a talking filibuster, said Politico. Many Republicans believe weakening existing rules would “pave the way” for Democrats to eventually “pass far-reaching legislation of their own” in the future. The voting math “doesn’t add up,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

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.

What happened

The Senate on Wednesday voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to continue waging his war in Iran without congressional authorization. The 47-53 vote was mostly along party lines, with bill co-sponsor Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) the only Republican to vote yes and Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) the only Democrat to vote no. “This essentially is the vote whether to go to war or not,” Paul told reporters.

Who said what

Democrats had “implored a handful of Republicans to break with their party” and “reassert Congress’s control over declaring war,” The Washington Post said. But Republicans “argued that ordering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the war days after it started would send the wrong message,” even if they had reservations.

This was the eighth war powers resolution that GOP leaders “have successfully, though narrowly, defeated” since Trump returned to office last year, The Associated Press said. “This one, however, was different,” forcing lawmakers to “take a stand” on a deadly and “open-ended conflict that is already ricocheting across the region.”

The resolution’s defeat “should be bone-chilling to the American people who thought that we were done with feckless, poorly run ground wars in the Middle East,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters. “Six Americans have already died for an illegal war that nobody wants. The region is in chaos. American consumers are paying the price. And for what? We still don’t even know the reason for this war.”

What next?

A similar war powers resolution is “expected to get a vote in the House” Thursday, The Wall Street Journal said, and “it, too, is expected to fail, with few Republicans expected to buck the Trump administration.” In another “flashpoint for Capitol Hill,” Politico said, Trump is “expected to submit a request” for an additional “tens of billions of dollars” to “cover the costs of heavy military operations in the Middle East.” Democrats expected to lose the “symbolic” war powers votes, Axios said, but “they’re preparing for a bigger fight over the war’s funding” that “will be less predictable but more consequential.”

With the midterm elections just months away, President Donald Trump has been telegraphing his intent to dominate on election night, despite not personally being on the ballot. Whether threatening that the GOP could “take over the voting in at least 15 places” or insinuating that he might deploy Department of Homeland Security forces to polling locations, Trump and his aggressive posturing have caught the attention of candidates, party officials and electoral experts on both sides of the aisle. While polling and historic trends suggest the Democrats, as the party out of power, can expect a good showing in November, Trump’s rhetoric has alarmed and galvanized those who work to keep America’s electoral system running smoothly.

What did the commentators say?

Although the White House has “no explicit authority over elections,” it has, for generations, provided local election officials with “intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses” among other services that “only the federal government can provide,” said The New York Times. The administration’s newly combative posturing is a “sharp shift” for secretaries of state “after decades of close alliance with the federal government.”

The “vibes” at this year’s National Association of Secretaries of State conference were “completely different,” said CNN reporter Marshall Cohen to Vox. Democratic election figures are “terrified and strategizing” for a “potential assault by Trump on the integrity of the midterms.” In particular, officials are “very afraid about possible troop deployments” as seen in Chicago and California, as well as DHS immigration forces “being sent at the last minute when it might be too late to stop, but early enough to cause chaos and possibly intimidate or disenfranchise.”

Trump’s threats have pushed the country into “uncharted territory,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to Face the Nation. There is a “very real threat” that “without reforms at ICE,” there could be DHS patrols at polling sites on election day. “You don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.” Trump intends to “subvert the elections,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to This Week, and will do “everything he can to suppress the vote.”

In particular, the “purpose” of the recent Tulsi Gabbard-led FBI raid for Georgia 2020 election data was to “establish a precedent for further federal intervention in state and local elections” as well as to “intimidate state and local officials from resisting such efforts,” said The Bulwark. Should Trump deploy federal troops, they could be used to “intimidate likely Democratic voters ahead of time,” as well as “affect the counting of the ballots.”

Congressional GOP pushes to enact laws like the SAVE and Make Elections Great Again acts, which would dramatically restrict voting access, “can be viewed as a continuation” of Trump's 2020 election denialism, said The New York Times. Similarly, they are seen by some Democrats, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), as “part of a larger pattern” including Trump’s nationalization rhetoric and regret over not having seized voting machines in 2020.

While this administration has worked to subvert the electoral process in the past, the “scope and severity” of his midterms effort is “unprecedented,” said Andy Craig at his UnPopulist Substack. Even so, although some of the threats are “more serious and pressing” compared to others, the overall “temptation to doomerism” is something that “we should reject.”

What next?

Unlike a “theoretical replay of 2020,” the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain local voter rolls and polling data are “operational now through four means,” said The New Republic: “Formal Justice Department demands, active litigation, seized election materials and scheduled federal briefings with state officials.” But while the effort seems designed to support Republicans at the expense of Democrats, “pushback has crossed party lines” with election officials in deep red states like Oklahoma and Kentucky bucking the White House’s initial asks.

The public should “take this seriously,” said CNN’s Cohen. Not because people should be “conspiracy theorists,” but because “we’ve lived through this before” with Trump’s many previous attempts to challenge elections. Yet “despite all this noise, despite all the fears, despite what you’ve been told that our system is garbage,” the “nonpartisan experts in election administration” agree America’s electoral structure is “quite resilient.” The public should ultimately “rest assured” that their ballots will be “counted fairly, despite all the drama.”

What happened

The House Wednesday voted 219-211 to rescind President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, with six Republicans joining all but one Democrat to pass the resolution. The Senate passed similar measures last year, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had blocked such votes in his chamber for the past year through a procedural move that expired last month. Three Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday to defeat Johnson’s effort to renew the blockade on tariff votes until August.

Who said what

Wednesday’s resolution would rescind the “national emergency” of fentanyl smuggling that Trump declared last year to justify slapping import taxes on Canada. As Johnson’s team was leaning on GOP defectors to switch their vote, Trump warned on social media that “any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!”

The rebuke of the president’s signature economic policy was a “rare instance of GOP defections at a time when Trump still maintains a strong grip over the party,” CNN said. But “Trump’s tariffs have proven politically unpopular,” even among many “self-identified MAGA Republicans,” Politico said. A Pew Research Center survey this month found that 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s import taxes. The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that Americans are paying 95% of the tariff burden.

What next?

The Senate now “must vote on the issue again,” and a “simple majority vote” would send the measure to Trump, The Wall Street Journal said. The resolution “stands a good chance of passage in the Senate,” Reuters said, but there aren’t enough GOP votes to override Trump’s certain veto. Still, “it won’t be the last tough tariffs vote for Trump,” CNN said. “Democrats have successfully unlocked a procedural power to force more votes.”

While Democrats and Republicans work to reach an agreement on funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the parties remain far apart. Despite Republicans controlling Congress, they are unable to pass funding for ICE without some Democratic votes. Democrats in both chambers of Congress have put forth a series of changes they want to see at the agency, whose funding expires Feb. 13.

What did the commentators say?

These reforms at ICE are a “line in the sand,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). One major issue involves Americans’ homes: Democrats want to “bar federal immigration agents from entering private property without a judicial warrant,” said The Washington Post. ICE has previously advised its agents that they can “enter homes to make arrests without a warrant from a judge, outraging Democrats,” who say this violates the Fourth Amendment.

Americans largely agree with this idea, polls show. Nearly 70% of Americans believe ICE must have “judicial warrants to forcibly enter homes of people subject to deportation,” according to an Economist/YouGov survey. Despite the backing of most of the public, some in the GOP have “balked, arguing that the proposal would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy,” said the Post.

The widespread use of face coverings by ICE has also come under scrutiny, and Democrats are “pushing for a mask ban and identification requirements for federal agents,” said The Hill. ICE officials say that wearing masks prevents their agents from being doxxed online, but Democrats argue that officers’ practice of “masking and not displaying ID badges erodes accountability in these operations.” Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have “indicated changes to a mask and ID policy amount to nearly a nonstarter.”

The party seeks several other changes. They include prohibiting federal funds from being used to “conduct enforcement near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, child care facilities,” and places of worship, said The Guardian. Democrats also want to stop ICE from “conducting stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent, or their race or ethnicity.” This last measure follows one notable video that circulated of an ICE agent claiming he was detaining a man “because of your accent.”

And while ICE has recently said it will equip all of its agents with body cameras, this has Democrats “running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters,” said Politico. Though the party has made these body cams one of their foremost demands, it must also navigate a growing “outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters.”

What next?

Democrats have rejected an offer from the White House, and “finding real agreement in such a short time will be difficult,” said The Associated Press. It will likely be an “impossibility,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), per the AP. And House GOP leadership is also “demanding that some of their own priorities be added to the Homeland Security spending bill,” including a provision that would require proof of citizenship before registering to vote.

Donald Trump has said his administration is “reviewing everything” after an intensive-care nurse was shot dead by Ice agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.

The US president’s advisers have been discussing his “aggressive deportation policies” for weeks, said The Wall Street Journal, but the shooting of Alex Pretti has “brought new urgency to those conversations”. Some of Trump’s aides see the “increasingly volatile situation” in Minneapolis as a “political liability, even as the White House has publicly doubled down on its operations”.

What did the commentators say?

Federal agents have not only killed a US citizen “like authoritarian thugs”, said Zack Beauchamp on Vox, but “their superiors in Washington justified that killing with the kind of bald-faced lie that recalls Tehran and Moscow”.

Trump’s “sycophantic lieutenants” reacted to the shooting “with characteristic mendacity”, said Simon Marks in The i Paper. Officials described the 37-year-old nurse as a “domestic terrorist” and, despite video evidence and witness testimony to the contrary, said the federal agents acted in self-defence in the middle of an “armed struggle”. These brazen attempts to blacken Pretti’s memory, coming so soon after the shooting of Renee Good, “may serve as a turning point that sparks mass resistance towards the President and the thuggish regime that he leads”.

“Your eyes don’t lie,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told NBC. The contrast between what administration officials have claimed and what millions of Americans have seen on their phones this past weekend could be “crucial” in emboldening Trump’s “Congressional critics to confront him”, said Susan Page on USA Today.

Democrats, and even some staunch Republican supporters of the president, have called for an independent investigation into the shooting. Some have indicated they would block a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security until restrictions on Ice operations are put into place. This could lead to a stand-off in Congress or even another government shutdown – something the Trump administration is keen to avoid.

In this fight, “Democrats will prevail if they focus on a narrow set of reasonable demands”, while the president “will gain the upper hand if the left clamours for abolishing Ice” altogether, said The Washington Post editorial board.

What next?

Today, Trump sent his Border Czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota. He had previously threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and flood Minneapolis with even more military force but he seemed to change course late on Sunday. Such a “violent approach” is “unlikely to succeed in a country like the US”, said Beauchamp on Vox. Its domestic security forces “are not equipped for the level of extreme brutality necessary to make it work in the face of growing public outrage”.

“How Trump responds to the democratic outpouring” on Minnesota’s streets and to the “growing unease” even in his own party “will determine just how dark and brutal the next few months will be”.

What happened

Lindsey Halligan, the White House aide installed as U.S. attorney in Virginia to prosecute President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, stepped down Tuesday night amid growing pressure from federal judges. One judge in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday threatened disciplinary action against Halligan or any other federal lawyer who referred to her as U.S. attorney in court filings, while the district’s chief judge declared the position “vacant” in a posting for Halligan’s replacement.

Who said what

Halligan’s exit “ended a bizarre monthslong standoff” during which federal judges repeatedly pressed her to “explain why she continues to identify herself” as the U.S. attorney “despite a ruling in November that she had been unlawfully appointed to the job,” The New York Times said. “This charade of Ms. Halligan masquerading as the United States Attorney for this district in direct defiance of binding court orders must come to an end,” U.S. District Judge David Novak, a Trump appointee, said in an order Tuesday.

The “pair of extraordinary moves” by Novak and Chief Judge M. Hannah Lauck “signaled a breaking point for the federal bench” in Virginia over Halligan’s 120-day tenure, The Washington Post said. It also “intensified a battle playing out nationwide” over Trump’s efforts to install loyalists to back-to-back temporary positions as U.S. attorney without Senate confirmation. Halligan was the third such Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney to step down, following Alina Habba in New Jersey and Julianne Murray in Delaware last month.

What next?

It isn’t clear who will replace Halligan. Tuesday’s moves suggest the district’s judges plan to “select a temporary replacement,” as allowed under federal law, the Times said. But “it is likely that the president would try to fire that person and put his own choice — possibly Ms. Halligan — back in the job.”

What happened

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a Democratic proposal to resurrect expired Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years. Seventeen “renegade GOP lawmakers joined every Democrat” in the 230-196 vote, The Associated Press said, significantly more than the four Republicans who helped force the bill onto the floor by signing a discharge petition last month. “The GOP revolt was bigger than anticipated,” Politico said, “and a stunning rebuke” to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and President Donald Trump.

In a further blow to Trump, the Senate advanced a measure that would block further military action in Venezuela, with five Republicans joining all Democrats. And the chamber also agreed to install a plaque honoring the police officers who protected the Capitol from a Trump-inspired mob on Jan. 6, 2021, in a unanimous vote two days after Trump’s White House published a revisionist history blaming the attack on law enforcement and Democrats.

Who said what

The “dramatic” House GOP revolt on ACA credits was “driven by concerns about spiking health care costs in an election year dominated by affordability concerns,” Axios said. The bill “has no path to enactment” through the GOP-led Senate, The New York Times said, but the “largely symbolic vote” could “bring fresh momentum to bipartisan efforts to find a compromise on health care costs” and the ACA subsidies, which ended Jan. 1.

Taken together, Thursday’s votes showed that “Trump’s honeymoon with the Republican Congress is officially over,” Semafor said. He was “apoplectic” at the five Republicans who supported the Venezuela resolution, urging voters to defeat them in future elections. “Lawmakers voting against their party’s president is common in midterm election years,” The Washington Post said, but the “repeated rebukes” of Trump, “and the number of lawmakers defecting, are unusual.”

What next?

The Senate will have a final vote next week on Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) Venezuela war powers resolution. The House is scheduled to vote next week on GOP legislation to codify Trump’s push for more powerful showerheads. The Shower Act was “poised to be the first bill passed by the House this year,” the Post said, but “congressional leadership bumped it to next week” due to the ACA vote.

‘JD Vance must outgrow Trump to become president’

Jesse Edwards at Newsweek

Vice President JD Vance can “only become a serious contender for the White House if he figures out how to get out from under Donald Trump without alienating MAGA in the process,” says Jesse Edwards at Newsweek. He must break from Trump and “convincingly argue that he played along to get close to power, fully aware of who Trump was” if he is to be “remotely appealing.” If Vance “makes the turn clean enough and early enough, people will listen.”

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‘I used cannabis daily for 25 years. I support reform — cautiously.’

Adam Levin at USA Today

As the “country reexamines federal cannabis restrictions, a long-overdue conversation about reform is finally underway,” says Adam Levin at USA Today. “Prohibition failed. Criminalization caused real harm,” and cannabis has “legitimate medical uses.” But there is “something missing from much of the celebration: an honest conversation about addiction.” Legal substances such as alcohol are “widely available, yet regulated, researched and accompanied by public-health messaging because access carries risk. Cannabis deserves the same treatment — not stigma, but honesty.”

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‘The winding path to a good Ukraine deal’

The Washington Post editorial board

Amid the repeated ups and downs of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the “thorniest issues” continue to be “punted,” says The Washington Post editorial board. But even if President Donald Trump’s latest “peace push hits another dead end, it’s worth noting what has changed.” The “West now has a clear sense of what a minimally acceptable peace would look like.” There are no guarantees, but the West should “bolster shaky promises with ample provisions for arming Ukraine like a porcupine.”

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‘An anti-AI movement is coming. Which party will lead it?’

Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times

Despite artificial intelligence’s promising future, the “list of things it is ruining is long,” says Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times. It is “true that new technologies often inspire dread,” but A.I. is rightfully alarming to many Americans, and it “divides both parties.” Going into 2026, one major question is “which party will speak for the Americans who abhor the incursions of A.I. into their lives and want to see its reach restricted?”

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This past weekend, some of the brightest stars in the conservative sky descended on Phoenix, Arizona, for Turning Point USA’s “Americafest 2025” conference. But the far-right revelry and MAGA backslapping quickly shed its veneer of camaraderie to expose deep fracture lines threatening the ultranationalist group’s mission. Across four days of dueling speeches and simmering behind-the-scenes feuds, TPUSA’s first major event since the shooting death of cofounder Charlie Kirk became a microcosm of the broader forces jockeying for MAGA power and influence nationwide.

‘Grifters,’ ‘charlatans’ and ‘hilarious’ attempts at deplatforming

Although its annual conferences have been “long billed as a show of unity for young conservatives,” this year’s TPUSA event was a “public airing of deepening fractures inside the MAGA movement,” Salon said. While “clashes over Israel, antisemitism and leadership” dominated the weekend, Kirk’s death and the “absence of a clear successor loomed large” as tributes “veered into ideological disputes, particularly over foreign policy and the influence of far-right figures within the movement.” After speakers “torched each other as pompous, cancerous cowards,” the group that had once been “so lockstep when President Trump was running” found itself “engulfed in an overt power struggle ahead of 2028,” said Axios.

Conservative broadcaster Ben Shapiro used his conference address to lash out at “grifters and charlatans” who he claimed were “guilty of misleading their audiences with falsehoods and conspiracy theories,” CNN said. He took particular aim at former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for interviewing avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes in what Shapiro said was an “act of moral imbecility.”

Carlson returned fire during his speech, calling Shapiro’s attempt at “deplatforming and denouncing people” at a TPUSA event “hilarious.” He then “downplayed the problem of anti-Jewish hate,” said the Times of Israel, in part by framing antisemitism as “less pervasive than bias against white men.”

Speaking Sunday evening, Vice President JD Vance conspicuously declined to condemn the “streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days” of the event, The Associated Press said. That includes former TPUSA staff and now popular podcaster Candace Owens, who has “alleged without evidence that Israeli spies were involved in Kirk’s death.” Taken together, the “tension on display” over the weekend “foreshadowed the treacherous political waters” aspiring conservative hopefuls will face before the next election.

All eyes on 2028

The schisms exposed over the weekend “laid bare” the challenge for any conservative hoping to succeed President Donald Trump atop the MAGA movement, The New York Times said: how to address the “explosive debate” over whether conspiracy theorists and extremists should be “embraced or excluded from the conservative coalition.”

In Vance’s remarks, delivered after Kirk’s widow and current TPUSA CEO Erika endorsed him for 2028, the vice president signaled he was “more than willing to forgo imposing any moral red lines.” At the same time, some observers have claimed that the “narrative of tension” and a looming MAGA civil war is “ginned up by people who hope to prevent” Vance’s political ascension, said the AP. “This is a proxy on ’28,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said at the convention, per the National Review. “There are people who are mad at JD Vance,” Tucker Carlson said, per the same outlet, and “they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination.”

What happened

The House Wednesday night passed a health care bill proposed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that would lower some costs modestly but not extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Defying Johnson, four of the Republicans who pushed his bill to its narrow 216-211 passage also signed a discharge petition Wednesday, clinching the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on a Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years.

Who said what

Several politically vulnerable Republicans had pushed Johnson to allow a vote on their proposals to extend the ACA credits for a year or two, with new limits, to avert a sharp rise in premiums for 24 million Americans in January. “But with most Republicans opposed to the subsidies, Johnson refused to allow an extension in his bill, fomenting the strongest rebellion among Republicans from swing districts to date,” The Washington Post said.

“To me, the clean three-year extension is not ideal,” said Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the four Republicans who signed the Democrats’ petition. “But doing nothing is not an answer.” Johnson “forced this outcome,” said fellow moderate rebel Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

The “stunning maneuver” by the House GOP “splinter group” was “all but guaranteed to prolong Republican infighting over health care, an issue that has bedeviled the party for years, into a midterm election year” with “considerable headwinds,” The New York Times said. It was also the “latest evidence” that Johnson’s “grip on his fractious majority has slipped” as “rank-and-file Republicans openly question his leadership and flout his wishes,” advancing four “once rare” discharge petitions, a feat last achieved in 1938. “I have not lost control of the House,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday.

What next?

Johnson’s bill “is dead on arrival in the Senate and will do little to quell a major intraparty split over the future of the subsidies,” Politico said. Senate GOP leaders say the three-year extension, if it passes the House next month, is also “doomed to die” in the upper chamber, but “House GOP moderates are now discussing options with their Senate counterparts about a bipartisan compromise bill that could pass both chambers” before the end of January, after the subsidies have lapsed.

The MAGA media universe is made up of influencers, podcasters and thought leaders who rally their conservative listeners and viewers behind President Donald Trump. Now, that right-wing ecosystem is “ripping itself to shreds” over conspiracy theories and petty feuds.

MAGA’s most prominent personalities are “attacking each other with a fury normally reserved for the left,” said Axios. Podcaster Candace Owens has attacked Turning Point USA after founder Charlie Kirk’s death. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is in a feud with Trump ally Laura Loomer over Carlson’s plans to buy a home in Qatar. And YouTube commentator Benny Johnson is threatening to sue over “personal attacks” from longtime provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

The “chaos” reflects a “wider Republican breakdown” as Trump’s poll numbers continue to drop, said Axios. The feuds are hitting high gear as the MAGA movement considers what happens after Trump. The combatants sense the “future of this political movement is up for grabs,” said Open Measures researcher Jared Holt.

What did the commentators say?

Owens was “MAGA’s favorite conspiracist,” but her “foray into conspiracy theories” about Kirk’s assassination has proven disruptive inside the movement, said The Washington Post. Owens has made a number of unfounded charges about Kirk’s death, including the notion that his murder was an “inside job” undertaken by “French or Israeli government agents.” She is “burning everything down,” said Tim Pool, another right-wing podcaster.

Owens’ antisemitic theories about Kirk’s death are “next-level lunacy,” said Rich Lowry at the National Review. She is “more alluring and sinister” than disgraced conspiracy-monger Alex Jones in working to “turn MAGA in a direction hostile to Israel, Jews, and Judaism.” She might be a “marginal figure” whose influence does not reach into the mainstream discourse the way Tucker Carlson still can. But she is working to “turbocharge” conspiracy thinking on the right, “with a special focus on the Jews.” That is a way of thinking “from which nothing good has ever come.”

MAGA influencers are revealing the “movement’s biggest weakness,” said Amanda Marcotte at Salon. The right-wing media ecosystem is “dominated by hustlers” more interested in a payday than the Trumpist “political project.” Aside from Trump, few GOP politicians hold sway over their party’s base. That leaves the job of shaping conservative opinions to the “social media influencer class” that understands “what gets the MAGA audiences going is lurid conspiracy theories.” Now that dynamic is getting out of control. GOP leaders have “no one to blame but themselves for this failure.”

What next?

Owens and Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, met on Monday in an effort to stem the feud. Both emerged from the “lengthy meeting” suggesting “tensions had eased,” said The Hill. “Time to get back to work,” Kirk said on X. “We agreed much more than I had anticipated,” Owens said. It is a sign of Owens’ “share of the media market” that Kirk felt the need to give her the “concession” of a meeting, said Chris Stirewalt at The Hill.

It is tough for any president to sense what their policies look like in the real world, surrounded as they are by security agents and yes-men. Those protective layers are called a “bubble,” and some observers wonder if President Donald Trump is trapped in his.

Trump has “dramatically scaled back speeches, public events and domestic travel” during the first year of his term, said The Atlantic. He has also cut back on his once-frequent rallies. That gives him limited contact with the American public, creating a “growing fear among Republicans” that the president has become “too isolated” from voter concerns.

Missteps can happen as a result. Americans voted for Trump to “lower prices,” said an anonymous ally of the president to The Atlantic. “They didn’t vote for him to build a damn gilded ballroom.” And Trump is “not hearing them.”

What did the commentators say?

The president’s heavy Twitter use “liberated” him from the "prison of the presidency” during his first term, said Semafor. Now he “scrolls the adulatory Truth Social” and fills more of his time with Trump-friendly Fox News and “new MAGA channels” like Newsmax and OANN. And aides tend to give him a rosier outlook on issues like the economy than what Americans actually experience. But his team pushes back against bubble allegations. Trump has his “finger on the pulse of the American public,” said a spokesman to the outlet.

“Every president wrestles with the White House bubble,” said Lisa Gilbert and Neera Tanden at Talking Points Memo. This one is a problem: Americans are concerned about affordability, but the president is building a ballroom, seeing a $230 million payment from the Justice Department and giving out pardons to the rich and powerful, all while refusing to address the health care crisis. The contrast between the public’s needs and Trump’s actions is “jarring, even grotesque.” It proves that the president’s “gold-plated bubble has cut off any contact with reality.”

The White House recently launched a new website that supposedly tracks anti-Trump media bias, said Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian. But the site is “revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits” by criticizing journalism that does not offer “flattery and sycophancy” to the president. Given the president’s isolation from voters, “harsh reality via the media is a rude intrusion.” Criticizing the media will not help Trump “get out of the trouble — or the bubble — that he’s in.”

What next?

Trump is planning a cross-country “travel blitz” to offset criticism he has “prioritized global issues over pocketbook worries,” said Axios. The president has grown increasingly irritated with that criticism, though, saying that voter concerns about affordability are a "hoax" and "con job” perpetrated by Democrats and the media.

The White House, meanwhile, will continue its plans to expose anti-Trump bias by the media, said The Associated Press. Journalists say that will make it more difficult to get unwelcome news to the public and the president. The country suffers “when we’re not operating from some semblance of a common truth,” said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei.

As the United States and China jockey for global influence and power, American farmers and Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly anxious over one of the less-obvious fronts in the Trump administration’s trade war with Beijing: commercial drones.

The drone has become a staple of modern farming across the U.S., and while conservative China hawks in Washington push for a ban on Chinese-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over national security concerns, a number of Republican lawmakers are raising a red flag on behalf of heartland constituents whose agricultural livelihoods are at elevated risk. The congressional fight over farmland flyers is underway, with a legislative deadline looming.

National security or corporate protectionism?

At the center of this growing fight is Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited, commonly known as DJI, the “world’s largest drone manufacturer,” which sells “more than half” of commercial drones in the U.S., Fox News said. Lawmakers have “repeatedly raised concerns” that the company’s drones “pose data transmission, surveillance and national security risks” and have raised allegations that DJI is controlled by the Chinese military.

But DJI drones are a “key agricultural tool to treat more than 300 types of crops in fields and orchards,” said Michigan Farm News. “Over 90% of the spray drones our industry uses come from China,” said the American Spray Drone Coalition. A “drastic” cutoff like the one being debated in Congress will “devastate our industry.”

House Republicans, led by New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, have succeeded in passing harsh restrictions on domestic DJI sales in their version of a must-pass defense funding bill, but they are “facing pushback in the Senate,” Politico said. Lawmakers in the upper chamber initially dropped the House’s language in their version of the bill, with a number of Republicans “raising concerns about potential negative impacts on U.S. businesses and law enforcement.” Banning Chinese drones would have “real cost ramifications for commercial enterprises, not just farming,” said North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven to Politico, citing transmission line tracking and rescue and recovery operations.

Members of the United States’ nascent commercial drone industry are ”eagerly awaiting“ DJI’s exit from the domestic field, The New York Times said, despite “few U.S. drone makers selling the kinds of consumer and industrial products that DJI makes.” The push to ban DJI technology in the U.S. is about “forcing the biggest manufacturer of drones out of the market” so domestic manufacturers “don’t have to compete with them,” said DJI Global Policy head Adam Welsh to Mashable. “The reality is the best drones on the market right now are from China,” said American Spray Drone Coalition President Eric Ringer to Iowa Capital Dispatch. Accordingly, the country needs to “do better” at “building up good domestic alternatives.”

A Christmas Eve-eve deadline

For now, all eyes are on Dec. 23, after which DJI would be automatically added to the FCC’s “covered list” of banned items that would block new drone shipments, as well as potentially disrupt future upgrades for existing devices — unless a national security agency were to audit the company to determine whether it poses a threat. But with no agency set to perform the check, “DJI can’t clear its name,” said Mashable, all while the “clock continues to tick toward a ban that the company can’t stop on its own.”

What happened

When the House passed the spending bill to reopen the government on Wednesday night, many Republicans said they backed it despite being furious over a provision Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) had slipped in allowing senators to sue the government for at least $500,000, and likely $1 million or more, if their phone records were obtained without notification after 2022. Rep. Greg Steube (Fla.), one of the two Republicans who voted no, cited that measure as the reason.

The provision was added to address Senate GOP anger over special prosecutor Jack Smith’s 2023 subpoenas of several senators’ phone call logs, part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. But only one senator has announced “definitive plans to take advantage” of the payout clause, Politico said. Five of the other seven eligible Republicans indicated Thursday “they have no plans to pursue compensation,” CBS News said.

Who said what

Thune “thought he was giving Republicans a gift,” but most of them “don’t want it,” Politico said. The provision is “already creating political liability for Senate Republicans,” as Democrats “pummel the GOP for endorsing a taxpayer-funded windfall and fellow Republicans in both chambers decry the provision as poorly conceived.”

Dropping this language in “at the last minute” was “way out of line,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Wednesday night. The House is “going to repeal that, and I’m going to expect our colleagues in the Senate to do the same thing.” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the Senate’s taxpayer-funded “million-dollar jackpot payday” for senators was “one of the most blatantly corrupt provisions for political self-dealing and the plunder of public resources ever proposed in Congress.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he was “definitely” going to sue under the provision. “And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars? No,” he told reporters Wednesday. “I want to make it so painful, no one ever does this again.” Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) suggested they also might sue for financial damages.

What next?

With House Republicans “enraged over the provision’s inclusion,” Johnson’s promised repeal measure was “expected to pass overwhelmingly with bipartisan support” next week, Politico said. “It’s not clear what Thune plans to do with the bill.”

It happens to every president sooner or later — the moment when they are still in power but their influence wanes as politicians and voters look to the future. Last week’s GOP election losses raise the question of whether President Donald Trump’s lame duck moment has arrived.

“Welcome to the dawn of Trump’s lame duck era,” said Politico. Republicans are beginning to realize the president “will soon be gone.” While Americans should not “expect an immediate stampede” away from the president’s less-popular policies, there are “growing signs” that GOP officials are maneuvering around the fact that “they’ll still be around” after their term-limited leader has departed the political scene. Most Republican senators, for example, resisted Trump’s demand to get rid of the filibuster to end the government shutdown. That unwillingness could be challenging to a president whose operating style is to “run roughshod” over his party’s preferences in Congress.

Past his sell-by date?

Trump “seems to be defying the lame-duck precedent” at the moment,” said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. No president has ever been “more dominant” within his own party, and while congressional Republicans may have misgivings in private they “publicly sing his praises.” But Trump is also “well past the usual sell-by date” for most presidents, having served as the GOP’s presidential nominee in three different elections. The last Republican to do that was Richard Nixon, and it “didn’t turn out well for Republicans.”

The GOP “appears to be fracturing” as it prepares for the “vacuum” that will be created when Trump leaves the scene, said Michael Wilner at the Los Angeles Times. Infighting over antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes and blame-casting for the GOP’s poor election performance are among the “vicious” fights going on among Trump’s supporters as they prepare for what is next. The “countdown to the midterms” signifies that the president has “precious time left” before the 2028 presidential contest gets underway and begins “eclipsing the final two years of his presidency.”

Third term talk

The president still has a “lot of juice,” said David M. Drucker at Bloomberg. While voters “often tire of reelected presidents,” Trump now has an approval rating of 93% from Republicans. (Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were “both at roughly 80%” with their party’s voters during their second terms.) That popularity with the base gives him more power than his predecessors. Any Republican thinking of a run for office must “win Trump’s endorsement and then win the voters — in that order.”

Trump keeps talking about a third term even though it is prohibited by the Constitution, said Time. That may fend off lame-duck status by helping him “maintain his relevance and power over the GOP.” But Republican losses last week are giving Democrats a “way out of the gloom,” said Edward Luce at the Financial Times. There is much to come, but it is now clear that the “opening act of Trump’s second term is over.”

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.”

Terms like “Nazi” and “fascist” get thrown around too freely these days, said River Page in The Free Press. But “when a Republican says ‘I love Hitler’ in a group chat, what the hell are we supposed to call him?” Politico reported on an almost eight-month trove of Telegram messages sent between a dozen prominent members of the Young Republican National Federation—the “GOP’s official youth wing”— “which was brimming with racism, antisemitism, and violent, authoritarian musings.” Politico counted 251 separate uses of “faggot,” “retarded,” and the N-word, along with references to Black people as “monkeys” and “watermelon people.” There were jokes about sending opponents “to the gas chamber” and of being “ready to watch people burn.” Some top Republicans condemned the comments and demanded those involved leave the party; the YRNF state chapters in New York and Kansas were disbanded. But JD Vance didn’t see a problem. Pointing to Jay Jones—the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general who sent texts wishing death on a Republican colleague—the vice president dismissed the outrage as “pearl clutching” over a few “kids” telling “edgy” jokes. “Kids?” Those involved are in their 20s and 30s, and included Vermont state Sen. Samuel Douglass, who has since resigned. And why can’t we denounce hate from both Democrats and Republicans?

These are Vance’s people, said Jeet Heer in The Nation. A product of the “alt-right,” he understands that “racists and philo-Nazis”— once a noisy fringe of conservatism—are now “the future of the GOP,” a party Vance intends to lead into the 2028 presidential election. “Hate is not a deal breaker” for this administration, said Katie Rogers in The New York Times. This week also saw the leak of texts by Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s nominee to head a federal watchdog agency, in which he admitted to having “a Nazi streak” and, using an Italian slur for Black people, called for all “moulignon holidays,” from Martin Luther King Jr. Day to Juneteenth, to be “eviscerated.” Ingrassia, 30, withdrew his nomination in the face of resistance from Senate Republicans, but he remains employed by the White House as a liaison to the Department of Homeland Security.

Vance was wrong to dismiss the Young Republicans’ hideous remarks as mere jokes, said Katherine Dee in Politico. But we should also not mistake them for “genuine expressions of belief.” Among the Very Online Right, the “ironic” embrace of cruelty and bigotry is a way of “signaling group membership” as well as one’s disdain for the “moral surveillance and censoriousness” of liberals. Or at least that’s how it begins. But through repetition, “what begins as mockery can harden into conviction,” and someone whose original goal was to “own the libs” by performing a caricature of right-wing extremism can end up adopting “the worldview they once parodied.”

I fear there’s a simpler explanation, said George Packer in The Atlantic: ambition. These young Republicans wanted to rise in a political party that now prizes “contempt for everything decent” as a core value. After Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, Tucker Carlson’s dabbling in Holocaust denial, and Stephen Miller’s embrace of white supremacism, these aspiring politicians understandably thought “the viler their language, the higher they’ll go.” That remains a safe bet, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. Trump and Vance have a policy of leaving no Nazi-curious “chud” behind. Ingrassia and the Young Republicans may have had their career plans disrupted, but trust me: They’ll all “be directing ICE raids in no time.”

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.”

Could Democrats’ “big gamble” actually pay off? asked Zeeshan Aleem in MSNBC.com. For five decades, voters “have typically blamed the party not in the White House” when Congress can’t agree on a spending package and the government shuts down. But this time feels different. A new Washington Post poll shows 47% of voters blame President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, with only 30% blaming Democrats. That poll was taken two weeks ago as the shutdown began, but Democrats have certain “unusual advantages” in the ongoing battle for public opinion. There is Trump himself, who has governed as such a “wrecking ball” since January that many voters simply assume the shutdown is part of his anti-government crusade. Then there’s the fact that Democrats’ modest demand—that any bill to reopen the government must include an extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans—is extremely popular, supported by 78% of voters, including 59% of Republicans. The political dynamic could easily flip, said Meredith Lee Hill in Politico. Some Republicans are “eyeing Oct. 15,” when active-duty military members will miss their first paycheck, as a “key pressure point.” But that prospect, and threats from Trump to cancel back pay for furloughed workers, have for now “only caused Democrats to dig in more.”

What are Democrats thinking? asked Matt Bai in The Washington Post. Extending the subsidies polls well as a stand-alone issue. But it’ll soon be “lost in the noise” of shutdown drama as Trump dials up the pain for Democratic voters. His White House budget director, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought, has already frozen $8 billion in funding for blue state clean-energy projects and some $20 billion for infrastructure projects. And Trump is openly vowing to “gut as many departments and eliminate as many jobs as he can” before the shutdown ends. “Even a Democratic victory in the Obamacare fight would probably be Pyrrhic, coming at the cost of a sacked and pillaged capital.”

This is “the right fight,” said Monica Potts in The New Republic. Some 1.6 million Americans will lose health insurance subsidies completely if they expire. Tens of millions more will see their premiums balloon, pushing overstretched households to the brink. Don’t believe me? Just ask Republican firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who this week tweeted that she supports extending the subsidies because without them “premiums will DOUBLE” for people in her Georgia district. In fact, the average annual premium for subsidized enrollees will more than double, from $888 to $1,904, and hardest hit will be working-class voters the Democrats lost in 2016, who are again shopping for “a party to fight for them.”

But “the times call for sterner measures,” said Chris Truax in The Hill. Four out of five Obamacare enrollees live in red states. So it’d be politically smart for Democrats to let the subsidies expire, force Trump supporters to experience the horror they voted for, and make the Republicans on next year’s midterm ballot “own the results.” Better yet, Democrats should raise the price for reopening the government to include a meaningful rollback of Trump’s autocratic project, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark: requiring ICE agents to go unmasked, say, or closing the fake “emergency” loopholes Trump uses to consolidate power. Ordinarily, “making voters’ lives better” would be a ransom worth demanding for Democrats. “But this isn’t an ordinary moment.”

What happened

Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday made her first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since her confirmation hearing in January. During nearly five hours of testimony, she evaded questions from Democrats about her controversial tenure, responding with personal insults while denying their charges that she was destroying the Justice Department’s independence to serve President Donald Trump’s personal revenge agenda.

Who said what

Bondi “repeatedly dodged” questions on “pressing issues” like her department’s prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, closure of a bribery investigation of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files, The Washington Post said. As she “lashed out” at her Democratic questioners, Bondi’s “personalized, non sequitur attacks” were “excerpted and shared on social media in real time by administration officials.” A Reuters photographer “captured some of Bondi’s preplanned attacks on the inside of a manila folder,” USA Today said.

Bondi’s stonewalling “meant little if any fresh insight was offered about her actions and decisions” in office, The Associated Press said. Republicans generally “did not press her to provide answers,” The New York Times said, and “largely seemed unconcerned” about Trump’s “efforts to erode the department’s independence,” claiming it was politicized under President Joe Biden.

Yet one of Bondi’s “most difficult moments,” the Times said, came when GOP Sen. John Kennedy (La.) “gently asked” about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s recent comments that Epstein, his former neighbor, was “the greatest blackmailer ever.” Top Trump administration officials are “apoplectic” that Lutnick “undermined the government’s entire story” that Trump’s former friend “did not run a secret sexual-blackmail operation targeting wealthy, powerful elites,” Asawin Suebsaeng said at Zeteo. Bondi told Kennedy that nobody from the DOJ or FBI had contacted Lutnick. When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked if the FBI had found reputed Epstein photos showing “Trump with half-naked young women,” she declined to answer, instead accusing him of accepting campaign donations from an alleged Epstein associate.

What next?

Kennedy told Bondi the Senate might call Lutnick to testify about Epstein. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that his delay in seating incoming Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) had “nothing to do with” her promise to provide the final signature to force a House vote to compel the DOJ to release its Epstein files.

The U.S. federal government has shut down for the first time in six years, and while budget fights in Congress aren’t a rare occurrence, many political analysts say this shutdown could look drastically different from those that came before. In particular, President Donald Trump’s pledge to fire thousands of government employees, alongside continued fighting between Democrats and Republicans over Medicaid subsidies, could mean this shutdown has dire consequences.

What did the commentators say?

Federal shutdowns have happened before, including a 35-day closure during Trump’s first term that became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. But this event is “like no federal funding crunch before it,” said CNN. This seems to be “about far more than the classic feud over how the government spends its money, and whether a White House or its Capitol Hill foes will prevail in a political test of wills.” It also comes amid the “backdrop of the most aggressive attempt by a president to impose unfettered power in modern times.”

At the heart of this shutdown battle is a disagreement over funding Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies. Democrats are “focused on these enhanced subsidies from the Affordable Care Act that were enhanced during the pandemic,” said The Wall Street Journal’s flagship podcast, making it a sticking point of the Democrats’ negotiations. These subsidies are set to run out at the end of 2025, which could mean “tens of millions of Americans lose their health insurance starting in January because they can no longer afford to pay sky-high premiums,” former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said on his Substack.

Republicans have said Democrats want to shut down the government in order to provide insurance to undocumented immigrants. But this “claim is highly misleading,” said NBC News. The “Democratic bill would not change existing law barring people who are in the U.S. illegally from getting federal health care coverage.”

There is also the question of government workers themselves. Federal employees are normally furloughed during a shutdown and then go back to work when the shutdown ends. But the Trump administration “has asked agencies to look at places where they could reduce the size of the federal government during a shutdown,” said the Journal. This means they would “essentially fire people instead of just put people on furlough. That’s never happened.”

In a memo released by the Office of Management and Budget, agencies furloughing employees were directed to “consider whether or not you really need those roles and consider shrinking down your agency,” said CNBC. The Trump administration wants to keep only programs that are “in line with the president’s agenda,” even though there have “already been massive reductions in the federal workforce.”

What next?

It seems both sides are at a stalemate, though a “new NPR / PBS News / Marist poll shows that more Americans hold Republicans responsible for the impasse,” said NPR. This shutdown also “throws into question the operating status of sites like national parks and the Smithsonian Institution.” It is unclear how long the impasse may last. History shows that “multiweek shutdowns are relatively rare but have become more common in recent decades,” said NPR. The shutdown will likely extend until at least the weekend, given that the Senate is out of session until Friday.

Don’t expect Democrats to vote for President Trump’s agenda, said Chris Brennan in USA Today. If the Republicans want Democratic support to pass a continuing funding bill and keep the government open, they’ll need to “offer something” in negotiations. The Democratic minority leaders in the House and Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, insist that any bill that extends GOP priorities must also extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire this year and reverse Trump’s cuts to Medicaid. Trump, though, refuses to concede an inch: He posted last week that he wouldn’t even meet with Jeffries and Schumer, saying falsely that they were trying to “continue free healthcare for illegal Aliens” and “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.” Given that Republicans alone don’t have the votes to pass a short-term continuing resolution that would keep funding at current levels, we are headed for a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“If Democrats court a shutdown, they’ll own the results,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The idea that the GOP would repeal the Medicaid cuts passed in July’s “big, beautiful bill” is “fantasy”—and so is the Democrats’ counterproposal, which would tack on almost $1.5 trillion in new spending. The Republicans are offering what Democrats have always demanded in these situations: a clean continuing resolution that introduces nothing new. That’s more than fair. By demanding health-care concessions, Democrats lose either way, said Michael A. Cohen in MSNBC.com. If they force a shutdown, they will be blamed for federal workers’ missed paychecks. If they force a concession on Obamacare, they’ll take “a huge political problem” off the GOP’s plate in the midterms.

Worse for Democrats is that “a shutdown would give the Trump administration more power over federal spending,” said Jacob Bogage and Riley Beggin in The Washington Post. The Office of Management and Budget decides what agencies stay open and which shutter, which means it could halt programs Democratic voters depend on while continuing ICE immigration raids. Even a funding extension, like the one passed in March, enables the White House to divert money that Congress appropriated and use it for its own ends. That allowed Trump to eliminate a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth and funds for early-childhood education. Schumer is betting voters will be angrier at Trump than at him—but with the shutdown clock ticking, that gamble gets riskier by the day.

President Donald Trump has traveled a lot since retaking office, but unlike the rallies that characterized his first term, Trump has largely used his time away from Washington, D.C., to hang out at sporting events. Trump’s second term has seen him attend the most recent iterations of the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, FIFA Club World Cup and the U.S. Open, as well as several UFC fights.

As with almost everywhere he goes, Trump has been met at these events with a mix of boos and cheers (ABC and ESPN were reportedly asked to mute the booing at the U.S. Open but declined to do so). Some feel that his attendance at these events has less to do with sports and more to do with politics.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s idea behind going to the sporting events is a “strategy as old as human civilization,” said Kara Alaimo, a communications professor at Farleigh Dickinson University, to CNN. In Ancient Rome, leaders would host gladiator tournaments to “keep the people entertained and keep their focus off of what their government was doing.”

This type of strategy is “helpful for Trump because it’s keeping the spotlight off of two big things,” Alaimo said to CNN. The first is the “problems that Americans are facing,” and the second is that “so many Americans disagree with the policies that Trump has proposed or is pursuing.”

This could also be part of a ploy to gain more control over American institutions, experts say. As president, Trump has “asserted his dominance over politics, higher education and corporations,” and sports is “another venue he is trying to influence,” said The Boston Globe. While “most presidents have tried to use sports to unite a divided nation, he uses them to press a political advantage,” Tom Knecht, a political science professor at Westmont College, told the Globe.

Trump is “much more partisan in his approach to politics, and he is also much more willing to try to use the power of the White House to accomplish actual changes in the sporting world,” Knecht told the Globe. This presidential affinity for sports isn’t new, as “notable presidential involvement in American sports dates back to at least 1905."

But unlike prior presidents, Trump himself “loves being part of the professional sports world,” said The Athletic. He “seems intent on being America’s Commander in Chief of Sports, imposing his worldview on an area of society that has heretofore resisted such efforts.”

What next?

Trump will continue to attend sporting events; the president has claimed he will be in attendance for the Ryder Cup golf tournament in New York in September. This is unsurprising given that golf is the game Trump is most associated with. Bryson DeChambeau, a golfer who has previously played with Trump, was also “appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition,” said CNN, among a slew of other athletes.

Trump is also bringing sports to him: The president has teamed with UFC head Dana White to host a UFC match at the White House in 2026. The event will be a “mixed martial arts throwdown to be watched by thousands of spectators” with “fighter weigh-ins and a press conference” at the Lincoln Memorial, said The Wall Street Journal. Smaller sporting events have been hosted at the White House, but “nothing, though, approaches the scale Trump is attempting.”

What happened

The Texas House Wednesday approved a new congressional map aimed at flipping up to five Democratic-held seats to Republican control. The 88-52 party-line vote followed a Democratic walkout that delayed passage of the contentious changes by two weeks. After the Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin on Monday, their GOP colleagues allowed them to leave the House only if they agreed to around-the-clock police escorts; some Democrats refused and slept in the chamber.

Who said what

Texas Republicans are "pursuing the unusual mid-decade redistricting" push "amid pressure" from President Donald Trump "to protect the GOP's slim majority in Congress" in the 2026 midterms, The Texas Tribune said. The new "aggressively partisan" map gives Trump the "gerrymander he requested," The New York Times said, but it also "set off a redistricting fever" that spread first to California but could infect another half-dozen states.

The California Supreme Court Wednesday denied an emergency petition from Republicans to halt Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) countervailing push to temporarily redraw his map's state to flip five GOP-held seats. Former President Barack Obama, a critic of gerrymandering, said Tuesday he approved of Newsom's "smart, measured" and "responsible" response to the GOP's attempt to "rig the game."

What next?

California lawmakers are expected to approve their new map today, sending it to a public referendum in November. The path is "far simpler" for Texas Republicans, "despite sustained Democratic opposition," the Times said. The state Senate will likely clear the Texas map today and "send it by the end of the week to Gov. Greg Abbott for his promised signature."

President Trump's demand to hold a new census to exclude undocumented immigrants is "almost certainly unconstitutional," said Ed Kilgore in New York. He announced the idea last week, saying, "People who are in our country illegally will NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS." But he didn't clarify if he's looking to immediately conduct a mid-decade count without undocumented immigrants or to just exclude them from the next scheduled census in 2030. The official population count, held every 10 years, determines how congressional seats are apportioned. Given how Republicans are scrambling to redraw district maps to gain House seats in Texas, it's likely Trump wants a new count before the 2026 midterms. Yet it takes years to organize and conduct a nationwide census, and the Constitution poses another obstacle: It plainly states the census counts "the whole number of persons in each State," regardless of immigration status. "He's claiming powers he just doesn't possess," but "he wouldn't be Trump if he didn't keep trying."

He could also encounter unexpected opposition from Republicans, said William Kristol in The Bulwark. Large populations of undocumented immigrants aren't limited to blue states, so Republicans could lose seats, too. Texas has the country's second-largest undocumented population and could lose two representatives. Florida has a sizable undocumented population, as do swing states Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia. "Imagine how mad Republicans would be" if they redraw maps and "end up with barely anything to show for it." Since excluding noncitizens isn't legally possible, said Rich Lowry in National Review, Trump should focus on what he can do to limit their impact on congressional representation: reduce their numbers. Thanks to deportations and self-deportations, there's already "been a large exodus" of the undocumented this year, giving us "net negative migration for the first time in a half century." The next census, in 2030, will "fully capture the changes he's effecting."

But "let's not miss the underlying point," said Steve Benen in MSNBC.com. Republicans are in danger of losing the House in the midterms, and are "desperate to maintain power at all costs." That's why Trump demanded Texas redraw its congressional map now, and why he's calling for an unconstitutional "Trumpified census." He and his party are looking for every possible way "to rig the political process so Republicans can't lose, even if voters want them to."

President Donald Trump has made it clear that he hopes to export his unprecedented military occupation of Washington, D.C., to other Democrat-led cities across the country. But even as the administration prepares to expand its D.C.-incubated federal takeover of local law enforcement, several red states have already begun taking the MAGA initiative. This weekend, the Republican governors of Ohio, West Virginia and South Carolina announced plans to volunteer hundreds of their respective National Guard troops to the White House's D.C. deployment. Shortly thereafter, Mississippi and Louisiana followed suit.

'American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil'

Trump has "received praise from conservative allies" and earned "shows of support from GOP governors" for his occupation of the nation's capital, even as residents have chafed, said The Washington Post. These "new contributions" of troops from red states mark a "significant escalation of Trump's takeover of policing in the city," said Time. Governors who announced troop deployments made a point to note they are "acting on requests from the Trump administration," said The Hill. The planned troop deployment will also be "funded by the federal government under Title 32," said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster in a statement announcing the order on Saturday.

It's "unclear why additional troops are needed" in D.C., where members of the Guard have "played a limited role in the federal intervention," said NPR. That the administration would request new troops to aid in the D.C. operation suggests the White House sees a "need for additional manpower" even after Trump "personally played down the need for Washington to hire more police officers."

Troops already stationed in D.C. have "drawn positive attention from civilians," the National Guard said in a statement released Sunday. Less so from city officials, including Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser. "American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican" said Bowser on X shortly after the trio of red state governors announced their troop contributions.

While National Guard troops stationed in D.C. will not make arrests themselves, said Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson last week, before the additional deployments were announced, they may nevertheless "temporarily limit the movement of an individual who has entered a restricted or secured area without permission."

'An opportunity' for Trump to 'play dictator'

Efforts to paint Washington, D.C. as wholly free of crime and not in need of intervention are misguided, said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC. At the same time, "bringing National Guardsmen in from red states, in some areas that have higher crime per capita than Washington, D.C.? Not the answer."

The deployment is "total abuse of power," a "manufactured emergency" and an "opportunity for Donald Trump to play dictator in Washington, D.C.," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on ABC's "The Week." Van Hollen joined other Democratic lawmakers last week, said Axios, for a "long-shot joint resolution" aimed at ending Trump's control of the D.C. police force.

'Bipartisan solutions for Afghan allies spark hope'

Jennie Murray at The Hill

After a "long period of uncertainty for many Afghan allies of the U.S., it is encouraging to see a glimmer of hope," says Jennie Murray. Lawmakers "introduced a new bill that would offer legal pathways for Afghans who risked their lives supporting U.S. forces," and this is a "hopeful spark for both Afghan allies living in the U.S. and the American community members who now call these individuals neighbors." They "fought with us and for their own country's future."

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'Democrats can win in 2028. But we need to oust corporate candidates first.'

Alexandra Rojas at The Guardian

A "robust, active, and exciting Democratic primary process in districts across the country is a necessary prerequisite to Democrats winning in 2026, let alone 2028," says Alexandra Rojas. Voters "need a new generation of leaders with fresh faces and bold ideas, unbought by corporate super PACs and billionaire donors, to give them a new path." That "requires working class, progressive primary challenges to the overwhelming number of corporate Democratic incumbents who have rightfully been dubbed as do-nothing electeds."

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'Why is everyone so rude?'

Abby McCloskey at The Dallas Morning News

There "used to be more consideration of others and impulse control," says Abby McCloskey. We "live in a time when there's never been more accommodation of difference; we've never been more aware of others' plights and stories." But "yet instead of extending ourselves toward others out of empathy, we're acting as though we are alone and have little responsibility for others." The "root of conscientiousness is conscious: to be aware of and sensitive to one's surroundings."

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'Why Republicans are terrified of nonexistent crime'

Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect

Among the "favorite pastimes of Republican men, two stand out: first, boasting about what strong, courageous, hypermasculine operators they are; and second, publicly melting down about how pants-pissingly terrified they are of American cities," says Ryan Cooper. This "seems to be a core emotion of modern conservatism: wallowing in terror of largely imaginary dangers." American "cities, especially in blue states, are safer than they have been in decades," but are "full of everything that conservatives hate."

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"The transformation of Israel's image from David to Goliath, from righteous to wrathful" has tarnished its reputation in the U.S., said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times. A Gallup poll published last week found that only 32% of Americans back Israel's military action in Gaza, down from 50% in late 2023. The survey was conducted last month, largely "before the torrent of heartrending photos of malnourished babies" spread around the world. The reduced support "was driven by increased opposition among Democrats and independents," only 8% and 25% of whom, respectively, back Israel's war aims. Some on the American right are also lashing out, said Jacob Magid in The Times of Israel. According to a Pew Research poll from April, 50% of young Republicans view Israel unfavorably, up from 35% in 2022. That "animosity" is shared by a few sitting GOP lawmakers; MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, is "no less critical of the Jewish state than some of the most progressive Democrats." As President Trump reportedly put it while speaking to a prominent Jewish donor: "My people are starting to hate Israel."

The idea that the GOP is divided over Israel is, however, "mostly fiction," said Matthew Continetti in The Free Press. Yes, the predictable "foreign-policy restrainers" like Tucker Carlson are blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through their "megaphones." But Trump "remains as resolutely pro-Israel as ever," and the vast majority of Republican voters "continue to reward politicians who stand with the Jewish state against Jihadism." That Gallup poll? Republican support for Israel's war against Hamas actually jumped from 66% to 71%. The data simply don't back the notion that the "reliably pro-Israel GOP is wobbly."

While Trump and his supporters have stuck with Netanyahu, Israel can't ignore that the world and a majority of Americans have turned against it, said Joe Klein in his Substack newsletter. Israel becoming a "pariah state" would be all too "convenient for the antisemites," and Jews everywhere, including the U.S., would suffer. So, American Jews—who "carry some weight in Israel"—should strive for "unanimity" on both the "evil of Hamas" and "the excesses of the Netanyahu government." In the U.S., "every Jewish pulpit in the land" should call for an end to "starvation and displacement" in Gaza. A strong Israel serves as a "security blanket" for the Jewish people in a hostile world, and its future is essential. "But decency is integral to real moral strength."

What happened

A fight over redistricting in Texas went nationwide this week, with Texas Democrats fleeing their state to block a vote on new electoral maps and blue states vowing to forge ahead with their own partisan gerrymanders. While congressional districts are typically redrawn once a decade after the census, President Trump asked Texas Republicans to do so now, hoping to deliver additional GOP seats for the House in next year's midterms. "I got the highest vote in the history of Texas," Trump said, speaking of the 2024 election, "and we are entitled to five more seats." To prevent Republicans from mustering a quorum for the vote, more than 50 Democratic state legislators hightailed it out of the state—heading for blue strongholds like Illinois and New York, beyond the reach of Texas arrest warrants. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to charge the absent Democrats with accepting bribes if they use donor money to cover the $500 fines they're incurring each day, and he filed a lawsuit to remove state Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, from his seat for shirking his duties. "Denying the governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office," Wu said. "It was a fulfillment of my oath."

Several Democratic governors—including New York's Kathy Hochul, California's Gavin Newsom, and Illinois' JB Pritzker—have said that if Texas adopts the new map, they may retaliate by creating new districts favoring Democrats in their states. "This is a war, and that's why the gloves are off," said Hochul. Nor will Republican plans to remake the congressional map stop with Texas; the Trump administration has begun pressuring other GOP-controlled states, such as Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana, to follow suit.

What the editorials said

This is a naked "Republican power grab," said the Houston Chronicle. Texas is a red state, but 40% of its voters chose Democrats for Congress last year. Under the new map, Democrats would "safely hold only 21%" of seats. Redrawing districts out of season like this isn't about fairness; it's just a way for Abbott to show fealty to Trump. And if the governor goes through with his threat to jail or expel the lawmakers who went AWOL, it "would be an attack on democracy itself."

Texas Republicans may be "pushing political norms to their absolute limit," said National Review, but "Democrats are the last people on earth who ought to be crying foul." Blue states are already far more gerrymandered than red ones: Look at Illinois, where Republicans won 47% of the 2024 congressional vote but took just 18% of seats. Or Maryland, where Republicans got 35% of the vote and a single seat. Spare us the "crocodile tears."

What the columnists said

Democratic leaders across the nation have little choice but to "fight back," said Daniel Strauss in Slate. It's unpalatable, because they have traditionally led the charge to make redistricting fair and nonpartisan—and because polls show that both Democratic and Republican voters despise gerrymandering. But it's either "abandon their principles" to stop Trump's bludgeoning of American democracy or "keep their principles intact and congratulate themselves on a morally pristine loss in 2026." Two more years of a Trump unchecked by Congress must be avoided at any cost.

Yet even if they try, Democrats probably won't be able to offset the Republican pickups, said Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post. Republicans have full legislative control of 23 states to Democrats' 15, and "past gerrymandering has left Democrats with fewer opportunities" to squeeze out more seats in states they do control. Plus, for most Democratic states considering changes, there are too many "practical obstacles and time constraints." California, for instance, requires a special election to allow for mid-­decade redistricting, while New York would have to amend its constitution and make new maps before primary season starts.

"Congress can stop the madness at any point," said Richard L. Hasen in MSNBC.com. The Constitution allows the legislative branch to alter state rules for congressional elections. Congress could outlaw mid-­decade redistricting, require states to use nonpartisan commissions, or at the very least, "set a standard barring the most egregious partisan gerrymanders." Of course, since the Republicans currently in charge of Congress are the ones making a mad dash for seats, "don't hold your breath." But at some point, lawmakers should realize that "détente is better than mutually assured destruction."

The Democratic Party is in trouble. A new poll shows a record share of voters view the party unfavorably, leaving party leaders scrambling to figure out how to broaden their brand's appeal.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans have an "unfavorable view" of Democrats, said The Wall Street Journal, which commissioned the poll. That is the "highest share" of negative ratings for a political party in the paper's surveys going all the way back to 1990. Democrats hoping for a "voter backlash against the president" ahead of next year's midterm elections have a long way to go to persuade the public "they can do a better job" than the GOP. Republicans do not come off well, either — the poll shows the public dislikes President Donald Trump's "handling of the economy, inflation, tariffs and foreign policy." But Democrats "don't have the credibility to be a critic of Trump" or the GOP, said Democratic pollster John Anzalone.

'Hit rock bottom'

Democrats have "hit rock bottom," said Nick Catoggio at The Dispatch. Despite all the terrible events that have happened in America since 1990, "at no point" have voters disliked a party as much as they do Democrats at this moment. It is possible that voters will "come around." But the Journal's poll shows that Republicans get higher marks than Democrats even on "issues on which Trump receives bad marks." That looks like a "catastrophic decline in confidence in the left's basic ability to govern."

Democrats "express much less warmth" toward their own leaders than Republicans, said Philip Bump on his website. It is no coincidence that the "most vibrant expressions of opposition" to Trump come from figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who "sit at a distance from the party." If party leadership continues to stumble, Democratic candidates should "run against or apart from the party as much as possible."

"These are some tough numbers for Democrats," said G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers. There is a bright spot: The same poll also shows that Democrats have a three-point advantage in the "generic congressional ballot," which measures which party voters would want to represent them if the election were held today. That seemingly slim lead "would be large enough for the Democrats to win somewhere around 230-235 seats" in the House.

'Nobody's voting on anything'

There is a "silver lining" for Democrats, said Jim Geraghty at The Washington Post. "If you're going to be unpopular, do it when almost nobody's voting on anything." There are a "handful" of special elections for the House of Representatives this year, but there is still more than a year to go before the 2026 midterm elections. The Journal's poll may be "ominous," but at the moment, "it doesn't count for anything."

"Democrats don't need to be popular," said Ed Kilgore at New Yorkmagazine . Right now, the party's candidates are favored to win "most of the competitive off-year races in 2025, including the New Jersey and Virginia governorships." If Democrats win a few elections, "that will take care of most of their morale problems."

Republicans are looking for a lifeline. They have narrow, fragile control of the House of Representatives and could lose their majority entirely in next year's midterm elections. So the GOP is hoping Texas will provide a buffer.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wants the Texas Legislature to redraw the state's congressional maps "in a bid to gain Republican seats" for the national party during the 2026 midterms, said The New York Times. Texas has 38 seats in the House, 25 of which are held by the GOP. The redistricting plan was pushed by the Trump administration, which wants a "ruthless" approach and "would welcome any chance to pick up seats in the midterms." Democrats are opposed, naturally. Abbott's move is a "blatant partisan power grab," said State Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

Every state "redraws its maps once a decade" after the census, said The Hill. But the president's party faces "traditional headwinds" in midterm elections, and the GOP's 220-212 majority in the House leaves it particularly vulnerable. "It's a game of inches right now," said one Republican strategist.

What did the commentators say?

"Texas is no stranger to gerrymandering," said The Dallas Morning News. But in a state as conservative as Texas, Republicans should be able to "win voters over with good ideas and strong policy" instead of playing games with congressional maps. The desire to preserve partisan advantage means districts are "drawn in radical ways with nonsensical shapes" that "defy logic and reason." The legislature should avoid the temptation. Democrats in the Lone Star State "deserve a voice just as much as their neighbors across the aisle."

The GOP's plans "could backfire," Mary Ellen Klas said at Bloomberg. The signs point to 2026 as a "wave election" for Democrats because of Trump's "chaotic and misguided policies." Texas Republicans may be tempted to go along with his gerrymandering demands, but the effort "would make most of their safe districts more competitive" by moving Republican voters out of safe-GOP districts to areas now held by Democrats. That makes redistricting a "high-risk maneuver" for the president's party, said the Brennan Center's Michael Li.

What next?

There are "cautionary tales" from past redistricting efforts, said The Texas Tribune. One current proposal would create as many as five new Republican seats, but it would "dilute the voting power of communities of color" and could "stretch GOP voters too thin." That would be unwise "both for political reasons but also for legal ones," Li said to the outlet, since such redistricting has typically invited civil rights lawsuits.

The worry among Republicans is that the proposal would save the party in 2026 "but puts those seats in jeopardy for the future," said John Colyandro, a former senior adviser to Abbott. "Be careful what you wish for," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). One other reason for caution: California officials are weighing "tit-for-tat" redistricting to help Democrats if Texas Republicans follow through on Trump's wishes, said the Tribune.

Congress has passed President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," handing the administration a major legislative victory, but both sides of the aisle have been sending mixed messages about what the legislation will actually do. Republicans have been lauding the bill for its supposed assistance to the middle class, while Democrats say it is primed to help the rich while cutting benefits for the needy. With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, it seemed mostly inevitable that the bill would eventually be passed.

What did the commentators say?

The bill's passage means that "seniors, students, taxpayers, children, parents, low-income Americans and just about everyone else will be affected," said CNN. While Republicans have been tweaking versions of the bill to send between the different chambers of Congress, the "general contours of the massive piece of legislation are known." This includes a $4.5 trillion extension of Trump's enormous first-term tax cuts that would leave the wealthiest households with $12,000 more yearly, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and offsetting of "revenue loss and additional spending with cuts to federal support for the social safety net that helps Americans afford food and health insurance."

Most notable are funding slashes to key programs for low-income Americans, including Medicaid, food stamps and the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The version of the bill as passed "cuts federal spending on Medicaid and Affordable Care Act marketplaces by about $1 trillion over a decade," which "could lead to nearly 12 million more people without insurance by 2034," said NPR, citing the CBO estimate. Beyond individuals themselves losing insurance, this would "harm the finances of hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers" and "may force them to reduce services and employees, as well as close facilities."

These Medicaid cuts would come via a proposed work requirement, which "would cut off coverage for millions of enrollees who do not meet new employment or reporting standards," said NPR. But most "working-age Medicaid enrollees who don't receive disability benefits already work or are looking for work," meaning the requirement would likely have "little impact on employment."

Republicans say "concerns are overblown and they are making both Medicaid and [food stamps] more sustainable by targeting waste, fraud and abuse in both programs," said ABC News. The bill additionally "includes a key campaign promise: no federal income taxes on tips and overtime." Trump also "keeps saying that Republicans' mega tax and spending cut legislation will eliminate taxes on federal Social Security benefits," said The Associated Press.

But this is false, as "it does not" eliminate Social Security taxes, said the AP. Trump's "'no tax on Social Security' claim exaggerates the benefits to seniors if either the House or Senate-passed proposals are signed into law." Instead of eliminating these taxes, the House and Senate "each passed their own versions of a temporary tax deduction for seniors aged 65 and over, which applies to all income — not just Social Security." But "not all Social Security beneficiaries will be able to claim the deduction."

There are also aspects of the bill that have been less reported on. This includes a phasing out of "tax credits for solar and wind projects — meaning that development will slow and consumers will face higher prices," said Axios. Funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been "slashed by about half in the new bill," which "could lead to hundreds of job cuts and severely disarm a group that has returned billions to American consumers."

What next?

The bill passed the House 218-214 on Thursday, sending it to Trump's desk to be signed into law. Its passage is a "major victory for Trump and Republican leadership in Congress," said USA Today. Despite unified opposition to the bill, Democrats "see it as a ticket to winning back congressional majorities in 2026."

Within the course of a few weeks, Elon Musk has gone from a close confidante of President Donald Trump to his apparent political enemy. There is no clearer evidence of this than Musk's intention to start a third-party movement to fight against the Democrats and Republicans; he has promised to form the America Party if Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" passes Congress.

But while Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, certainly has the financial capital to start a new political party, it may not be effective given the strength of the two main parties in the United States.

What did the commentators say?

Musk could easily "make a sizable impact at a time of widespread distrust of the political system and other democratic institutions" due to his wealth, said The Washington Post. No matter how influential (or not) his potential America Party became, he "could make life difficult for lawmakers he says have reneged on their promise to cut spending."

But shifting demographics might make things interesting, as a "new constituency has begun to emerge. For now, it does not have a home in either party, and it is not clear that either party will be able to easily accommodate its demands," said The New York Times. This represents the "overlooked precondition for a third party," and Musk himself "falls into this group." These types of people favor "deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade and high-skilled immigration," and are often referred to by Democrats and Republicans as "neoliberals" or "globalists."

A "genuinely competitive third party would upend more than a century of Democrats-Republicans dominance at all levels of government," said Deutsche Welle. But this may be easier said than done. The biggest third party in the U.S., the Libertarian Party, had its "best presidential election performance in 2016" with 3.28% of the popular vote, but that's still a "long way from the tens of millions of votes needed to win the White House, a governorship or even a state legislature seat."

Even making Americans aware of a third-party candidate can be a challenge, as "each state has different legal rules for recognizing which political parties can appear on the ballot," said CBS News. New parties in some states "may need to get candidates onto the ballot by submitting large numbers of signatures" and then winning a "certain percentage of the vote across election cycles."

When new parties do emerge, some "voters and candidates are hesitant to join," and "despite varying approval levels, party loyalties remain strong," said CNN. This remains especially true for Republicans, many of whom "have coalesced around Trump."

What next?

While Musk continues to muse about his third party, reports have emerged that Libertarians are trying to coax him into their corner. The Libertarian Party is the "most set-up party to be the dissident subversive party," Libertarian National Committee Chair Steven Nekhaila told Politico. Libertarian leaders have been trying to rally Musk to their cause due to his enormous wealth, and "once the capital is there, the doors get blown wide open."

Libertarians also have "ballot access in almost every state, which many recent third-party efforts have failed to secure," said Politico. But Musk's willingness to genuinely explore membership in the Libertarian Party remains unclear. Regarding his prior political action, Musk "hasn't gotten the return on his investment he once hoped" for from Trump, and will likely continue looking elsewhere.

Elon Musk says it was X Æ A-Xii, his 5-year-old son, who gave him the black eye he sported during last week's farewell Oval Office meeting with President Trump. But that bruise was "an unmistakable metaphor for his tumultuous government service," said Jonathan Allen and Zoë Richards in NBCNews.com. From the start of his 130-day stint as a "special government employee," the Department of Government Efficiency boss waged open war on the federal bureaucracy, firing workers by the thousands and gutting entire agencies—most notably USAID—with the stated goal of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget. Musk never came close. By DOGE's own dubious figures, it saved a mere $175 billion, and Musk's "haphazard, inhumane, and counterproductive" cuts could end up costing taxpayers $135 billion this year alone, by one analysis. "Trump's favorite weird billionaire" destroyed his own reputation in the process, said Monica Hesse in The Washington Post. Tesla sales are in free fall and his favorability rating now hovers in the 30s. This isn't just a result of the Nazi salute, or the chain saw, or the "14-ish children," or allegations—denied by Musk—that his rampage through Washington was fueled by a cocktail of ketamine, MDMA, Adderall, and psychedelic mushrooms. It was that the planet's richest person, with the freedom to do anything he wanted, "chose to bring American governance to its knees."

Musk is leaving with understandable bitterness, said Dace Potas in USA Today. He made a "genuine effort" to cut government waste, at great personal cost, only for Republicans to draft a "big, beautiful" spending bill that will add $3.6 trillion to the deficit over a decade. Musk slammed the bill this week as a "disgusting abomination" and hinted he might try to unseat Republicans who backed it in the 2026 midterms. DOGE was doomed from the start, said Mark Antonio Wright in National Review. The "government's financial crisis" stems from decades of overspending on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare—programs that only Congress can cut—not now-terminated funding for "transgender puppet shows in Guatemala." With his "sky-high promises" of balanced budgets, Musk set himself up for failure.

The billionaire didn't fail because "his ambitions were too grand," said Matt Bai in The Washington Post. He failed because "they were so pathetically small." Back in January, even some Trump-hating liberals were quietly hopeful that the "mad genius" of Silicon Valley might deliver the lean, responsive government "of our sci-fi dreams." After all, this is the visionary who revolutionized the electric-car industry and slashed the cost of rocket launches with SpaceX. Yet Musk's "only Big Idea" for revolutionizing government was "to fire as many people as he could, in as humiliating a way as possible."

Musk did achieve one of his goals: shredding USAID, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. About 80% of its grants have been terminated, and as a result starving people in South Sudan are going without food aid and Kenyan HIV patients without antiretroviral meds. According to a Boston University study, Musk's cuts to USAID have "already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children," and that figure will only rise. Maybe Tesla's share price will also rise with Musk back at the helm. And maybe his rockets will one day carry humanity to Mars. But Musk's legacy in Washington is one of "disease, starvation, and death," and it "should shape how he's seen for the rest of his public life."

What happened

The multitrillion-dollar Republican domestic policy bill the House passed Thursday on a 215-214 vote includes a provision that would limit federal judges' power to hold people in contempt, "potentially shielding" President Donald Trump and members of his administration "from the consequences of violating court orders," The New York Times said.

Who said what

Republicans "tucked the provision" into their megabill as a handful of federal judges have "opened inquiries about whether to hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating their orders in cases related to its aggressive deportation efforts," the Times said. The limits, which also target injunctions blocking Trump's executive orders, "would apply retroactively to court orders that were made" before the bill was enacted.

A majority of taxpayers would see their federal taxes lowered under the legislation — extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts, at a cost of $2.18 trillion, is its biggest expenditure — but lower-income Americans will have fewer household resources while the richest will have more resources, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. That's mostly due to steep cuts and new requirements for Medicaid and food assistance. The CBO estimated Thursday that millions of Americans would lose access to food stamps and millions more would get less food aid.

The bill would boost U.S. annual growth by 0.03 percentage points, to 1.86% from 1.83%, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation predicted, which would lower its overall price tag to $3.7 trillion from $3.8 trillion. But the legislation's trillion of dollars in deficit spending has "spooked" bond investors, driving government borrowing costs to their "highest level in nearly two decades," The Washington Post said. If "yields remain elevated," that will drive mortgage, credit card and auto loan rates higher and add trillions more to the national debt from elevated interest payments.

What next?

The GOP bill now goes to the Senate, where Republicans have been "hotly debating whether to do a full teardown" of the bill "or gently renovate it," Semafor said. "Right now, the renovators are winning out." The provision on judicial contempt may not "survive under special procedures Republicans are using to push the legislation through Congress on a simple majority vote," the Times said.

Stripping health care from the poor to help the rich sounds "pretty heartless," said Catherine Rampell in The Washington Post. But that's exactly what House Republicans' proposal to overhaul Medicaid will do. Released this week as part of a sweeping bill to implement President Trump's domestic agenda, the plan would require most low-income, childless recipients under age 65 to work at least 80 hours a month. Out-of-pocket costs would be introduced for some services, and a cap would be placed on a health-care-provider tax that states use to secure extra federal Medicaid funding. All told, the plan would cause an additional 8.6 million Americans to become uninsured, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, while states would have to shoulder a far greater share of costs. But the $900 billion saved over a decade would partially finance the GOP bill's $5 trillion in tax cuts—cuts that are skewed toward businesses and the wealthy. Should this legislation pass as is, "it would add up to possibly the largest single transfer of wealth from poor to rich in U.S. history."

The real problem is that squeamish GOP moderates are shying away from bigger cuts, said the Washington Examiner in an editorial. Largely because of its expansion under Obamacare, Medicaid is now the fastest-growing federal program, with more than 20 million able-bodied adults joining its rolls from 2013 to 2022. House spending hawks want to refocus Medicaid on helping the vulnerable communities it was created to help—children, pregnant women, and the elderly—but "centrists" want to keep "Medicaid expansion dollars flowing to their blue states." Resistance to steeper cuts isn't just coming from blue-state moderates, said Kenneal Patterson in The Daily Beast. MAGA populist Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri—where 1 in 5 residents are Medicaid recipients—warned in a "scathing" New York Times op-ed this week that slashing the program would be "morally wrong and politically suicidal," risking a working-class electoral rebellion.

Republicans know their agenda is deeply unpopular, said Carl Hulse in The New York Times. That's why House lawmakers and President Trump keep insisting they simply want to target "waste, fraud, and abuse" in Medicaid, "all without cutting off assistance to a single eligible person." The flaw in that argument is that Medicaid cuts of the scope they're proposing could torpedo state budgets and cause millions of hardworking Americans to lose coverage—facts that Democrats will not let "go unnoticed." As the bill works its way through Congress in the coming weeks, selling the message of pain-free cuts is going to get more than "a little tricky."

President Donald Trump has been at the center of ethics concerns going all the way back to his 2016 candidacy, largely as a result of his strong business ties that critics say could represent significant conflicts of interest. These conflicts, many of which have to do with his Middle East dealings, have continued to cast a shadow over his presidency amid his second term in the White House.

Middle East dealings

The Trump Organization has long had ties to Middle Eastern nations. The company made several business deals in the region during Trump's first term and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, inked a $2 billion investment with the Saudi crown prince after leaving the White House. But in his second term as president, any "past conflict-of-interest concerns about Trump seem petty, as he strikes deals with Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and members of the ruling families of the Arab world," said Mother Jones.

In one notable instance, Trump's son Eric "signed a deal with representatives from a Saudi real estate development firm, reputed to have links to the Saudi royal family, to build a Trump-branded resort just north of Doha, Qatar," said Mother Jones. But this is just one of a slew of connections the Trump Organization has to Middle Eastern deals. The president's sons have been "crisscrossing the Middle East, laying the groundwork for deals that will benefit the company and, in some instances, Trump himself," said The Washington Post. Trump has also "declined to duplicate his first-term pledge to not advance his personal business interests from the White House."

One of the most visible Middle East conflicts relates to Trump's plan to accept a $400 million plane from Qatar to be used as the next Air Force One. Accepting the plane could "violate the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which bars any U.S. official from accepting 'any present' of 'any kind whatsoever, from any king, prince or foreign state,'" said USA Today. Democrats and Republicans expressed concern over the plane given Qatar's alleged ties to state-sponsored terrorism. The deal "strikes me as being rife with political espionage, ethical and constitutional problems,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told CNBC.

Cryptocurrency

Trump has frequently been accused by his opponents of using the presidency for financial gain, and this has only ramped up in his second term with the advent of Trump-branded cryptocurrency. Trump launched a pair of crypto coins named after himself and first lady Melania Trump, and experts say the "tokens provide a way for foreign buyers to curry favor, as Trump-affiliated companies owned 80% of all stock and stand to benefit when the price rises," said Reuters.

In the first two weeks following its debut, Trump's crypto coin alone brought in $100 million in fees, Reuters reported. Trump also has a 60% stake in a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial. Using these crypto channels, there is "virtually no cap on the amount of money a person or government could funnel to the president, his family and the growing list of entities they control," said CNN.

Presidents "giving access to campaign donors is nothing new," but crypto "offers a level of anonymity and scale that the White House has never seen," said CNN. Even while Trump and his administration have downplayed the conflicts with his crypto brand, many "crypto advocates on the right aren't loving the optics of a president directly enriching himself and his family through an industry" that he is "actively working to deregulate."

Real estate

The Trump Organization has continued to pursue real estate deals throughout both of Trump's terms, including the aforementioned Trump resort deal in Qatar. Several of these deals "have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East," which is "raising concerns that Mr. Trump's financial interests could influence foreign policy," said The New York Times.

This includes deals in India, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam, among others. Many of these are branding plays in which the Trump Organization "sells its name to international developers that build residential and resort complexes and sell luxury units at a premium, they hope, based on Trump's perceived star power," said the Times. Trump's plan to take control of Gaza and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East" has also generated significant controversy.

Beyond his new buildings, potential conflicts have also erupted due to how Trump has used his existing properties during his presidency. The office of the president "provides Trump with an unlimited marketing platform to promote his properties," said the left-leaning watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). During interviews, Trump "finds or manufactures opportunities to shower his hotels, resorts and golf courses with praise and uses his influence to drive business to his properties." Trump often visits these locations himself, and his "near-constant presence at properties that he owns and profits from signals to those looking to influence him and his administration that they should follow suit."

Trump products

From Trump Steaks to a shuttered airline, the president has tried to sell dozens of products with his name on them over the years. But as president, these types of MAGA-aligned products "illustrate just how closely Trump's personal business interests are entwined with his politics," said CNN. This includes everything from urging his followers to "buy limited edition guitars that bear his signature and Trump-themed fragrances that 'represent winning,'" to an $899 "limited-edition" Trump inaugural watch.

The "opaque structure of the companies that produce these items could create fresh conflicts of interest for Trump — with few public details about who Trump is in business with and how much he profits," said ABC News. There is some publicly available information about his crypto business, but when it comes to his merchandise, he has undergone an "unprecedented effort to commoditize his political platform." And when it comes to any products not on his official website, the "external companies that Trump licenses to sell his other items aren't subject to oversight."

Personal financial gain

Trump has maintained that he does not have any conflicts of interest as president. But he has "drawn scrutiny in Washington" from "political opponents and even some allies, who point out that the president has not divested from the Trump Organization and continues to profit from — and personally promote — these business ventures in his second term," said NBC News.

The exact amount of money Trump has personally made in his second term is unclear. In just the first month after his return to the White House, Trump's ventures netted him about $80 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, largely due to a $40 million deal with Amazon to produce a Melania Trump documentary. And thanks to his merchandising, along with a massive boost from his crypto coins, Trump has "more than doubled his estimated fortune, from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion," said Forbes.

While there is an Office of Government Ethics whose job it is to investigate these types of conflicts, the "Trump administration has really been putting those systems under stress or just outright ignoring them," Eric Petry, a counsel for the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program, said to Vox. Within the "executive branch, some of the tools that we typically look to to police conflicts are not going to be effective. It's a real problem that federal conflicts of interest laws don't apply to the president and vice president."

Nestled deep within Republicans' massive budget reconciliation bill, unveiled this week, is a surprising measure advocates say is necessary to ensure American dominance in the growing field of artificial intelligence. The bill is designed to capitalize on the GOP's congressional majorities with provisions aimed at scaling back Medicaid and other conservative policy priorities. But it would also enact a full moratorium on any state-level AI regulation for the 10 years following the bill's enactment.

Supporters argue the measure aligns with the Trump administration's focus on American AI leadership. However, critics contend that the proposed legislation would allow a predatory tech industry to run roughshod over local efforts to grapple with the challenges of the still-developing field.

What did the commentators say?

The focus on state-level AI laws comes as AI regulation at the federal level "remains in limbo," The Hill said, leaving state legislatures to consider "nearly 700 AI bills" last year alone. "It's very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulation," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week.

That patchwork of local legislation, Altman insisted, would "slow us down at a time when I don't think it's in anyone's interest for us to slow down." A "web of inconsistent laws" will "fragment national policy, delay innovation" and "create legal and technical barriers to scaling AI systems across state lines," said Center for Data Innovation director Daniel Castro.

But by establishing the federal government as the "sole regulator for U.S. tech firms in a booming industry," critics say, the bill represents a "giveaway" to an industry that will "enable harmful and discriminatory uses of the emerging technology," said The Washington Post. The push for reduced local regulatory authority "also stands in contrast to Republicans' advocacy of states' rights in education and abortion policies."

The language of the proposed legislation is "broad enough to cover relatively new generative AI tools," said Emanuel Maiberg at 404 Media, while still applying to "technology that has existed for much longer." The result will be that it will become "impossible to enforce" laws designed to "protect people from and inform them about AI systems." Ten years of deregulation "isn't a path forward," said AI researcher Gary Marcus in an open letter signed by multiple state lawmakers. "It's an abdication of responsibility." The measure would be "deeply problematic under any circumstance," Marcus said, but it's "especially dangerous" given the way AI is already disrupting health, education, employment and other fields.

States have "quietly become the front line" in the tech regulation effort, said NYU Center on Technology policy director Scott Brennen and NYU Center for Social Media & Politics executive director Zeve Sanderson at the Post. Congress, meanwhile, has "puttered, backtracked and ultimately produced little AI regulation" and will "undermine the only concerted legislative effort aimed at balancing AI's myriad risks and benefits" without offering a solution of its own.

What next?

A state-level push for AI regulation may ultimately "force Washington to move," said the Financial Times — particularly as "some members of the MAGA crowd support a more interventionist approach." When even "anti-regulation evangelist" Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who cosponsored the bipartisan Take It Down Act to address AI-generated sexual imagery, has accepted the "necessity to act in certain cases," some form of AI regulation will likely be inevitable. This will lead to "strange alliances and unpredictable zigzags along the way."

As part of a reconciliation bill, the proposed limits on AI regulations cannot be filibustered, which could "ease their path to passage" in the broader legislation, said the Post. If the entire bill passes, the logic of including AI regulation in a bill ostensibly restricted to budgetary issues will "face scrutiny from the Senate parliamentarian."

Republicans have never been known for their eagerness to raise taxes on high-income earners. So it is notable that GOP officials, including President Donald Trump, have in recent weeks openly contemplated the possibility of taxing the rich.

Trump last week asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to "include a tax hike on rich Americans" as part of a big new fiscal bill, said The New York Times. The proposal would create a new tax bracket for households making more than $2.5 million a year, charging income above that rate at 39.6%. But the president has gone back and forth on the issue, also sounding a note of caution, said CNN. "Republicans should probably not do it," Trump wrote on Truth Social, "but I'm OK if they do!!!"

That Republicans are even considering such a possibility is a "curveball for the ages," said Slate. The usual cycle of power is that "Republicans take power and cut the top rate," while Democrats "come in and raise it back." If a GOP-controlled Congress approved higher taxes on wealthy earners, it could scramble American politics by "stifling one of Democrats' central critiques of Republican governance."

What did the commentators say?

"Raising taxes on the wealthy shouldn't be Republican heresy," said Charles Lane at The Free Press. The idea has heightened the divide between anti-tax traditionalists like Grover Norquist and MAGA populists like Steve Bannon. Trump is waffling "between what he thinks is good policy and good politics." But a tax hike for the rich would be a "significant new step toward rebranding the Republicans as the party of the working class."

Don't be fooled. GOP politicians "promise to raise taxes on the rich routinely," said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. Trump made the promise "many times" during the 2016 campaign but never followed through during his first term. Republicans understand that "reducing taxes for the affluent is unpopular," so they "obscure their intentions." In truth, low taxes are the "force that holds Trump's coalition together." The president might entertain the possibility in public, "but you can bet your last dollar it won't happen."

What next?

There is skepticism among Republicans who have spent their careers opposing tax increases of any kind, said Axios. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said he is "not excited about the proposal" but added that Trump's backing may force the issue. The president's support would be a "big factor that we have to take into consideration," Crapo said.

The tax hike would affect "pass-through businesses" in which earnings are reported on the owners' individual forms and "are subject to the individual income tax," said MarketWatch. One analysis found that 90% of American businesses are organized as pass-throughs. But other experts say the effect of the proposed hike would be minimal, said Axios. Only about "about 0.1% to 0.2%" of taxpayers would be affected, though that would include "jumbo paychecks" earned by "high-paid doctors, some professional athletes and executives."

Sen. John Cornyn has long been a reliable conservative in Congress. But that may not be enough to get the Texas Republican reelected. He now faces a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a battle between the old-guard GOP establishment and the party's ascendant MAGA wing.

The Cornyn-Paxton primary fight is a "proxy war" in the GOP, said Axios. "Top MAGA luminaries" are skeptical of Cornyn because of his pro-Ukraine stance and work on a bipartisan gun bill after the 2022 Uvalde school massacre. The senator is the "epitome of the establishment," said Steve Bannon, an ally of President Donald Trump, to Axios. Paxton, meanwhile, carries a reputation as a "pro-Donald Trump knife fighter," said Axios. His candidacy is a "warning shot," said MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk on his eponymous radio show.

This makes Trump's approval critical in the race, said The Hill. The president said Thursday he will make an endorsement "at the right time." Cornyn has already been endorsed by Majority Leader John Thune (R-N.D.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Tim Scott (S.C.). But the president's nod will make the biggest splash. Trump is not tipping his hand. "They're both friends of mine," he said Saturday.

'Can't control' Trump

Paxton's new campaign is "becoming a major headache for Republicans," said Politico. They're worried that Trump "could elevate more MAGA-aligned challengers" to sitting GOP senators, "forcing a round of bitterly contested primaries." Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are seen as vulnerable to challenge from the right. That could "complicate" the Republican Party's efforts to retain control of the Senate in 2026, even though the map is "heavily tilted" in their favor. The challenge: GOP leaders "need Trump but also know they can't control him."

Another "overriding fear" is that a bitter Texas primary will be expensive, said CNN. The campaign could cost the party more than $100 million, "siphoning money from other critical battlegrounds." And Republicans worry the divisiveness of the Cornyn-Paxton campaign will result in a "wounded" general election candidate who "could end up giving Democrats a chance in what would otherwise be a long-shot pickup opportunity."

Fight over 'who's closer to Trump'

The race could "come down to Trump loyalty," Ryan J. Rusak said at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Paxton is a "great survivor" in state politics, emerging unscathed from corruption accusations and a failed impeachment attempt. And Cornyn's problem "seems to be that he's not angry enough all the time." The race will not be about who can be the best senator for Texas. Instead, prepare for a year of "arguing over who's closer to Trump."

The arguments have begun, said The Associated Press. Cornyn called Paxton a "conman and a fraud" after Paxton entered the race. Paxton, meanwhile, is openly campaigning for Trump's endorsement. That would be a "death knell" for Cornyn's career, he said.

Since the post-1968 reforms that opened presidential nominations to binding primaries and caucuses, there have only been four cycles that didn't feature an incumbent or former president. But assuming that President Donald Trump doesn't seek an unconstitutional third term, 2028 will be one of them. These are some of the names being bandied about by political insiders looking ahead to the next election.

The Democrats already jockeying for position

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg served as Secretary of Transportation from 2021 to 2025, and his frequent appearances on right-wing outlets like Fox News "have been master classes in poise and articulation," said Advocate. He recently decided not to seek a Senate seat in Michigan, a "decision framed by several allies and people in his inner circle as putting him in the strongest possible position to seek the presidency," said Politico.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom has been governor of California since 2019. He "built his national profile opposing the Republican president during his first term," said Los Angeles Times. But in March Newsom caused a stir by inviting far-right operative Charlie Kirk onto his podcast, "angering many of the liberal activists whom Newsom would need to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028," said The Washington Post.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The New York Democrat has taken on a leading role opposing the Trump administration's policies, including barnstorming the country with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-N.Y.). Ocasio-Cortez is "positioning herself well for a run," and the 35-year-old "would bring much-needed youthful vigour to a decaying party," said UnHerd.

JB Pritzker

The governor of Illinois since 2019, Pritzker has chosen a very different lane from Newsom, standing up for communities under fire from the Trump administration. He has distinguished himself by "pitching his potent combination of working-class issues, sharp business sense and reputation as a good-natured brawler," said Bloomberg. But Pritzker, who is not subject to term limits, "has yet to say whether he will seek a rare but not unprecedented third term as governor," said the Chicago Tribune.

Josh Shapiro

Shortlisted as Kamala Harris' running mate in 2024, Pennsylvania's governor is still in his first term. Shapiro has been "performing a balancing act in approaching the Trump administration," said NBC News. He has "cemented his image as a moderate willing to work across the aisle," said The Philadelphia Inquirer but remains "largely untested on the national stage."

Tim Walz

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee remains Minnesota's governor until 2027 and said he would "rather fight Trump from his position as governor" than seek the state's open U.S. Senate seat next year, said The New Yorker. That decision means that Walz may throw his hat in for the 2028 nomination. Walz "launched a national tour of town halls in Republican House districts, traveling the country," said Axios, further fueling speculation about 2028.

Gretchen Whitmer

The two-term Michigan governor was one of the many names discussed to replace former President Joe Biden during the summer of 2024. Her double-digit reelection in a down year for Democrats in 2022 combined with her popularity in the purple state of Michigan turned her into a national figure. In terms of 2028 contenders, "there are few politicians talked about more than" Whitmer, said The New York Times.

Other names

Former vice president and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is "expected to make a decision by the end of the summer" about running for governor of California, said the Los Angeles Times, and could still run for president again. Popular Democratic governors like Jared Polis of Colorado could join the fray, as could prominent Trump critics in the Senate like Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), whose day-long filibuster in April means that he is "most likely going to run again," said The Conversation. Celebrities like businessman Mark Cuban and ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith are also in the mix.

A shorter list of Republicans in the shadow of J.D. Vance

Nikki Haley

In the past, the runner-up in the GOP primary often had the inside track on the next open nomination. It is not clear whether this rule will apply to former UN Ambassador and 2024 GOP runner-up Nikki Haley, who at this point represents a defeated faction in the party. It is also "not likely she would have" President Trump's backing "if she runs in 2028," said Fox News, which could cripple her chances.

Ron DeSantis

Like Haley, the Florida governor's biggest challenge as he prepares a 2028 presidential bid is to "win back supporters of the Republican leader whom he dared to challenge in the last election," said The Associated Press. DeSantis, who ended his 2024 campaign after a disappointing showing in the Iowa GOP caucus, remains popular in Florida and was reelected by nearly 20 points in 2022 in what was once a swing state.

Kristi Noem

Noem, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, was "floated as a potential running mate for Trump last year" before he picked J.D. Vance and "has since become a loyal and vocal supporter of the president, said The Hill. She seems to have survived the scandal from her memoir, in which she found herself "under fire for killing her family's 14-month-old dog and boasting about it," said The New York Times.

Marco Rubio

Rubio ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016, losing the nomination to Trump. Now, the former Florida senator is the Secretary of State in the second Trump administration and "needs to decide how much he wants to go along with things that clearly run counter to his previous principles," such as siding with Russia in the Ukraine conflict, said The Washington Post.

J.D. Vance

The sitting vice president is just 40 years old and will benefit from having a "group of younger, more populist Republicans who are vocally advocating" for him as Trump's successor, said Semafor. No incumbent vice president in the modern period who has sought his or her party's nomination has failed to get it. Even better, "Trump's longtime aides and allies have begun throwing their support behind Vance," said The Independent.

Glenn Youngkin

Rumored as a more mainstream alternative to President Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, Youngkin never ended up throwing his hat in the ring. Virginia's popular GOP governor is subject to the state's unusual one-term-at-a-time limit and cannot seek re-election in 2025. He is "seen as staunchly conservative but has a broad appeal, stretching outside of the MAGA movement," said The Hill.

Other names

Vance's presumed dominance of the field makes the GOP's long-list considerably shorter than those of the Democrats. But those who received support in a recent Yougov poll include the president's son Donald Trump, Jr., Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, CIA Director Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.