mark
Raw Story
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[l] at 11/7/26 8:55pm
A key bloc of President Donald Trump's coalition broke toward Democrats in this week's midterms, and several told a reporter exactly why.White voters without a college degree moved toward Democrats in Tuesday's elections, The New York Times reported Saturday. A majority still backed Republican House candidates, 59 percent to 40 percent, but that margin was 14 points narrower than Trump's 2024 edge with the group, according to the Times' voter analysis.The group, which made up 39 percent of the electorate this year, has been central to Trump's coalition for more than a decade. In several key Senate contests, including Iowa's, the swing was even sharper.Kylee Wilson, a 29-year-old bartender in Prairie City, Iowa, voted for Trump three times before backing Democrats this year. She told the Times the president had grown too combative and too entangled in the war with Iran while her family wrestled with rising costs and health care cuts."Trump put a target on America's back," Wilson said.Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, told the Times that while many of these voters still oppose Democrats on abortion, LGBTQ rights and immigration, "people were really focused more on what was happening to their standard of living."Kenneth Hessen, a 69-year-old retired truck driver, said at a Council Bluffs polling station that he had voted Republican since he was 18 but backed every Democrat on his ballot this year, angered by Medicaid cuts in Trump's tax and spending bill."If there was one under a rock, I'd vote for them today," he said.Kevin Chadwick, who owns a towing and repair business in Harlan, Iowa, still supports Trump but voted for Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek. He told the Times he was troubled that Republican nominee Rep. Ashley Hinson had grown millions of dollars richer in office, which Hinson has attributed to the sale of her husband's business.Chadwick said the Democratic sweep "proves that money can't buy everything" after Elon Musk and other wealthy donors poured record sums into Republican campaigns.Trump has blamed the Republican losses on not being on the ballot himself, an explanation other Republicans have rejected. Tim Charls, a longtime GOP voter who stuck with the party this year, wasn't buying it either."He's a drama queen," Charls said. "No, you lost. Like in 2020."Republican strategist Alex Conant told the Times that working-class voters "thought Trump would fix the economy," but still see themselves slipping behind two years on.Chadwick was uncertain his vote would change much. "I hope it gets better," he said. "But we hope that every election."

[Category: Iowa, Trump, Gop, Trump voters]

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[l] at 11/7/26 8:01pm
A wild theory about President Donald Trump's latest pick for a top White House job left jaws on the floor.Trump announced Saturday on Truth Social that he had offered the press secretary job to UFC boss Dana White, hailing him as "a violent Fighter and Warrior." Within hours, observers were floating a stunning possibility.Online commentators suggested that someone may have recommended a different Dana White, a former Pentagon spokesperson from Trump's first term, and the president grabbed the wrong one.The offer itself is real. According to CNN, a source said White turned the job down. Trump's last press secretary, Katie Zacharia, left in October after only five days.Nothing suggests the mix-up theory has been confirmed. But that didn't stop it from racing across X."So what are the chances someone suggested this Dana White and Trump pulled a Four Seasons Total Landscaping?" asked Connor Ewing, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, referring to the infamous 2020 press conference Rudy Giuliani held outside a Philadelphia landscaping company instead of the luxury hotel. Ewing's post had about 1.1 million views as people chimed in on the theory."The fact that there is a nonzero chance that this happened..." mused the progressive news network MeidasTouch.Veteran NFL writer Doug Farrar pointed out that the timing made it even better, since Saturday marked the anniversary of Giuliani's landscaping debacle."So, here’s what likely happened. Someone suggested Dana W. White (who is a Trumpublican) to him, and he got it wrong," Farrar wrote. "That’s not the best part. The best part is that this happened on the anniversary of Four Seasons Total Landscaping."George Conway, the conservative attorney turned fierce Trump critic, called the scenario "so insanely and completely bizarrely stupid that you know this is exactly what must have happened."Other conservative commentators weren't ruling it out either."No idea if this happened," said Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the right-leaning outlet The Dispatch. "But literally no one can plausibly claim the chances of this being true aren't greater than zero.""This theory seems crazy," added conservative columnist Matt Lewis. "But NOT as crazy as making the UFC guy your WH press secretary."Award-winning Christian novelist Jennifer Erin Valent warned that "this is actually possible. And that should frighten us all."Democratic influencer Harry Sisson ticked through Trump's chaotic week, noting "it's been revealed it's likely the wrong Dana White," before concluding that Trump is "falling apart."Nebraska progressive activist and Karoline Leavitt foe Jamie Bonkiewicz fired off the sharpest jab of the bunch.“Someone said ‘Dana White for press secretary’ and meant the former Pentagon spokesperson. Trump heard ‘the UFC guy’ and went with it,” she quipped. “And we’re expected to believe this dumb motherf— aced three cognitive tests?”

[Category: Press secretary, Trump, Dana white]

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[l] at 11/7/26 7:37pm
President Donald Trump faced a wave of ridicule after a sit-down interviewer asked whether he could kick one of his favorite habits.In an interview airing Sunday on "60 Minutes," correspondent Ross Douthat asked Trump whether he could go six months without insulting Democrats if that's what it took to get a deal done. Trump insisted he could do it "very easily."The question came after Trump brought up Senator-elect James Talarico and said Talarico had signaled on Fox News that he wanted to work with him on immigration. Douthat pointed out that Trump had occasionally mocked Talarico with the nickname "TalaFREAKo" during the campaign."Yeah, I did," Trump replied.Asked whether he could work with Democrats without constantly insulting them, Trump said, "Yeah, I could," before adding that he also calls many of them "dumbocrats." Douthat noted Trump had done so only days earlier.The network's preview clip set off a pile-on from commentators across the political spectrum.Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor who now serves as editor-in-chief of the MeidasTouch Network, said he rarely laughs at Trump clips but couldn't believe what he was seeing on "60 Minutes.""Trump has never sounded more weak and pathetic," he added.David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, wasn't buying Trump's answer."I'll take that bet," Corn posted.Matt Lewis, a conservative columnist and author of "Too Dumb to Fail," put Trump's odds far lower."Six months? He can't go six minutes," Lewis wrote.British broadcaster Piers Morgan, who has interviewed Trump several times, landed in the same spot, predicting Trump would last about "six minutes before the President lapsed."John Sailer, a conservative writer, imagined a patient waking from a 12-year coma only to find the same exchange playing on a hospital TV, capped by Trump declaring that he also calls many Democrats "dumbocrats."Justin Hart, a conservative commentator and founder of Rational Ground, likened the interview to parenting."This is the same conversation I have with my 5-year-old every day about getting along with her sisters," Hart quipped.

[Category: 60 minutes, Democrats, Trump]

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[l] at 11/7/26 7:01pm
President Donald Trump's Justice Department is stepping in to rescue a long-running MAGA legal crusade red-state voters just rejected at the ballot box.The Justice Department told a court Friday night it intends to intervene in a five-year-old Texas lawsuit accusing Planned Parenthood of Medicaid fraud, The New York Times reported Saturday.The case was a pet project of outgoing Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who lost his U.S. Senate bid this week. The Republican running to succeed him as attorney general lost, too. An anonymous plaintiff filed the suit in 2021, and Paxton joined it on the state's behalf the following year.The suit claims Planned Parenthood's Texas clinic operators and its national federation improperly collected Medicaid reimbursements while the state was working to kick the group out of the program. Planned Parenthood denies the allegations and points out that no court barred it from receiving payments while the fight played out.Texas wants roughly $1.8 billion in reimbursements, interest and penalties. Planned Parenthood, which recently reported about $2.1 billion in annual revenue, has warned that a payout that large could shut it down.The move signals the administration may be prepared to undercut Democrats who just won state offices in former GOP strongholds, according to the Times, which noted that Biden's Justice Department passed on joining the case in 2021.A surprise Democratic sweep in Texas this week handed the attorney general’s office to Nathan Johnson, a veteran litigator who takes office in January. Johnson told the Times he plans to review every lawsuit Paxton filed during his 12-year tenure, and that the review will include this case."We are reviewing this action closely, including what it means for Texans and what the law allows," Johnson said in a statement. "When I take office as Attorney General, I will take appropriate action in the interests of my state." He has already vowed to end Paxton's practice of suing out-of-state doctors who mail abortion pills into Texas.A Planned Parenthood lawyer told the Times the intervention shows Trump is "undeterred by the election results.""This is an effort by the Trump administration to shut us down," said Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "It is going to weaponize the Department of Justice against us."Norm Eisen, who served as White House ethics counsel under President Barack Obama and founded the legal advocacy group Democracy Defenders Action, said it's unusual for the Justice Department to jump into a case it had previously declined to join."Texas voters have now rejected Paxton and his brand of politicized litigation, which is the Justice Department's only apparent reason for intervening," Eisen said.The case could head to trial as soon as next spring. The presiding judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is a Trump appointee who opposes abortion.The Texas attorney general's office and the Justice Department did not respond to the Times' requests for comment.

[Category: Justice department, Ken paxton, Texas, Planned parenthood]

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[l] at 11/7/26 6:56pm
A Supreme Court justice offered a blunt assessment of her own court's recent work this weekend, and she suggested she wasn't kidding.Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she hopes the high court will "take back some of the crazy things that it's done," Politico reported Saturday. The Obama appointee quickly added that she was only joking before reversing herself with "maybe not."She made the remarks during an hourlong appearance at George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, where a conference was examining the past and future of American democracy. Sotomayor told the audience the country is going through a "rough patch" on the rule of law and civic discourse."I think we're in a rough patch right now. There's so many challenges to it on so many different levels. This is a really critical point in our history," she said.Sotomayor singled out one ruling she would like to see reversed, which was the 2024 decision holding that President Donald Trump could not be prosecuted for many acts tied to his official duties. She and the court's two other liberal justices dissented."There are some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them," she said.She also said she feels for teachers, especially those covering constitutional law, given what she called "systemic changes in my court's jurisprudence."Sotomayor suggested lawmakers may need to step in to restore eroded norms, though she offered no specifics."We will come out of this changed and there are some norms that we may have lost forever, but I don't think we will fail as a democracy," she said.She also blamed a breakdown in civility for weakening civic life. "That someone disagrees with you doesn't make them a bad person, and that's something we've forgotten," she said.Sotomayor steered clear of commenting directly on this week's midterm results but called Tuesday's "outpouring of voters" an encouraging sign. Turnout landed near 49 percent, a level topped in modern midterms only in 2018, according to Politico.Still, she voiced confidence the country will recover. "I'm hoping it's...in my lifetime. But even if it's not in my lifetime, I genuinely believe it will happen," she said.

[Category: Sonia sotomayor, Trump, Supreme court]

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[l] at 11/7/26 6:31pm
An election lawyer fresh from a deep-red state's ballot count says one embattled MAGA senator has hit a dead end.Norm Eisen, the former White House ethics czar who served as counsel to House Democrats during President Donald Trump's first impeachment, told progressive commentator Brian Tyler Cohen in a Saturday episode of his YouTube show that Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) has no realistic path left to beat Democratic challenger Scott Colom. "It's a mathematical impossibility at this point for Senator Hyde-Smith," Eisen said.Eisen, who said he spent three days in Mississippi and planned to head back the next day, pegged Colom's lead as "approaching a 3,000-vote margin." He compared the count to the 2000 Florida recount he worked on, when the gap bounced around in the hundreds."We're well out of that space now, and it's really moved out of the margin of contestation," he said.The race has not been called. Straight Arrow News reported that Colom, a district attorney, was ahead by just over 1,000 votes as of Thursday. The outlet noted that Mississippi has no automatic recount, so a losing candidate would have to go to court after certification. A Colom win would hand Mississippi its first Democratic senator since 1982 and its first Black senator since Reconstruction, the outlet reported.Eisen flagged what he called "two concerning episodes" from Republicans. One was a letter he described as "full of misrepresentations." It asked for affidavit ballots, Mississippi's version of provisional ballots, to be handled differently."You open the affidavit ballot, if the address matches, it's approved for the count. That's Mississippi law," Eisen said.The other was a press conference where a former U.S. attorney representing Republicans hinted at a challenge without committing to one."They got the losing hand," Eisen said. "When it's big like that, you know you're going to lose. Do you really want to go on a kamikaze mission?"Eisen laid out the remaining deadlines. Voters who lacked photo ID have until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, to show it at their circuit court. Counties certify Nov. 13, and the state must declare results by Dec. 3.The county certification date is "likely when you're going to get the AP call and the networks will call the race for Scott," Eisen predicted.He also tore into Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican. "The worst thing he did this year was purge the voter list," Eisen said, adding, "That's why we have these affidavit ballots."Eisen credited a string of legal wins against Trump. He said that after his side "knocked the stuffing legally out of Donald Trump at the Supreme Court on Monday night, he gave up the sabotage and he was wiped out by the blue wave."

[Category: Cindy hyde-smith, Norm eisen, Scott colom, Mississippi]

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[l] at 11/7/26 5:38pm
Melania Trump walked into what should have been friendly territory, only to get a reception organizers apparently wanted nobody to hear.The first lady was loudly booed Saturday at Louisiana State University's football game against Alabama in Baton Rouge, according to The Daily Beast, and organizers answered by piping music over the speakers in what appeared to be an effort to smother the jeers.Melania Trump had come to Baton Rouge to unveil a partnership between LSU and her "Fostering the Future" program, which will pay for scholarships for students at the school who have been through foster care.She stuck around after the announcement to watch the matchup, and when the big screen introduced her as "Miss Melania Trump," the crowd's response started as muted applause before booing swamped it.The scene came with a heavy dose of irony. LSU players wore her "Be Best" slogan on their helmets and jerseys, and the same message flashed on the big screen while fans jeered. Melania Trump launched the campaign during her husband's first term, pitching it as an effort to promote children's well-being and fight cyberbullying.The $7.2 million scholarship partnership relies on private money that the first lady and LSU lined up to create an endowment. MMR Group Inc., a Baton Rouge electrical contractor, put up $5 million, while other LSU Foundation donors chipped in more than $2 million, The Daily Beast reported.The booing came just days after Tuesday's midterms, in a state that should have been a safe landing spot for a Republican first lady. Both Louisiana and Alabama largely avoided the Democratic wave, but The Daily Beast noted Louisiana didn't escape it entirely.President Donald Trump waded into the state's Senate race by backing a primary challenge against Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to convict him in his second impeachment trial. Cassidy fell to Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA), who went on to face Democratic farmer Jamie Davis.Letlow is projected to win, but only by a hair, taking 50.9 percent of the vote to Davis' 49.1 percent. Cassidy, by comparison, cruised to reelection in 2020 with 59.3 percent, while his nearest rival managed just 19 percent.Whether or not the jeers reflected voters' frustration after the midterms, the first lady faces a broader image problem, with The Daily Beast pointing out she has the worst popularity numbers of any modern first lady on record.Her office didn't immediately respond to the outlet's request for comment.

[Category: Louisiana, Lsu, Football, Melania trump]

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[l] at 11/7/26 5:11pm
Republicans in one of America's reddest states are turning their knives on each other after a Senate loss that stunned the party.Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) by roughly five points Tuesday, giving South Carolina its first Democratic senator since 1998, and the loss has set off a bitter round of finger-pointing among the state's Republicans, The New York Times reported Saturday.Some in the party are pointing at President Donald Trump, who endorsed Graham in a crowded primary and campaigned heavily for her. Trump expressed regret over the result and suggested he expected her to perform better, but he accepted no blame, according to the Times.The endorsement snubbed Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), a White House ally, and pitted Trump against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), an ultraconservative congressman and frequent Trump critic who lost to Graham in a runoff."The president should not have gotten involved," Norman told the Times.Others aimed their fire at Graham's own staff, many of whom had worked for her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Matt Moore, a senior adviser for Lindsey Graham's last primary campaign who later consulted for Fry, accused her inner circle of showing little concern for her and refusing to level with her about the demands of a statewide race for fear of losing their paychecks.Rick Quinn, a general consultant on Lindsey Graham's 2016 presidential bid, argued that the late senator's closest aides let their emotions get the better of them in backing her run.Mark Knoop, Darline Graham's campaign manager, pushed back, noting that Trump urged her to run and that she beat a primary field that included sitting members of Congress and a former governor. He dismissed the criticism as sour grapes from rival camps that lost the primary.Kevin Bishop, a longtime aide to both Grahams, instead faulted Norman, who first urged voters to write in his name before grudgingly endorsing her. Bishop argued that move signaled to some Republicans that abandoning her was acceptable, though he admitted the team struggled to raise money and credited Andrews with running a strong race.The fundraising gap was stark. Darline Graham pulled in less than $2 million in her first four months, while Andrews raised nearly $25 million by mid-October, forcing Trump's super PAC MAGA Inc. to spend heavily on the Republican's behalf. She also never fully recovered from a summer debate in which she admitted she wasn't well versed on national security.Quinn said the struggling campaign dragged down other Republicans on the ballot. Democrats also flipped a U.S. House seat and 10 seats in the state legislature.Operatives in both parties told the Times they had privately concluded by October that the race was slipping away from Darline Graham. Andrews' campaign sat on a poll showing her three points ahead, fearing its release would juice donations to the other side.

[Category: Gop, South carolina, Darline graham]

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[l] at 11/7/26 4:52pm
One of President Donald Trump's most reliable Senate allies turned on the administration this weekend with a charge usually reserved for its critics.Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) accused the Trump administration of corruption in an interview with Fox News on Saturday, The Washington Post reported. The Wisconsin Republican pointed to allegations from Calley Means, a former White House health adviser who resigned last month.Means appeared on an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" released Friday, where he claimed that Trump's top aides and political strategists had catered to special interests. According to the Post, he singled out people close to the president who he said blocked policies favored by the Make America Healthy Again movement.Among those claims, The Daily Beast reported, was an allegation that Susie Wiles, who has served as Trump's chief of staff, repeatedly pressed Means about money for the midterms. Means also alleged that companies that hired Wiles' daughter as a lobbyist went on to receive preferential treatment from the administration, according to the outlet.Johnson told Fox News that Means had described the problem "in gory detail," including corruption "within the Trump administration.""This is how government operates on a bipartisan basis," the senator continued, arguing that the rot stretches across "government agency after government agency, captured by the very...corporations that are regulated by government."The White House did not immediately respond to the Post's request for comment.Johnson also weighed in on Republican losses in the midterm elections, lamenting that GOP voters "were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won."He contended that his party must "embrace the enduring principles of our founders, limited government" if it hopes to win elections in 2028.The Wisconsin senator is now gathering signatures in a push to delay Senate Republican leadership elections. He told Fox News that the GOP conference "ought to have robust, robust, soul-searching discussions" in the aftermath of the midterms.

[Category: Calley means, Trump administration, Ron johnson]

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[l] at 11/7/26 4:17pm
A former Trump insider who aired explosive claims on Joe Rogan's podcast accuses two of the president's top operatives of hounding him.Calley Means, who served as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services until last month, on Saturday posted what he called a "formal request" for outgoing White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Trump political adviser James Blair to stop "harassing" him with texts and calls.Means said that if either of them could point to a factual error in his remarks, they should put it in writing, and he would "vigorously correct and apologize for any misstatements." He added that other senior officials back up everything he said.He also dared them to take him to court."If you want to file a lawsuit and get into discovery of whether it's provably true that Ballard and Continental had an undue influence on the White House policy process, do it," Means wrote.Means was referring to Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm run by Florida Republican fundraiser Brian Ballard where Wiles worked for years before joining Trump’s White House, according to The New York Times, and Continental Strategy, a Trump-connected lobbying shop where her daughter Katie Wiles is a partner.Blair, a Wiles ally from Florida who left the White House to run the GOP's midterm effort, fired back within the hour. He denied the harassment claim, saying he called Means the night before without getting an answer and that Means then messaged him. Blair said he warned Means he would consider suing if he was defamed, then stopped replying privately."Calley, your poor me act is tiring and embarrassing for a grown man who launched a smear campaign," Blair wrote. "I've been called worse things by better people than you. And I haven't even gotten started."During the Rogan interview, Means accused Wiles of letting midterm fundraising drive health policy, The New York Times reported, and alleged that companies hiring her daughter got special treatment. He also accused Blair of taking money from the sugar industry.Trump announced hours after the interview surfaced that Stephen Miller would replace Wiles on Monday. Means left HHS in October, frustrated that he couldn't advance the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, Politico reported.

[Category: Susie wiles, James blair, Calley means]

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[l] at 11/7/26 3:53pm
Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid down a stern warning to his top deputies behind closed doors, according to a new report.Rubio told senior State Department officials in a meeting last week that unethical conduct would get them fired no matter how well connected they were, Reuters reported Saturday, citing four people familiar with the matter. The meeting came after Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as U.S. ambassador to Greece in mid-October, following news reports that raised concerns she had traded access to Trump administration officials for money, gifts and favors.Guilfoyle has denied those reports and said on social media that she would defend her reputation.According to the people who spoke to Reuters, the meeting included many of the department's roughly two dozen assistant secretaries. Rubio complained that too many officials were pushing their own policy agendas without coordinating, and he told them major decisions needed approval from him or Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.The State Department declined to comment on the meeting.Shortly afterward, policy chief Jeremy Lewin was pushed out of his post, three of the sources told Reuters, partly over concerns that he was working on issues beyond his portfolio. One source said department leadership had grown frustrated with his "freelancing." None of the sources tied his exit to ethical misconduct.Lewin, who came to government through Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, disputed that account in a statement to the outlet."The suggestion that I was fired is false," he said, adding that he left to take a private sector job and plan his wedding.Rubio's office now also has to sign off on all political travel after he grew frustrated with how often political staff were traveling overseas, one of the sources said.The crackdown arrives as Republicans regroup after Tuesday's midterm losses handed Democrats control of Congress. Democrats have vowed to investigate dealings between Trump aides and foreign officials once they take power in January. The Trump administration has denied allegations of self-dealing.Rubio has played down speculation about a 2028 presidential run but has not ruled one out, and Reuters noted his handling of the department could become a campaign issue if he jumps in.

[Category: State department, Kimberly guilfoyle, Marco rubio]

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[l] at 11/7/26 3:49pm
A soft landing President Donald Trump reportedly wanted for embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been ruled out by a close MAGA ally.Tennessee Gov.-elect Marsha Blackburn, who will appoint her own replacement in the U.S. Senate, is not considering Hegseth for the seat, according to sources close to her who spoke to the Nashville Banner on Friday. The outlet reported Saturday that Hegseth, who faces potential impeachment, had been rumored as a pick and was reportedly being pushed by Trump ahead of Tuesday's election.Speculation about Hegseth picked up at the end of September, when he attended a University of Tennessee football game that Trump and Blackburn also went to, the Banner reported. Hegseth also owns a home in Sumner County, Tennessee.But a source close to Blackburn repeatedly denied that any meeting or conversation about the appointment took place, the outlet reported. The same source told the Banner and other reporters this week that "D.C. won't pick the next senator."Blackburn's sources instead confirmed a short list of four names, according to the Banner. They include Glenn Jacobs, the former professional wrestler and ex-Knox County mayor who served as treasurer for Blackburn's campaign, along with Rep. Tim Burchett, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann and Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter, who chairs her transition committee.Jacobs was the only rumored contender to join Blackburn onstage for her acceptance speech on election night, the Banner noted. Burchett has told Punchbowl News that he is openly seeking the seat, while Fleischmann told reporters after Blackburn's win that he would run in 2028 if appointed.Hegseth was not the only name crossed off. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger, who showed up at Blackburn's first post-election press conference, are also not under consideration, according to the Banner's sources.Whoever Blackburn taps will hold the seat through 2028, when voters will choose a senator to finish her term, which runs until 2031. The appointee would head into that race with the advantage of incumbency.The Banner noted that a seat as a freshman Republican senator may have lost some of its luster after a Democratic wave this week flipped both chambers of Congress.

[Category: Impeachment, Marsha blackburn, Tennessee, Pete hegseth]

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[l] at 11/7/26 3:19pm
President Donald Trump's frantic search for a new chief of staff after the midterms reached into his own family, according to his biographer.Trump biographer Michael Wolff revealed on Saturday's episode of "Inside Trump's Head" that Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser during his first term, landed on a short list of possible replacements for outgoing chief of staff Susie Wiles. Trump ultimately handed the job to Stephen Miller, his longtime adviser and the architect of his hard-line immigration agenda.Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles that Trump started calling around on Wednesday, the day after Republicans' election-night losses, to talk through candidates. One of those calls went to someone Wolff knows, who then phoned Wolff and repeated the conversation."This happens all the time," Wolff noted. "Donald Trump calls people, and then they call other people, including me."Wolff declined to name most of the list, saying he would be exposing a source, but he singled out one name."Among the people on the list is Jared Kushner," Wolff disclosed. "Jared Kushner was on the list to be chief of staff."He cautioned that it was unclear how seriously Trump meant it, noting that the president has long eyed his son-in-law for the post. Trump has "toyed with bringing Jared into that role" throughout both administrations, Wolff explained, and in the first term Kushner "really did have that role without having that role."Wolff described the list as the people Trump "feels have been closest to him."Another person on the list, whom Wolff also knows, reacted with dread when Wolff called to give him the news. After a long pause, Wolff recalled, the man asked, "What terrible things might I have done in a past life to deserve this?""This is a terrible job," Wolff said, arguing that "only the most rabid Donald Trump sycophant, I think, would take [it] without some serious, serious consideration."The search came to an abrupt end Thursday, when Wolff said Trump screamed at Wiles in front of others and she "fled through the door." According to Wolff, she then leaked her exit, forcing Trump to name a successor on the spot "so it didn't look like she quit."That left Miller, who in Wolff's telling "was perhaps the only person ready at the drop of a hat to step into that job."

[Category: White house, Susie wiles, Michael wolff, Jared kushner]

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[l] at 11/7/26 2:46pm
A veteran pollster warned that President Donald Trump's approval rating has begun tracing a familiar downward path, one that once cost Republicans dearly.Nate Silver, author of the Silver Bulletin newsletter and co-host of the Still Counting podcast, laid out the comparison in an episode of The Focus Group podcast released Saturday, telling host Sarah Longwell that Trump's second-term approval ratings have closely mirrored those of former President George W. Bush, whose slide came before Republicans lost the White House in 2008."Yeah, it's eerily similar," Silver said of a graphic he had posted comparing the two presidents. "It almost seems like some biological process, right?"Silver chalked it up to voter fatigue, likening a long-serving president to house guests who overstay their welcome. "People stop giving incumbents the benefit of the doubt after this much time in office," he explained, adding that "it feels like Trump has been president for three terms."He also noted that Republicans have fared poorly in elections held while Trump was in office, arguing that "voters like the idea of Trump more than the reality of Trump."The conversation followed Tuesday's midterm elections, which Longwell, the publisher of The Bulwark, said put Democrats on track for more than 250 House seats and at least 54 Senate seats. Silver called it a "9.6 out of 10 night for Democrats."Longwell, a former Republican strategist, recalled that Bush left office with an approval rating of around 32%, a low she said cleared the way for "a total remaking" of the GOP. She dubbed the threshold "the Bush line."Silver said he found it "very hard to see" Trump's numbers turning around, citing the "steady" pace of the decline and the president's age. Lower gas prices might give Trump a modest lift, he allowed, but even a rebound to 40% or 42% would be "not great for re-election anyway." He added that only about half of the 37% who approve of Trump do so strongly.That slide spells trouble for Vice President JD Vance, according to Silver, who noted that Republicans turned to the late Sen. John McCain, a onetime Bush critic, in 2008. Vance's biggest liability, he said, "is that he is the vice president to the president with a 37% approval rating."Still, Silver stopped short of predicting a repeat of 2006 and 2008, when Republicans suffered back-to-back landslides. "I'm not sure that's the default outcome," he said. "It definitely isn't the default."

[Category: Presidency, George w. bush, 2028 presidential election, Trump]

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[l] at 11/7/26 2:15pm
President Donald Trump's latest move against his political opponents unleashed a torrent of warnings that the lame duck is spiraling.On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was "ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!" He accused Democrats of threatening the attorney general and others with impeachment, calling it "extortion at the highest level," and suggested that imprisonment "should be against these EXTORTIONISTS." He also singled out Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), claiming without evidence that she plans to go after young Republicans.Independent journalist Aaron Rupar summed up the post as Trump calling for Democrats who sent oversight letters to be imprisoned and directing top Justice Department official Todd Blanche to open an investigation.Michael Kasdan, an attorney and NYU Law professor, warned that with loyalists installed across the Justice Department, the FBI and every executive agency, Trump is "going to fight against Congress and the American people like a caged animal."Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann argued that Stephen Miller had fueled what he called Trump's "Bunker End Game" mentality, describing the "broken, bitter Lame Duck president" as threatening lawmakers for doing their constitutional job."This will end poorly for the junta," Olbermann added.Slotkin herself fired back, accusing Trump of having Miller, whom she noted had just been elevated to chief of staff, "draft a tweet threatening to put me in jail." The Michigan Democrat added the administration already tried to indict her before a grand jury in February and said Trump's "hair-trigger obsession" with corruption "reveals more about you [than] it does about me."Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney pointed out that Congress has every right to conduct aggressive oversight and threaten impeachment, yet Trump is now pushing for a criminal probe of lawmakers who do exactly that.Gregg Nunziata, a former Republican Senate counsel, recalled that his first major public break with Trump came when the White House rejected the basic idea of congressional oversight during the first term."This is worse," he declared.The progressive MeidasTouch network called the move another impeachable offense, insisting, "Oversight isn't extortion. It's the Constitution."

[Category: Impeachment, Dems, Truth social, Elissa slotkin, Trump]

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[l] at 11/7/26 1:35pm
A former Trump White House official who managed crises from inside the West Wing dreads what's coming when the next disaster strikes.Olivia Troye, who served as homeland security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, told host Jim Acosta on Friday's episode of "The Jim Acosta Show" that she was "sickened" to think about how Stephen Miller would handle a national emergency now that President Donald Trump has tapped him as White House chief of staff.Trump named Miller, whom Troye called the architect of the Trump administration's immigration policy, to replace outgoing chief of staff Susie Wiles days after Democrats' sweeping wins in Tuesday's midterm elections. Acosta, a former chief White House correspondent, branded the choice "a totally psychotic move."Troye, who coordinated the COVID task force in Trump's first White House, explained that the chief of staff's office sits at the center of any federal crisis response."Let's just hope that we don't face a crisis again or another national emergency," she said. "The chief of staff's office calls you. They call the advisers directly. They're the ones coordinating responses.""They are also the ones helping states at times when they're getting the phone calls saying, 'Hey, we need this. We are seeing this happen,'" she continued. "And honestly, I'm sickened to know what it will look like under Stephen Miller when there are states that are hit."Troye noted that the new post "officially does put him in charge of driving domestic policy across the board," with Miller now running Situation Room meetings. Recalling sessions she sat through during Trump's first term, she described him as "delusional" and warned that "he'll berate people and he'll bully them."She added that Miller has long operated with a "let the law catch up to us" mindset, pushing ahead on the assumption that "by then the damage will be done" before any lawsuit lands.Troye also suggested Trump himself won't be watching closely. "I don't think Donald Trump is tracking half the stuff that Stephen Miller will do," she argued. "Donald Trump has basically put Stephen Miller in charge of the presidency."Acosta likened the road ahead to "walking across a minefield," adding that "we're all going to be doing it together."

[Category: Olivia troye, National emergency, Stephen miller]

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[l] at 11/7/26 1:24pm
President Donald Trump rolled out a fresh round of creative math on Truth Social to insist his pick has already won a key Senate race.In a post on Saturday, Trump claimed Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) is "up by thousands of Votes" once ballots cast for two other candidates, retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and Republican Gerald Heikes, are folded into his total. The president accused Heikes of being "fraudulently put into the Race" and dismissed Sullivan Jr. as a man who "Never even voted." "I don't know what takes so long to announce his win. This should be immediate!" Trump fumed. "The Alaska Race is OVER. Dan Sullivan WON, BY A LOT!"The count says otherwise. Sullivan trailed Democrat and former Rep. Mary Peltola by 637 first-choice votes after more than 200,000 ballots were counted as of Wednesday afternoon, the Anchorage Daily News reported. An Alaska legal expert told Newsweek that reassigning those candidates' votes to the senator has no basis in state election law, and the state's ranked-choice tabulation is scheduled for Nov. 18.

[Category: Alaska, Trump, Truth social, Dan sullivan]

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[l] at 11/7/26 12:55pm
President Donald Trump’s Saturday offer of the White House press secretary job to UFC boss Dana White, along with a team of mixed martial arts fighters as his “assistants,” left critics debating whether the president was joking or simply coming unglued.“I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.“I have requested that he bring with him assistants, even though some are not from our Country, of Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Kayla Harris,” he continued, apparently meaning two-time Olympic judo champion Kayla Harrison. “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”The post included an image of White at the White House briefing room podium, along with photos of the six fighters.Some critics saw something darker than a joke.“The president of the United States is spiraling into severe psychosis,” wrote Jim Stewartson, an anti-disinformation activist. “His narcissistic injury from the midterms has shattered any remaining boundaries between his delusions and the real world.”Others assumed Trump was messing with people. Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former White House communications director and now a co-host of “The View,” wrote: “Going to go ahead and assume this is Trump trolling. An interesting use of his time post midterms loss.”The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell pointed to the timing. “Susie Wiles has not even been gone for a day,” he wrote, referring to Trump’s outgoing chief of staff, who left the White House on Friday.“We’re living at the intersection of the darkest of times and the dumbest of times,” wrote progressive activist Melanie D’Arrigo.It’s unclear whether the offer is serious. White, a longtime Trump friend and supporter, has run the UFC for more than two decades and is not a fighter himself. Makhachev and Nurmagomedov are from Dagestan, Russia, and Nunes is Brazilian, which Trump acknowledged when he wrote that “some are not from our Country.”The post comes as Trump reshapes his team after Republicans lost both chambers of Congress on Tuesday. Stephen Miller takes over as White House chief of staff on Monday.

[Category: Trump]

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[l] at 11/7/26 12:40pm
Harmeet Dhillon is out at the Justice Department, and some of the harshest send-offs are coming from her own side.Dhillon announced on Wednesday that she was resigning as assistant attorney general for civil rights.“Serving my country as AAG for Civil Rights has been the honor of a lifetime,” she wrote on X. “We ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI, we fought to protect women and girls’ sports, and so much more. I want to thank President Trump for giving me this opportunity.”In her resignation letter, Dhillon said she had told White House chief of staff Susie Wiles that she planned to step down after the midterms. But two sources told CBS News that Trump demanded she be fired after watching her on “60 Minutes,” CBS reporter Jake Rosen noted on X.Soon after news of her exit broke, an account identifying itself as Notre Dame College Republicans posted: “Good riddance. Moving forward, we don’t need any more demon worship at the RNC either.”The post appeared to refer to the Sikh prayer Dhillon, a practicing Sikh, delivered at the 2024 Republican National Convention. That prayer drew a wave of bigoted attacks from parts of the right at the time.“Stay classy, kids,” Dhillon replied Friday.The account later deleted the post.“Update — these children deleted their racist post,” Dhillon wrote. “I had constraints in government on what I could say. They are over.”Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, replied: “Liberation Day for Harmeet is going to be epic!”“That was yesterday!” Dhillon shot back. “Today I’m already starting to sue people!”Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official, also came to her defense: “I apologize for these children at @NDRepublicans. No actual grown up, devout Catholic would post this stupidity.”Judge Cory Liu wrote: “The racism against Harmeet Dhillon has been so ugly. The Republican Party must recenter itself on its commitment to color blindness.”Others on the right piled on anyway. Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent turned right-wing podcaster, shared screenshots of the exchange and called Dhillon “a petty b----.”“I’m super psyched she was ‘protecting our civil rights’ and ‘ending DEI,’” Seraphin wrote. “A 2x divorced, California-based lady from India didn’t know she was a DEI hire.”Dhillon also faced criticism from the left. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote that Dhillon “made a mockery of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division by attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion and bullying states into disenfranchising voters.”“She will not be missed. Enjoy your knitting,” Jayapal added, a jab at Dhillon’s X bio, which describes her as a knitter.“Grow up, Pramila,” Dhillon fired back. “Bullying and trolling are not really the role of members of Congress. You are a public servant. Act like it. By the way, knitting is a skill. Acquiring some skills is part of a healthy, balanced life. I recommend this to you. No need to be hateful all day!”

[Category: Harmeet dhillon]

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[l] at 11/7/26 12:32pm
Kari Lake is back to claiming election fraud, and one of her longtime Republican foes isn’t having it.Lake now leads the U.S. Agency for Global Media in the Trump administration. On Wednesday she replied to a post from Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, who had written after Tuesday’s GOP midterm losses: “No time for infighting, 2028 started yesterday.”“Warren, we MUST inspect this election,” Lake wrote. “The numbers make NO sense in AZ, Texas, Kansas, Mississippi and many other places. We can’t keep ignoring this election fraud or we will lose our republic. Don’t you agree??”She offered no evidence for her claim. Her post had drawn more than 524,000 views as of Saturday morning.Stephen Richer, the Republican former Maricopa County recorder, responded the next day.“Oh. My. God. This is just sad. She’s not a healthy person,” Richer wrote. “Somebody who likes her should intervene and get her help.”Richer and Lake have a long history. After her 2022 loss in the Arizona governor’s race, which she refused to concede, Lake spent years pushing claims that the election in Maricopa County was rigged. Richer was the county’s top election official at the time, and he sued her for defamation over her attacks on him.When a commenter brought up Lake’s pre-MAGA past, Richer wrote that it was “when Kari had different politics, a different religion, a different personality, a different social set.”“Basically ... Before the aliens abducted her,” he added.Another user asked whether he felt “justified to call out someone’s religion.” Richer replied: “Because she’s just somebody who grabs onto whatever is next. Like a weird hippy from the 60s.”He also pushed back on Lake’s defenders in the replies. When one user called him “a communist dressed up as a RINO,” Richer answered: “Was it because I had government to take ownership in private companies, or cozy up to a Russian dictator, or use pardons to bail out donors, or massively enrich my family? Yeah. That’s communist-esque alright.”Another user told him “the DOJ and ODNI are already on it. Report forthcoming.”“Lol. So I’ve heard,” Richer wrote. “For 6 years.”To a user who simply wrote “She is right,” he replied: “Seek help.”Oh. My. God. This is just sad. She’s not a healthy person. Somebody who likes her should intervene and get her help.— Stephen Richer (@stephen_richer) November 6, 2026
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[l] at 11/7/26 12:24pm
Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former senior adviser in President Donald Trump’s first White House, is warning that Stephen Miller’s promotion to chief of staff is one of the most alarming turns of Trump’s presidency.“The departure of Susie Wiles and the elevation of Stephen Miller to White House Chief of Staff represent, in my judgment, one of the most concerning developments of the Trump presidency,” Manigault Newman wrote in an “official statement” posted to X on Friday.She had high praise for Wiles, who worked with her on Trump’s 2016 campaign.“She is a brilliant strategist, a disciplined leader, and an extraordinary human being,” Manigault Newman wrote. “She represented a much-needed voice of reason and sound judgment in the West Wing.”Miller got no such praise.“By stark contrast, Stephen Miller is among the most dangerous political figures I have encountered in more than 30 years in American politics,” she wrote. “I worked directly with him during President Trump’s first administration. My concerns are not speculation. They are rooted in firsthand experience.”“I fear his unchecked influence could lead to catastrophic decisions, undermine democratic institutions, and escalate international conflicts with devastating global consequences,” she continued.“Blind loyalty is not leadership. Extremism is not patriotism,” she added. “And placing unchecked power in the hands of dangerous ideologues is not governance. It is a threat to our democracy and our national security.”She said her warning wasn’t about party.“This is not about Republicans or Democrats,” she wrote. “I worked with Susie Wiles. I worked with Stephen Miller. I know the difference between the two, and that is precisely why I am sounding the alarm.”Manigault Newman, who first became famous on Trump’s “The Apprentice,” served as director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison. She was fired in December 2017 and later published “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.” She also released secretly recorded conversations from her time in the administration, including her firing in the Situation Room.Wiles left the White House on Friday after Republicans’ historic midterm losses. Miller takes over as chief of staff.

As of 11/8/26 1:49am. Last new 11/7/26 9:17pm.

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