The Right Wing

Ex-RNC Chair Michael Steele tore into President Donald Trump this week, asserting that his struggling endorsements are a sign that his influence is collapsing as his MAGA base grows "fractured and dissipated."

Trump has long boasted of his "kingmaker" status within the GOP, claiming that his endorsements are bulletproof in Republican primaries and using them to threaten lawmakers who step out of line. The current midterm cycle, however, has provided numerous examples of his waning influence, as it did on Tuesday, when his endorsed candidates fell short in Minnesota and South Carolina. Pillow salesman and election fraud conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell suffered a bruising loss in the GOP primary for the Minnesota gubernatorial race, while Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, who selected to finish her brother Lindsey Graham's final term, fell short of a definitive win in her primary, sending the race to a runoff.

During a panel segment on MS NOW's "On the Line" Wednesday, host Alicia Menendez noted how Trump seemed to try to obscure the failure of his South Carolina endorsement in particular, claiming to like all of the candidates, a move that signaled his growing insecurity.

"He knows that this question of whether or not he can be a kingmaker is now in the ether," Menendez suggested.

"It's very, very much in the ether," Steele responded. "The MAGA base has fractured and dissipated in a number of ways for a number of reasons. And... the bigger reasons are twofold. One is the downward pressure of the economy on them. You know, it didn't just hit democrats. It hit them to imagine that. And two, the Epstein files still play [as] a big, big narrative in that space. And so, you know that Trump tries to cloud the airwaves and create the noise around elections and voting and getting people riled up about something."

He continued: "But at the end of the day, you know, as he said, they're all trumpers, and he doesn't really care one way or the other who the nominee is to be. To be rather frank about it, this is the least... exciting and important thing in Donald Trump's universe, because it's not an art, it's not a ballroom. It's not something he can build and construct. He has to actually deal with human beings. And he doesn't really like that so much. So the reality for him, for those candidates, is you're out there swimming on your own."

Elsewhere in the segment, Steele also tore into Trump's endorsed candidate for governor in Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany, who won the party's nomination on Tuesday, saying it would be the "ultimate corruption" to put a known election denier in that office.

"It is the ultimate corruption of the process in the system," Steele said. "It is profoundly antithetical to what the citizens of that state decided. And that then becomes a problem for that governor. I mean, you know, these things don't happen in a vacuum. You know, if... in 2020, [Georgia Gov. Brad] Raffensperger and others decided, okay, we'll play with Donald Trump. You cannot discount the outrage from the citizenry and the voters out there when hearing that text or hearing those tapes, then realizing that their governor cheated, stole the votes from them."

He continued: "That's going to be a real impact on the state. And so what you're seeing here... is the party now is all about feeding that chaos. If it doesn't get its way, it's all about feeding that beast. That beast is Donald Trump, at the end of the day, giving him what he wants. But there are consequences for that. We see some of that play out already."

On Thursday, August 6, three GOP senators — Alabama's Tommy Tuberville, Missouri's Josh Hawley and Indiana's Jim Banks — filed an amendment designed to protect state laws that prohibit "biological men" from competing in women's sports. Hawley, in a statement, declared, "Biological men should never be allowed in women’s sports or women's locker rooms. We've got to make sure state laws protecting women stand." But according to conservative strategist/pollster Sarah Longwell, anti-transgender measures aren't really aimed at protecting female athletes, but rather, underscore the desperation that Republicans are feeling with the 2026 midterms less than three months away.

In a biting Wednesday, August 12 post on X, formerly Twitter, Longwell wrote, "The biggest tell that MAGA knows they're losing on every issue, failing at governance, and generally losing public support? They suddenly are wall-to-wall on trans sports."

The U.S. Senate measure from Tuberville, Hawley and Banks isn't the only recent example of Republicans focusing on transgender Americans and women's sports. In Arizona, GOP lawmakers are aggressively promoting Proposition 318 — which is being dubbed "Protect Girls Sports in Arizona" and threatens schools and athletic associations with civil lawsuits if they allow transgender girls to join female teams.

According to Longwell, all these anti-trans efforts from the GOP show how worried Republicans are about the midterms.

Although Longwell is a prominent figure on the right, she is very much in the Never Trump camp and has become an unlikely ally of Democrats in recent years —supporting Joe Biden in 2020 and rooting for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris four years later in 2024.

In addition to being a founder of the conservative website The Bulwark, the 46-year-old Longwell is the founder of the group Republican Accountability (RA) — formerly the Republican Accountability Project (RAP) and, before that, Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT). Longwell's group has often been compared to The Lincoln Project, another group founded by Never Trump conservatives. But Longwell's group and The Lincoln Project are separate despite having a lot of ground common ground and a mutual disdain for Trump.

During her frequent appearances on MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Longwell has often argued that President Donald Trump and the far-right MAGA movement are antithetical to the principles traditionally embraced by Republicans and Libertarians.

Trump continues to suffer from weak approval ratings in poll after poll. An Economist/YouGov poll released on Monday, August 10, for example, found approval of Trump at only 33 percent. And a Reuters poll released earlier in the month showed Trump's approval at 35 percent.

The new revelations about President Donald Trump's Air Force One ruse have exposed his "increasingly paranoid" state, and according to an analysis from The i Paper, there is one fear above all others driving this change.

The Washington Post reported this week that an incident from last month, in which Trump purportedly switched to an older Air Force One model while departing Turkey due to concerns about an attack by Iran, was actually more complicated than it seemed. It turned out that Trump had actually been covertly escorted off that older craft by the Secret Service and onto a military craft, then snuck back onto the "decoy" plane after landing in the U.K.

The incident has raised numerous alarms and questions, including why the administration has gone so hard after reporters for supposedly getting the leaked initial version of the story if they knew it was not accurate, and why they felt they could let reporters stay on the decoy Air Force One if they believed it was under threat.

In a new column for The i Paper, reporter James Ball wrote that this "staggeringly high-risk maneuver," whether it was the president's idea or his security detail's, sprang from his mounting fear of being targeted for assassination.

"Trump has reasons to fear assassination, of course," Ball explained. "In July 2024, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt while speaking at a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, during which a bullet seemingly grazed his ear. There have been several other attempts to target Trump since, including at his golf club in Florida in September 2024, and at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this April, though none of these got anywhere close to the President.

Ball also argued that the entire situation was an "encapsulation of Trump’s second term," with each problem being driven by his own greed or recklessness.

"He was at risk due to a war against Iran he had launched, which he has repeatedly claimed was already won – even claiming to have agreed to a peace deal," Ball continued. "His new Air Force One, which will be owned by his presidential library for his personal use after he leaves the Oval Office, was not secure enough to use."

He concluded: "And so, to find a way out of this predicament entirely of Trump’s creation, someone conjured up a drastic plan that led to the President hiding with catering, turning journalists into human shields and breaking a decades-long precedent about not lying about the President’s whereabouts. Trump’s fear of assassination might be well-grounded – but it is leading him into some very strange places indeed."

President Donald Trump is ignoring the reality of his recent losses from the Supreme Court, according to The Hill, pushing ahead with new plans to address key goals — and immediately running into more legal pushback.

"President Trump is reframing his Supreme Court losses on tariffs, birthright citizenship and the Federal Reserve as victories in disguise," the outlet detailed in a Wednesday report. "Exuding confidence, Trump is pressing ahead with new attempts at all three. But his critics are rushing back to court. It tees up key tests of the Supreme Court’s recent blockbuster decisions, putting Trump’s agenda on the line once again."

The court previously shot down most of Trump's tariffs, finding that he lacked the authority he claimed to have to create new import taxes without congressional approval. It also pushed back against his efforts to have Lisa Cook, a Joe Biden appointee, fired from her role on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, allowing her to remain in the position while her legal challenge moved ahead. Finally, the court ruled against his executive order attempting to reshape the definition of "birthright citizenship," in direct defiance of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

As The Hill noted, Trump has a tendency to "interpret judicial rulings broadly," pushing to see how much leeway he can find to pursue his agenda items in spite of them.

"When the court stopped him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook because she was owed due process, he quickly noted that it was on a 'strictly procedural basis' and vowed to push on," the report added. "On tariffs, Trump claims the ruling invalidating his first round of global levies made his authority “more powerful and more crystal clear.” And when the majority struck down his Day 1 executive order restricting birthright citizenship, Trump latched on to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion that found it only violated federal law."

Those who oppose Trump's goals on these fronts have been quick to respond in court. Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, spoke with The Hill about the suit his group filed against Trump alongside the American Civil Liberties Union in opposition to Trump's new order targeting birthright citizenship again.

"This order is a desperate and brazen attempt to bypass the Supreme Court’s decision and expand a very narrow set of exceptions to the 14th Amendment," Kohli explained.

"They didn’t file a new lawsuit. Instead, they’ve returned to the trial judge who ruled against Trump last year and was ultimately affirmed by the Supreme Court," The Hill explained. "They want him to declare that Trump can’t cut off citizenship for anyone covered by that existing class-action lawsuit, no matter what new executive orders the president may sign."

Cook's legal team, led by Abbe Lowell, also spoke with The Hill about his client's ongoing situation.

"These allegations are as baseless now as they were a year ago when President Trump tried to remove Governor Cook and interfere with the independence of the Federal Reserve,” the team said in a statement. “No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent — there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook.”

President Donald Trump's handling of the economy has resulted in "two Americas" being created, according to one leading economic analyst, and it is also a familiar situation that could spell doom for him and the GOP in the coming midterm elections.

During a Wednesday segment on CNN, host Sara Sidner spoke with Rana Foroohar, a global economic analyst for the network as well as an associate editor for the Financial Times, about the most recent inflation numbers. Per the latest reports, the rate of inflation slowed down for the second month in a row in July, putting the annual rate at around 3.4 percent.

Despite this trend, Sidner noted that many people "can't afford their lives," and pressed Foroohar about why things still feel "so bad" for so many consumers. The analyst explained that inflation can often be a "lagging indicator" relative to consumer sentiment, and does not represent the lived reality that people are dealing with every day when they shop for groceries or fill up their cars.

"How do you feel sitting in your office? How do you feel when you drive past the gas station and see that price? How do you feel in the grocery store?" Foroohar said. "And people have felt pinched for a long time, and it actually takes months after you begin to feel pinched and feel like, oh my gosh, I'm in a cost of living crisis. I can't afford my life. My house is too expensive. I have to think about medication costs. It takes a while for that feeling to abate. It's almost like a little bit of inflation PTSD, if you will."

Foroohar further explained how the economy under Trump has become what many economists call "K-shaped," referring to a phenomenon where the wealthiest consumers are doing well and spending more, while the rest struggle. This, she noted, explains why many people feel they are in a cost of living crisis, while things like travel spending are also reaching record numbers.

"It's been the same answer for years now. It's the bifurcation," she explained. "There really are two Americas. There is an America that, you're absolutely right, is waiting in Newark [Airport]. I just came from there and it's very crowded... It's August, people are traveling, actually. Travel is at a record, in fact... There are groups of people that have that money and can do those trips, that top 10 percent of the population, which is primarily what we're talking about, is spending 60 percent of the money in the economy."

She continued: "So you can look around and say, okay, restaurants are open, you know, things are happening, the economy is good. But the folks that are more towards the bottom in terms of wages, in terms of jobs, in terms of assets, maybe they don't have so much in the stock market. Maybe they don't own a home. They are not feeling good. They are feeling incredibly pressed."

These issues, Foroohar noted, are on full display in the midterm primary season as voters show support for candidates telling them, "we see you, we feel your pain," which is primed to doom Republicans in November.

"We've seen that movie before," she concluded.

U.S. President Donald Trump's interventionist foreign policy is drawing vehement criticism from some prominent figures in the MAGA movement, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — both of whom believe is betraying the "America First" agenda he aggressively promoted in the past. But according to progressive Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi, there is something many MAGA voters are overlooking: Trump's use of U.S. tax dollars to help right-wing think tanks in other countries.

"Last month," Mahdawi explains in her column, "the Guardian reported that the U.S. State Department intends to grant $12m to conservative organizations in the UK — a move described by many critics as an attempt to influence foreign politics. Of that, $7m is going to a group called 878, co-founded by the former Conservative minister, now-TV host Jacob Rees-Mogg — whose net worth is estimated at more than £100m — that appears to have been incorporated in the UK in March."

Mahdawi continues, "The website describes it as a 'leading British and American think tank, dedicated to strengthening the civilizational partnership between the United Kingdom and the United States.' If millions in funding going to a new organization with vague goals sounds a bit weird, it's because it is. A former U.S. official told the Guardian that normal funding processes are being subverted so that money can go to Trump-aligned causes."

According to Mahdawi, "These are not isolated initiatives, but instead, point to the growing transnationalization of the hard right and a coordinated effort to make the MAGA movement global under the guise of saving western civilization."

Trump's support of far-right "populists" like former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and ex-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is no secret. But according to Mahdawi, Trump is not only endorsing foreign politicians — he is also using U.S. tax dollars to fund non-U.S. groups.

"The U.S. Embassy in London is also offering grants of up to $500,000 for 'public education' programs that foster a 'national conversation' about 'shared civilizational values' between the UK and U.S.," the Guardian columnist observes. "One recently departed U.S. State Department official told the Guardian that this seems to be an attempt to 'create UK-originated narratives to support MAGA propaganda.' Meanwhile, Lisa Smart, a Liberal Democrat MP, accused Trump's MAGA money of 'meddling in our democracy.'"

Mahdawi adds, "What does the average Trump voter, who was promised an America-First agenda, think about all this money going to 'public education' programs in the UK instead of all the underfunded public schools at home? The short answer is: they're not thinking about it at all."

The Trump administration has been scrambling to identify the leakers behind recent stories about his Air Force One ruse, but according to his longtime biographer, there is an "easy answer" as to who leaked the most recent "catering truck" story.

This week, the Washington Post reported about a new wrinkle in President Donald Trump's Air Force One switch-up. Prior reports had revealed that Trump flew out of Turkey last month on an older model Air Force One, due to the new one lacking security features needed in the face of alleged threats from Iran. According to the Post story, the Secret Service had gone a step further, sneaking Trump out of Air Force One on a catering truck and flying him to the U.K. on a military craft, prompting concerns about the lack of care shown for the safety of reporters left to fly out on the legacy craft.

Michael Wolff is a longtime journalist and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including several books about his first term based on purported insider sources. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff touched on the catering truck situation, and suggested that the answer to the question of who leaked to the Post was simple: Trump himself.

"No one knows about it, and no one knows about most of these things that the Secret Service does for a very good reason,” Wolff explained. “These are all security precautions... If people know about them, then they’re no longer part of the security protocol and no longer a safe part. So people don’t know about this. The Secret Service certainly would not leak this. So who leaked it? This is an easy answer.”

"Donald Trump leaked it," co-host Joanna Coles suggested, which Wolff confirmed.

“He has a method here. And the method is, more attention on me,” Wolff added. “And also, there’s a theme here. The assassination theme has worked very well for Donald Trump. And I think that he wants people to know he’s the target. ‘I’m the main target. I’m the guy.’”

Wolff and Coles also wondered how the assembled reporters on the "decoy" Air Force One did not notice anything odd about the flight, given Trump's proclivity for talking to them, and insulting them for attention.

"They literally were on the plane," Coles said. "And they must have thought, ‘Why isn’t the president coming back to talk to us?’ Because he always goes back to talk to them because he loves it. He wants them. He loves to insult them. He knows that will be the next story."

President Donald Trump is once again musing about a plot to upend the midterm elections, but as one political scholar revealed to The New Republic, the legal logic behind the idea has a major flaw that means it is likely to be a dud.

During a recent interview, right-wing media personality Wayne Allyn Root urged Trump to declare a national emergency as a means to implement the voter ID requirements and other reforms proposed in the SAVE America Act, which has stalled out in the Senate. In response, Trump did not outright dismiss the idea and, in fact, sounded as if he was considering it.

"Let me just say, stranger things have happened, OK? I'll leave it at that," the president said.

During the Wednesday edition of The New Republic's Daily Blast podcast, host Greg Sargent talked with Rick Hasen, a legal and political scholar who specializes in election law, and pressed him about the viability of the idea that Trump could implement sweeping election reforms via national emergency. Hasen explained that, for all the presidential powers that such a declaration could unlock, it would give Trump no specific powers over elections. Elections, more generally, are also explicitly left for states to manage by the Constitution.

"So there are two reasons why declaring a national emergency doesn't make Donald Trump the election czar in this country," Hasen explained. "The first is, there's no federal statute. Of all those 50 statutes that deal with national emergencies, none prescribe any powers to the president over elections. The other reason is even more fundamental. The Constitution, the United States Constitution, does not give the president power over elections. We have a decentralized election system.”

He continued: "Most of our election rules come from states, from state legislatures passing statutes. There's a part of the Constitution — it's in Article 1, Section 4 — it says that Congress can override state rules on elections. That's when Congress, for example, requires 'motor voter'; people can register to vote at motor vehicle departments. But Congress has to do that with legislation. The president has no role to play. All that the president can do is take care to assure that the laws that Congress passes are being faithfully executed.”

Hasen also touched on Root's suggestion that this national emergency idea could work if implemented next month, as it would require both chambers of Congress to vote to undo it, and there would not be enough time before the midterms to do so. The analyst explained that, again, this notion is inherently flawed, as no such declaration can give Trump such election powers in the first place.

Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Kentucky) hospitalization is fueling a major debate on voters' right to information about the health of political leaders. Gov. Andy Beshear is arguing that voters deserve answers about the former Senate majority leader's health. And President Donald Trump's health is also generating a lot of discussion, some of it coming from Dr. Jonathan Reiner — who was the late Vice President Dick Cheney's cardiologist and is now a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Reiner argues that U.S. voters deserve much greater transparency about Trump's health — as it's a matter of national security.

"For weeks after his hospitalization this summer," Reiner explains in his op-ed, "Sen. Mitch McConnell shared almost no details about why he was absent from office. In June, President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday, and at the end of this term, he will be the oldest person ever to serve as this nation's leader.… Despite reassurances from the White House to the contrary, at times over the past year, the president has not looked well. I am not Mr. Trump's doctor, and have only reviewed his records that have been made public. But Mr. Trump is probably the most photographed president in American history, and a variety of physical ailments are easy to see."

The former Dick Cheney cardiologist continues, "He's had large bruises on both hands, swelling in his legs and episodes when it appears that he is struggling to stay awake. He's also had advanced imaging performed for unclear reasons. The public is again left to wonder whether the nation's leader is OK."

Reiner recalls that during George W. Bush's presidency, Cheney's "heart problems were never a national secret" — applauding the late vice president's "candor about his health." The medical expert, however, notes that "there is no formal requirement for" a U.S. president to "certify his fitness for duty" — which the medical expert believes is a "mistake."

"Members of the military, Secret Service agents, commercial pilots, school bus drivers and air traffic controllers all must periodically demonstrate that they are well enough to perform their work," Reiner observes. "The current practice of reporting the results of a yearly medical examination for the president began in the Nixon administration, but it's only a custom, not a formal obligation. And, as history has shown, it can be unreliable. ... Some people would argue that these personal medical details are more than the public deserves to know: After all, Buckingham Palace has not revealed many details about King Charles’s cancer or his treatment. But the United States does not have a king."

Reiner continues, "In a representative democracy, the people must have confidence in the health of their leader, and in the leader's capacity to guide the nation. We have been kept in the dark too long."

More often than not, the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 right-wing supermajority has been favorable to President Donald Trump's positions — from presidential immunity in Trump v. the United States to overturning Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. But Trump remains bitter over High Court decisions that weren't favorable to him, angrily railing against rulings on tariffs and birthright citizenship and looking for ways to get around rulings he doesn't like. And according to Slate's Alex Romero, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — the second of three conservative justices Trump appointed during his first term — helped pave the way for the president's defiance of SCOTUS.

"Last week," Romero explains in analysis for Slate, "President Donald Trump continued his defiant stance against the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship decision from earlier this summer, firing off two new executive orders about which people born in the U.S. should be declared citizens. Despite losing at the Supreme Court on the legal issue in late June, the Trump administration remains committed to twisting a long-settled constitutional question into a tool to keep Black and brown people out of American life. The conservative legal movement, at first skeptical of Trump's original executive order attacking birthright citizenship, has now fully embraced the cause. And the cause's survival can all be traced back to our Supreme Court's unwillingness to give the Trump administration the overwhelming legal defeats it deserves."

In Trump v. Barbara, the High Court struck down the president's executive order on birthright citizenship, which most of the justices said was protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. But many liberals and progressives, along with some right-wing Never Trump conservatives and libertarians, argued that the ruling could have been much more emphatic — and that it was way too close for comfort.

"It's not unusual for President Trump to try to ignore or twist a legal ruling on an issue he lost on," Romero observes. "The better question is why he thinks the effort will succeed. After all, there are other areas where Trump has quietly retreated after a court loss or public outcry. The reason the president persists is that despite all this history, text, and precedent, only five of the nine justices read the 14th Amendment as protecting birthright citizenship in Barbara. The narrowness of that margin was and continues to be a scandal. Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito in saying they would rule that the Constitution does not protect birthright citizenship for children of immigrants who don't have permanent legal status or are temporary visitors."

Romero continues, "Kavanaugh, in a separate opinion joined by nobody, thought the executive order only contradicted a federal statute that Congress could change. Let's be clear: This Court was one vote away from doing Dred Scott for yet a new group of people who lack political power. All in defense of an order that has been rightly condemned as 'blatantly unconstitutional.' Barbara…. is also a symptom of a Court that operates in a lopsided manner that favors the administration. This is especially true in the immigration context."

A prominent former official is sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's increasingly tyrannical tendencies, writing for The i Paper that he has now succeeded in corrupting the two offices above all that are tasked with telling him "no."

Miles Taylor previously worked as a staffer in Trump's first administration, eventually rising to the office of chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security. His tenure was most notable, however, for an anonymous op-ed he published in the New York Times, exposing the abuses and excesses that he was witnessing behind the scenes. Since departing in 2029, he has emerged as a vocal conservative critic of Trump and his MAGA agenda.

In his latest piece for The i Paper, published on Tuesday, Taylor sounded the alarm about two recent Trump appointments, which he said represented the corruption of the two offices "more than any others — whose jobs are to tell the president of the United States 'no,'" filling them with yes-men sure to follow his every order.

"The attorney general and the White House counsel," Taylor wrote. "Those jobs exist to keep the president on the right side of the law. This weekend, two men were elevated into America’s top legal jobs after working to build literal monuments to their boss."

He continued: "On Sunday, the President announced that Will Scharf, Trump’s staff secretary and perhaps the chief 'monument man,' will become White House counsel on September 1. Americans know him, if at all, as the man standing over Trump’s shoulder in the Oval Office, narrating executive orders as the President signs them. He also chairs the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal construction in the capital, a role in which he has become Trump’s personal builder. He fast-tracked the White House ballroom. He expedited review of the President’s planned triumphal arch — a 250ft 'Arc de Trump' — and personally argued it should be exempt from the century-old law capping Washington’s buildings at 130ft. Approve the arch, and the leader makes you his lawyer."

The other concerning development was the appointment of Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal attorney, as Attorney General, replacing "the last attorney general was fired for not weaponizing the Justice Department fast enough."

"Blanche is a 'monument man,' too, which is evidently a requirement for elevation," Taylor added. "When preservationists sued over Trump’s demolition of the East Wing (which he tore down to construct a 90,000 sq ft ballroom dedicated to himself), Blanche took on the case. He argued in court filings that construction must resume, portraying the President’s party palace as a matter of national security urgency."

He concluded later: "I can tell you how important these two legal jobs actually are. When I served in the first term, the lawyers willing to say 'no' were the last line of defense. The president would demand something illegal... It was a wall that held — barely — a hundred times over. Trump remembers that wall as vividly as I do. He spent his four years out of power studying where it stood and who manned it. This weekend, he finished solving the problem. The next time he goes hunting for a lawyer with an answer he likes, he won’t have to look very far. The two men who should’ve been whispering 'no' into the President’s ear got his attention by whispering 'yes, sir.' Now they’re seated at his right hand."

Far-right conspiracy theorist and self-described "proud Islamophobe" Laura Loomer is having a bitter feud with other MAGA influencers over U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign policy. In contrast to MAGA isolationists who want the United States to stay out of Iran, Loomer fully supports Trump's Iran intervention. And she has dramatically changed her position on Ukraine, voicing her support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after years of echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points on the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Now, according to Salon's Sophia Tesfaye, Loomer and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson are engaged in a bitter "turf war" over Trump's foreign policy.

"The spectacle of Laura Loomer touching down in a Kyiv bomb shelter to announce her sudden conversion to supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia has been covered by much of the media as a sort of a political awakening," Tesfaye writes in Salon. "In a series of recent interviews with America's most prominent news outlets, the MAGA influencer and conspiracy theorist took a victory lap for discovering — nearly four-and-a-half years after Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine — that Vladimir Putin is a liar. But what looks to be a surprising shift away from Russia is not a moral reckoning. It is a petty turf war amongst MAGA media — and Ukraine stands to benefit."

Tesfaye adds, "Our unfortunate reality is that the shallow personal ambitions and petty feuds of MAGA influencers can dictate foreign policy. Loomer holds no elected office and possesses no genuine policy expertise, yet because she knows how to flatter the vulnerabilities of Donald Trump, she wields terrifying influence on the administration and its agenda."

Loomer is now saying that in the past, she was "bamboozled" by Kremlin talking points on Ukraine.

Tesfaye emphasizes that Loomer's "evolution" on Ukraine "comes at precisely the moment when the Republican coalition is undergoing a bitter fight over what 'America First' is supposed to mean."

"The old MAGA formula — distrust Ukraine, NATO and GOP hawks, and view Putin as a potentially useful counterweight to American liberalism — is colliding with a newer reality related to Trump's ongoing and unpopular war of choice against Iran," the Salon reporter explains. "Russia is increasingly difficult to portray as a friendly or even neutral power while it cooperates with the Islamic Republic…. Loomer's reversal is also inseparable from her rivalry with fellow podcasters Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly and other right-wing media figures who have become increasingly hostile to Trump over Israel, Iran and the use of American military power."

Tesfaye continues, "Loomer herself has said the right-wing split over Iran prompted her to reconsider Ukraine, and she claimed to have noticed that people she regarded as opponents of Trump were simultaneously advancing Russia-friendly arguments. Now, she worries those pro-Russian voices inside the MAGA coalition have become 'the biggest detriment to social cohesion' heading into what, by all credible predictions, will be a brutal midterm cycle for Republicans."

Tesfaye emphasizes, however, that Loomer's about-face on Ukraine shouldn't be praised as a "heroic" act.

"While Loomer works to convert MAGA to the Ukrainian cause," Tesfaye writes, "the press should stop treating her reversal as a heroic story about one brave influencer seeing the light. They should instead frame it for what it actually is: a split in MAGA media over Ukraine and Russia that is ultimately a domestic turf war disguised as statecraft."

As President Donald Trump's declining health becomes more and more unavoidable, one top political analyst told The Daily Beast that there is one official most likely to seize power, and it is not one most might expect.

Political analyst and commentator David Rothkopf appeared as a guest on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, where he presented his argument about the top aide he believes is set to seize power from Trump amid his evident decline. Instead of the obvious candidate, Vice President JD Vance, Rothkopf suggested that it will be one of the president's most controversial and staunchly loyal aides: Stephen Miller.

“This is an 80-year-old guy who is obviously not physically or mentally healthy or up to the job he’s got,” Rothkopf said. “Trump’s schedule is so micromanaged these days, and he does a couple of hours a day, he doesn’t appear on TV, he does fewer of these open press things than he used to do, and it’s because people are sort of easing him away. This happened with Biden, by the way, where they just sort of don’t put you center stage. And it does raise a question, which is: If he declines further, if he is less capable of handling the job, who’s going to handle it for him?”

Rothkopf continued, suggesting that Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy, would be the one to "handle" things with Trump incapacitated, urging staffer to "Just send those memos to me."

"We have had multiple times in our history — after Eisenhower’s heart attacks, when FDR was in his declining health at the end of his term, when Woodrow Wilson was bedridden after a stroke — where other people did the job of president. And I’ve got to tell you, you look at Donald Trump, you look at the bruises, you look at his behavior, you look at his age, you look at his family history, and we could be heading for one of these periods where somebody other than Trump is actually, behind the scenes, the acting president."

Rothkopf also delved into the things he heard about how cabinet officials and staffers handled matters when former President Ronald Reagan began to decline cognitively while still in office.

"I talked to people like Frank Carlucci was a Defense Department, the Secretary of Defense under Reagan, and Colin Powell, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and later Secretary of State," Rothkopf explained. "And they said that after Reagan entered his decline, they had rules after 5 p.m., they didn't ask a question. They said they would try to resolve the question among themselves, and it would get passed on. And, you know, his role as president grew more diminished. They would run more things by Nancy Reagan."

He added: "Same thing happened during the Nixon administration when, as a result of Watergate, he started drinking more heavily, and there was even one instance during the Nixon administration when there was a report of an incoming Russian missile attack. Al Haig, who was acting as the chief of staff at the time, didn't call Nixon. He called [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger. He said, what do we do with this?"

Although federal prosecutor and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, the U.S. president questioned her loyalty after she dropped a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against former Olympian David Hearn — who Trump accused, without evidence, of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Pirro stated that there was no case and no credible evidence against Hearn. But Trump, according to The Hill, wants Pirro to reopen the case despite her objections. And he is reportedly considering firing Pirro from DOJ.

Journalists Julia Manchester and Sophie Brams, reporting in The Hill, explain, "It's unclear whether President Trump will ultimately fire U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally, but his recent comments and posts about the Reflecting Pool signal he is not letting the possibility go anytime soon. Pirro's future in the Trump administration has not yet been guaranteed roughly a week after Trump lashed out at the former Fox News host over her move to drop vandalism charges against U.S. Olympian David Hearn."

In a Friday, August 7 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, " Now that people are able to see it up close, they are reporting pure VANDALISM at The Reflecting Pool…. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro should re-visit her hastily made decision." But with the 2026 midterms less than three months away, some Trump allies believe that his obsession with Hearn isn't doing Republicans any good.

Manchester and Brams report, "Some Republicans say they view the entire saga surrounding the Reflecting Pool, as well as the administration's other renovation projects, as an unnecessary distraction when the president's focus should be on the midterms."

A former senior Trump White House official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told The Hill, "He needs to focus on the economy, wrapping up the Iran war and nothing else if he's going to have any chance of holding the House. If Trump loses the House or Senate, the Reflecting Pool will be the least of his problems. He won't get the Arch, he won't get the ballroom, and he won't get the statues. So, he needs to remember that."

That source also told The Hill, "The fact that he is still wasting even a moment thinking about the Reflecting Pool with under three months before the midterms is just nuts."

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, however, is furious with Pirro.

During a Monday, August 10 appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" vodcast, Navarro angrily said, "Never mention her friggin' name to me because that woman still refuses to fire John Crabb, the prosecutor who was involved in putting you and me behind bars. Jeanine, are you listening?"

Law professor and former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, a frequent legal analyst for MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), argues it is highly improper for Trump to be pressuring Pirro in this way.

DOJ alumni McQuade told The Hill, "(Justice Department) policy specifically provides that partisan politics may not be considered in such (charging) decisions. Pirro should be free to make her own decisions based on facts, independent from White House interference. That's what it means to live in a democracy that upholds the rule of law."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is taking digital followers on her journey to freeze her eggs and conservatives were quick to ridicule it. The White House really wants them to stop.

The conservative right responded with attacks after the Democratic lawmaker posted behind-the-scenes footage of her egg freezing journey. Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called later-in-life pregnancy “totally backward and ridiculous” in a post on X.

“If she got pregnant now, it would technically be a geriatric pregnancy," Walsh posted. "Instead she’s freezing her eggs. This desire to start having children late in life is completely baffling to me. I’ll have kids in their 20s by the time I turn 50. AOC apparently wants to have a toddler at that age."

Andrew Kolvet, spokesperson for Turning Point USA who has been hosting The Charlie Kirk Show, similarly bashed AOC for freezing her eggs and making it public.

“This is not female ‘liberation,’ it’s a cautionary tale,” he claimed on X. “This is the message progressives spread when it comes to family formation, and one of the reasons why fertility rates are cratering. Just freeze your eggs, kids! Pursue that career, even if you’ve been engaged for 4 years to a man you’ve known since college.”

Conservative podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey attacked Ocasio-Cortez for "glamorizing the lie that women can have it all. You can't. Biology is real and how you order your life makes or breaks your future."

Conservatives, particularly religious ones, have spent the past few years calling on young people to have more children. Over the decades, a crashed economy, the pandemic, inflation and the high costs of housing, child care and school loans have put the Millennial and Gen Z generations in a difficult financial spot, Newsweek reported last year. Now, conservatives appear to want to dictate when families should be having children.

Axios reported that the White House really wants the right to stop talking about Ocasio-Cortez's eggs.

"Conservative men dunking on AOC for freezing her eggs is not a winning message with women voters," replied Alexa Henning, a MAGA consultant who recently left the State Department.

"I have many conservative friends who, because they decided to put careers first, froze their eggs and had babies and families later in life," she added. "That should be celebrated."

For most people who can't afford to freeze their eggs, having children simply isn't an option.

"We most certainly want to encourage more women and families to have children, period," a senior White House official told Axios. "That's a diplomatic way of saying, 'Yes, the Matt Walsh messaging is not helpful.'"

"This isn't really a winner for Republicans," said one Trump adviser. They added that the midterms were mere months away.

Early on in her career, AOC did an interview with CNN's Dana Bash where she talked about being a parent and having children and the congresswoman made it clear that she wanted to hold off because she wanted to be "present" in the child's life. That's not currently an option for a member of Congress.

Katie Miller, spouse of deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, also took AOC's side, saying that those who want to increase the birth rate "can't be a purist about how it happens. The most efficient way to have babies is the old-fashioned way: Get married, have children young."

Since the elimination of Roe v. Wade, many male internet influencers and politicians, like New Jersey state Sen. Edward Durr, a Republican, have argued, "A woman does have a choice! Keep her legs closed."

Six years later, alt-pop and indie singer-songwriter Val Merza wrote on Facebook, "Women started keeping their legs closed, just as men wished. Now men are bothered by the high number of childfree women and the low birth rate."

U.S. President Donald Trump's foes have been consistently critical of his makeover proposals for the Washington, DC area, from a White House ballroom to the Kennedy Center to a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. And Trump is drawing scathing criticism for the damage inflicted on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Now, according to the Daily Beast, a major Trump loyalist — Project 2025 author Dennis Kirk — will likely be in charge of any possible investigation of the "Reflecting Pool fiasco."

"Donald Trump is planning to put one of his most reliably right-wing goons in charge of any eventual investigation into his botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool," journalist William Vaillancourt reports in the Daily Beast. "The 80-year-old president personally oversaw the $16 million project to refurbish the DC landmark, only to watch as the waters turned slimy green and the pool lining split. He quickly blamed the damage on vandalism, even though his handpicked DC prosecutor couldn't make any charges stick and passed the blame to Doug Burgum's Interior Department, which was in charge of the refurb."

Trump, Vaillancourt notes, has nominated Kirk "to run the Interior Department's Inspector General Office — the watchdog that will oversee any investigation."

In 2024, Project 2025 was the Heritage Foundation's in-depth blueprint for a second Trump administration. Trump, during the 2024 presidential race, distanced himself from the highly controversial document. But critics countered that Project 2025 was written by some of Trump's closest allies — including Kirk.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) is a scathing opponent of the Kirk nomination, attacking him as a "fake and fraudulent watchdog."

In an August 5 post on his website, Huffman said of Kirk, "Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump. This man helped write the Project 2025 playbook for seizing control of the federal workforce. Now, he sits inside the office charged with rooting out corruption at Interior, the department that manages our national parks, public lands, Tribal programs, and now under Trump, gold-slathered statues and a botched Reflecting Pool renovation. That same office is weighing serious ethics investigations into senior officials in this administration. It's no surprise the White House suddenly wants its own man inside the one place that Trump's cronies still have reason to fear."

Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, is lambasting the Kirk nomination as well — noting the firing of for Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt.

Weiss, in an official statement, warned, "Interior's watchdog was fired, left vacant for 18 months, and is now hosting one of the architects of Project 2025. At least five investigation requests from members of Congress are sitting in that office right now, and its integrity has been compromised. Congress cannot outsource its constitutional oversight duty to an inspector general’s office taken over by the White House."

President Donald Trump has created a White House where "the buck never stops with the people who actually hold power," "a new piece from MS NOW argued, and it is a "master class" in endless blame that his Cabinet is taking to heart.

In a piece published Tuesday morning, reporter Hayes Brown detailed how Trump has made "deflecting blame for mistakes, lapses and failures ... completely normal," despite the long tradition of presidents accepting blame for their administration's shortcomings. Instead, his growing list of failed policies and ideas has been pinned on a predictable cast of scapegoats, including "underlings; Democrats (in general or specific); strawmen of any political stripe; or, in a pinch, other key members of the administration."

No mounting failure has proven more ripe for dismissal than his abysmal popularity and the effect it is set to have on the GOP in the midterms.

"Trump put on a master class of the technique during an interview with Punchbowl News last week," Brown wrote. "His abysmal polling numbers and string of unforced errors have threatened the GOP’s chances of holding control of Congress after the midterm elections. Trump insisted, though, that he isn’t the source of the problem: 'The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. … They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.'”

In response, Trump's Cabinet has proven they are "willing to take his lessons to heart," even if none of them have quite mastered the art of deflection as the president has. Under the president's model, officials have learned that "blame can be spread laterally among equals, down toward subordinates or even backward against the flow of time, but never up to the top," often leaving "Federal staffers down the chain" unable to fight back against accusations.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been a skilled student in his time in office," Brown continued. "In the early days of the war against Iran, the Pentagon chief was full of bravado and happy to take credit for what he claimed was a swift, decisive victory. As the conflict stretched out and munitions stockpiles have reportedly been massively depleted, he’s sought to duck any criticism. While begging Congress for a cash infusion to restore the military’s weapons supply, Hegseth both denied that there is even a shortage and also blamed the Biden administration for 'four years of underinvestment and mismanagement.'”

He concluded later: "Trump’s abdication of this tenet has fostered this fecundity of finger pointing. Beyond the unnecessary drama it engenders, it is simply no way to run a government. Without accountability, failures are left to fester instead of getting fixed. Trump has crafted an administration that follows his example in shirking responsibility, placing self-interest above the interests of the nation. The buck stops nowhere in Trump’s White House."

On Monday evening, August 10, the Washington Post and the New York Times both reported that because of an "Iranian assassination threat," U.S. President Donald Trump secretly flew from Turkey in July on an alternate military aircraft. White House officials, in July, told reporters that Trump was flying on Air Force One, but according to the Post and the Times, that aircraft was used as a decoy when Trump was really on a different aircraft. And according to journalist Chris Geidner, this reporting raises "big questions about the recent NYT subpoenas."

The Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) drew vehement criticism from many journalists for subpoenas of Times journalists, who denounced the subpoenas as an intimidation tactic. The DOJ, however, withdrew the subpoenas on July 23.

According to Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Eric Schmitt and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, "Top administration officials engaged in an elaborate deception to spirit President Trump out of Turkey during the NATO Summit there last month, transporting him in a catering container to a military jet because of a threat against him and Air Force One from Iran, two senior U.S. officials said on Monday."

Geider, in his Law Dork blog, argues that reporting from the Times (which described the use of a decoy plane as an "elaborate ruse") and Post speaks volumes about Trump's adversarial relationship with the press.

"This is a story about Trump's Qatari-donated 'new' Air Force One, the 'old' Air Force One, and a secret third plane, identified by the Post as 'an Air Force C-32A,'" Geidner explains. "It's also a story about the way the Trump administration lies to the public and to the press, as well as how senior administration officials — up to and including Trump — might have been willing to go so far as to put the lives of others, including members of the media, at risk. Finally, it's a story of how the Trump administration quickly went on the offense in the aftermath of the 'ruse' — subpoenaing some of the first reporters who dove into what was happening."

Geidner elaborates, "The Times had reported, on July 8, that the use of the old Air Force One was a 'security precaution' in Turkey and then reported, on July 9, that the Qatari-donated jet 'lacks the same defensive countermeasures' as the old Air Force One. The next day, the Trump administration — via the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York — subpoenaed Times journalists, leading to the high-profile fight that ended with the office withdrawing the subpoenas, and others subsequently issued for phone records, at a hearing before a skeptical judge on July 23."

Geidner argues that "it appears that the Times is reporting that it believes the Trump administration purposely misled reporters to publish information that the administration believed could make those reporters the target of an attack."

"Think about the implications of this — 'The Trump administration purposely misled reporters to publish information that the administration believed could make those reporters the target of an attack' — if it is true," Geidner emphasizes. "If that is what happened, the subpoenas issued by then-U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton's office in the Southern District of New York raise even more essential questions about what the Trump administration, the Justice Department, SDNY, USAO, and Clayton were doing here — and why."

President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate for Minnesota governor, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, just had a Trump-ian response to being fact-checked during an interview — namely, to angrily rant at the interviewer.

“Lindell spoke to me from a desk with a looming lion painting in the background and statuettes of bald eagles,” reported MinnPost's Matthew Blake on Monday. “The interview got a bit rocky, particularly after Lindell claimed that Gov. Tim Walz had never once cooperated with federal immigration officials.”

Blake pointed out that Walz has worked with the federal government, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement even publicly acknowledging this.

“Walz is a very bad, evil man,” Lindell told Blake. “He has never cooperated with the Trump administration. I know that for a fact.”

This was not the only occasion when Blake had to push back against Lindell falsehoods with facts.

“Lindell also claimed that he had won every defamation lawsuit filed against him for his stolen election claims,” Blake wrote. “Not true. An appeals court did reverse a $5 million judgment against Lindell. But in March, a federal judge in Colorado affirmed a $2.7 million jury verdict.”

Blake added that the plaintiff, former Dominion director Eric Coomer, suffered immensely because of Lindell’s lies about the 2020 presidential election.

“Coomer said he received continual death threats after Lindell called him out by name for supposedly rigging the 2020 presidential election,” Blake reported. “Coomer’s lawyers are trying to collect money from Lindell and his attorneys. Lindell has asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case.”

He also pointed out that “Lindell is doing ‘OK financially’ despite spending, by his estimate, $80 million on a nationwide barnstorming tour against electronic voting machines.”

Lindell’s legal troubles have received a great deal of media attention. In July, Law and Crime’s Matt Naham reported that “after Mike Lindell was held in civil contempt and hit with a $500-per-day fine for 103 days for refusing to pay sanctions he's owed Smartmatic for years, a federal judge has given the MyPillow CEO exactly one month to pay an ‘extra penalty’ for his defiance.”

Naham continued, “In late June, Smartmatic asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to clarify whether the voting machine conspiracy theorist would pay some of the contempt penalty to the company or if the sum was to be paid directly to the court. The judge, a Donald Trump appointee, answered that question on Monday by entering a judgment in favor of Smartmatic and giving Lindell until Aug. 21 to ‘pay the total daily contempt penalty of $51,500’ to the ‘Registry of the Court.’"

In addition to fighting litigation, Lindell is also fending off questions about whether he is legally allowed to run for Minnesota governor. In July, it was reported that Lindell is not even registered to vote in Minnesota.

"Before he can vote for himself in next month’s primary, Mike Lindell needs to register to vote in the state he wants to lead as governor," the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. "The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office said Lindell, President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate, 'does not have an active record,' said Cassondra Knudson, spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State, when asked if Lindell is a registered voter."

It continued, "A Minnesota Star Tribune review of voter records shows Lindell has an active voter registration in Texas. Lindell acknowledged last year he had been living in Texas and that he’d have to re-establish residency in Minnesota to run for governor, something he says he has now done. But Lindell has not signed up to cast a ballot for himself since his return to Minnesota, and Texas lists an active voter registration record for the MyPillow CEO."