When Donald Trump was on the campaign trail in 2024, he hammered the Biden Administration relentlessly over the economy — including then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump blamed Harris and then-President Joe Biden for high prices, promising to bring them down "on Day 1" if he won the election. And he focused heavily on grocery prices as well as the cost of gas.

But 13 and one-half months into Trump's second presidency, inflation is still a major concern for many Americans. And New York Magazine's Ed Kilgore, in an article published early Monday afternoon, March 9, argues that Trump is now at odds with his own cost-of-living messages — especially when it comes to energy prices.

"Donald Trump's 'war of choice' against Iran is a big departure from his administration's alleged determination to focus on improving the domestic economy and addressing concerns about affordability before crucial midterm elections this November," Kilgore explains. "But aside from the president's spectacular failure to stay on message, there is a more specific problem with the sudden lurch into a regional war in the Middle East. To the extent Trump had an actual affordability agenda, other than calling concerns about living costs 'a hoax,' a central pillar was keeping energy prices low by demolishing any obstacles to maximum exploitation of fossil-fuel resources."

Kilgore continues, "Aside from the beneficial effect this might have on prices for other goods and services influenced by energy costs, the 'drill baby drill' mentality was designed to reduce gasoline pump prices — one of the most visible inflation indicators from the perspective of regular folks. Suddenly, the United States has produced an energy-price crisis for itself and for the whole world, Reuters reports."

According to Kilgore, "American motorists could soon pay more at the pump amid spiking oil prices due to the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran, with experts predicting gasoline prices could rise sharply this week."

Trump, Kilgore notes, made a "decision to subordinate economic policy to another presidential military adventure."

According to Fortune's Jim Edwards, the war in Iran is going badly from both an economic standpoint and a national security standpoint.

Edwards, in a March 9 article, reports, "It's day 10 of the war with Iran. The price of oil briefly hit $119 per barrel this morning, and stock markets fell sharply around the world as it became clear that the war would become worse before it got better: Iran appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of its recently killed leader, as its new supreme leader. He's a hardliner who will likely seek revenge for the death of his father…. Fortune’s Jason Ma reported that, when asked in the Oval Office last week for the worst-case scenario in Iran, Trump replied, 'I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen.' That is exactly where we are right now."

Kilgore points out that rising energy prices could be a major problem for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

"Shortly before the 2024 presidential election," Kilgore notes, "I was filling up my car with gas in California, and someone had placed on the pump a little decal of Trump pointing at the per-gallon prices and saying, Biden did this! If pump prices continue to go up in 2026, it will be even easier to show that Trump did this! And the price will be paid not just by consumers but by Republican candidates whose affordability arguments have been blown up by the explosions in Iran."

The White House was a revolving door during Donald Trump's first presidency, which found him clashing with many of his appointees and announcing their firings on social media. Firings of administration officials, however, haven't been nearly as common during Trump's second term, as he has made a point of surrounding himself with MAGA loyalists. But on Thursday, March 5, the news broke that Trump was firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma).

Noem wasn't the only one who was fired that week. CBS News reported that Todd Inman had been fired the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

In a statement to CBS News, Inman said he learned he was being fired on March 6. And details on possible reasons why he was fired emerged on March 9.

"To date," Inman told CBS News on March 8, "I have not received any reason for this termination."

But CBS News' Jennifer Jacobs, on March 9, tweeted, "NEWS: White House is citing use of alcohol on the job, harassment of staff, misuse of govt resources as reasons Todd Inman removed from National Transportation Safety Board, per @CBSNews @emmacnicholso . Inman was the NTSB's initial on-scene spokesman at midair collision in D.C. He said Sunday he hadn't been given reason for dismissal."

Inman served in the U.S. Department of Transportation during Trump's first presidency, reporting to then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (who is married to former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell).

Inman, on March 8, referenced the aviation disasters that occurred during his time on the NTSB.

Inman told CBS News, "Having been the member on scene for two of the largest aviation incidents in the past two decades, working with all of the impacted families and first responders has made me appreciate how the original mission of the NTSB is more crucial now than ever before. Witnessing these horrible accidents have undoubtedly taken a toll on me and my family and has changed my perspective in a positive way on how we regulate safety for the traveling public."

Inman's firing is generating a lot of comments on X.

Inside Elections' Nathan Gonzales tweeted, "Kind of interesting reasoning in light of news about another Cabinet official."

Business consultant John Hochroth posted, "Are they firing him because he did these things, or because he didn't do enough of them?"

X user Jocelyn Johnson remarked, "Real reason for his dismissal: he refused to blame DEI for the crash."

Another X user, Piper Holmes, wrote, "So basically we’ll never know why he was fired. (It's not like this administration is ever truthful)."

As the granddaughter of President Donald Trump and daughter of Donald Trump Jr., 18-year-old Kai Trump enjoys full U.S. Secret Service protection when she's out in public. Now, Kai Trump is drawing strong criticism for publicizing a TikTok video and a shopping spree at a time when the United States is at war with Iran.

A video posted on TikTok shows Kai Trump with jets in the background while the words "she does what she wants and she looks cool doing it" are heard over music. Another video, posted on YouTube, shows her in the upscale Los Angeles grocery store Erewhon. And her activities are generating a lot of comments on X, formerly Twitter.

The Russian government-owned RT tweeted, "Kai Trump SLAMMED online for 'out of touch' TikTok featuring war machines 'She does what she wants & she looks cool doing it' How cool is war?"

Wayne Waldrop, CEO of Bloom Wave Digital Marketing, disagreed with the argument that "Kai is off limits."

Waldrop posted, "Kai Trump made herself not off limits the second she decided to post content aura farming in front of military aircrafts. She is a grown adult and she should fight in her Grandpa's war if she supports it so much and thinks it is so cool. Why do American lives have to be lost while they smile and film the behind the scenes? Also, she could have at least read the room and hold off on her shopping videos one week into a new war her family helped start."

In a separate tweet, Waldrop highlighted Kai Trump's shopping spree and wrote, "This title is absolutely wild. Kai Trump decided to flex her shopping trip with her Secret Service detail while the whole country is struggling and war is breaking out."

Waldrop also complained, "I can't believe she still couldn't just pretend for like two weeks."

Journalist Saul Gonzales commented, "New generation, new grifts."

X user Jayce Mcwood said of Kai Trump's video, "It's disrespectful"

Another X user, Francis Pentangelo, tweeted, "How much are taxpayers shelling out so she has security to go around making videos? They're all grifters."

Attorney Tracey Gallagher, "Give me a break. Put a uniform on."

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran is drawing widespread criticism among Democrats, and some Republicans are critical as well — including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), both of whom view the military strikes as a betrayal of the non-interventionist "America First" platform he embraced in 2024.

In an article published on March 9, MS NOW reporter Kevin Frey details the frustrations of Democratic lawmakers who believe that the Trump Administration isn't being forthcoming with them about the war with Iran.

"As President Donald Trump wages a military campaign against Iran, key Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly frustrated with what the administration is sharing with them," Frey explains. "Or, more precisely, what the administration isn't sharing. It's a concern that predates the Iran conflict — and, to some extent, the current White House. But when lawmakers have gathered recently behind closed doors to hear from administration officials about ongoing operations, Democrats say they've been struck by the dearth of new information they're receiving."

Fellow MS NOW reporter Matt Fuller, linking to Frey's article on X, formerly Twitter, noted, "If you've ever wondered what those classified briefings on Capitol Hill are actually like — what members actually learn about Iran strikes — the answer is hardly nothing. An in-depth look at what the Trump administration is sharing — or what it isn't."

Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-New York) is among the House Democrats expressing his frustration.

Morelle told MS NOW, "I don't think you, at the end, get really anything more in these classified briefings with the Trump Administration than you would by watching MS NOW or CNN. There's no sort of real in-depth analysis or information that you couldn't get by reading the paper or looking at the news."

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) told MS NOW, "Virtually nothing in these stupid briefings is actually classified. Gen. Caine and (Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth try to dazzle us with how amazing our military is. The Republicans all clap. And then, (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio does a bunch of fast talk."

After President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Salon's Amanda Marcotte — in a biting article published on March 6 — argued that she "excelled in debasing herself to please her boss" only to get fired anyway. Noem, Marcotte observed, even altered her physical appearance to please Trump. But in the end, according to Marcotte, Noem's loyalty was rewarded with a firing via social media.

Marcotte revisited the subject of MAGA loyalty to Trump during an appearance on The New Republic's "The Daily Blast" podcast posted on March 9. Host Greg Sargent noted that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's "cult-like obsequiousness gets dialed up to 11" whenever the "news gets particularly bad for Donald Trump," and Marcotte explained the "psychology" behind Leavitt and other Trump loyalists.

Marcotte told Sargent, "I think at the end of the day, the most important psychology that keeps these people on board is just that admitting that Trump is bad or wrong or a failure is admitting that all those people who, for a decade, have been telling you that you made a mistake were right. And what's weird is the longer this drags on, the harder it is for them to let go without some kind of offramp. And I will say, if there ever was an offramp, I do kind of think the Iran war might be it — because again, they don't want another [George] Bush."

Marcotte added, "Trump ran pretty explicitly the first time as: I am not another Bush. He made fun of the Bush that was in the race, and here he is, another Bush."

Trump's loyalists, Marcotte emphasized, are so invested in defending him that they refuse to publicly acknowledge all the things that are wrong with his administration — from Iran to the economy.

Marcotte told Sargent, "I agree that (Leavitt's) first and foremost motivation is making her boss feel good so she keeps her job. I would love to like look inside her head and see if she actually thinks it makes a difference to say these obsequious, like laughable things — if she thinks she's actually persuading anybody, or if it's just Trump, her boss, like managing her boss' feelings, because it might just be that…. I think we're seeing a lot of people who are behaving like they don't know what to do. They don't know what's going to happen next."

Marcotte continued, "They're at the whims of a mercurial boss who may not be remembering super well what he said one minute to the next. And I think that there is no plan here. I think that they're just kind of winging it in the most like ridiculous way."

One need only watch MS NOW or read The Bulwark to see examples of well-known conservatives and libertarians who have vehement contempt for President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Three of MS NOW's top hosts — former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, ex-White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace and former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele — were prominent figures in the pre-MAGA GOP of the past. And The Bulwark features a who's-who of Never Trump conservatives, including Bill Kristol, Mona Charen (a former Nancy Reagan speechwriter), Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller (an ex-GOP strategist).

Yet Trump dominates the Republican Party in 2026, and many GOP lawmakers and governors are afraid to offer even tepid criticism of the president.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times on March 9, Jon A. Shields — who teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California — stresses that at the local level, there are still conservative Republicans in red states who haven't gone full MAGA. But he fears that their place in the GOP might be endangered.

"Millions of Americans of all political stripes have moved to red states since 2020, mostly looking for a better quality of life," Shields argues. "Why does Republican governance in the states still seem so, well, competent? Partly, it's because many local Republican elites have been quietly resisting the MAGA-fication of their party, even in the heart of Trump country. But that resistance is increasingly fragile — and it may not hold out much longer."

Shields adds, "If the old guard is driven out of the party once and for all, many Americans will eventually confront an unexpected legacy of President Trump's revolution: a nation where there are no sound alternatives to progressive rule."

Shields cites Wyoming as an example of a deep red state where local Republicans haven't necessarily gone total MAGA.

"Plenty of traditional Republicans have either retired or lost their own primaries," the Claremont McKenna professor explains. "But enough of them have hung on to give the old Republican elite a significant bloc in the state legislature…. This Republican civil war is being waged in many red states, mostly beneath the radar of the national media…. These clashes have gone largely unnoticed outside the states where they’re happening, and have become visible only when they have clear national significance."

But how much longer non-MAGA Republicans in red states will be able to hang on in local politics, according to Shields, remains to be seen.

"The anti-MAGA resistance in state Republican parties is real," Shields writes. "It's widespread. But it's not clear whether it can turn back the MAGA tide. So far, the tide is still coming in. Old guard Republicans everywhere are on their heels, clinging to shrinking vestiges of power. Since 2016, they have suffered numerous setbacks across the country, while Mr. Trump and his allies have exerted increasing influence far down the ballot."

Although firings were a regular occurrence during Donald Trump's first presidency, they have been the exception rather than the rule since his return to the White House on January 20, 2025. Trump is surrounding himself with unquestioning MAGA loyalists, and there hasn't been nearly as much turnover this time. But Trump has fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) as a replacement.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in a biting article published on March 6, described Noem as someone who "excelled in debasing herself to please her boss" — and even altered her physical appearance — only to get fired anyway. Meanwhile, the New York Times' Frank Bruni weighs in on Noem's departure in his March 9 newsletter, citing her as a glaring example of the incompetence that continues to plague Trump's second administration.

"She's unprofessional," Bruni says of Noem. "During her mercifully terminated stint as the homeland security secretary, she made extravagant claims without much if any attempt to ascertain their veracity. She used government resources in questionable ways. She treated public service as private amusement. That's not how true professionals behave. But it's how many senior officials in the Trump Administration do. And it's a big part of my and many other observers' profound apprehensions about the military strikes in Iran."

Bruni adds, "We can't trust that they got the degree of deliberation that war demands. We can't assume temperance, reflection, rationality. Those hallmarks of professionalism aren't values to which the Trump Administration subscribes."

From FBI Director Kash Patel to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Bruni laments, Trump has consistently low standards when it comes to nominees.

"There's a tendency to talk of Noem, Patel and their perk-minded compatriots as grifters," Bruni explains. "The appellation certainly fits. It's tempting to focus on the inadequate experience and kooky beliefs of flamboyant strivers — from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence — whom Trump has elevated to the top tiers of government. But that obscures and gives short shrift to their fundamental sloppiness, selfishness, disregard for proper procedure, evasion of accountability. They simply don't do their jobs — or at least don't do them earnestly, maturely and competently."

Bruni continues, "That was clear early on, when the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, used the messaging app Signal for a group chat that discussed sensitive military information, then dismissed any complaints about that cavalierly — an adverb that, when coupled with spitefully, covers about 99 percent of his behavior. It's clear when lawyers for the Justice Department — Alina Habba, Lindsey Halligan, Jeanine Pirro — have their cases thrown out or their appointments voided. When their boss, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, shows up at a congressional hearing with a crude cheat sheet filled with puerile insults."

After President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) for the position, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) called for Trump to fire another person in his second administration: White House adviser Stephen Miller.

Never Trump conservative Rick Wilson and liberal journalist Molly Jong-Fast discussed Tillis' outspokenness on a March 8 video for their YouTube show "Fast Politics." And they attributed Tillis' willingness to criticize Trump officials to the fact that the conservative senator isn't seeking reelection in the 2026 midterms.

Although Tillis plans to serve out the rest of his term, he will be exiting Congress in early January 2027. Tillis, facing an aggressive GOP primary challenge for not being MAGA enough, decided against seeking another term.

Jong-Fast, with amusement in her voice, said of Tillis, "He's had that thing where, when you're a Republican and you decide you're not going to run again, you become suddenly very brave."

Also sounding amused, Wilson — a former GOP strategist who expressed his disdain for President Donald Trump and the far-right MAGA movement by leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent — told Jong-Fast, "You gain superpowers, in fact…. Incredible superpowers that allow you to have a shred of moral clarity for years of having your lips firmly attached to Trump's backside…. But Tillis has become a born-again hard MOFO, and he has been ripping the living hell out of tiny Santa Monica Goebbels, Stephen Miller, on the Sunday shows. It's been a delight. "

Jong-Fast, commenting on Trump's decision to fire Noem and nominate Mullin, told Wilson, "The real story here is Stephen Miller, who is running the show."

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Although firings were common during President Donald Trump's first term, he hasn't fired nearly as many people since returning to the White House — a fact often attributed to his insistence on being surrounded by unquestioning MAGA loyalists this time. But the firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem marked the departure of a high-level official from Trump's second administration.

Now, conservative Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) is calling for the firing of another Trump loyalist: White House policy adviser Stephen Miller.

During a Sunday morning, March 8 appearance on CNN, Tillis told host Jake Tapper that Miller is a "big problem" for the Trump Administration.

When Tapper asked Tillis if "Stephen Miller should go, he quickly responded, "Oh, of course, I do."

"He is not worried about substance," Tillis said of Miller. "He's more worried about form, but I also think that he has an outsized influence over the operations of the Cabinet. And I believe we've got qualified Cabinet members there that sometimes are doing less than what they want to, because of his direction and his outsized influence. He's a big problem in this administration. He has been from the beginning."

Miller, Tillis argued, is having a very negative influence on Trump's immigration policies.

The conservative senator told Tapper, "It gives me pause that you had people like Stephen Miller calling the shots. It was Stephen Miller who said it was the position of the United States that we should go after Greenland. And Stephen Miller, that's been repeatedly responsible for embarrassments for the president of the United States by acting too quickly speaking, first, and thinking later."

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In a Saturday, March 7 post on his Truth Social platform, U.S. President Donald Trump offered a vigorous defense of his decision to go to war with Iran and claimed that the operation is going extremely well. But Trump's arguments got a strong pushback from Never Trump conservative Tim Miller, who stressed that the president is failing to offer a "coherent" explanation for getting the United States into war.

Trump's escalation with Iran represents a continuation of his longstanding adversarial stance toward the Iranian regime. Since taking office, Trump has pursued an aggressive posture toward Tehran, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposing strict economic sanctions.

The administration has repeatedly accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East through its support of proxy militias and regional actors. Throughout his first term, Trump authorized military strikes against Iranian military commanders, including the 2020 assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, which significantly raised tensions and prompted retaliatory threats from Iran. These actions set the stage for an increasingly confrontational relationship, one that Trump has continued to fuel with inflammatory rhetoric and hardline policies upon his return to office.

In a video for the conservative website The Bulwark, Miller — a frequent guest on MS NOW and a former GOP strategist — went over Trump's points, one by one, and took them apart.

Trump posted, "Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attacks."

Miller, in a mocking tone, told viewers, "I don't think they've apologized to their Middle East neighbors."

Trump wrote that Iran was "looking to take over and rule the Middle East" — to which Miller responded, "Maybe aspirationally."

Trump called Iran as "the loser of the Middle East," and Miller described that rhetoric as comparable to a "nine-year-old."

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During his first presidency, Donald Trump was a relentless critic of neoconservatives —arguing that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a total disaster. And his America First views, greatly influenced by paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan, were often described as "isolationist."

But Trump, since returning to the White House, has taken a much more interventionist turn — from the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro to pushing for the U.S. to buy Greenland (an idea that European leaders vehemently oppose) to calling for Canada to become "the 51st state." And Trump escalated his interventionism by going to war with Iran.

In an op-ed published by the conservative Washington Examiner on March 8, journalist Timothy P. Carney lays out some reasons why Republicans should proceed with caution when it comes to war.

"If we take conservatism to be a real habit of mind, grounded in insights and a sound anthropology," Carney writes, "then the full weight of conservatism comes down against regime changes and wars of choice…. Overthrowing the current order, even when that order is rife with problems, typically makes things worse. More broadly: Dramatic changes to complex systems always create unintended and unforeseen consequences, and those consequences are often very bad."

Carney continues, "This isn't merely a foreign policy view. This is something the conservative believes so deeply he may not say it out loud. It's why he's skeptical of grand new plans and revolutions, whether cultural, economic, or otherwise. It's not that we live in the best of all possible worlds, it's that we live in a world more complex than we can imagine. Our power of reason is awesome, but humans trying to rearrange civilization are like amateurs tinkering with a home's electrical system — there's a high risk of disaster."

Carney goes on to describe the "lessons" of the United States' "21st Century regime-change wars."

"In Afghanistan," Carney explains, "we very quickly dethroned the Taliban, and then sunk into a 20-year occupation that ended in a humiliating and deadly retreat in 2021….

We spent more than $9 billion to try and end narcotics trade and production in Afghanistan. This was a total failure. By 2018, Afghanistan was supplying more than 90 percent of the world's opium…. The Iraq War, likewise, was quickly declared a success."

Carney continues, "Our military demolished Iraq's, deposed Saddam Hussein, and soon arrested him. For a moment, we were, as the war's champions predicted, greeted as liberators. Mission Accomplished! But then things spiraled way down. The primary premise for the war, that Saddam was about to use 'weapons of mass destruction,' proved false. The government we stood up collapsed. Our efforts to import Madison democracy failed, and in the vacuum, terrorism blossomed and then spread throughout the region. Many experts argue that the war created ISIS, which then brought hell on the region for many years. Domestically, the war became incredibly unpopular, and led to the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Barack Obama's election in 2008. Iraq today is one of the worst places on the planet to live."

Over the years, a long list of U.S. presidents were voted out of office thanks, in large part, to widespread frustration over the economy — from Republican Herbert Hoover in 1932 during the Great Depression to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 to George H.W. Bush in 1992. Bush had stellar approval ratings in early 1991 and appeared to be heading to a landslide reelection victory, but with the U.S. in a recession in 1992, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton won the popular vote by roughly 5.5 percent and defeated Bush 370-168 in the Electoral College.

In 2026, frustration over the economy is playing a major role in President Donald Trump's weak approval ratings in poll after poll. But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in an article published on March 8, stresses that economic angst can, in some cases, work in favor of authoritarians.

"Millions of Americans are experiencing real financial hardship because of Donald Trump's policies — and it's getting worse," DeVega explains. "The country's economy lost 92,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate increased to 4.4 percent, according to numbers released on Friday morning. Only 13 percent of Americans feel financially secure. Later that afternoon, in a sure signal that investors were spooked by the job numbers and the war in Iran, the S&P 500 plummeted by two percent for the week, wiping out all the gains made in 2026…. Meanwhile, Trump continues to brag about the economy, saying there is so much 'winning' that people are begging him to stop and the affordability crisis is a 'hoax' conjured by Democrats to undermine his MAGA Golden Age."

The Salon journalist continues, "Trump's solipsistic alternate reality, though, does not change the facts. His approval ratings are at record lows, and a majority of Americans correctly blame him for the worsening economy. But this is where the story gets more complicated, and much more dangerous."

DeVega notes that according to a new study from Northwestern University's Center for Communication & Public Policy, authoritarians can benefit from economic woes.

"The conventional wisdom holds that presidents and the incumbent party will be punished at the polls because of the economy, particularly in midterm elections," according to DeVega. "On the surface, the GOP's wave of losses in 2025’s off-year elections would seem to fit that pattern and logic. In reality, matters are much more complicated…. Economic insecurity may actually make authoritarians like Trump more compelling to voters…. Some of the (Northwestern) study's key findings, which were published in the journal Perspectives on Politics, are revealing — and timely."

DeVega adds, "Commitments to liberal democratic norms are conditional, not fixed. When people feel financially secure, support for democratic principles increases. When they feel economically disadvantaged, voters are more open to authoritarianism and autocracy, with characteristics including a biased press, weakened checks on executive power and attacks on the rule of law. Perhaps most striking is that for both liberals and conservatives, political ideology mattered less than economic stress and hardship."

Many opponents of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran fear that his actions could lead to a much broader conflict that will involve a lot more countries than the United States, Iran and Israel. And the number of countries being attacked by Iran, they warn, is growing.

Iran is firing missiles or drones at U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrein, Jordan, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon are attacking one another.

And in Europe on Sunday morning, March 8, an explosion was reported at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway.

Oslo police investigator Frode Larsen told reporters, "One of our hypothesis is that this is terrorism, but we are also exploring other options."

Trump's allies, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are bragging about how well the war is going. But Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, in an article published on March 8, argues that the Trump Administration is, in fact, operating from a position of weakness during the conflict.

"'America is winning,' announced Pete Hegseth during a remarkably ugly Pentagon press conference this past week, in the latest and perhaps greatest example of the second Trump Administration outdoing Mike Judge's legendary 2006 farce 'Idiocracy,'" O'Hehir writes. "Admittedly, there's plenty of competition for that prize: The White House has also released a series of grotesque propaganda videos in recent days, apparently constructed by AI and incorporating images of U.S. strikes on Iran with unlicensed clips from action movies, popular TV series and video games…. Unfortunately, there's a real war happening to real people, including more than 150 children who were apparently killed when a U.S. missile struck a girls' school in southern Iran on February 28."

The Salon journalist warns that the Iran conflict is "likely to create much bigger problems down the road."

"If Hegseth were actually capable of self-awareness," O'Hehir warns, "we might suggest that he was striking macho-man poses on the deck of a sinking ship in an effort to convince himself that his personal brand, along with the rest of the MAGA enterprise, wasn’t headed straight for the historical dumpster. Let's put it this way: This recycled Fox News frat boy, whose bottomless stupidity and moral emptiness make the now-cashiered Kristi Noem seem like a nuanced thinker, seems to be experiencing doubts he cannot quite suppress."

O'Hehir continues, "If that's how it's going, then 'America' isn't winning anything, regardless of what does or doesn't happen in Tehran…. Trying to look manly and tough when your entire regime, from the top on down, consists of shifty characters with a wide range of obvious personality disorders might seem like a categorical error. But it's a core principle of MAGA ideology…. These pathological losers are making America look like a failed state before the whole world, which might be funny if it weren't terrifying."

Psychologist Mary Trump, Donald Trump's 60-year-old niece and the daughter of his late brother Fred Trump Jr., often argues that the president suffers from poor mental health and is pushing destructive policies because of it. Other Donald Trump critics, meanwhile, are arguing that the president not only has mental health issues — he is also causing the mental health of others to suffer.

In an article published by The Guardian on March 8, journalist Ash Sanders details the link between feelings of depression and Trump's second presidency.

Author Ann Cvetkovitch, Sanders notes, is warning that "political depression" is on the rise in the United States.

"Political depression might look like traditional depression — the same hopelessness, despair and shutdown — but its source is different," Sanders explains. "It doesn't come from within, at least not primarily, Cvetkovitch wrote in her 2012 book, 'Depression: A Public Feeling.' It comes from the violence, collapse or unjustness of the world around us. In recent years, political depression has infiltrated the public discourse, the private consciousness and the therapist's office. Two-thirds of respondents in a 2024 LifeStance Health survey said they talk about politics or elections with their therapists. Therapists, too, are noticing an influx of clients seeking support for political stress…. In recent years, political depression has infiltrated the public discourse, the private consciousness and the therapist's office."

Sanders continues, "Two-thirds of respondents in a 2024 LifeStance Health survey said they talk about politics or elections with their therapists. Therapists, too, are noticing an influx of clients seeking support for political stress…. Studies show political stress takes a very real toll on people’s mental and physical health."

Sanders points to Utah resident Rebecca McFaul, who has family in Minneapolis, as an example of someone experiencing "political depression." McFaul described her response to recent violence during Minneapolis immigration raids as "a certain kind of terror and horror at it all."

According to Brett Ford, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto in Canada, politics are a source of chronic stress.

Ford told The Guardian, "Chronic stressors are large-scale, they don’t have clear endpoints, they feel out of your hands, and they reliably evoke negative emotions…. Negative emotions are a really consistent predictor of political engagement and action."

On the right, two GOP lawmakers who are now on President Donald Trump's bad side are from Kentucky: Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie. Tensions between Trump and Massie escalated in 2025 when the libertarian congressman vehemently criticized parts of the Big, Beautiful Bill Act that he viewed as incompatible with fiscal conservativism. Now, Massie is angering Trump with his outspoken criticism of the decision to go to war with Iran.

In an article published on March 8, the New York Times Tim Balk stresses that a GOP congressional primary battle in Kentucky — one that finds incumbent Massie up against Trump loyalist Ed Gallrein.

"Mr. Massie, a libertarian with a contrarian streak, was a rare Republican to split with Mr. Trump over the war," Balk explains. "Only one House Republican, Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio, joined Mr. Massie in supporting a failed measure last week to force the president to go to Congress for approval to continue using force against Iran. As Mr. Massie braces for the fight of his political life against Ed Gallrein, a farmer who has pledged fealty to the president, he has sought to reframe the race, saying it is not simply between him and Mr. Gallrein, but between him and groups, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, that want to 'make an example' out of him…. In a statement, Mr. Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, praised Mr. Trump's handling of the war, and said his own military career had taught him that swift 'action, clear objectives, and overwhelming strength save American lives and prevent larger wars.'"

Massie argues that by opposing Trump's Iran policy, he is agreeing with the Trump of 2024 — who, during the presidential race, promised to keep the United States out of new wars. Some Trump supporters, in fact, claimed that if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won, she would escalate U.S. involvement in the Ukraine/Russia War and drag the U.S. into a Middle Eastern conflict as well.

Massie told the Times, "My Republican colleagues, over and over, are being forced to choose between President Trump's position now and his position on the campaign trail. And I'm sticking with his positions on the campaign trail."

On Friday morning, March 6, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had published "additional Epstein files related to allegations" that President Donald Trump "sexually abused a minor[,] after an NPR investigation found dozens of pages were withheld."

That includes "16 new pages that cover three additional FBI interview summaries with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor," according to NPR reporters Stephen Fowler and Saige Miller.

MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin discussed these developments during a Friday afternoon conversation with host Chris Jansing, arguing that Trump-era DOJ's explanation is falling flat in light of the "salacious" allegations in the files.

"With respect to this Trump accuser," Rubin told Jansing, "she is now detailing, in these documents, how she came to meet Donald Trump — the assault that she says she experienced at his hands. And perhaps, maybe most importantly of all, we understand now why the FBI might have stopped talking to her in October of 2019. This woman told the FBI that she understood that the statutes of limitations with respect to her allegations against both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump had long since passed. And therefore, she said to them, what's the point of my giving you any more detail?"

Jansing asked Rubin if "we know why" the DOJ files in question are "just being released" — to which she responded, "No. I mean, I can tell you what the Department of Justice has said."

"The Department of Justice's public explanation is that these are documents that were inadvertently marked as duplicates during their review and production procedure," Rubin told Jansing. "However, it's unclear to me, given some of the allegations here, whether that is a plausible or even a truthful explanation. As you and I were discussing before the segment started, there are some allegations in some of these other new documents that concern other public people."

The MS NOW legal analyst continued, "That's not to say that the produced files don't contain allegations against public individuals. But given the vivid nature of some of these allegations and how salacious they are, it also seems like this might not be the story of what actually went down."

In addition to his work as a journalist, British reporter Ben Judah is known for his work in the U.K. government — where he served as a special adviser to David Lammy in the Foreign Office. And in an article published by the i Paper in the UK on March 6, Judah recalls his initial reaction after learning that U.S. President Donald Trump had chosen real estate mogul Steve Witkoff as a special envoy to the Middle East.

"Had Trump really appointed some real estate pal of his to wrap up the Gaza War?," Judah remembers. "There was a mixture of shock and scorn in the ranks at how this could possibly have come about. A few old hands predicted his time in diplomacy would be a failure. He'd fail to launch. But Witkoff kept on rising, as the Democrats levelled accusations he sought to enrich himself and the Trump family with fabulous real estate deals in Russia, even Iran, once he'd landed those prize-winning peace deals."

Judah recalls that native New Yorker Witkoff was quite "globalized" when Trump appointed him yet is "very different from a diplomat" in his outlook.

Witkoff, Judah argues, is very much a reflection of the second Trump Administration —which, he warns, is showing a total disregard for diplomacy during its war against Iran.

"The fact is that Trump is not running an administration but a court — where the closeness and confidence of the king is key," Judah laments. "A court where (Israeli Prime Minister) Bibi Netanyahu would turn out to be the greatest courtier. The rise of Witkoff was a story of taking on more and more for the boss. The truth is, in politics, that's not always a good thing. Because when it goes wrong, it's suddenly all on you. There was no grand deal to trumpet for Trump on Fox this week."

Judah continues, "Instead, Witkoff marched through making a series of nuclear justifications that will be pored over by Democrats, historians and journalists like Colin Powell’s at the United Nations on the eve of the Iraq War. Whatever happens now, Witkoff's rise will never end at a Nobel gala night in Oslo. Instead his name will forever be linked to a cataclysmic failure of diplomacy. Then again, maybe it was always thus. No crying in the casino, as they say. One's rise and success can easily turn into catastrophic disaster, with you owning the mess, if you play at the highest stakes on the world stage."

When Democratic strategists are asked about the challenges they face, one of the things that often comes up is the GOP's dominance of Rural America. Democrats in Texas, for example, perform well in major urban centers like Houston, Austin and El Paso, but the state's many rural counties give Republicans a huge advantage in statewide races. And in Pennsylvania, the GOP's domination of rural areas is a sharp contrast to Democrats' domination of Philadelphia.

Farmers, from Pennsylvania to Iowa, are a crucial part of President Donald Trump's base and help the GOP maintain its advantage among rural voters. But according to Politico reporters Daniel Desrochers and Grace Yarrow, frustrations among farmers —including Trump's trade policy — could hurt GOP voter turnout in the 2026 midterms.

"President Donald Trump promised a 'golden age' of American agriculture," the Politico journalists explain in an article published on March 6. "Farm-state Republicans are feeling pressure to make a down payment before the midterms. Over the past five months, the Trump Administration has rolled out trade agreements it says will give farmers access to new markets and reopened Chinese purchases of millions of pounds of soybeans after a trade war-induced, monthslong boycott. It also spearheaded an effort to get $12 billion in direct payments to farmers to recover some of their losses amid the president's trade war…. Republicans from Rural America are warning that one of their key voter bases could sit out this election year — a blow for a party already facing stiff political headwinds."

According to Desrochers and Yarrow, new data shows "farm bankruptcies soaring." And Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) is among the Republicans who is sounding the alarm about farmers' worries.

Moran told Politico, "The anxiety, the anxiousness, the angst, the timing is all something that is really weighing on producers."

Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia) is speaking out as well and told Politico, "We have got to do more now. If Republicans are not worried about the midterms, then they're living in a cave."

Rural voters — whether farmers themselves or simply adjacent to the industry — have repeatedly turned out in droves to support Trump in the past.

Desrochers and Yarrow report that although "rural voters turned out in droves to support Trump in the past," former GOP consultant Brian Reisinger fears they will sit out this year's midterms.

Reisinger told Politico, "The question is not, 'Are they going to suddenly flip to Democrat?' The question is, 'Are they going to be as motivated and as moved by the direction of (Republicans') policy agenda now as they were in 2016 or in 2024?'"

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran is triggering heated debates in right-wing media. While former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — like ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) — considers Trump's military strikes against Iran a betrayal of his American First platform, current Fox News hosts Mark Levin and Sean Hannity are applauding the president's foreign policy.

The Dispatch's Michael Warren examines this right-wing media infighting in an article published on March 6.

"Since Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury last week," Warren explains, "one thing has been clear: The most MAGA of MAGA media are not behind the president. Nowhere else has this been more apparent than on 'War Room,' the live program hosted by Steve Bannon that is part news analysis, part on-air strategy session for the new right. Starting with two days of emergency broadcasts over the weekend, Bannon has been joined by his series of regular guests to provide both neutral military analysis and, increasingly, carefully couched warnings that an extended military operation in Iran would be a terrible mistake…. Bannon, always with an eye toward the MAGA coalition, sounded particularly worried."

On "War Room," Blackwater founder Erik Prince lamented, "I don't think this was in America's interest. It's going to uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction in Iran now."

Warren points out that "Bannon and his fellow skeptics are hardly representative of conservatives and Trump supporters on the Iran question."

"On any given issue," according to Warren, "the most reliable bet on where Republican voters are headed is wherever Trump seems to be going. But there have been notable exceptions, when the opinionmakers of the MAGA-verse have been leading, not lagging, indicators of how Trump’s populist movement was taking matters into its own hands — and leaving the president himself catching up with his own base.

But the more MAGA right-wing media figures are, the reporter stresses, the more likely they are to be questioning or outright opposing Trump's Iran policy.

"The arc of MAGA history is long, but it bends toward conspiracy theories and distrust of institutions," Warren writes. "Could Bannon and others in the MAGA universe be the proverbial canaries in the coal mine warning Trump and his party that the broad support he's getting for the Iran war from his voters may evaporate quickly?.... But a whole range of suboptimal results — a bloody civil war in Iran that leaves the United States in a worse position in the region, say, or a restoration and continuation of the Islamic Republic under new and just-as-recalcitrant leadership, or perhaps a drawn-out military campaign that requires more use of American military personnel, weapons, and materiel than Trump had ever anticipated, or even small-scale terrorist attacks on Americans at home or abroad — risks discrediting Trump on this issue with his party's base."

Warren adds, "If so, the MAGA skeptics won't look like outliers within their own movement. They'll just have been ahead of the curve."

In Texas' 2026 Democratic U.S. Senate primary, voters had a choice between a centrist — State Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian — and a liberal/progressive firebrand: Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is quite popular on the left wing of her party. Lone Star Democrats went with Talarico, who will go up against either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) or far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after Republicans choose their candidate.

Conservatives are taking Talarico seriously. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) believes that the state lawmaker is capable of winning in November if Cornyn isn't the GOP nominee. A Talarico victory in the general election would be a political bombshell, as Texas hasn't had a Democratic U.S. senator since 1993. MS NOW's Chris Jansing is reporting that President Donald Trump plans to endorse Cornyn, not Paxton.

In a Substack column published on March 5, liberal economist Paul Krugman emphasizes that if Democrats are going to start winning statewide races in Texas again, they will need a thorough understanding of the state's economic complexities. And he believes that the MAGA movement is vulnerable in the Lone Star State.

"Talarico, a virtual political nobody six months ago, appears to have a good chance of winning that contest," Krugman explains. "But why has Texas been such a Democratic disappointment for all these years? And what do those disappointments portend for Talarico? Let's begin by understanding that a state's politics often follow economics…. Texas' economic growth is a major reason Democrats perennially hope that they will someday turn the state blue. For in modern America, rich states tend to vote Democratic, while poor states vote Republican: Think Massachusetts versus Mississippi."

Krugman adds, "So as Texas grows richer and more sophisticated, won't it eventually free itself of rabid, backward-looking Republicanism?"

The economist's answer to that question is: not necessarily.

"My initial thought was that economic success might indeed cause Texas to flip politically," Krugman writes. "But the more I look at it, the less convincing I find that case. Why? Because Texas' economic story isn't what many people — including Republicans who boast about it — think it is. And that's an important point even aside from politics. Why has the economy of Texas grown more rapidly than the US economy as a whole? Conservatives like to attribute growth to low taxes. But the claim that low taxes lead to rapid economic growth has been more thoroughly tested in practice than any other proposition in economics, and has failed every time."

Krugman continues, "What Texas does do right, however, is let businesses build stuff, especially housing, in stark contrast with the regulations and multiple veto points that strangle construction in many blue states…. The same openness to building that has held the cost of Texas housing down has also helped the state become by far the nation's largest producer of wind energy. Don't tell Trump."

Krugman is skeptical about Texas becoming a full-fledged blue state anytime soon, but he believes it could evolve into a swing state if Democrats understand its economy and play their cards right.

"So the point here is that while Texas could be shifting towards the blue zone, it won't come easily," the former New York Times columnist argues. "It won’t be a simple matter of a state becoming more progressive as a result of economic progress. In other words, Texas is not about to become New Jersey, or even Colorado. But with the right Democratic candidates, who can straddle the divide between urban Democrats and non-urban Republicans, it could become Georgia. And maybe, just maybe, Texas could blaze the trail for Democrats in other deep red states."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified at two congressional hearings during the same week: a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, March 3, followed by a House Judiciary Committee hearing the next day. And one part of her testimony that is now drawing especially close scrutiny is her claim that President Donald Trump approved her $220 million border security ad campaign with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But Trump, according to Reuters and CNN, is denying that claim.

In a Thursday, March 5 post on X, CNN's Aaron Blake notes, "Noem said under penalty of perjury that Trump approved her $220 million ad campaign. Trump now says that's not true. 'I never knew anything about it,' he tells Reuters."

Reuters' Steve Holland reports, "Noem was questioned by both Democrats and Republicans before a Senate panel on Wednesday about the contract and process to ⁠select the companies. The ads prominently featured Noem, including in a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South ⁠Dakota governor's home state."

Noem said on Tuesday that the contract was awarded through 'a competitive process' ⁠and that no political appointees were involved. On Wednesday, she said the contract ⁠was 'all done correctly, all done legally.'"

Reuters' reporting is generating a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

CNN's Kristin Holmes tweeted, "President Trump tells Reuters he didn't sign off on border security advertising campaign featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 'I never knew anything about it,' Trump said in phone ⁠interview. Here's what Noem told Sen. Kennedy Tues: 'Did the president know you were gonna do this?' Kennedy asked. 'Yes,' Noem replied. 'He did?' 'Uh huh, yes.'"

Attorney Paul Feinstein posted, "Now she'll say I didn't say he approved it!"

Philadelphia-based attorney Christopher Moyer commented, "In the case of who is lying, this one is tough, but I'm going to go with Trump is lying."

The group Occupy Democrats posted, "Trump furious at Kristi Noem – privately raging over her Senate testimony that implicated him in $220 million taxpayer-funded cosplay slush fund! Donald Trump is privately seething at DHS Secretary Kristi Noem after she testified under oath Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he gave advance approval for a massive $220 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign, subcontracted to one of her cronies and featuring her lavish self-promotion stunts like horseback riding at Mount Rushmore during a government shutdown. ... This is the sound of a crumbling wannabe dictatorship: Allies turning liability, private rages leaking out, and desperate scrambling to plug leaks while everything burns."

Fox News' Bill Melugin tweeted, "DHS Secretary Kristi Noem now treading in some dangerous waters. She testified in the Senate this week that President Trump approved of [and] was aware of a $200 million ad campaign that featured her prominently. Trump now tells @Reuters in a phone call he didn’t sign off on it: 'I never knew anything about it,' Trump said."

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to the Democratic nominee — former Vice President and ex-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) — his claim that the election was stolen from him was repeatedly debunked by numerous vote recounts. And some of the debunking came from conservative Republicans, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

But Trump, now 13 and one-half months into his second presidency, continues to double down on his false claim that he won the 2020 election. In January, FBI agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing 2020 election records.

In an article published on March 5, CNN reporters Tierney Sneed and Zachary Cohen describe ways in which the Georgia State Election Board helped pave the way for the FBI search.

"For most election administrators around the country," Sneed and Cohen explain, "the FBI's recent seizure of 2020 Atlanta-area ballots was shocking. But for some members of the Georgia State Election Board, the search was a welcome development. Led by the commission's vice chair, Janice Johnston — a retired obstetrician who, according to court filings, had no experience working elections prior to 2021 — the board's conservative majority has been relentlessly pursuing fraud theories about Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election."

The CNN journalists continue, "After subpoenaing some of the Fulton County election records themselves, the board invited the Justice Department's assistance last year, itself, resulting in a Trump Administration civil lawsuit in December that preceded the search warrant secured through a federal criminal probe. Johnston and another MAGA-aligned board member, former media personality Janelle King, were witnesses cited by the FBI in its application to justify seizing the records, as were other election deniers who have made frequent appearances before the board to allege a tainted 2020 result."

According to David Worley — a Democrat who formerly served on the Georgia State Election Board — Johnston objected when told she couldn't enter the Fulton County election center's inner storage room during the FBI search. Johnston didn't object to the search, but rather, wanted to get some credit for it and argued, "It's our subpoena."

Salleigh Grubbs, another Republican on the Georgia State Election Board, told CNN, "It's way past time for these matters to have been investigated." And she said it was "great" that the FBI search took place.

Democratic insiders often joke that for their party, Texas is like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football in the "Peanuts" cartoons. Brown famously kept hoping that Lucy would finally give him a chance to kick a football only for her to repeatedly pull the football away when he was ready to kick it — and in Texas, the "football" that "Lucy" keeps pulling away from Democrats is a victory in a statewide race.

The last time a Democrat won a gubernatorial election in Texas was Ann Richards in 1990, and Texas' last Democratic U.S. senator, Bob Krueger, left office in 1993. Democrats perform well in Texas' major cities — from Austin to Houston to El Paso — and in certain congressional districts, but they struggle in statewide races.

Yet some prominent conservatives, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), Washington Post columnist George Will and former White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, believe that Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race could be in play for Democrats if incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) isn't the nominee and Democrats have the right candidate. Democrats now have a nominee in that race: centrist James Talarico, who defeated the more progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in an early March primary. But it remains to be seen whether Cornyn or the far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will be the Republican nominee.

During an appearance on The New Republic's "The Daily Blast" podcast posted on March 5, veteran Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett laid out the challenges that members of his party face in the Lone Star State. Hackett believes that Talarico is electable, but he was also candid about why Texas is such a struggle for Democrats in statewide races.

"Republicans have done a fantastic job of suppressing the vote in Texas, of keeping voters at home, of making it extremely difficult to vote in the state," Hackett told host Greg Sargent. "And that's why Texas, I think, today has one of the lowest voter participation rates in the country. Texas also has a lot of unaffiliated independent voters out there who have tended over the years to vote Republican. Those voters, I think, in large part, make up areas in the suburbs outside of the major cities and in parts of rural Texas."

Hackett continued, "Texas has a lot of counties, and Democrats have to compete in all of those counties if they want to win. Democrats have not built the infrastructural support needed to compete in every county throughout Texas the way that Republicans have. I mean, they have 30 years of voter suppression and organization that have brought them to this point and kept Democrats out of power for 30 years. If Democrats want to win, they have to go everywhere. They have to compete everywhere. They have to maximize their voters. They have to divide Republican voters, and they have to win over the sizable number — 15 percent or more — of unaffiliated independent voters that are often in the rural and suburban parts of Texas."

Hackett emphasized that if Democrats are going to win statewide races in Texas, they will need the right coalition.

"I think the headline coming out of this primary cycle — beyond Talarico's victory, beyond Paxton and Cornyn headed to this runoff — is kind of the winning Democratic coalition being reassembled, in part thanks to Trump pushing voters toward Democrats, whether that's Latino voters who showed up big time yesterday for James Talarico, or Black voters who turned out strongly for Crockett in a lot of these key areas across Texas," Hackett told Sargent. "I think if Talarico is able to reassemble that winning coalition — if he's able to keep Latino voters on board in the general election, which honestly I think will be dependent on Trump and how he presents his agenda for the next few months — but also, if Talarico is able to make inroads and bring those Crockett voters into the fold of his coalition, if he's able to keep that message that has been resonating in the suburban parts of the state outside of these big cities, among independent swing voters across Texas, of which there are very many."

The Democratic strategist added, "He has shown that he has the ability to assemble this coalition, but he’s going to have to maximize turnout among those key constituencies —Latino voters, Black voters, and I think young voters too."

Many critics of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran — a combination of Democrats and Never Trump conservatives — are urging Congress to use the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to rein him in. Trump, they argue, had no business getting the United States into a war via executive order and not getting Congress' input — and the War Powers Resolution is a tool lawmakers need to be taking advantage of.

But former U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-California), in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on March 5, emphasizes that Congress has a "far more direct way" to "intervene" in the Iran conflict: "the power of the purse."

"Few in Washington are asking the most obvious question: What has this conflict already cost, and what will it ultimately cost the American taxpayer?," Harman explains. "Between the cost of deploying carrier strike groups and more than a hundred aircraft to the region, and the expenditure of hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles at roughly $2 million apiece, the price tag is reportedly about $1 billion per day. Reuters reported, this week, that the Pentagon is working on a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion focused on replacing weapons stocks."

The former House Democrat adds, "Congress should be preparing now to meet that moment, demanding a full accounting of costs and requiring the administration to define the mission's objectives and a plan to achieve them."

During her years in Congress, Harman, now 80, focused heavily on national security, serving on the House Intelligence Committee and chairing the Homeland Security Committee's Intelligence Subcommittee. Long before that, she was a counsel for the U.S. Defense Department under President Jimmy Carter.

"Both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were authorized by Congress," Harman notes, "though the intelligence on Iraq turned out to be deeply flawed…. According to Brown University's nonpartisan Costs of War project, the final bill for Iraq exceeded $2 trillion. Afghanistan cost another $2.3 trillion. Congress needs to confront Iran's costs now, keeping in mind that Iran is only the most immediate item on a much larger bill. In January, President Trump called for a 50 percent increase in the annual defense budget — from roughly $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion — the largest proposed single-year jump since the Korean War. Congress should not wave these numbers through. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to raise and support armies and to appropriate military funds."

During the 2000s, Donald Trump's hit real show "The Apprentice" made him famous for the words, "You're fired." Trump went on to do a lot of firing during his first presidency and clashed with quite a few traditional conservatives who served in his administration. But Trump hasn't fired nearly as many appointees during his second presidency, as he has surrounded himself with MAGA loyalists who are unlikely to question him.

According to Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman, however, one Trump loyalist is in danger of being fired: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

In a March 5 column, Sherman reports, "President Donald Trump has quietly asked Hill Republicans if he should fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the latest sign of her tenuous standing inside the West Wing, according to multiple Republicans who have spoken with the president. Even Speaker Mike Johnson speculated about the potential for a change at the top of DHS during a recent House Republican elected leadership retreat in Fort Lauderdale, Fla."

Trump, according to Sherman, called some GOP senators following Noem's early March testimony in two hearings: a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, March 3, followed by a House Judiciary Committee hearing the next day.

"Those appearances were marked by extraordinarily bitter exchanges between Noem and Democratic lawmakers, especially over Trump's harsh immigration crackdown," Sherman explains. "But some of the most notable exchanges, especially in the Senate hearing, were with Republicans. Trump was said to be especially upset about Noem’s response when Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) pressed her Tuesday about a government-funded ad campaign that Kennedy said only served to boost her own personal name recognition nationally. ... Under questioning from Kennedy, Noem said repeatedly that Trump personally approved the controversial ad blitz featuring her in the lead role. This has so angered Trump that Noem's future at DHS may be at risk, we're told."

In United States v. Hemani, the U.S. Supreme Court is examining a federal law that forbids gun ownership if one "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance." The Hemani in the case is Texas resident Ali Danial Hemani, who is arguing that the law violates the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.

During a 2022 search, FBI agents found a gun, marijuana and cocaine in Hemani's home. And he acknowledged that he uses marijuana roughly every other day.

In an article published by the libertarian Reason on March 4, journalist Jacob Sullum notes that the case is uniting "strange bedfellows" from two different lobbies: conservative and libertarian critics of gun control, and liberal and progressive opponents of the War on Drugs.

"Under federal law," Sullum explains, "millions of Americans are committing felonies right now because they own guns and use marijuana — even if they live in states that have legalized the drug. There is nothing unconstitutional about that baffling situation, a Trump Administration lawyer assured the Supreme Court on Monday, (March 2), because cannabis consumers are analogous to 'habitual drunkards,' who historically, could be confined to workhouses or mental institutions. Most of the justices, including both Republican and Democratic appointees, seemed skeptical of that claim."

Sullum continues, "Their agreement reflected the trans-partisan alliances inspired by this case, which illustrates the potential for common ground between right-leaning critics of gun control and left-leaning critics of the War on Drugs."

Hemani, Sullum notes, was charged with illegal gun possession in 2023 after the FBI search of his home.

"The case never went to trial," according to Sullum. "The charge was dismissed based on a 2024 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which held that the Second Amendment bars such prosecutions when they are based on nothing beyond the elements specified by the statute. Those elements do not require any showing that the defendant's pattern of drug use disrupts his own life, let alone that it poses a threat to public safety. Yet the Trump Administration, despite its avowed commitment to 'protecting Second Amendment rights,' wants the Supreme Court to reject the 5th Circuit's logic and reinstate the case against Hemani."

Sullum adds, "Counterintuitively, a bunch of blue states that have legalized marijuana are siding with the Trump Administration, condemning a decision in which the country's most conservative appeals court upheld the constitutional rights of cannabis consumers."

The "strange bedfellows," according to Sullum, are showing up in legal briefs "urging the Supreme Court to uphold the 5th Circuit's ruling."

"They include the Drug Policy Alliance, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as well as leading Second Amendment groups such as the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the Firearms Policy Coalition," Sullum observes. "Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has not previously shown much interest in defending the Second Amendment, is siding with Hemani…. The Trump Administration's argument hinges on equating even occasional or moderate cannabis consumers with people who would have been deemed 'habitual drunkards' at the Founding."

Sullum adds, "As Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor noted during Monday's oral argument, that comparison makes little sense."

News that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered military strikes against Iran broke early Saturday morning, February 28, and a few days later, more than 10 countries had been pulled into the conflict in some way. Axios' Herb Scribner described the scope of the war in an article published on March 3, noting that Iran had fired strikes against U.S. installations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman and other Middle Eastern countries. And while Israel was firing missiles at Iran, the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Scribner reported, "entered the war on Iran's side, launching missiles and drones at Israel on Monday."

The European Union (EU), according to Scribner, was "pulled into the conflict" when "drones struck the British Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus" and Cyprus Mail reported that the strikes probably came from Hezbollah.

In an article published on March 4, liberal economist Paul Krugman stresses that the conflict is giving Trump a major reality check — as it will certainly have a significant impact on both energy and the economy.

"The bad news comes in two parts," Krugman warns. "First, any hopes that this war might be extremely brief are fading. The Trump Administration may have imagined that decapitating the Iranian government would bring swift regime change, but the Islamic state isn't a government of mere thugs — yes, they're evil thugs, but they're also serious religious fanatics facing what, for them, is an existential threat. And their grip on power isn't that easy to break…. Second, war in the middle of the world's most important oil-producing region — which is also a key source of liquefied natural gas — inevitably has major consequences for energy prices."

Krugman continues, "Once upon a time, U.S. and Israeli air superiority might have contained Iran's ability to harm its neighbors. But in an age in which even third-rate powers have the ability to launch missiles and drones, Iran has a huge stockpile of drones and also has ballistic missiles that are destructive, hard to intercept, and have a 1200-mile range…. The potential targets at risk include key parts of the region's energy infrastructure. Above all, the war threatens tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which is how the bulk of Middle Eastern oil and gas normally reaches world markets. And the risk of Iranian attacks has effectively closed the Strait."

Krugman notes, however, that there is also some "good news" from both an economic standpoint and an energy standpoint.

"Even if oil prices go much higher, to $100 a barrel and beyond," the former New York Times columnist observes, "it won't necessarily trigger an economic crisis. I explained why on Monday: The United States and other advanced nations are far less oil-dependent than they were in the 1970s, when oil shocks did cause major economic disruption."

Despite being inundated with criticism, far-right podcaster Candace Owens is doubling down on her attacks on Turning Point USA's (TPUSA) Erika Kirk. Owens is suggesting, without evidence, that Erika Kirk was somehow involved in the fatal shooting of her late husband Charlie Kirk, who founded the MAGA youth organization.

The criticism is coming from both the left and the right. Conservative media figures like The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro (who Owens used to work for) and The National Review's Rich Lowry are calling her out, and liberals and progressives are saying that while they vehemently disagree with Erika Kirk's politics, Owens' YouTube video series "Bride of Charlie" (a play on "Bride of Frankenstein") is a mean-spirited smearing of a widow who lost her husband to gun violence.

Salon's Sophia Tesfaye, in an article published on March 4, argues that "Bride of Charlie" not only underscores Owens' willingness to promote unhinged conspiracy theories — it is also an indictment of right-wing media's business model.

"With Kirk's assassination at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last September, the MAGA movement faced a genuine tragedy," Tesfaye explains. "His widow, Erika Kirk, stepped in to lead the organization. But within weeks, before the grief had even begun to settle, Owens began publicly questioning the circumstances of Kirk's killing and spinning conspiracy theories on her podcast…. What started as insinuation soon metastasized into a serialized spectacle: 'Bride of Charlie,' a multi-episode YouTube series targeting Erika Kirk personally…. In the series, which is still ongoing, Owens hints that Kirk's murder was an inside job, suggests foreign agents may have been involved and implies that Erika Kirk has 'ulterior motives' in leading TPUSA."

Tesfaye notes that although "the conservative establishment has, belatedly, tried to fight back against Owens' accusations" against Erika Kirk, they "have largely failed to land a blow" — as the first episode of "Bride of Charlie" received "nearly 5 million views."

"The real reason right-wing media cannot stop Candace Owens is that they built her," Tesfaye emphasizes. "And, more importantly, they built the engine that fuels her: the machinery of conspiratorial media, which is immune to the tools that might once have contained it. For decades, conservative media has thrived on a business model that monetizes outrage and distrust. The more outrageous the claim, the greater the engagement. The more distrust sowed toward institutions — universities, media, elections, public health, the FBI — the more loyal the audience becomes."

Tesfaye continues, "In December, even as Owens was deep into Charlie Kirk assassination trutherism, Erika Kirk was urging TPUSA audiences to be tolerant of disagreeable views. By the time the right decided Owens had gone too far, she had already built a fully independent operation. The movement that once shielded Owens is now discovering that monsters raised on grievance do not recognize fences. The conservative movement no longer has credible gatekeepers."