President Donald Trump once wanted to make criticizing the Supreme Court, something he now does regularly, illegal. According to a new analysis from The Atlantic, this shift is an "illuminating projection" that exposes what Trump truly "fears."

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday, staff writer and author Adam Serwer highlighted a quote Trump made on the subject during his 2024 campaign, in which he accused people critiquing the court's rulings of "playing the ref" and besmirching "some of our greatest justices and a lot of great judges." He further suggested that this alleged conduct should be "punishable by very serious fines and beyond that."

Now, Serwer noted, the president sings a wildly different tune.

"Trump criticizing the Supreme Court, however, is perfectly fine and not illegal at all," Serwer wrote. "Earlier this month, a day after a majority of the justices rejected Trump’s effort to restrict voting by mail in the midterms, Trump lashed out in a post: 'These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.' Trump accused the justices of being 'bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left.'"

As has become a noticeable trend among Trump and the GOP, Serwer argued further that this tendency to lash out at the court exposes what the president is actually thinking, and what he "fears."

"As is nearly always the case with the president’s accusations, this was an illuminating projection," Serwer explained. "Trump fears that public pressure on the Supreme Court can sway the justices and how they rule. So when they don’t side with him, he assumes that’s what happened, and he trashes the Court in the hope that it will side with him the next time. He views criticism of the Supreme Court much as he views laws in general: When Trump or one of his allies wants to do something, such as use taxpayer dollars for cultish campaign ads, it’s legal. When his opponents want to do something, it’s illegal."

Serwer also conceded that it is widely understood that presidents expect their judicial appointments to rule in their favor more often, and that Trump has merely put this notion out in the open, noting that while it "is a little embarrassing... it’s not like he’s saying anything Americans don’t already know and understand."

"Trump has taken a few high-profile losses at the Supreme Court recently—in the tariffs case and in the birthright-citizenship case—but the Court has been more than willing to do his bidding most of the time," he concluded. "This is the Supreme Court that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, sanctioned Trump’s overt racial discrimination toward Haitians in Mullin v. Doe, fabricated a right to presidential immunity that appears nowhere in the Constitution in Trump v. United States, and gave Trump unfettered control over agencies that are supposed to be independent. Considering that record, few could disagree that the justices have 'rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history.' Trump’s real complaint is they haven’t done that enough."

Sen. John Fetterman's slow lurch to the right has made him enemies among his own party and earned him the nickname "Trump's favorite Democrat," and now, per a report from The Atlantic, he is also helping figures in MAGA-world make bank.

In a piece published Wednesday, the outlet reported that Fetterman, the first-term Democrat from Pennsylvania, found himself working with a MAGA-friendly, "GOP-aligned" fundraising entity, Blitz Digital, after his previous Democratic firm, MissionWired, parted ways with him over the summer. The report further cited internal communications about a fundraising pitch signed by Fetterman — in which he pledged to "always going to reject Socialism and the anti-American way of life" and accused his own party of being hijacked by socialists — "doing crazy numbers" for the company.

"Shortly [after leaving MissionWired], he forged a joint fundraising committee with Pennsylvania’s other senator, Dave McCormick, a Republican," The Atlantic explained. "In July, Fetterman joined a group of Republican politicians for a retreat with Fox News executives at Rupert Murdoch’s ranch in Montana. On September 9, he spoke in a recorded address at Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas, delivering a message about rejecting socialism that would feature in his fundraising solicitation later that month."

The report added later: "Days after speaking at the midterm convention, Fetterman’s political operation began working with a Republican-aligned firm to start arranging emails and text messages to acquire new conservative donors, which were first reported by The Intercept. Fetterman’s missives were circulated by more than a dozen political operations with domain names such as America1stWarRoom.com, ConstitutionPatriots.com, RedMajorities.com, TheDesantisDaily.com, and TrumpTruths.org, according to records collected by the Archive of Political Emails. The new effort deepens the mystery around his political intentions and is a cause for concern for Democratic leaders. Fetterman’s refusal to limit himself to the Democratic ecosystem could matter a great deal next year, especially if he finds himself as the decisive swing vote and holds the power to decide which party will control the Senate."

Fetterman's increasing tendency to voice more right-leaning stances has led to widespread concerns among the Democratic Party that he could make himself a grave nuisance in the Senate after the midterms. If the party manages to wrest the majority away from Republicans in November, there are fears that Fetterman could stall their agenda as a Joe Manchin-esque spoiler vote. Or, he could wreck their majority altogether by switching his affiliation to the GOP, an idea he has been dismissive but noncommittal about.

"One Republican digital consultant told us, after requesting anonymity to discuss the arrangements, that although the relationships Fetterman is building are unusual, fundraising-list brokers typically push the language that performs the best, and that there is clear appeal for a Democrat who is willing to echo Republican talking points about socialism," the report added. “'Assuming he believes all the things he says,' the consultant said about Fetterman, 'it is just a natural place to go, because he agrees with Republicans on some things.'"

President Donald Trump is reportedly in "emergency" mode, per the Financial Times, over how to address the spiraling "crisis" that threatens to engulf the economy and his presidency.

As Trump's war with Iran continues with no end in sight, diesel prices have increased sharply, along with the costs of other consumer gas products, recently hitting an all-time high average in the U.S. Runaway diesel costs are particularly damaging to the economy, experts have noted, as they can ripple out through other industries dependent on the fuel, like trucking and transportation, which will cause the prices of nearly everything to go up as a result.

In a Wednesday report, the FT reported that sources close to the matter revealed that "emergency talks" have been underway between Trump and his administration officials about ways to address the diesel crisis. These talks have included the consideration of a diesel export ban. Trump has already floated that idea, leading experts and foreign leaders to urge him not to pursue it, given that it would likely cause severe global supply disruptions with no effect on American prices.

Other information leaked to the FT indicated that other ideas have also been floated to the president, such as curbing international diesel sales. In response to an inquiry, a White House official told the outlet that Trump is "evaluating all the options on the table" to address the situation and that no decision has yet been made.

More sources familiar with the ongoing discussions said that major oil industry companies have managed to convince Trump that a diesel export ban would probably backfire on him by causing prices to spike more in parts of the country reliant on imported fuel. Nevertheless, Trump is said to still be "very seriously considering" the export ban as a response to the crisis.

“The debate goes on. We don’t have a firm sense of what he’s going to do,” a source told the outlet. “White House staff are thoroughly opposed to it. But this is all about Trump, and does Trump want to do something big... So [a ban is] still in play.”

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, told the FT that the rise in diesel prices and gas prices in general seems poised to cost the GOP the midterms in November.“

We’re going to own it, whether we deserve to or not. We’re the ones in power — it’s hard to escape that,” Burchett told the outlet.

A 50-year-old argument put forward by an Italian historian held that "stupid people" in large numbers were a powerful force that could crash societies, and now, per a new piece for The New Republic, President Donald Trump has proven that argument right and become the embodiment of its ideas.

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday, writer and editor Ross Rosenfield highlighted the treatise of "prolific intellectual" Carlo Cipolla, who argued that stupid people as a demographic within society are "much more powerful than the mafia, or the military industrial complex."

"Today, as we witness one of the dumbest wars in history unraveling in Iran, an inept health and human services secretary working to bring back measles and polio, a Republican Party wherein only 20 percent view the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a violent insurrection but 71 percent deny Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and an administration that refuses to properly regulate AI and crypto industries that threaten the economic well-being and safety of all," Rosenfield wrote, "Cipolla’s contention is as apt now as when he first proposed it in The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, in 1976—an era when the country, and indeed the world, was similarly roiled by sociopolitical rage and seemed on the brink of a catastrophe."

He added later: "Cipolla divided people into four groups: the helpless, whose actions harm themselves but benefit others; the intelligent, whose actions benefit themselves and others; the bandits, who enrich themselves while harming others; and the stupid, whose actions harm others while producing no benefit to themselves."

"No matter how high are one’s estimates of human stupidity,” Cipolla argued in his treatise, “one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid; b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one’s activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments."

Breaking down the historian's arguments further, Rosenfield explained that the "real danger" posed by stupid people, as the world is getting a harsh taste of now, comes when they attain power. In such situations, "the stupid will have at their disposal means of destruction created by the intelligent—armies, weapons systems, monetary levers, media influence—and will oversee industries often controlled or influenced by bandits, weakening the institutions designed to monitor them."

Cipolla contended, with those ideas in mind, that it is the responsibility of the intelligent to keep the stupid in check. Should they fail, Rosenfield wrote, "societies head downhill fast."

"It may be too soon to know whether we’re on that course in the U.S.," he concluded. "We may not know until it’s far too late. But it’s alarming enough that Cipolla’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek theory from a half-century ago seems perfectly apt to the state of America today."

Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt's badly fumbled line of attack against Jack Smith has been widely mocked and denounced, and now, even his own local news program has joined in, eviscerating his "clown-show" argument in a recent segment.

On Tuesday, former special counsel Jack Smith once again sat for questioning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, in which Republicans once again attempted to attack his investigations into President Donald Trump as corrupt. At one point, Schmitt, with the aid of posters, tried to accuse Smith of colluding with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in his investigations, basing his logic on Smith supposedly attending an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024.

As it turned out, Schmitt had mixed up teams, as Smith had actually attended an Iowa Hawkeyes women's college basketball game. Before he was corrected, the senator went so far as to accuse Smith of perjury when he denied attending the Atlanta Hawks game. The incident was widely criticized, among pundits and Schmitt's own colleagues, as an embarrassing flub.

On Tuesday evening, prolific left-wing commentator Christopher Webb shared a segment from Schmitt's own local news program, which dug further into the extent to which the senator's information was grossly inaccurate.

"This is priceless. Check out how local news is reporting on Sen Eric Schmidt’s clown-show grilling of Jack Smith," Webb wrote in his post.

"It's the kind of moment senators dream about," the reporter in the segment explained. "Sen. Schmitt had his stage, and hey, shooters shoot. He knows ball, right? So he took his shot."

The segment continued, following a clip of the exchange between Smith and Schmitt: "We did find the broadcast video, though, Fox Sports, courtesy of them, and we do find Jack Smith. You can see him yourself, top corner up here, section 109, row 1. In fact, that seat itself doesn’t even exist in Atlanta. Marv Albert would call this an airball. Like any intense game, we had some trash talk too, Sen. Schmitt called Smith, quote, 'a dirtbag,' and 'a villain.' He quickly made the rounds on conservative podcasts where these influencers priased his appearance for taking Jack Smith down a peg."

The reporter noted that the network had reached out to Schmitt's office for an explanation or an apology, but did not hear anything back. He added that when a witness lies under oath, they can face punishments up to and including prison time, but when a senator like Schmitt gets their facts wrong, "he's just asking questions."

President Donald Trump exhibited "concerning behaviors" and symptoms on his right side during a recent public appearance, one psychologist noted in a new video, bearing an alarming resemblance to patients who have suffered a stroke.

Dr. John Paul Garrison is a clinical and forensic psychologist, with specific expertise in body language cues, who produces numerous videos offering professional insights into the behaviors of major public figures. Over the last few months, he has examined Trump during various speeches and appearances, noting many signs that point to significant neurological decline, even suggesting that he may have suffered a stroke sometime last year.

The latter issue was on full display in his latest video, in which Garrison highlighted a clip of Trump from his recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the United Nations General Assembly, where strange symptoms were particularly focused on the right side of his body. He first noted an odd two-fingered gesture the president made after pulling back from a handshake with his Ukrainian counterpart, something that has already been dissected online.

"This clip has been making its rounds online. A lot of people seem to think that he's making a voluntary hand sign to people," Garrison explained. "Now, my interpretation is very different. To me, this does not look voluntary at all. To me, this looks like involuntary muscle contractions. Sometimes this can happen after a stroke. For example, when someone makes a quick movement or when someone shakes hands, sometimes there can be muscle contractions like this, particularly around the wrist and fingers, exactly like what we're seeing."

He continued: "If you watch President Trump's expression, you can see that he clearly knows that something's going on. It doesn't seem to be painful because you don't see him wincing. You don't see any acknowledgement of pain, but he certainly does seem to know that something's going on with his hand. But much like many of the other issues we've seen, he basically just ignores it and moves on."

Garrison also featured examples of odd hand issues during a more recent event in the Oval Office, which showed that the problem was not exclusive to his right side, as it cropped up in his left hand as well. At one point, the president "seemed like he was having a hard time articulating his fingers." During that event, Trump also made the "unusual" choice of keeping his right hand out of view beneath the Resolute Desk, something he almost never does. Garrison called this "a distinct change in behavior" that could be indicative of deeper issues.

"Something that's been very apparent recently is that President Trump's ability to sustain attention is totally gone," Garrison added, based on the Oval Office clip. "As soon as anybody else starts speaking, he's looking elsewhere. He's paying absolutely no attention to what's going on around him unless he's really excited about something. Aside from that, he can't seem to listen for more than a few seconds. The reason that matters is whether it's due to a neurodegenerative condition, whether it's due to a stroke or something else neurological, is that attention is a very complex brain activity. So, if we're seeing a shift or a change in that, it's worth paying attention to."

A prominent and controversial Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate has been rocked by "jaw-dropping" allegations, per a new report from The Daily Beast, adding more new wrinkles to his "dark past" than even he has been willing to admit.

A minister and self-described "Christian Warrior," Victor Marx is the Republican nominee for governor in Colorado who has made headlines nationwide for his outlandish claims about his past life and background. Among other things, he has claimed to have conducted "spiritual exorcisms" to free people from demonic possession, ordered a military airstrike as a civilian that killed 70 ISIS fighters and killed a man at age 7 after being forced to by his stepfather. Marx has so far refused to back down from these claims despite frequently being called out about their legitimacy.

On Tuesday, The Daily Beast published an exclusive report based on newly unearthed videos and posts purported to be from Marx, alleging that he "once laughed about slamming his wife into a door, recounted how he threw his toddler across the room and declared that God gave him a 'gift' for violence."

"In a 2021 video, for example, Marx, 61, recalled becoming 'infuriated' after his wife told him she no longer needed martial arts training because she was married to a Marine black belt," the report detailed.

“She goes, ‘I can handle myself’. I said, ‘You can?’ And I remember grabbing her, slamming her into our front door,” Marx said during an interview for the "Protector Nation" podcast. "I mean, it was a decent push. It’d be a bouncing push, right? She hit that, bent over and started crying, facing the opposite way."

In a 2020 episode of his own podcast unearthed by The Daily Beast, Marx also detailed an incident between his toddler son and his young daughter.

"I reacted so fast and so disproportionately that I snatched him up and threw him across the room,” Marx said, also adding, “he started crying. And I’ll never forget, I went, what was that? I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”

"He has also recounted punching an inmate at a juvenile facility until the man was bleeding, intimidating a mental-health provider by blocking the door and telling him he would never have time to call for help, and pulling a Marine Corps knife on a psychiatrist," the report detailed further. "And at a Turning Point USA Pastors Summit in San Diego, Marx also joked that he wasn’t good at some things but had a knack for conflict, as he recounted a story about hitting a man who had cheated on his wife and abused his daughter."

"I don’t know, I feel like God gave me a gift for violence, against a manifestation of evil," Marx said at the event.

Marx's office did respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment prior to publication.

The outlet noted that Colorado has not elected a GOP governor since 2002. While polling is not as extensive for this race as others, available data suggests that Democratic nominee and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is solidly tipped to defeat Marx in November.

Seeking an up-close glimpse of the outrage brewing among voters, NBC News conducted an extensive road trip across several states to find the issues impacting major races, finding that President Donald Trump and the GOP now face "an atmosphere that typically blows up on the party in power."

NBC published the findings of the trip, conducted in August, in a major special report published on Tuesday. Going from New Jersey to Nebraska along I-80, the venture passed "through the Rust Belt and into America’s breadbasket," and roughly a third of the more competitive House races in the coming midterms, and "two key Senate races."

"Americans are frustrated with the direction the country is headed as the midterm elections approach," the report began, later adding, "They’re angry about rising prices, ballooning interest rates and foreign wars. They are afraid that AI will automate many jobs while driving up utility prices... Many voters in each region say they have lost faith in federal elected officials to solve major problems."

"You take every politician in Washington, you put them all in a bag and start hitting the bag with a baseball bat — you hit the right person,” Rich Seitz, the leader of a New Jersey motorcycle club, told NBC.

Starting in New Jersey's 7th District, the outlet found GOP Rep. Tom Kean facing a dicey reelection path for the typical reasons, as well as his controversial recent absence from Congress due to mental health issues, which he kept his constituents in the dark about for weeks. One Democratic voter, 29-year-old social worker Gloria Mendez, said that Trump's deportation agenda has led to a surge in opposition from the district's Latino community, which makes up 15 percent of the population. She also suggested Kean focus on his own struggles rather than another term in the House.

Moving into the 7th and 8th Districts in Pennsylvania, NBC spoke with Louis Marcelino, a three-time Trump voter from Hazleton, who chastised the president as out of touch with everyday issues.

“Everything has just gotten more expensive,” Marcelino, 38, said. “I don’t think he realizes it, but every single American here is paying the price for that war."

"It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Democrats take control of the House without flipping at least one competitive district in the Keystone State," NBC detailed. "Republicans think they will likely have to juice MAGA turnout to help incumbents such as Rep. Rob Bresnahan in the 8th District and Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the 7th District, which is centered in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. That has been some of the most competitive political turf in the country in the Trump era."

In Ohio's 7th District, Rep. Max Miller is also facing issues above and beyond the generally tough political atmosphere, as he opted to continue his reelection bid after his wife made major domestic abuse allegations against him, including alleged violence against his two-year-old daughter. Katie Heinz, a 49-year-old interior designer from the GOP-heavy Cleveland neighborhood of Medina, said that Miller's issues made it impossible to support him, though she added that she was unsure that she would vote Democrat instead.

"What he’s got going on in his personal world, unfortunately, is going to roll over into his day to day, and we need to get things done," she told NBC.

"In addition to basic inflation and concern about the Iran war, Iowa farmers are contending with Trump trade policies that have roiled global commodity markets and made farming more expensive," the report continued, making its way to the state's 1st and 3rd Districts. "That has helped put an open Senate seat in play — where Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is squaring off against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek — along with two Republican-held House seats. If there’s a big enough Democratic wave, a third House seat could flip."

New claims out of the White House are "mind-boggling," according to a new analysis from MS NOW, and further expose President Donald Trump's "remarkable combination of incoherence and incompetence."

Trump recently hosted a controversial state visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, after which David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, made the "mind-boggling" claim that the president had asked his counterpart if he wanted to purchase American military hardware. Trump himself later denied hearing about such an offer, but also added, "they’d probably like to buy it because we do make better equipment than that, so maybe it’s a good idea."

Perdue's explanation came as he broke down Trump's conversation with Xi about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a longstanding point of contention with China. Trump supposedly tried to downplay the relationship, as Perdue explained it, arguing, 'Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,' before he then “actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point?' Official statements from the White House and State Department did not dispute that Trump brought up the idea to Xi, but stressed that no official offer is in place.

"This scenario, if true, is mind-boggling," MS NOW reporter Zeeshan Aleem wrote. "And if Perdue’s claims are not true and he was saying something false, that’s a significant and confounding problem, too, because it would not just be a major lie, but a foolish one... China is the only country in the world that threatens the U.S.’ status as the world’s preeminent military power, and the U.S. takes great pains to guard its technological edge against its rivals... Selling highly coveted U.S. arms to China would undermine the U.S.’ military advantage. It is common sense to not empower a country that lands on the opposite side of a lot of global geopolitical jockeying. Given that, for example, Trump asked Xi to curb assistance to Iran, it would not make sense to boost Beijing’s arsenal."

He added further: "If Trump made the offer, it would demonstrate total incoherence on China policy in the administration. Under the One China policy that has governed U.S. policy since 1979, the U.S. officially acknowledges China’s position on Taiwan but maintains informal diplomatic ties with the island nation, and crucially, routinely supplies it with billions of dollars worth of defensive arms... If the U.S. were to sell arms to China, it would undermine that entire calculation and would be akin to scoring an own goal."

Aleem also noted that, despite the alarming nature of the alleged offer, it was on some level "not surprising at all" coming from Trump, given that "he lacks even a rudimentary knowledge of how things like trade and diplomacy work, and has an even poorer grasp of — or commitment to — U.S. traditions in those spheres." It would have also fit with his well-established tendency to flout long-standing ties with democratic allies in order to better align himself with authoritarian states, whose leaders he openly admires.

"The capitals of the world are always watching Washington closely," Aleem concluded. "This episode shows a president who seems to have fewer and fewer wits about him — and a staff that lacks the competence or willpower to make up for it."

President Donald Trump's latest round of ads has been attacked as "demented" and "incredibly illegal, and now, per The Hill, Republican lawmakers are breaking with him yet again to oppose them for crossing a major "red line."

Trump this weekend dropped his latest ad, featuring soundbites from a speech in which he called his political enemies "villains," and vowed to oust "communists" and "marxists" from the country. The 30-second commercial raised many alarms, however, for the disclosure that it was funded by tax dollars from the U.S. government, something that flies in the face of campaign finance laws. This was also the latest in a string of new self-serving ads about Trump, at a time when voters are set to punish Republicans in the midterms for his failures.

According to a report from The Hill Tuesday morning, a number of Republicans in the Senate, while supportive of some of the messaging in the ads, took Trump to task for wasting tax dollars on them.

"It’s a great message, I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for by taxpayer dollars," Senate Majority Leader John Thune told the press on Monday.

“It would not have been something that I would have done,” Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said about the ads. “I know that the White House is not covered by the same guidance that we are, but it’s not something I would have done. I just don’t think it’s right to be using taxpayer money in that way, particularly if it’s tied to political campaigns. I think they need to rethink that strategy.”

Sen. John Cornyn, a noted enemy of Trump, said that the ads crossed a "red line," given how indistinguishable they are from things he and his team released during past campaigns.

"We all know you’re not supposed to use taxpayer money for that purpose," Cornyn said.

In particular, The Hill reported that the new ad was "nearly identical to an online ad that Trump posted to his Truth Social account in January 2024, when he was preparing to launch his presidential campaign."

"In that online ad, he urged supporters to text 'TRUMP to 88022' to support his campaign," the outlet explained.

"If it were me as a senator, it would be a problem,” Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, said. “I don’t know their rules as well as I know mine, but I know mine would prohibit that."

"I don’t think any public official, including President Trump… should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said on CBS News over the weekend. “The White House sees it differently."

The White House's official response claimed that the commercials were "very clearly not campaign ads," and argued that they were intended to be “a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending.”

President Donald Trump has weathered innumerable political storms during his time in office, but according to a new breakdown from the New York Times, the "evidence is decisive" that his extraordinary luck is finally running out — with the "most damaging" evidence of all hitting his most important strength.

Writing for the outlet on Tuesday morning, columnist Thomas Edsall cited the well-established statistical trends underpinning Trump's declining support and the growing certainty that the GOP will get wiped out in the midterms. Per a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, his disapproval among voters is more than twice his approval, 66 percent versus just 32 percent, with some other recent polls putting him just south of 30. His support among some of his most crucial demographics, Latinos and independent voters, is also cratering massively.

"Voters, in other words, are showing a growing determination to repudiate the Trump presidency," Edsall wrote. "Their most direct opportunity to express this determination is electing Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. At the moment, poll data gives Democrats a strong chance of taking the House and modest but strengthening odds of taking the Senate."

He added later: "Smarter.Vote, a voter analysis website, currently assesses a 73 percent chance of a Democratic takeover of the House, with a post-election makeup of 228 Democrats to 207 Republicans.Smarter.Vote foresees a much closer and more contested Senate outcome, with Democrats now having a 57 percent chance of taking control, with a 51-to-49 majority."

While admitting that election forecasting can often be a "fool's game," Edsall contended that some observers are being "too cautious," arguing that in his "own experience... trends are highly predictive of outcomes — and the trend line now is moving decisively in favor of the Democrats."

The "most damaging" sign of Trump's waning power and luck, however, is the way in which his relevance is starting to crumble, threatening his all-important ability to command attention.

"Most damaging of all for a wannabe autocrat like Trump, who depends on being the center of attention to maintain his power, there are clear signs that the president is losing relevance," Edsall wrote. :On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported on its A.I.-based analysis of nearly 70,000 hours of podcasts with a headline that should make even Trump cringe: 'MAGA Podcasters Are Tuning Out Trump.' 'Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70 percent from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election,' The Journal noted, a drop-off that accelerated after late February, when Trump began his war with Iran."

President Donald Trump has robbed "the GOP of a chance" to put their focus on competitive midterm swing states, per Politico, as he hits the campaign trail to put out political "fires" in states he once carried with ease.

In a piece published Tuesday morning, Politico reported that Trump is set to spend the next month campaigning for Republican midterm candidates in "Bastions of conservatism — including Alabama, Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas," as the party faces growing odds of major upsets. The hope is that Trump's presence will help convince his "die-hard supporters" to show up on Election Day, given the long-established trend of MAGA backers who only vote when Trump is on the ballot.

This push is not seen as an all-around positive, however, with "each trip to play defense in red strongholds robs the GOP of a chance to put Democrats on the back foot in states that are traditionally competitive." The mere fact that these stops might be necessary is exposing something the Republican Party has "feared for months: that even a gerrymandered House map and whopping cash advantage won’t be enough to save the House or Senate from Democrats."

"The problem is that the fires are everywhere right now," one anonymous GOP donor told Politico.

"On a scale of 1 to 10,” another anonymous source close to the White House said. “10. In Alaska, because of the obvious situation of what happened in the primary, and in Ohio, because [Jon] Husted is proving not to be a compelling candidate.”

Ohio and Alaska are of particular concern to Republicans, as their candidates show signs of floundering against notably strong Democratic opposition. Politico noted that Trump's planned Trip to Alaska represents "a significant commitment of time and presidential resources that underscores how dire the situation is for Republicans."

Some of these trips are also designed to help across multiple states, with Trump's stop in Alabama crossing over into a west Florida media market, and his stop in Oklahoma expected to bleed over into Texas.

"They recognize how precious the president’s time is,” a second source close to the White House told Politico. "The reality is we have more field to cover than they do. That’s just a fact. We are defending more than [Democrats] are.”

Another GOP source told the outlet that the party is in "a bad spot for a multitude of reasons," primarily including poor candidate quality, an issue that bedeviled them in the 2022 midterms as well. The source, however, also noted that Trump "definitely is the biggest culprit because of how much the trade war has affected the farmers and the Iran war has affected the farmers and rural people."

"It’s his fault," they stressed.

President Donald Trump must be indicted for war crimes, one legal scholar argued for The Hill, and while there are various legal grounds on which this could be done, one particular "atrocity" stands above them all.

Bennett L. Gershman is a veteran law professor at Pace University, who also previously worked as a prosecutor for the New York State Anti-Corruption Office. On Monday afternoon, he published a new op-ed for The Hill, expressing how "surreal" it felt to see Trump threaten to "annihilate" Iran during his recent United Nations address, not long after the organization's Human Rights Council "issued a report finding 'reasonable grounds to believe' that the U.S. had committed war crimes on Feb. 28, 2026, the day Trump launched his war on Iran by bombing a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab," a strike that killed 157 people.

"Trump’s performance at the U.N. featured his disdain for the principles of the United Nations, his mockery of the preeminence of international law, and his scorn for the values of human dignity and justice," Gershman wrote. "To Trump, it seems, coercion overrides cooperation, and force determines who lives and who dies. He boasted that 'I have used strength to make America the most powerful country in the world,' and that 'to the victor belong the spoils.'

While the "horrific bombing" of the girls' school in Iran was the primary reason Gershman put forward to justify indicting Trump, it was far from the only one mentioned.

"Trump should be indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including his administration’s actions in killing multiple people in boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific waters, claiming, without evidence, that they were smuggling drugs, as well as his invasion of Venezuela, which involved killing scores of civilians in the course of arresting leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife," Gershman argued.

Gershman conceded that public awareness of the strike might not be strong, given the fact that "news reports and official post-mortems of war tragedies often elude scrutiny, especially the details of airstrikes, targets, identification of munitions, casualties and attribution." The U.N. report, he explained, included numerous harrowing details, including "Pre-strike photographs [depicting] classrooms furnished with educational materials, children’s artwork and learning aids" and "satellite imagery" showing children in a courtyard. It also includes heartbreaking and graphic details from the immediate aftermath of the strike, which the report determined "was the intended point of impact," and not the result of "an errant strike or collateral damage."

"The International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, has issued indictments and arrest warrants for 74 individuals during its tenure, including Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity," Gershman concluded. "Trump and members of his administration should be concerned that they also may be indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could have cemented a "singular" place in American history, but as one Fox News analyst lamented in a new piece for The Hill, he is now doomed to a "tragic" legacy synonymous with the court's decline.

Juan Williams is a journalist best known for his decades as a political analyst for Fox News. As one of the vanishingly few liberal voices at the network, he has been far more willing than his colleagues to speak out against President Donald Trump and other figures in the modern Republican Party, which he also does in his recurring columns for The Hill.

In his latest piece, he examined the legacy and impact of Thomas following Sen. Ted Cruz publishing a new book about him, and as he sits just two years out from becoming the longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history.

"Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a singular figure in U.S. history," Williams wrote. "If he remains on the bench for the next two years, he will be the longest-serving justice in American history. But his singular place in history is now tragic."

He continued: "First, he is at the heart of a historic decline in public trust in the Supreme Court. Second, as the most powerful Black Republican in national politics, he has damaged trust in Black conservatives as a source of innovative thinking for dealing with racial problems."

Williams further noted that Thomas, long considered one of the court's most hardline conservative justices, has voted in favor of some of the most infamous arguments ever presented to the modern court. He was one of only two justices to support Trump's attempt to change mail-in voting rules to skew the midterms in his favor, and "will go into history books as the Black justice who voted to weaken the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to eliminating Black-majority districts this year as part of a GOP effort to hold the House."

Thomas and his ethical transgressions have also been at the heart of the growing calls for Supreme Court reform.

"History will also note that several Democrats running in the midterms appear focused on Thomas as they propose ethics codes, term limits and even adding more seats to the court to restore ideological balance," Williams explained. "That political push began after investigative reports showed Thomas accepted, without disclosure, luxury vacations, help with tuition for a relative and real estate funding for his mother from a wealthy Republican. That legacy is at the heart of declining trust in the Supreme Court."

Donald Trump's plan to punish the press has backfired, according to The New Republic's Daily Blast podcast, as a recent tantrum from the president showed how he has deprived himself of something he "really badly" craves.

On the Monday edition of The Daily Blast, host Greg Sargent welcomed commentator Paul Waldman to discuss Trump's ongoing press ban, which remains a source of scandal for the administration. Last week, MS NOW, CNN and Politico were barred from entering the White House after Trump accused them of knowingly spreading “fake news” about him. Despite various court orders mandating that the outlets be allowed back, the administration continued to try to block them.

During his conversation with Waldman, Sargent highlighted a “funny and revealing” moment that exposed how the ban has backfired against Trump.

“As you mentioned, news organizations banded together. They did this by agreeing to suspend the pool coverage,” Sargent detailed. “And as a result, participating networks didn’t end up covering Xi Jinping’s arrival at the White House.”

“Yeah, you’d have to think so, because this was really the worst outcome possible for him,” Waldman responded. “I mean, he lives to be on television… and you can just imagine how infuriated he must have been when this state visit from Xi Jinping — that he had been so looking forward to, and he was going to show off his helipad that he must have made sure was going to be finished in time for Xi to get here, and they rolled out a literal red carpet, and all this was going to make for great TV.

He continued: “Trump loves to put on a show. And then it wasn’t broadcast, and all these news organizations did reports on it with, you know — TV news did reports on it with still photos, because they didn’t have audio and video, because the pools weren’t there. And that must have just killed him.”

Sargent noted further that Trump did, in fact, lash out against the agencies for what he saw as their lacking coverage of the “magnificent” visit from Xi, accusing them of refusing to cover the event because they did not want “credit to be given to Trump.”

Waldman argued that this was a “reflection of his genuine sentiment,” given how much Trump craves media attention.

“He wants their attention,” he added. “But he also wants to be in this kind of conflict with them. That’s been the story since he was a young real estate developer in New York, trying to get onto the gossip pages of the New York tabloids. And this sort of push and pull, back and forth, is something that, when you’re the president, it has to be done with some subtlety. And Trump doesn’t have a lot of subtlety. And so he just went too far this time. And the news organizations said, you know, we’re not going to do it.”

A handful of Republican candidates have caused a stir with their efforts to distance themselves from President Donald Trump, but one GOP strategist dumped cold water on the idea during an MS NOW appearance, warning that most of the party remains too "afraid" to ditch him for the time being.

With the midterms fast approaching and Trump's approval ratings hitting historic lows, some Republicans, especially those in competitive battleground districts, have begun to distance themselves from the president to varying degrees. Some, like Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, have scrubbed mentions of Trump from their campaign sites. Others, like Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar and Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers, have more explicitly broken with Trump's more unpopular policies.

Some, however, are warning observers not to put too much stock in this phenomenon as a growing trend. During a Monday appearance on MS NOW, Susan Del Percio, a political analyst who previously worked as a strategist for Republican lawmakers, explained why Trump is likely to hold sway over the GOP at least until he leaves office.

"We have seen Republicans from time to time step up and try and face Donald Trump head-on," Del Percio explained. "And we've seen a couple of candidates do it. But at the end of the day, most Republicans are afraid to do it because we're going to see the majority of Republican incumbents, even though it may be fewer than there are now, get reelected. And guess what? They worry about primaries in 18 months. They are afraid of Donald Trump. And the Republicans also need Donald Trump voters who are in tough districts."

She added: "And we see that, interestingly: I look at [New York Rep.] Mike Lawler's district in Westchester that [Kamala] Harris won narrowly. But Mike Lawler is running a competitive race, and he's not afraid to embrace Trump when it works for him. And he doesn't look like he's running away from him. At the same time, he stands up to Trump when it's necessary."

Del Percio agreed with host Jonathan Lemire's response, arguing that Trump poses a risk for Republicans with his cratering approval and the fact that he has left them with "very, very, very little to run on" in the midterms, but still stressed that the party's fear of Trump is winning out.

"Until he's out of office in January of 2029, he will influence primaries; there's no question about it," she concluded. "And anyone running for president on the Republican side or U.S. Senate or Congress will be worried about [his endorsements]."

President Donald Trump once warned against a huge "time bomb" facing the country while he raged on the 2016 campaign trail, but according to a new piece from The Hill, he now seems content to completely ignore it.

Writing for the outlet on Sunday, legal scholar David Wippman and historian Glenn C. Altschuler noted that Republicans have been fussing about the national debt for decades, harkening back to warnings from Ronald Reagan in 1981 when it surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. They also noted that Trump himself said that the U.S. was "sitting on a time bomb" of debt when he first ran for president, pledging that he would eliminate it within eight years.

As he reaches the halfway point of his second term a decade later, he has come nowhere close to that lofty promise, with the debt hitting the $40 trillion milestone last month. In fact, Wippman and Altschuler explained, he is doing considerable work to worsen the debt severely.

"Since January 2025, the debt has gone up almost $4 trillion," the pair explained. "Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add an additional $4.7 trillion. Earlier this month, Trump promised $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans retain control of Congress in the midterm elections. With a price tag of $1.2 trillion, the 'Trump dividend,' he indicated, would be funded by 'the tremendous economic success' of the U.S., which 'is making so much money' from tariffs."

The pair noted further that the vast majority of Americans, 98 percent per a recent poll, share Trump's disinterest and said that the national debt is not one of the biggest issues threatening the country right now.

"Many more might do so if they realized that America’s spendthrift ways are hitting them hard, right now," the pair added. "The national debt isn’t the only — or even the main — factor determining interest rates. But increases place upward pressure on interest rates, in part because the government must offer higher returns on government bonds to attract investors. Even small increases matter. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that a 0.55 percent increase in mortgage rates would increase payments on a $500,000 mortgage by almost $200 a month, and the lifetime cost of the loan by $64,000."

They added later: "Nonetheless, politicians continue to kick the can down the road. Nor has the national debt received much attention in the 2026 midterms. Despite his 2016 'time bomb' warning, Trump seems to have lost interest in reducing, let alone eliminating, our national debt. Asked whether he was concerned about rising interest rates, the president replied, 'I don’t think so at all.'"

President Donald Trump's evident decline has had numerous visible impacts on his abilities, with one body language expert exposing the new ways in which it is causing him to struggle to "project power."

Dr. John Paul Garrison is a clinical and forensic psychologist, as well as an expert in interpreting body language. He also produces numerous videos using his professional expertise to shed light on the behaviors of public figures and what they reveal. This has included many videos about Trump and his signs of failing health, with Garrison theorizing that the president is experiencing accelerated decline, often consistent with the symptoms of a recent stroke.

In his latest video about Trump, Garrison explored the body language cues present during the president's recent visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping. While the discussion centered on "power dynamics," Garrison stressed that this was all happening amid a context of Trump's seeming decline, noting that "his behavior and body language are actually different than they used to be." Early on, he noted that the president continued to struggle with involuntary spasms during the visit, and explained that this put him on the back foot with Xi, as he would be "focused on trying to control his body rather than anything else."

Garrison highlighted the times when Trump paused his speech so it could be translated into Chinese, during which he lifted his chin higher into the air. This, he explained, is a common tactic people use when trying to assert strength, as it exposes the neck and communicates that you are not concerned about a weakness being targeted. Trump also struggled to keep still during these moments, with Garrison suggesting that other world leaders would see it "as a sign of discomfort or a sign of not feeling at ease."

Garrison then transitioned to an examination of Xi's body language for contrast.

"So, what you're observing so far is that he has what I would describe as a normal reaction that you would expect from a world leader. He appears attentive while President Trump is speaking," he explained. "He's nodding while he's listening to the translation. Everything you're observing right now is essentially what you would expect from a situation like this. And the reason I'm even showing you this now is that President Trump's reaction, when we're going to look at President Xi speaking, is quite different."

He continued: "As you can see, he looks around a little bit. He doesn't have an intense gaze, just staring at President Trump. Nor is he looking away or looking uninterested. As I said, it's basically what you would anticipate in a situation like this. Seeing President Trump and President Xi back-to-back really makes it stand out how uncomfortable President Trump often times looks when he's been speaking lately. President Xi appears very calm. You're not really seeing any emotion on his face. He certainly isn't moving around a lot. Basically, everything is as you would expect from someone who has a very disciplined and controlled way to provide speeches."

Garrison later concluded that Xi consistently showed "a very calm, measured approach to basically everything," while Trump appeared "much more distractible."

"[Trump] seems to be struggling more with attention than he ever has," Garrison explained. "And it seems that he was very excited towards President Xi, particularly as the second day wore on. Now, one big difference between the two is that President Xi seems somewhat ambivalent, at least in my opinion, about whether or not President Trump likes him. The body language doesn't suggest that he has any particular interest or cares whether or not President Trump likes him. Whereas President Trump is sort of the opposite. It seems like he really wants to be liked by Shei. He seems excited by him. And it seems like what he wants is some acknowledgement."

The Republican Party has given a sure sign that they have given up on a major midterm fight, according to the D.C. insiders at Pod Save America, and are now scrambling to mitigate the potential damage.

In the latest edition of the Pod Save America podcast, the hosts, composed of former Obama administration officials and staffers, discussed the latest signs that the GOP is about to get wiped out by a blue wave in November. In particular, host and former White House speechwriter director Jon Favreau highlighted a new update from The Cook Political Report, which declared, "GOP on track to lose House majority as 15 race ratings shift toward Dems."

"So, they say that the most likely outcome at this point is that Democrats pick up anywhere from five to 15 House seats," Favreau explained. "Which even at the low end would mean no more Speaker Mike Johnson."

Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior communications adviser to Barack Obama, explained that the dire odds for the House GOP have led to a dead giveaway that the party has fully thrown in the towel in terms of potentially retaining its majority in the chamber, and it all comes down to the districts where they have opted to spend their considerable funds.

"You can tell the Republicans know the House is gone because they've moved much of their money to districts that Trump won by 10 to 15 points," Pfeiffer explained. "So, there's three districts that Trump won by 15 points that they're investing in right here in Texas. They're doing all across the country. And the goal here is not to preserve the majority. It's to limit the size of the Democratic majority to make it easier for them to potentially get it back in 2028 or 2030."

Pfeiffer noted further that this sort of mitigation tactic is where the GOP's sizeable fundraising lead over Democrats will come in handy.

"And this is where having basically unlimited money matters because it allows the Republicans to play in a whole bunch of races to shore them off the Democrats cannot," he added. "We do not have that money, so Democrats have to be incredibly disciplined about how to do it. And it's like, we want to win as many seats as possible. Want the largest majority possible, [which] allows us to do the most stuff. It also sends the most powerful message to the country, to the post-Trump Republican Party, to the CEOs, law firms, media companies who have kowtowed to Trump, that politics has changed in America."

At a time when his network remains under assault by the administration, CNN's top fact-checker Daniel Dale received acclaim as he revealed his top takeaways after a full decade of covering and correcting President Donald Trump.

On Sunday morning, Dale published a new piece marking the notable anniversary, digging into the things he has learned over the years of sifting through Trump's "remarkable number of lies" during his time at the forefront of American political life.

“Ten years ago this month, in my old job as Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, I started what I believed would be a quick little side project: fact-checking underdog presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was telling a remarkable number of lies but was rarely being corrected. Like a lot of people, I thought Trump would lose the 2016 election,” Dale detailed. "I was very wrong. And Trump continued to be very wrong, about a dizzying variety of subjects, for the next decade.”

He added later in the piece: "The lies cause real harm. Some of Trump’s lies are so bizarre or trivial that I can’t help but laugh. On the whole, though, his lies have been deeply harmful to the country. People died because of the Capitol riot prompted by his lies about the 2020 election. His lies downplaying Covid-19 almost certainly led to deaths, too. Specific people targeted by his lies, including journalists, judges and election workers, have faced threats and harassment. His lies have worsened innumerable public debates around critical policy issues. And American democracy itself is worse off for all the lying, too."

The reaction to the piece across social media was largely glowing, with various colleagues and public figures hailing Dale's efforts and highlighting the particularly important points raised in his new piece.

"Thank you, Daniel Dale, for being one of the few political reporters who is willing to describe Trump's *unmatched* degree of dishonesty and lying more accurately and consistently," communications consultant Susan Bordson wrote in response to the piece on X, highlighting further a "Key excerpt re MSM press practices" in response to Trump's lies.

"Pro-Trump media entities have shown embarrassingly little interest in addressing his lies," Dale wrote in the passage she highlighted. "But more neutral outlets have regularly failed, too. On the last full day of Trump’s first presidency in 2021, I wrote, 'Too often, coverage of flagrantly dishonest Trump speeches still mentioned the dishonesty in passing or not at all. Too often, coverage still quoted the president’s lies without explaining that they were wrong.' More than five years later, these problems persist."

Brian Stelter, a professional colleague of Dale's and chief media analyst for CNN, highlighted some of what he saw as the key takeaways from the piece: "Dale's takeaways include: 'the bigger the crisis, the more Trump lies,' Trump 'is not only a supplier of bad information but a consumer of it,' 'the mainstream media doesn't handle Trump’s lying well enough,' and 'the lies cause real harm.'"

"That our nation has largely adjusted to having a habitual liar as president is shameful," Jennifer Erin Valent wrote. "Worse yet, he has been strongly supported by Christians who claim to honor the God of truth, who are meant to defy the father of lies, and who are commanded not to bear false witness."

"Everybody who supports or opposes Trump should read this, the thoughts of prominent factchecker Daniel Dale on the context and proliferation of Trump's lies," retired Chicago reporter Ray Long wrote.

"One of the heroes of American journalism is this Canadian, who has single-handedly researched and catalogued thousands of lies by our president," Daniel Boardman, dean of the Klein College of Media and Communications, wrote in a post about Dale.

"'Two months before Election Day in 2020… he was telling so many campaign lies that I’d become physically unable to look into all of them while living something loosely resembling a healthy life,'" senior CNN producer Shawn Reynolds wrote in a post quoting Dale's piece. "By then, I’d recorded more than 8,500 false claims since September 2016.”

The Trump administration this weekend released a confounding new ad hyping up President Donald Trump, which was promptly torn to shreds online as "shameless," "maximally corrupt" and "incredibly illegal."

On Sunday, a new ad began airing, first on Fox on Saturday during a college football game featuring Illinois and Ohio State, and then again the following day during Fox News Sunday. The 30-second clip is composed of black-and-white footage of Trump walking down a hallway towards the camera, while excerpts from a speech play in which he says, "This is the final battle," promises to drive out "warmongers," "globalists" and "communists," and pledges to "liberate" the country from "villains."

At the end, a disclaimer further discloses that the ad was "paid for by the U.S. Government," prompting swift and vicious condemnation from numerous experts and pundits across social media, many of whom called out the use of tax dollars for political advertising as blatantly illegal. Others also questioned the effectiveness of touting Trump at a time when his toxic approval ratings are making the midterms a nightmare for Republicans.

"This ad is both incredibly illegal and politically asinine. Kudos to everyone involved," Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior White House adviser to Barack Obama and Pod Save America co-host, wrote in a post to X reacting to the clip.

"'Demolish the deep state' - Trump has overseen the most corrupt administration in modern history making billions of dollars for him and his friends while your costs go up," Sen. Andy Kim wrote, as part of an extensive breakdown of Trump's claims in the clip. "'Expel the warmongers from our government' - Trump started a war with Iran that has cost taxpayers billions and raised your gas prices to almost $5 a gallon. 'Rout the fake news media' - Trump's order banning news outlets from the White House was just struck down by a judge because it violated the First Amendment. And how much taxpayer money did the government spend on this ad?"

"A taxpayer-funded propaganda TV spot. This is the most shameless administration of our lifetime," former Republican congressman Justin Amash wrote in his own post.

"What’s crazy is it’s not that hard to for a White House to steer donors to an outside group who can run fluffer ads like this," conservative pollster and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell wrote. "But no, Trump and this administration wants to take the maximally corrupt route just to show you they can get away with it."

“'Cast out the communists' — …except when we’re rolling out the red carpet for them even as they provide surveillance info for the Iranians to target our servicemembers?" CNN host Jake Tapper wrote, in reference to the recent visit of Chinese Leader Xi Jinping.

"Our tax dollars are being spent to indulge the fantasies and to soothe the fragile ego of a narcissistic sociopath who is falling deeper and deeper into psychosis," conservative commentator George Conway wrote, echoing his recent assertions that Trump is suffering a severe break from reality.

"It’s important we now have documentation that the Republican Party has corrupted itself to this degree," MS NOW host Joe Scarborough wrote. "Republicans now support the Centralized State stealing taxpayers’ money to run ads for their political party."

Almost no one expected President Donald Trump's own backyard to be anything but safe for Republicans in this year's midterms, but according to a new breakdown from The i Paper, his disastrous leadership and ongoing "crisis" have put the MAGA stronghold state more and more in play.

Writing for the outlet on Sunday, veteran Washington correspondent Simon Marks dug into why even Florida, home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence and increasingly seen as a resilient jewel in the GOP crown, is starting to make Republicans sweat heading into November.

"If there is one state in the U.S. that Republicans had thought was entirely safe terrain for them in November’s midterm elections, it was the Sunshine State of Florida," Marks wrote. "At the start of this year, Democrats gave no thought to the possibility of flipping the state and turning it blue. After all, their Republican opponents currently control 20 of Florida’s 28 seats in the House of Representatives, both seats in the U.S. Senate, and the Governor’s Mansion."

He added: "Democratic Party grandees had sensibly written it off. But suddenly, such is the American public’s disquiet over Donald Trump’s stewardship of the nation and the economic crisis that his war on Iran has ignited that even Florida is in play."

Signals about GOP uncertainty in Florida have been growing in number and intensity over the past few weeks. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a House Republican running for reelection in a largely Latino district that she previously won by 20 points in 2024, turned heads with a new ad attacking the president over his mass deportation agenda. Byron Donalds, the Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in the state who once found himself on Trump's 2024 running mate shortlist, was also caught scrubbing mentions of the president from his campaign website.

An update from the revered election forecasting outlet, Cook Political Report, also recently shifted the Florida governor's race slightly in favor of Democratic nominee and outspoken Trump critic David Jolly, though the race remains "likely Republican." This came after a shock poll from the Miami Herald gave Jolly a five-point edge over Donalds.

"That Florida could now be a swing state should be setting off alarm bells in the White House," Marks added later. "Former Florida Republican congressman Carlos Curbelo told Politico on Friday that the party’s candidates were 'bracing for the worst.' The loss of Trump’s home state – and seat of his unofficial court at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach – would be an extraordinary and humiliating loss for the President. And Democrats know that if Trump’s party is in trouble there, it is facing a possible wipeout when the votes are counted all over the country in just over five weeks’ time."

President Donald Trump has gotten fond of using one particular "trick" to fool the global markets into acting like the economy is trending in the right direction, but according to a new analysis from The i Paper, that trick is now running headlong into its expiration date.

With the midterms set to arrive in mere weeks, Trump and the GOP are facing a voter backlash crisis as gas and diesel prices remain stubbornly high as a direct result of the president's Iran war, making longstanding concerns about affordability even worse as the cost of travel and transportation ripple out to the costs of everything else.

Writing for The i Paper on Sunday, reporter and columnist James Ball explained that Trump has gotten comfortable using the promise of an impending peace deal with Iran to convince global oil and stock markets to rally in his favor, even as no meaningful or durable deal emerged.

"[Time] and again, Trump would promise that a peace deal or a ceasefire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was going to be signed any day now. Time and again, global markets believed him. For most of the year, oil prices have been higher, but not dramatically so. Traders genuinely seemed to believe Trump would have the Iran war wrapped up long before the midterms – and, crucially, long before the northern hemisphere entered the winter months."

He added: "As a famous TV show once said, winter is coming. Countries have spent most of the year burning their oil and gas reserves, and they are now running low. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t open, and for a time the east-west pipeline across Saudi Arabia wasn’t working, either. Suddenly, the prospect of oil and gas shortages in the dead of winter looks all too real."

In the face of such a looming disaster, Ball noted that Trump "isn’t managing to promise peace deals quite as often as he used to," even as he tries to still "sound positive" about the war. His most recent claim is that a deal will be reached shortly after the midterms, "leading even the most credulous of observers to wonder why Trump would delay a popular peace deal until after ballots were cast." Left with little in the way of logic to grab on to, they have concluded "that maybe he doesn’t have a plan to end his oil crisis, after all."

"Most Americans are already deeply unhappy with Donald Trump and his administration’s performance, including millions of the people who voted for him just two years ago," Ball concluded. "But we may have seen nothing yet: if Trump doesn’t magic up a real deal, and soon, oil and gas will soar, inflation will rise with it, and his popularity will explore still new depths. Trump’s 'trust me' trick has got him through the summer. It will take much more to get Trump – and America – through the winter."

A new breakdown from MS NOW revealed how, even as the conflict has seemed to have "no concrete goals in mind," the Iran war is having an unexpected consequence that could make Donald Trump a historically impactful president, in one of the ways he never wanted to be.

In a piece published Sunday morning, MS NOW reporter and columnist Hayes Brown argued that Trump might have "done the environment a favor" by waging his war against Iran, despite the fact that "it is hard to imagine Trump doing anything that benefits the climate." With the conflict continuing to drive gas prices into the stratosphere, new reports have found that global greenhouse emissions have made a noticeable decline as people the world over are forced to drive less.

"[According] to a Washington Post analysis of International Energy Agency data, that’s exactly what has happened," Brown explained. "The IEA initially predicted a big jump in emissions this year compared with last year. But energy shipments from the Middle East remain stymied by Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz. That in turn has prompted a reduction in oil and gas consumption around the world, which has significantly reduced overall carbon emissions"

The Post's report detailed further: "The IEA analysis suggests global demand for oil in 2026 will decline 2.5 percent compared with last year. That would erase the amount of greenhouse gas emissions created by 42 million internal combustion engine cars. And the IEA had initially projected the world’s appetite for oil and gas would grow significantly over last year, so much so that the difference between its January projections and what is actually happening is the equivalent of avoiding the emissions from 103 million cars."

Brown added that he could "not stress enough" the degree to which this outcome was not intentional by Trump, given his long-established obsession with pushing for greater oil production and consumption, summed up by his oft-repeated energy motto, "Drill, baby, drill." Ironically, he noted that this is not the first time something like this has happened on Trump's watch, as a result of his negligent leadership.

"Trump has appointed a man who is, at best, climate apathetic to head the Environmental Protection Agency and an outright climate skeptic to oversee the newest draft of the National Climate Assessment," Brown wrote. "As a result, major regulations intended to reduce emissions and initiatives to promote cleaner energy have been gutted and branded as part of a 'Green New Scam.'"

He added: "What makes this case even more intriguing is that Trump was also in office the last time we saw such a major dip in global carbon output. In early 2020, when COVID-19 was just beginning to take hold, America was woefully unprepared for a pandemic. After Trump spent weeks publicly denying the virus was a major threat, it became clear that the administration was ill equipped to effectively contain it. The resulting nationwide quarantines were emulated on a global scale, prompting a massive slowdown in economic output. With that reduced demand, fossil fuel consumption and the resultant CO2 emissions also plummeted. Studies would show that for a moment, as the saying went, nature was healing — but only for a moment. As lockdowns ended and economies came back to life, demand rose again to undo most of the progress that had been made."

President Donald Trump's latest outburst was reportedly inspired by anger at one particular news network, and one of its top anchors has a theory about why he decided to go after three outlets instead of just the one.

The White House this week enacted Trump's demand to ban MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House, with the president accusing the networks of "constantly" reporting "fake news" about him. The move was widely condemned as a blatant attack on the First Amendment, prompting a lawsuit from the targeted networks and a boycott by the entire White House press pool.

Despite also banning CNN and Politico, subsequent reports revealed that Trump's outburst was inspired by a montage of only MS NOW anchors saying negative things about him, which was shown to him by close aide Natalie Harp. In a Wednesday interview with Pod Save America co-host Jon Lovett, Rachel Maddow, the veteran correspondent and top anchor at MS NOW, said that the press ban lined up with a theory she has developed for why the president has not targeted her network more often, despite how often they report stories that are critical of him.

"I have always had this theory that Trump doesn't come after MS NOW more than he does other news organizations — even though I think of all the mainstream media organizations, we're probably the most critical of him," Maddow explained. "I've always thought that he maybe doesn't come after us in a more concerted way because he's talked himself into the idea that that will help us, right? That that will elevate us, and so he shouldn't pay us attention because we're always going to be, you know, who we are and that it'll only help us, and therefore hurt him to give us too much attention."

She continued: "So he decides to sort of diffuse the attention on us by bringing in these other news organizations. But in so doing, he ends up taking this swipe that just seems sort of weird and inchoate and also very clarifying to the news business that this is the kind of thing that we ought to all stand up against together."

Elsewhere in the interview, Lovett pressed Maddow about what her immediate reaction was upon hearing about Trump's ban on MS NOW and other networks. As she explained, after it became clear that it was a real thing and not just a threat, the ban made it clear to her how desperate Trump has become.

"Oh, he's playing the hits," Maddow said. "Like. this is him doing the YMCA two-fisted dance. This is him doing a thing that he knows he can get the kind of reaction that he wants from the people who love him the most or the people who share his authoritarian, you know, dreams with him. And he's just hoping to return to safer ground. He wants the kind of attention that he wants, and he's getting attention for all sorts of stuff that he doesn't want. For having this record-low approval rating, and for the economy being in the toilet, and the Iran war, and the impending midterms, and all of his, like, falling asleep in public, and like, it's all bad news about him right now. So he wants to go back to playing the hits, getting the kind of attention that he wants on the terms that he wants it, and I think that's why he did it."

With only weeks left until the midterm elections, a growing tide of Republican candidates is distancing themselves from President Donald Trump, with the trend becoming so apparent that it even made headlines at the conservative National Review.

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday, senior correspondent Jim Geraghty wrote that Republicans are taking a line from the band The Police when it comes to handling Trump: "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

"GOP candidates running for office could only appear connected to a president with a high-30-something job approval rating for so long," he wrote. "This week, everywhere you look, Republicans are emphasizing that they want the war against Iran to end, and will do whatever it takes to bring down unleaded gasoline prices and diesel prices. Whether or not you believe the current public polls suggesting GOP doom accurately represent the mood of the electorate, Republicans who want to win in November are acting like their internal polling matches those public polls."

Geraghty proceeded to compile an extensive list of all the Republicans trying to get some distance from the president, both loudly and quietly, starting with Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who turned heads with a recent ad critiquing Trump for going too far with his mass deportation agenda. He also mentioned Byron Donalds, the Florida gubernatorial nominee, who was caught scrubbing his website of Trump mentions, following a similar tack to Rep. Young Kim, "who often faces tough reelection bids in her R+1 southern California district."

Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers, oft noted as a longtime war hawk, broke with Trump in a new ad where he state, "The war in Iran needs to end, to bring costs down."

"Iowa GOP representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks joined in a vote to limit Trump’s war powers last week," Geraghty added. "Both lawmakers represent competitive districts, and this marked the first time either one had voted to rein in Trump’s Iran war powers. Nunn wrote on X, 'With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization. Having deployed multiple times and flown over 700 combat hours in the Middle East, I will not support another open-ended war.' Ashley Hinson, a GOP representative who’s running for governor in Iowa, wrote on X Monday, 'Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.'"

Other examples listed included Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany, Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd and New Hampshire Senate nominee John Sununu. Summing up the trend, Geraghty suggested, "It’s as if someone flipped a switch."

"Some might argue that Republicans more openly criticizing Trump is the sound of impending lame-duckhood, but Trump will still run the executive branch for a bit more than two years, and have the biggest megaphone in politics," Geraghty wrote. "He just won’t have quite as many GOP legislators willing to assent to whatever he wants on any given day."

President Donald Trump's press ban is already facing choppy legal waters in court, with a top CNN legal analyst explaining why the president and his lawyers are now saying "very different things."

On Tuesday night, the Justice Department submitted a new filing in the lawsuit brought against the administration by MS NOW, CNN and Politico, after Trump banned the outlets from entering the White House. In it, agency attempted to argue that the ban was, among other reasons, done for national security purposes. Trump and his officials have frequently cited "national security" as a reason for his desired projects, including the ballroom and the D.C. arch, with some critics saying he treats like "magic words" that help him get his way.

“The President determined that Plaintiffs have failed to maintain minimum professional journalistic standards by publishing classified and national security information,” the DOJ filing read.

Reacting to this development during a Wednesday appearance on CNN, legal expert Elie Honig explained that these attempted justifications are unlikely to hold up in court, given how often Trump has said the quiet part out loud.

"Donald Trump's legal position has shifted dramatically overnight," Honig said. "And now we are seeing Trump's lawyers say very different things than Donald Trump and [Vice President] JD Vance and others have spent the last five or six days saying so. There are two main issues in this case. The first is the First Amendment issue... The trump administration's position now is that the ban is because of national security concerns. The problem with that is that the president himself has said repeatedly over the last five or six days that the reason for the ban is unfavorable coverage, negative coverage, 'I don't like the tenor or the type of coverage.' Very different stories."

Legal experts across the political spectrum, from Fox News's Jonathan Turley to MS NOW's Andrew Weissmann, have made similar observations about the Trump administration's case, noting that it is firmly established in American law that press outlets cannot be selectively barred from the White House for viewpoint reasons.

"The second issue is due process," Honig continued. "CNN, MS NOW and Politico point out that they were given no notice of the ban, no opportunity to contest it. Well, now, what Trump's lawyers are saying is we are going to give them, and I quote from the brief, 'post-deprivation process,' meaning we've taken away the due process rights first, and then we're going to give them some process that they just invented, starting now. That's sort of the antithesis of what due process is supposed to be. It's supposed to happen before you take something away. So we are now seeing a notable divide and split between what Trump has been saying publicly for the last several days and what his lawyers are now saying in their late-night brief."

President Donald Trump and the GOP once saw redistricting as their path to stave off a midterm wipeout, but according to a new report from MS NOW, the plan has crumbled as they have been forced to play defense in places once considered "safe."

"When Republicans redrew congressional districts in a number of states over the last year, they hoped their efforts would maximize GOP House seats and minimize the number of contests where Democrats could feasibly win," the report detailed. "But now, with just weeks to go before Election Day, Republicans are suddenly finding a host of deep red districts in play — and President Donald Trump’s political operation is now spending millions to defend Republicans in a dozen districts that the GOP redrew to favor Trump by at least nine percentage points."

Reviewing official records, MS NOW reported that a new Trump-affiliated PAC, Never Go Back, has already spent $6 million on GOP races in districts that the president carried by double digits in the 2024 election. The report called this the latest sign that the midterms "are shaping up to be a potential disaster for the GOP," alongside polling that consistently shows recently redrawn districts "don’t appear to be safe" from an impending blue wave.

"[The] biggest investment among the ruby red redrawn districts so far is in Florida’s 25th Congressional District, where Federal Election Commission filings show No Going Back PAC spending more than $2 million on a combination of TV ads and mailers," the report continued. "In that district, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz is facing off against Republican Scott Singer, the former mayor of Boca Raton. While Florida’s 25th district backed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by approximately 5 points, Florida Republicans redrew the map to turn the area into a Trump +9.2 district. And yet, despite the new district lines, Moskowitz looks like he could pull off the upset. On Tuesday, Fox News moved its rating of the race from 'Toss-up' to 'Lean D.'"

“The American way of life has become unaffordable,” Moskowitz said in a recent statement. “The Trump administration knows this, so their PAC will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to run ads to change the topic. But the bill always comes due at the end of the month.”

Other filings show that Trump-affiliated groups have poured over $1 million into the race in Texas's 35th District. Prior to gerrymandering, the district broke for Kamala Harris by more than 30 points, but it was redrawn to a Trump +10.

"No Going Back PAC is investing more than $500,000 on a TV ad in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, which was redrawn into a Trump +10 district," the report continued. "And the group is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign mailers and other voter outreach efforts across districts like Alabama’s 2nd (Trump +14.3), Florida’s 22nd (Trump +10.6), North Carolina’s 1st (Trump +11.6) and Ohio’s 15th (Trump +10)."

“By lighting their money on fire almost entirely in defensive districts and in places Trump won by double digits two years ago, MAGA Inc. is signaling that vulnerable House Republicans are in deep trouble and poised to lose,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton told MS NOW, adding that the GOP appears to be "running scared."