Election 2024

Republicans in North Carolina are begging the national party to dump more money into its Senate race, according to Politico, as Democratic candidate Roy Cooper looks increasingly unstoppable in the state that was once seen as reliably red.

Cooper is currently running to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Trump critic Sen. Thom Tillis, who has opted to retire after his current term. He will face former RNC Chair Michael Whatley in the general election, with polls recently shifting the race to "lean Democrat" amid the GOP's increasingly brutal midterm headwinds.

Cooper has long been considered the Democratic Party's best hope for flipping a Senate seat this cycle, given his popularity in the state as its former governor. His potential win would mark a major coup for the party in the state, given that it swung for Trump in the last three presidential races and has not gone for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2008, which also marked the last time a Democrat won a Senate race in the Tarheel State.

In a Sunday report, Politico revealed that the North Carolina GOP is hoping that they can avert a Cooper win if Washington sends in the "cavalry," in the form of more spending, which they believe could help turn around his polling and fundraising deficits, as well as his biggest overall problem against Cooper. To date, Cooper has raised north of $13 million, compared to Whatley's much more modest $5 million haul.

"Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists," Politico detailed. "A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID."

“He has an uphill climb,” Tuesday Sauer, chair of the Bertie County GOP, told the outlet. “Even though he was the RNC chair, a lot of people who aren’t politically involved really don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”

Some Republicans told Politico that Whatley's campaign has, so far, been too "generic" to compete with Cooper, who the outlet described as a "blue-chip opponent" from the left. This mediocre approach, the party worries, just "won’t cut it" given the brutal national environment for Republicans amid voter revolt against Trump's failures.

“That money needs to be brought to North Carolina, so the people of North Carolina can be reminded of what a crappy Governor Roy Cooper was,” GOP state Sen. Amy Galey told Politico, referring to the "massive $350 million warchest" of fundraising hauls held by Trump's MAGA Inc. PAC.

“Getting his name, face recognition in 100 counties is tough, especially in North Carolina, with just plain geographics of going from Manteo to Murphy,” another GOP state lawmaker, Rep. Donnie Loftis, added. “It comes down to funding. That money drives your message, and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your message out there.”

“Whatley and his allies have been caught lying time and again, but the truth is Roy Cooper spent his career locking up criminals while Whatley pushed for prisoners to be released during COVID,” Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart said in a statement to Politico.

“The reality of all of it is that between Republican super PACs and the RNC, they just have way more money,” Morgan Jackson, a veteran North Carolina Democratic strategist and adviser to Cooper, added. “There’s no white horse coming, the way that Republicans are waiting on their savior to come.”

Organized by the Donald Trump-associated Freedom 250 group, the Great American State Fair launched on Washington, DC's National Mall on June 25 and continues through July 10. The event is Trump's MAGA-themed celebration of the United States' 250th anniversary, but according to Talking Points Memo (TMP), even MAGA Republicans and Trump supporters are feeling disappointed by it.

TMP's Josh Kovensky, in an article published on the 4th of July, reports, "As I entered the Great American State Fair on Monday, I saw a red-faced older gentleman, looking upset. 'I'm mad at Trump!' he exclaimed, adding the event didn't resemble any fair he had been to before…. He was far from alone in having that reaction to the Great American State Fair, which is taking up the National Mall with a tiny model of Trump's triumphal arch, broken air conditioning, sagging tarps, and more for the next few weeks."

Kovensky adds, "Many of those at the Fair seemed to be a mix of confused and underwhelmed by the whole thing. In other ways, it was like a microcosm of the modern conservative movement's vision of America: lots of God, a warped view of the country's values, much of it a scam."

Many liberals, progressives, Democrats, Never Trump conservatives and libertarians in Washington, DC have been avoiding Trump's Great American State Fair, as they find the MAGA themes off-putting and resent the idea that MAGA has the market cornered on patriotism. But according to Kovensky, even MAGA Republicans are saying that the event isn't going well.

Kovensky describes the booths at the Great American State Fair, noting the MAGA and Christian nationalist themes.

"A 'Great Awakening' booth had books and DVDs on the essential fakeness of the COVID pandemic, the country's Christian founding, and more," Kovensky explains in TPM. "My friend and I stopped to speak with an attendant at the stall; she immediately began to try to convert us. She asked if we really knew what would happen once we died; I replied that I didn't think anyone knew the answer to that question. Her eyes now burning, she told us that she knew, asked our names, and started to pray for us. Once she asked if we could repeat after her that Jesus Christ was our lord and savior, we walked away."

Kovensky continues, "The whole thing veered from strangely funny to unsettling to deadening. Another booth was for AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens. It's the conservative AARP; among other things, they support raising the minimum eligibility age for Social Security…. We went into another booth that exhibited the work of an artist who made stylized images of American cities and monuments. It wasn't immediately obvious, but he also seemed to be a Christian nationalist."

During an interview with Axios' Marc Caputo, U.S. President Donald Trump discussed his ceasefire deal with Iran. Caputo asked Trump about the "limits" on his power, and his response is generating a lot of discussion on social media — some of it quite negative.

Caputo asked Trump, "What have you learned about not just the exercise of power, but the limits of your power, as a result of the conflict?"

The U.S. president responded, "There are no limits. No, none. I haven't learned that lesson yet. I know there are."

The liberal group Call to Activism, started by activist Joe Gallina, found the "no limits" disturbing.

"This should frighten us all," Call to Activism warned on X.

Journalist Jeff Yang tweeted, "Through a series of blunders, Trump's ability to govern has been severely weakened. He is becoming a de facto lame duck even in his second year in office. Bragging about his unlimited power is mere swanking to hide his incapacitated status."

Gregory Haynes, CEO of Point of Success Workforce Solutions, posted, "Had Obama or Biden said this RW media & Republicans would be out in the streets with 'Pitchforks and Torches.' And they would be RIGHT to do so. No President who took an Oath to …Preserve,Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States, should be saying that there are no limits to his power."

The conservative group Republicans Against Trump noted that when Caputo said Trump's Iran deal "doesn't look like unconditional surrender," he responded, "Well, it really probably is unconditional surrender."

X user Peter Toolan commented, "Remind the @POTUS we still have checks and balances regardless if you want to be king."

Another X user, Amma Opoku, wrote, "He lives in Cloud cuckoo land… he lies…. He just can’t help himself and I just wonder whether he has a best friend in his life who will tell him the truth and say to him look you gotta stop lying . Why doesn’t his wife or his children say anything. It’s baffling to me."

Former Republican Debi Ganster argued, "Republicans are responsible for this. They gave up their own power and turned it over to him. Remove every single one of them."

MAGA Republicans are vehemently attacking Pope Leo the 14th in response to a diplomatic award given to Iran's ambassador. But according to political insider Christopher Hale, who publishes Letters to Leo, and other experts on Vatican traditions, they are taking the award way out of context and overlooking some key facts.

Hale, in a May 13 post on X, explains, "MAGA is falsely attacking Pope Leo XIV again this morning after news emerged that the first U.S.-born pontiff gave Iran's Ambassador to the Holy See a diplomatic award. However, by itself, the award is not unusual. By Vatican custom, the Grand Cross is ordinarily conferred on resident ambassadors to the Holy See after roughly two years in post, and Mokhtari presented his credentials to Pope Francis in December 2023 — two and a half years before Cardinal Parolin signed this certificate."

The U.S. in Holy See account offers further explanation on X, emphasizing that Iran isn't getting any type of special honor from the Vatican.

According to U.S. in Holy See, "Contrary to news reports, Pope Leo has not bestowed an exclusive special honor on the Iranian Ambassador to the Holy See. This decoration is given to all accredited ambassadors to the Holy See after 2+ years of service and has been standard practice for many years. It is a personal recognition and does not imply support or opposition to any policy or country. Thirteen ambassadors were recently given this recognition. Previous U.S. ambassadors have all received the same. Finally, the decoration was not given in person by the pope."

Nonetheless, plenty of attacks on Pope Leo are coming from far-right MAGA Republicans.

Erin Brophy tweeted, "Leo is doing Lucifer's bidding at this point... confers the Vatican's highest honor to the ambassador of the Iranian regime that slaughtered 40,000 of their own people."

MAGA Republican DawnTheColoradan posted, "Pope Leo IS NOT A MAN OF GOD! Awarding vile Satanists horrifically torturing and murdering innocent Iranians is the work of the devil."

Another MAGA Republican, Summer, claimed, "Pope Leo just gave the IRGC regime's ambassador the Vatican’s highest diplomatic honor and praised their 'peace efforts.'"

President Donald Trump is losing the war he started with Iran — and a political expert is warning the president will behave increasingly erratically because he psychologically cannot handle losing.

“We are witnessing what happens to a person who is consumed with the need to dominate, but cannot,” Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, wrote for The Guardian on Friday. Describing Iran’s success in imposing economic pressure on the United States by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and thereby rising prices on gas and food, Reich described Trump’s ongoing failure as “not just a serious geopolitical defeat for the United States; it’s a personal crisis for Trump. Those rising prices coupled with an increasingly unpopular war have increased the likelihood that Democrats will take back control of the House and even possibly the Senate in the upcoming midterms.”

Trump’s problem, Reich argued, is his inability to accept defeat from the perspective of his ego. This is why Trump attempted a coup after losing the 2020 presidential election despite the courts debunking his claims of fraud, and Trump is displaying similar erratic and violent behavior again because of his impending political defeat in the 2026 midterm elections.

As one example, Reich pointed to Trump’s “numerous social media posts, including a bizarre one ‘On Friday night, he posted an AI-generated image of himself, JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum, all shirtless and with young physiques, standing in the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, along with an unidentifiable woman in a bikini.’” He also claimed that Trump “is fanatically seeking other ways to assert dominance” by attacking transgender college students and falsely accusing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffried of “INCITING VIOLENCE” by calling for a “maximum warfare” redistricting campaign to counter Republican gerrymandering.

More ominously, though, Reich predicted that Trump would attempt another coup if he loses the 2026 midterms.

“What if Democrats win control of one or both chambers of Congress in the midterms and he claims they lost or cheated?” Reich wrote. “The nation barely survived the last time Trump’s fragile ego faced a major loss. We’ll also have to cope with Trump as a lame-duck president who can no longer dominate and gain submission as he did before. Will he try to remain president beyond his second term to avoid this?”

He concluded, “The man is unwell. Seriously unwell. Lame-duck presidents fade away, but injured dictators can be dangerous.”

Reich is not alone in worrying that Trump is mentally ill. Dozens of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have written, either in congressional testimony or in private editorials, describing his behavior as troubling because it is consistent with cognitive decline. Speaking with AlterNet last week, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham (formerly of Tufts University) — the chief signatory of a letter warning of Trump’s perceived decline — explained that “the president’s condition appears to be deteriorating,” adding that “there has been a frightening progression of symptoms. These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say Yikes!”

Conspiracy theories have been a part of right-wing politics for many years, but in the past, some prominent conservatives vehemently spoke out against them. National Review founder William F. Buckley, during the 1960s and 1970s, famously condemned the John Birch Society — arguing that their conspiracy theories were bad for the conservative movement.

But during the Donald Trump era, conspiracy theories regularly appear in many right-wing media outlets — including the repeatedly debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

In an article published by on April 27, The New Republic's Michael Tomasky examines the prominent role that conspiracy theories now play in U.S. politics.

"There have been conspiracy theories about presidential assassinations, certainly the successful ones, since forever," Tomasky explains. "John Wilkes Booth, as we know, was part of a conspiracy, a small circle of men and women; but there were some who alleged a wider Confederate plot. It always has been and always will be the case that for some people, normal, factual explanations for large and cataclysmic events will never suffice…. It's always been true. But why does it seem so much worse today? Is it, in fact, worse? Yes, it is."

Tomasky notes that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, and he points out that conspiracy theories come from both the left and the right — for example, the claim that 9/11 was an inside job.

"Both sides have played this game," Tomasky observes. "In some corners of the left, there were, for example, a few conspiracy theories around (President) George W. Bush and September 11 — it was an inside job, the Mossad did it, he knew about it. So, I don't believe and would never say that the left broadly construed is without fault here…. Then there were the conspiracy theories about Barack Obama. The birther theories are only the most obvious in this category…. Remember when (Trump) was going to produce proof that Obama was born in Kenya? He never got around to that, somehow."

President Donald Trump's failed assassination attempt at a 2024 campaign rally has been widely credited with helping get him reelected, but as his second term begins to anger voters en masse, he has become "vulnerable to his own weapon" as MAGA acolytes begin spreading conspiracy theories that it was staged, according to MS NOW.

A gunman opened fire at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, at a rally in July 2024, missing him and killing an audience member behind him. In the ensuing months and years since then, the president has extracted considerable political capital from the imagery of that event, but that win may now be turning into a poison pill as his own ardent supporters begin to doubt the official narrative of the shooting and accuse Trump of staging the incident for political gain.

As MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem noted in a piece from Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Trump ally-turned-critic and avid conspiracy theorist, has become the latest and perhaps biggest MAGA-aligned name to question the assassination narrative, sharing multiple social media posts promoting the theory over the weekend. The ex-congresswoman accused Trump of covering up information about the shooter, Thomas Crooks, suggesting that he acted "in concert with others who have yet to be identified," and further asking "why Trump has failed to [crack] down on them."

"Greene is, of course, a seasoned conspiracy theorist, so her posts aren’t exactly surprising," Aleem explained. "But what’s striking is how she’s advancing a trend: right-wing critics of Trump floating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the Butler assassination attempt — sometimes suggesting that Trump himself may have staged the event. As Trump alienates elements of his right-wing base, he’s at risk of being engulfed by the kind of conspiratorial worldview he once commanded to his own advantage."

Besides Greene, Aleem highlighted Tim Dillon, a comedian and podcaster who has supported Trump in the past, who, earlier this month, said, "I think [Trump] should admit" he staged the assassination attempt. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, said in November that the FBI "lied" about Crooks' "online footprint."

"The subtext of the staged assassination conspiracy theories is also significant," Aleem argued. "Its proponents are effectively pushing a narrative of Trump as a showman who values the spectacle of martyrdom over actually getting things done. It’s basically a conspiracy theorist’s way of saying, 'Maybe Trump is a bulls–t artist.' That’s not a good place for Trump to be with his base — and there’s no obvious way for him to wrest back control of the narrative."

He concluded: "It’s not a coincidence that Greene, Dillon, [Joe] Kent and Carlson have all criticized Trump over his war in Iranall criticized Trump over his war in Iran, nor is it a coincidence that they are all turning to conspiracies to help explain their declining esteem for Trump. The more Trump doesn’t follow through on his MAGA promises, the more he resembles an establishment politician, or at least a politician beholden to the establishment. Thus, he grows more vulnerable to being seen as part of some hidden, truth-obscuring deep state apparatus. Whether they blame Trump or some other shadowy actor for making him this way, it allows them to apply their conspiratorial worldview for explaining a hard truth to swallow: Trump lied to them."

President Donald Trump's crusade to prove his false claims about election fraud and pave the way for future interference fell flat, according to a report from The New Republic, with leaders in Michigan rebuking his latest demand for Detroit-area ballots as "absurd."

Last week, the Department of Justice sent a letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General ⁠Harmeet Dhillon, demanding materials relating to the 2024 election from Wayne County, the home of Michigan's largest metropolitan area, Detroit. Among the letter's demands, it called for the county clerk to provide "election ballots, ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes from the last presidential election."

In a joint statement, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel refused, calling it an "absurd" demand driven by a "baseless" conspiracy theory, and accused Trump of "weaponizing" the DOJ in the process.

"Once again, President Trump is weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to sabotage our democratic process and turn it into his own personal agency to interfere in state elections. This request is as absurd as it is baseless,” Nessel said in the statement. “Successful convictions underline that Michigan’s safeguards work and that instances of voter fraud are rare and addressed. Using these prosecutions and recycling debunked 2020 election conspiracy theories as justification to demand copies of the ballots of Michigan residents is a clear attempt to bully clerks and spread fear, even after Donald Trump won Michigan in 2024. If this administration wants to bring this circus to our state, my office is prepared to protect the people’s right to vote."

Nessel responded to Dillon with a letter of her own, "urging her to uphold the rule of law and reject the Trump administration’s fishing expeditions into the debunked conspiracies."

In her own statement, Benson accused the Trump administration of attempting to create the basis for casting doubt on the legitimacy of future elections, as well as trying to relitigate past ones.

"This is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to interfere in our elections," Benson said. "Their goal is to sow seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of the results this November and in 2028. We won’t be intimidated by these tactics. We stand with Wayne County to ensure we protect the integrity of our elections and the privacy of Michigan voters. And we are ready to do the same with any other Michigan clerks DOJ threatens in this way. As always, we will follow the law and fight to protect our secure, accessible election system against this administration’s ongoing abuse of power."

As The New Republic detailed, Trump has demanded similar information from every state and Washington, D.C., and has faced legal setbacks in places like Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon. He has also begun claiming that arrests and criminal charges stemming from his false 2020 fraud allegations are coming soon, with his embattled FBI Director Kash Patel claiming that they could come as soon as this week.

The MAGA movement was rocked by a major bombshell when, in November 2025, far-right then-Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) expressed her disappointment with President Donald Trump by resigning from Congress. Greene not only decided against seeking reelection in the 2026 midterms — she left Congress altogether in early January, opting not to serve out the rest of her term.

This Tuesday, April 7, a special election to fill that U.S. House of Representatives seat will be held in Georgia's deep red 14th Congressional District, where Trump-endorsed Republican Clayton Fuller (a former local prosecutor and Air National Guardian veteran) is up against Democrat Shawn Harris (a cattle farmer and retired U.S. Army brigadier general). This isn't Harris' first time running for that seat: in 2024, he took on Greene and lost by 29 percent.

But in a New York Times article published on April 6, reporter Tim Balk emphasizes that the special election will be largely a referendum on Trump's war against Iran — which ex-Rep. Greene views as a major betrayal of the America First movement.

Harris, Balk notes, "has put his opposition to the conflict at the core of his closing pitch," while Fuller "says the war is keeping Americans safe" and "has proudly pointed to an endorsement" from Trump.

Although Georgia has evolved into a swing state in recent years — Trump lost the Peach State to Joe Biden in 2020 but carried it by 2 percent in 2024 — the 14th Congressional District is deep red. And Harris, after Greene's landslide reelection victory in 2024, knows he is facing an uphill climb.

Balk reports, "Political observers will be watching the margin on Tuesday for hints of how the war and other factors, such as immigration and the economy, could affect the November midterms…. Even before the Iran war, (Harris) centered his campaign platform on lowering prices. Now, he is arguing that Mr. Trump's decision to go to war is squeezing Georgians' finances…. Mr. Fuller has not focused heavily on the war, preferring to highlight his support for Mr. Trump's immigration crackdown. But in a debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club in partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting last month, he stood behind the war."

Tensions are flaring and major divisions are forming within the White House over President Donald Trump's comments about how the war in Iran has already been won, according to a new report from MS NOW, with insider sources revealing that he is "getting a little bored with" the war he started.

Speaking with MS NOW for a report published Friday morning, sources within the White House expressed frustration over the contradictions in Trump's handling of the Iran conflict, with him both declaring victory early and ordering the deployment of thousands of new troops to the Middle East, all while the Pentagon plans to request billions in funding. The insiders described the president's communications as "confusing, internally inconsistent and increasingly detached from battlefield reality."

"It’s part [of Trump] just wanting to declare victory and move on," one senior White House official told MS NOW, adding that the president's claims about the war being won are "mostly hyperbole."

The official continued: "[Trump] is getting a little bored with Iran. Not that he regrets it or something — he’s just bored and wants to move on."

Another White House official said that Trump is eager to "move on" from the conflict he started with Israel and focus on domestic issues like the economy, which are certain to determine the outcome of the midterm elections in November. The war has resulted in a historically massive disruption in the global oil supply, sending gas prices into the stratosphere and tanking one of the only affordability messages he might have been able to make.

Another source, a former Trump official, told MS NOW that the president is betting on his ability to convince the American people of his own lies. While that has worked for some issues in the past, the former official expressed doubt that he will be able to manage it again without real results.

"He has learned he can tell the American people his feeling, and — with enough time — the American people will accept his lie,” the former White House official explained. “Just telling us the war is won isn’t good enough. We need to see it; we need to feel it.”

President Donald Trump has evolved significantly over the ten years that he's been on the political stage, and it's starting to show.

Writing on Thursday for iPaper, Miles Taylor, former chief of staff of the US Department of Homeland Security, recalled some of Trump's more "jarring" moments in the Oval Office during his first term.

One 2018 incident involved Trump's bizarre tangent about helicopters having too many parts. He was supposed to be talking about the Category 5 hurricane heading toward the United States, putting millions in danger.

"We finally got him back on track, but the clock was ticking," Taylor wrote. "I filed it away as a data point. But I now think it was an eye-opening preview." Family members have warned that it will only get worse.

He alleged that the press keeps dancing around the debate about Trump's mental fitness for the top job in the free world. He's always been "somewhat misdirected," Taylor wrote, a euphemism for Trump's tendency toward tangents.

At that time, Taylor said, "the question was never simply, Is he sharp? It was always, can the system around him absorb his worst impulses? In his first term, it just barely could. In his second, it cannot."

He called it "far more alarming" than any of the allegations that the media wrote about former President Joe Biden's "cognitive decline."

During the first term, there were capable people who could tell Trump "no," "that's illegal," or outright ignore his more absurd demands. But now, Taylor said Trump is "surrounded by people who are hyping those characteristics rather than helping him exercise any semblance of self-control."

Taylor said that after years of watching Trump "at close range," he felt Trump was in an "unusual cognitive disarray." In the first administration, Trump "was disorganized in ways that were structurally alarming for a commander-in-chief," said Taylor, noting Trump's "sudden associations" and "not sequences."

The only way he could absorb or retain information was "through flattery and visual repetition rather than briefings." Gone were the days of Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB) that could go 70 to 90 minutes long. They shortened Trump's to 20 to 30.

On Wednesday, it was reported that Trump's briefings have been turned into 2-minute videos that are made up of bombings. Taylor recalls that Homeland Security was told outright to stop sending Trump documents that were longer than a page and, wherever possible, "provide information in pictures instead of words." Even those mechanisms in place are no longer there, Taylor said.

He recalled Trump growing "red-faced, sputtering obsenities" after he saw a news story that made him look unflattering or alleged he was willing to break the law.

Taylor described it as the bomb still being there, but now the "blast shielding" is gone.

Now that Trump's worst instincts are no longer managed, his cognitive decline is only compounding the problem. "Speech pathologists and neurologists have noted the deterioration publicly, and while I’m not qualified to diagnose it, what I can tell you is that the contrast with even five years ago is striking. The man I observed in the first term was erratic, but the man I observe now is erratic," said Taylor.

The irony, he pointed out, is that Trump spent so long pointing to Biden as too cognitively impaired to lead. Even after just five years, Taylor said that Trump is the one facing those charges.

Reporters were quick to jump on Biden with every stumble, every tangent, every mistaken name, even his long-documented stutter became fair game for the media hanging on every word searching for fault. Now, they're silent. Taylor alleged, they "have adopted the collective posture of people who have suddenly gone blind (or are, perhaps, too scared to criticise a man who threatens to prosecute their newspapers or revoke the broadcast licenses of their cable networks)."

Taylor said he's not trying to diagnose Trump, he's merely arguing whether the office of the presidency can "support the person holding it when that person errs, missteps, or fumbles on serious matters of war and peace? Are there people around willing to correct him to his face? Or, in the case of something like the Iran war, are aides prepared to explain to him the deadly consequences of a failure to prepare?"

Today, Taylor closed, Trump's team is only magnifying his worst instincts. "And in the face of storms on the global horizon, they won’t help the President avoid catastrophe."

Far-right MAGA Republicans, from Moms for Liberty to evangelical fundamentalist megachurches, often describe themselves as staunch defenders of "parents' rights." Liberals and progressives, they contend, fail to respect the right of parents to make their own decisions. And they typically frame "parents' rights" as being protective of children.

But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in an article published on March 11, argues that Republicans' "parents' rights" claims easily fall apart upon examination.

"When Republicans talk about parents' rights, look for the child that is being harmed," Marcotte warns. "This rule of thumb rarely fails. 'Parents' rights' is one of those phrases that sounds good on paper, encouraging people to imagine themselves — loving and protective parents who only want the power to do right by their child. But when conservatives invoke the term, their objective is to trump a child's rights to be safe and healthy, despite what a toxic or even abusive parent wants to do to them. That reality was revealed yet again last week, when the Supreme Court blocked a California law preventing teachers from outing trans kids to religious parents."

Marcotte continues, "The injunction is temporary, but most legal experts believe it is inevitable that the Christian right-favoring court will eventually rule against a child’s ability to decide when and with whom to share their gender identity — even if they fear being beaten, disowned or thrown out on the streets."

The case Marcotte is referring to is Mirabelli v. Bonta, which, she notes, "centers around a family who is refusing to accept their high school child's self-identification as a boy."

"For decades," the Salon journalist explains, "Republicans have resisted efforts, both domestic and international, to favor children in conflict with parents who threaten their safety and wellbeing. Efforts to ban physical violence against children, protect children from spiritual abuse or ensure children's right to education are routinely undermined by Republicans in the name of parents' rights."

MAGA Republicans and the Religious Right, according to Marcotte, repeatedly show their disdain for parents who don't share their far-right views.

"When conservative parents assert a right to censor their child's education," Marcotte emphasizes, "they are also affecting what all the other kids in the classroom are able to read. Under their logic, the views of parents who take a more accepting, expansive view of child-rearing don't matter. In the GOP universe, the only parents who have rights are conservatives. There is no Republican support for parents who assert the right to help a trans kid get health care, take a pregnant child to an abortion clinic or stock the local library with a variety of books so a child can learn and explore on their own."

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump vowed to protect Social Security, Medicare and other safety-net programs. But since returning to the White House, his policies have defunded the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Obamacare subsidies.

In a column posted on his Substack page on March 3, liberal economist Paul Krugman warns that Trump's decision to go to war with Iran will make life worse for the poor in the United States.

"Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School estimates that Trump's largely unsuccessful bombing campaign last year against the Iran-backed Islamist Houthis in Yemen — a far softer target than Iran itself — cost between $2.76 billion and $4.95 billion," Krugman explains. "Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump's one-day strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities, cost between $2.04 billion and $2.26 billion. The current war is being waged not only with massive bombing, but also, with the use of large numbers of expensive interceptors to defend U.S. bases and U.S. allies against Iranian drones and missiles."

Krugman continues, "So in just a few days, we have surely incurred billions of dollars in cost. And if this war continues for an extended period, the costs could easily rise to the 20-to-30-billion-dollar range."

The former New York Times columnist notes that "U.S.-style war" is "incredibly expensive."

"Conservatives complain constantly about the level of federal spending, claiming that we are spending more than we can afford on social programs," Krugman observes. "Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposes harsh cuts in nutritional and healthcare assistance, supposedly because the cost of food stamps and Medicaid is excessive. This, despite the fact that study after study has shown that the long run costs of not providing food stamps and Medicaid are far higher than the cost of providing them. And if we compare the cost of this war to what we spend to help needy Americans, then it's clear that this war is extremely expensive compared with other ways we could have spent the funds."

Krugman continues, "Put it this way: SNAP — the Supplemental Nutritional Food Assistance Program, formerly food stamps — spends an average of about $2400 a year per recipient. CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program administered under Medicaid, provides comprehensive health care for about $3000 per child. So just replacing those three jets shot down over Kuwait — each of them, remember, with a price tag of $97 million — will cost about as much as providing 125,000 Americans with crucial food aid or providing healthcare to 100,000 American children. And the war might very well end up costing 100 times as much as the price of those jets."

National Public Radio's (NPR) Stephen Fowler and MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin reported, in late February, that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) withheld several Jeffrey Epstein documents that mention sexual abuse allegations against President Donald Trump. Those allegations have not been proven, but according to i Paper reporter Matthew Bailey, the fact that those files were withheld is adding to resentment over DOJ's handling of the Epstein files.

"The Epstein files are Donald Trump's 'political kryptonite,' experts say, as new evidence emerges that suggests his Justice Department has withheld documents relating to allegations that he sexually abused a minor," Fowler reports in an article published by the UK website in February 26. "Anger has grown since only around half of the six million files relating to…. Jeffrey Epstein held by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) were released last month. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed in November 2025, was meant to force the whole tranche of documents to be made public."

Fowler continues, "Now, an investigation by U.S. outlet NPR has claimed the DOJ removed some documents mentioning Trump from the public database of files linked to the late financier. These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews as well as notes from conversations with a woman who, in 2019. accused the president of sexually abusing her in 1983, when she was 13. She claimed Epstein introduced her to Trump, who tried to force her to perform a sex act before punching her in the head. Trump's representatives have rebuffed the claims…. The allegation against Trump only briefly appears in the documents."

David Andersen, who teaches U.S. politics at Durham University in the U.K., believes the DOJ files in question were "withheld to protect President Trump."

Anderson told the i Paper, "He is terrified that his base will react negatively to his name appearing in the files…. (Trump) clearly put out the message through his administration that he has been completely exonerated and has no connection with Epstein whatsoever. It seems like this is directly contradicted by the evidence that there is unreleased material."

The Durham professor added, "I don't think there's anybody in America who expected the Trump Administration to actually release information that could be damaging to Trump… It is both surprising that it was so clumsily done and yet unsurprising that they tried to hide it."

Mark Shanahan, who teaches politics at the University of Surrey — another British university — described the Epstein files as "Trump's political kryptonite."

Shanahan told the i Paper, "There is something within those overall 6 million documents that worries him hugely. Any allegations of misconduct from Trump in the files that NPR have discovered would need to be investigated and substantiated. If it was substantiated, it could turn MAGA against him — particularly the evangelical Christian religious wing, which makes up a significant portion of MAGA.… What it will turn off, more and more, is independents who've leant Republican for the last couple of election cycles."

Shanahan continued, "They're not seeing the economic benefit, and here is a good reason to vote for the other side…. Under the law, the DOJ has the right to withhold files if releasing them would be prejudicial to the survivors or if it is an issue of national security. However, under the law and through the Epstein Papers Transparency Act of November 2025, it should not be about protecting political or powerful figures."

Watching MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), one is often reminded that President Donald Trump is not universally loved on the right. The cable news outlet leans liberal or center-left, yet some of its hosts are conservative Trump critics who were prominent figures in the GOP in the past — including former Rep. Joe Scarborough, ex-White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace and former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele. Moreover, Never Trump conservatives and libertarians are frequent MS NOW guests, including attorney George Conway, New York Times columnist David French, former Judge J. Michael Luttig, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson and The Bulwark's Tim Miller.

But the anti-Trump conservatives and libertarians who are plentiful on MS NOW or write for The Bulwark are no longer major players in the Republican Party. Many have left the GOP altogether. And in an article published by the New York Times on February 22, reporter Tim Balk examines the debates Never Trump conservatives are having over anti-MAGA strategies.

"Some of President Trump's most vocal Republican critics are divided over the future of a party that has pushed them to the margins, reflecting a fractured movement still trying to find its footing a decade after Mr. Trump rose to power," Balk explains. "Their differing views about what should come after the Trump Administration were evident as they gathered at a summit near Washington that has become an annual stop for figures in what is known as the 'Never Trump' movement."

Balk continues, "Mr. Trump's 2024 election win reinforced his grip on the GOP and left many of his critics inside the party without a natural political domain. Now, members of this splintering faction are contemplating their route back to relevance once Trump leaves office. There is much they disagree on, interviews show, including who would make an appealing presidential candidate in 2028. Does the most promising path involve, as some believe, expanding a foothold in a Democratic Party strongly opposed to Mr. Trump? Is it simply a matter, as others maintain, of waiting — hoping, perhaps — for Republicans to move on from the president and his MAGA movement once he leaves office?"

Although still conservative, Conway and former Rep. Joe Walsh — who was a prominent figure in the Tea Party during Barack Obama's presidency — are now registered Democrats.

John Giles, who formerly served as mayor of Mesa, Arizona as a Republican, isn't optimistic about the GOP moving away from Trumpism.

Giles, one of the conservatives who endorsed Kamala Harris when he spokes at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, told the Times, "I'm not sure what I'm fighting for at this. I don't see any kind of pushback in the Republican Party right now."

Although President Donald Trump maintains a strong bond with far-right white evangelicals and Christian nationalists, his relations with Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Jews and other non-fundamentalists are much more complicated. Some of Trump's most scathing critics are known for being quite religious, from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) to Sen. Raphael Warnock (a Georgia Democrat and Baptist minister).

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark in early February, journalist Lauren Egan reports that Democrats — with the 2026 midterms a little over nine months away — are ramping up their outreach to voters of faith.

"As Democrats scope out the emerging midterm landscape," Egan reports, "party strategists and officials have grown excited about the number of candidates for whom religion is a major part of their biography and identity. The most prominent so far is James Talarico, the middle school teacher turned Texas state representative running for U.S. Senate. The grandson of a Baptist preacher, Talarico is an outspoken Christian and an aspiring Presbyterian minister. But Talarico is far from the only Democratic candidate notable for the role of faith in his life. There is also Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister, who has a shot at flipping Iowa's 3rd Congressional District."

Egan continues, "Meanwhile, in the state's 2nd Congressional District, Lindsay James, an ordained Presbyterian pastor, and Clint Twedt-Ball, a United Methodist pastor, are both vying for the party's nomination. Matt Schultz, the head pastor of Anchorage's First Presbyterian Church, is running for Alaska’s sole congressional seat. Chaz Molder, a small-town mayor and Sunday school teacher, is running in Tennessee's fifth district. The list goes on."

Many of the people of faith running in the 2026 midterms, according to Egan, reflect "the public recoiling at the immorality and cruelty of the Trump Administration."

Schultz, a Mainline Protestant, told The Bulwark, "All of these people are coming to me and saying, 'Please, won't you help me? Please, won't somebody do something to stop this onslaught of cruelty? We're crying out in pain.' And as a pastor, it's my duty to stand between the abusers and the abused."

Michael Wear, who oversaw former President Barack Obama's faith-based outreach during the 2012 presidential race, believes that the challenge for Democrats is to excite their religious voters without alienating those who are not religious.

Wear told The Bulwark, "The Democratic Party contains some of the most religious people in America and some of the least religious people in America. It's not just (that) there's a God gap between Democrats and Republicans — there's a God gap within the Democratic Party itself. One of the ways to navigate that is to just take it off the table. But the problem when you take it off the table is you leave a pretty profound lane for someone like Donald Trump to say, 'Well, they don't care about you. They don't hear you, but I do.' And that's a lot of what has happened over the last 12 years."

Lauren Egan's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

When Donald Trump won the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, two of the four criminal prosecutions he was facing at the time stemmed from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results: a federal indictment prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith, and a Georgia indictment prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those election interference cases were doomed when Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024's general election, and the president continues to claim, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

One of Trump's most aggressive supporters after he lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was attorney Sidney Powell, who promoted a range of conspiracy theories on the election results in Georgia. And now, Powell is resurfacing after an FBI search in that state.

On Wednesday, January 28, FBI agents searched a Georgia election center, looking for records on the 2020 election. And the following day on X, formerly Twitter, Ed Martin (a Trump appointee to the U.S. Department of Justice) posted a photo of him with Powell — writing, "Good morning, America. How are ya?"

The Bulwark's Will Sommer, in response to Martin's tweet, posted, "After FBI raid on GA election office for 2020 ballots, top DOJ official posts a picture with leading election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell."

Attorney David Colapinto, responding to the Martin/Powell photo, tweeted, "Are these two in charge of recounting the ballots?"

Powell was among Trump's many co-defendants in Willis' election interference case. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges and avoided jail time but was sentenced to six months of probation.

In September 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed an intergovernmental organized that would be called the Board of Peace and led by the United States. And its stated goal was to "promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict" — including Gaza.

Around 60 countries were invited to join, and Trump announced its formation on his Truth Social platform on January 15. But according to Bloomberg News reporters Alex Wickham and Alberto Nardelli, the Board of Peace is "off to a rough start" — as it is being "questioned by Europe, criticized by Israel and celebrated by friends of the Kremlin."

"Trump wants the full constitution and remit of the committee signed in Davos on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter," Wickham and Nardelli report in an article published on January 19. "But some elements of the small print have left invitees wondering whether to accept."

Trump is demanding that countries pay $1 billion in U.S. currency in order to join — a demand that, according to Wickham and Nardelli "blindsided world leaders and left many bewildered."

"Potential members of the board — conceived last year as a Trump-headed body to oversee the redevelopment of post-war Gaza — began to filter out over the weekend," the Bloomberg News reporters explain. "Invitees include world leaders from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Much of the concern centers on the wording of the peace board's charter, seen by Bloomberg, which appears to place its ultimate decision-making power with Trump."

Wickham and Nardelli continue, "That raises many questions — not least over where the payments for long-term membership would go, the people said…. Argentina's Javier Milei confirmed he'll become a founding member and Italy's Giorgia Meloni has pitched herself as a mediator who is 'ready to do our part.' Former British premier Tony Blair, who was appointed as an executive to the board, is playing a key role behind the scenes along with Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the people familiar with the situation added."

Read the full Bloomberg News article at this link (subscription required).

Christian nationalist themes were alive and well at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025 gathering at the Phoenix Convention Center, which found Vice President JD Vance declaring that the United States "always will be a Christian nation." But that claim was debunked by MS NOW's Steve Benen, who noted what the Founding Fathers had to say on the subject — for example, John Adams, in 1797, writing that "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion," and Thomas Jefferson saying, in 1802, that the U.S. Constitution created "a wall of separation between church and state."

Another prominent Christian nationalist theme at AmericaFest 2025 is that the U.S. is seeing a widespread evangelical renaissance, which is also what the Moral Majority's Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. claimed during the 1980s. But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in an article published on January 7, counters that the U.S. is moving in a more "secular" direction — not converting to evangelical Christian fundamentalism in huge numbers.

"For decades now," Marcotte explains, "the Christian Right has been the most powerful and influential force in the GOP, and yet even by their standards, this marked a dramatic shift toward the theocratic impulse. From a purely rational perspective, this is bad politics. Only 23 percent of Americans identify as evangelicals. Trump was able to win in 2024 only by convincing large numbers of people outside of evangelical Christianity that he has a secular worldview. This was aided by the fact that he quite clearly doesn't believe all the Christian language, both coded and overt, his aides coax him to say."

The Salon journalist continues, "But none of that seems to register with MAGA leadership right now. They've convinced themselves — or at least are trying to persuade their donors and followers — that the U.S. is undergoing a massive religious revival. Right-wing media has been pushing the view that huge numbers of Americans, especially young Americans, are converting to fundamentalist Christianity."

Right-wing media, Marcotte observes, are claiming that the murder of Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk in September is fueling a "tidal wave of Americans, especially young Americans, discovering or returning to Christianity." But that "imaginary religious awakening," she stresses, isn't materializing.

"There is no evidence-based reason to believe there's a religious revival among the young that is about to create massive election windfalls for Republicans," Marcotte writes. "On the contrary, a December report from Pew Research found that, 'on average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans. Today's young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago.'"

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.