News & Politics

Back in 1992, Democratic strategist James Carville unveiled one of the most famous phrases in U.S. politics: "It's the economy, stupid." The concept, however, existed long before 1992 — Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt's messaging on the Great Depression gave him a landslide victory over incumbent GOP President Herbert Hoover in 1932 — and still existed in 2024, when Donald Trump's emphasis on inflation, according to polls, played a major role in his victory.

Now almost 11 months into his second presidency, Trump is facing weak approval ratings in many polls. And according to economist Rob Shapiro and The New Republic's Greg Sargent, Trump's erratic messaging on the economy is causing fellow Republicans a great deal of anxiety ahead of the 2026 midterms.

During an appearance on The New Republic's podcast "The Daily Blast" posted on December 15, Shapiro and host Sargent emphasized that Trump isn't doing the GOP any favor when he dismisses voters' anxiety over high prices.

"Well, you know, there are two realities here," Shapiro told Sargent. "One is the economic reality that people feel they can't afford the things that they used to be able to afford. And the second is the political reality, which is they blame Trump for it. And they blame Trump for it, I think, because he spent the first six months of his term saying: I'm going to totally redo economic policy, totally redo the economy around the tariffs. And so, he seized responsibility for the economy. And of course, the tariffs only raised prices."

Shapiro continued, "So they make the underlying issues worse. And people believed him. He was the master of the economy. Well, they don't like the results. So he's got a political reality, which is ultimately based on the underlying economic reality."

Sargent, a former Washington Post columnist, noted Trump's exact words on high prices: "The word affordability is a con job. They use the word affordability; it's a Democrat hoax. Look, affordability's a hoax."

Shapiro told Sargent, "The reality is that prices continue to rise, and they are continuing to rise at a rate which is a little faster than they were rising last year. Moreover, most economists expect inflation to accelerate because the impact of the tariffs is only now kicking in. And the reason for that is that businesses knew the tariffs were coming, so they built up their inventories before the tariffs. Well, now they've spent down those inventories. So any new inventories they buy — either from abroad or made with inputs from abroad — are going to cost more, and they've got to pass it on."

Listen to the full podcast at this link or read the transcript here.

President Donald Trump is considering naming Kevin Hassett to head the Federal Reserve after the end of Jerome Powell's tenure has ended.

CNBC reported Monday that while Hassett may have the president's ear, there is a risk that he'll be seen as in Trump's pocket and do whatever he asks.

Trump has spent the better part of his administration demanding that Powell reduce interest rates. When Powell finally did reduce interest rates, Trump continued to rail against Powell for being "too late" to do so.

CNBC cited Kalshi, the online betting site, for the 51 percent odds that Hassett is the nominee. However, that's down 29 percent from earlier in December. Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh is currently ranked as a distant second at 44 percent odds. That's up from 11 percent earlier this month.

The concern, however, is whether someone like Hassett could cause a bond market "revolt over time."

"That view could end up having the opposite effect Trump wants, with long-term yields eventually rising on concern Hassett wouldn’t do enough to contain inflation should it ever rebound down the road," the report said.

CNBC speculated it could have been the reason that Hassett spoke to CBS News over the weekend about the independence of the Fed.

Trump “has very strong and well-founded views about what we ought to do. But in the end, the job of the Fed is to be independent and to work with the group of people that are on the Board of Governors, at the FOMC, to drive a group consensus on where interest rates should be,” said Hassett during an appearance on “Face the Nation,” a transcript said.

Hassett was asked whether Trump's views would carry the same weight as the voting members of the central bank.

“No, no, he would have no weight. It’s just his opinion matters if it’s good, you know, if it’s based on data," said Hassett.

Powell's term is officially up in May 2026.

Read the full report here.

Conservative New York Times reporter Brett Stephens shamed President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement in a conversation with colleague David Leonhardt, noting the knack MAGA has for spreading "pessimism" among its followers.

"What you have today among conservatives, and certainly with the president, is essentially a pervasive pessimism about the future of liberal democracy: the idea that ultimately free citizens sorting out their problems through experiment and collaboration, the contestation of ideas, is going to yield good results," said Stephens.

"The conservatism that Trump expresses is better classified as illiberalism. That’s to say, a set of ideas often based in ethnicity, race or place that may have something in common with the conservative traditions of Europe, but have much less in common with the conservative traditions of the United States," he continued.

Stephens noted one of the "many reasons" that he was never a Trump supporter, despite being a traditional, Reagan-Republican.

"At its heart, there’s a dark vision of the future of the free world, a real pessimism or doubt about whether liberal societies can succeed," he said.

The only solution he has, however, is the hope that the GOP will "see the light" on immigration, once they have "exhausted the available alternatives. ... But I don’t think that’s happening in the next two years. I wonder if it’s happening in the next 20."

By contrast, Reaganism, he said was more "optimistic" about "possibility."

Read the full column here.

President Donald Trump wasted little time on Monday attacking the beloved director and activist Rob Reiner, claiming that his murder and that of his wife — with their own son being questioned by police — was the result of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the president’s name for people who are strongly opposed to him and his policies.

Describing the murders as a “very sad thing,” Trump then called Reiner “a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star.”

He wrote on Truth Social that the murder of Reiner and his wife was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”

Reiner, the president alleged, “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Critics immediately responded.

“Trump tried to punish people who criticized [Charlie] Kirk after he was killed. Now he’s doing this. What a sick deranged piece of trash human being,” declared Daily Kos reporter Emily C. Singer.

“What a sick man to use the death of a mother and father at the hands of their child as an opportunity for gleefully trying to score political points,” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council.

“You want to ignore it. He wants the attention. But you can’t ignore it. Because it’s not just about him. It’s about a world where decency still matters. And this is about as indecent as it gets,” observed former Obama administration official Patrick Granfield.

“Rob has a legacy to be proud of. You are a stain on civilization, few will miss,” wrote Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC).

“Just sort of wonder what has to go through your head to decide to send this. Obviously no one around the president is there or willing to tell him he sounds psychotic and monstrous posting this,” remarked The Bulwark’s Sam Stein.

Republicans could gain nearly 200 state legislative seats across the South if the U.S. Supreme Court guts a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, a new analysis finds.

The bulk of the gains would be concentrated in 10 GOP-controlled state legislatures in Southern states, according to the analysis, produced by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, in partnership with Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters.

The analysis, featured in a report released by the groups on Monday, underscores the alarm among progressives over the potential consequences of the Supreme Court’s looming decision in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais. While the case centers on the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional map, the effects of the decision could extend into statehouses across the country.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to severely weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 civil rights law that bans racial discrimination in voting access. Section 2 restricts racial gerrymandering, and until now has limited the power of lawmakers to draw districts that dilute the voting power of racial minority voters.

A sweeping decision by the court could give state lawmakers a freer hand to draw congressional and state legislative districts that dilute the power of minority voters — as well as districts for local governments, such as county commissions, city councils and school boards. The justices held oral arguments in October; a decision could come at any time.

At the state legislative level, a court ruling that strikes down Section 2 could lead to Democrats losing about 191 seats, according to the analysis, which examined how state legislative districts could be redrawn if Section 2 is no longer in place. Most of those seats are currently held by Black lawmakers in districts where minority voters make up a majority of residents.

“What that is doing is providing a fatal blow to Black representation in the South,” Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said in an interview.

The total number of state legislative districts in 10 Southern states where Black or Hispanic voters comprise a majority could fall from 342 to 202. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Some Republican states argue that courts have interpreted Section 2’s protections too broadly and in the process wrongly restrained the ability of lawmakers to draw favorable maps.

Alabama and 13 other GOP states said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court earlier this year that Section 2 has been turned into “the proverbial golden hammer, wielded by plaintiffs and courts in a never-ending search for a nail.”

If the Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act, it’s unclear whether state legislatures would pursue mid-decade redraws of state legislative districts. Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years following the census.

At the federal level, a previous analysis by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund projected Republicans could draw an additional 19 U.S. House seats if Section 2 protections were removed.

While a few states have passed new congressional maps already this year, those efforts have proven highly controversial. Some states, such as Indiana and Kansas, have abandoned or rejected them for now.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Comedian Paula Poundstone told the Baltimore Sun that her Donald Trump-focused videos aren't likely changing any minds but that she was inspired to share her perspective

"I started doing them because I am an enormous fan of historian Heather Cox Richardson’s daily podcast, 'Letters from an American," Poundstone said to the Sun. "I listen every day, and one of the questions she often gets is 'What can we do to help when we’re watching this slow car wreck?' She said: 'Put your voice out there. Post on social media. Make videos.' So I do."

In her latest video, Poundstone jokes about her kittens being spayed and neutered and the pain pills that the vet gave her to use "as needed." She said she kept them in case she needed them for herself, because U.S. healthcare has reached that level of absurdity. She speaks directly to Trump in her videos asking questions like what his co-pay was for being rushed to Walter Reed in the helicopter during the pandemic.

Poundstone even went so far as to needle White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about her comments on Trump.

"It's not what Karoline Leavitt says," she said, referencing the bruise on Trump's hand. "Almost nothing is what Karoline Leavitt says."

Ahead of a Dec. 19th show in Annapolis, Poundstone said that comedy has the unique ability to explain things without confrontation or fear.

“Really great comedy can bring a certain clarity to the awful times we’re going through,” Poundstone said. “I’m hoping what I do can inspire other people not to be afraid.”

She said that she agrees with former Vice President Kamala Harris who was shocked to see "the capitulation" to Trump from some of America's top institutions and influencers

"Not everyone has caved. Some people know right from wrong and there have been instances of great bravery," Poundstone continued. "But there has been this avalanche of capitulation and it has been really upsetting. And it’s not over. I will not be surprised if Trump burns the damn White House down. He is a trapped rat and he will do anything to save himself and vindictively punish people who aren’t supporting him, which at the moment is the majority of the American people."

She admits to having a fear about becoming a Trump target in the way that Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel have become.

In a note to lawyer and Slate journalist Dahlia Lithwick, Poundstone recalled asking, “If I go to jail, will you be in the same cell with me?”

Lithwick agreed. "So at least I’d be guaranteed great conversation," Poundstone said.

She cited the comedy duo “Frangela," which said, “You’re going to cry now or you’re going to cry later.”

"Later," Poundstone said, "is not going to help us once a dictatorship is firmly in place. Knowing that I could become a target doesn’t change what I need to do."

The frequent "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" panelist even waxed poetic on her upbringing as a born-again Christian.

"I could never get past the idea that people could say on their deathbeds 'I accept Jesus Christ as my savior' and they’d be saved despite all the horrible things they’d done," she said after confessing she thinks about the afterlife. "Hitler could have said 'I accept Jesus Christ as my savior' right before he offed himself in his bunker. So, we get to heaven and Hitler is there? I’m not comfortable with that. Besides, the music is better in hell anyway."

Read the full interview here.

President Donald Trump became famous for the catchphrase “you’re fired.” However, in his second term, he has used that power against career federal workers, but he has largely kept the tight inner-circle staff he brought in with him in January, The Washington Post reported in the Monday morning newsletter.

It comes as key members of his fanbase are starting to break, The Post added.

“In recent weeks, pockets of the president’s base — well-known for its unwavering dedication to Trump and his MAGA agenda — have accused the president of focusing too much on foreign affairs, failing to address the cost of living issues he pledged to fix, aligning himself too closely with billionaires and tech moguls, and resisting the release of more investigative files on the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein," wrote Natalie Allison, Kadia Goba and Hannah Knowles for The Post about the so-called faction of Nicki Minaj.

A group of her fan base has pulled their support of Minaj, referring to themselves as “Edgy Barbz” due to their critical perspectives on the rapper's behavior.

“It’s okay to admit that someone you wish the best for has screwed up. Not all their RIGHTS from the past make up for the current blatant wrongs,” the Post shared from a Reddit user. “ … To go from referencing your own journey as an immigrant to the things I’m seeing? And the people she’s aligning herself with?”

The Minaj alliance adds to the possible breakup of Trump's White House coalition. The ousting of staff and officials “felt constant eight years ago,” the report noted, with Trump sacking people on social media while "warring West Wing factions pushed out senior staff. A 2021 Brookings Institution study found that Trump had the highest staff turnover of any modern president, setting records in just his first year."

In this term, Trump's Cabinet officials have faced multiple scandals, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

MSNOW reported that Noem is on "thin ice" in her post and sources said that Trump anticipates replacing her in 2026.

Hegseth has faced scandal after scandal over allegedly sharing classified information via Signal with a reporter and family members. He is also under fire due to his bombing campaign against boats in the Caribbean that the administration claims are carrying drugs into the U.S. The New York Times reported that these missteps being broadcast to the world have made Hegseth increasingly paranoid.

Patel has angered both parties with his handling of key investigations and has been embroiled in personal controversies, including using taxpayer funds to fly the FBI's Gulfstream jet for trips to see his girlfriend, lavish vacations and events in Texas and Nashville.

Gabbard drew criticism earlier this year after she claimed in a video that the world is “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”

Unlike the first term, the Post reported, Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists rather than top Republican Party recommendations in the first term.

Another reason for Trump's lack of firings, the Post claimed, is that he can't admit when he's wrong.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, explained that Trump “doesn’t want the second term defined” by the palace intrigue and chaos evident in the first term.

“If you’ve hired a bunch of people and then you have to fire them, it admits you made a mistake. And as we all know, Donald Trump doesn’t make mistakes," Bolton said, sarcastically.

The Post report also noted that most of Trump's Cabinet firings didn't begin until his second year in office.

Read the report here.

After Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on September 10, his widow, Erika Kirk, became the organization's new leader. Many MAGA Republicans were quick to blame liberals, progressives and Democrats for the murder — even though countless Democrats, from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) to former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, wholeheartedly condemned it. But MAGA figures also attacked each other.

In an article published on December 15, Salon's Amanda Marcotte examines the feud between Erika Kirk and far-right MAGA podcaster Candace Owens.

"The swift anointing of Charlie Kirk's widow Erika as the new head of TPUSA did nothing to prevent the explosion of infighting that has been rapidly consuming the world of online MAGA media in the months since her husband's killing," Marcotte explains. "If anything, it's backfired. As I predicted, (Erika) Kirk is turning out to be a weak and ineffectual leader, persuading even more people in the very online right that now is their moment to get ahead in a crowded field. The rhetorical slugfest is growing increasingly ugly to watch. But in the process, MAGA is revealing what is likely the movement's biggest weakness: It's dominated by hustlers who are more interested in making money and growing their brand than they are in MAGA as a political project."

Owens is a major conspiracy theorist, and Marcotte notes that she has been "generating a seemingly endless number of conspiracy theories" about Kirk's death.

"Owens' rhetoric about Erika Kirk has grown increasingly personal," the Salon journalist observes. "Most shockingly, she keeps implying Kirk was involved in her husband's murder, and accusing her of defrauding TPUSA donors. Last week, Owens released a video saying Kirk doesn't have the strength to lead TPUSA, which follows pointed comments she made in early December about how 'in love' Charlie Kirk had been with a woman she says he dated before meeting his wife. The success Owens is having with this behavior is causing a lot of rifts."

Marcotte continues, "Tucker Carlson, who has long believed the future of MAGA is in getting ever-nuttier, has sided with Owens, going on the popular show hosted by Theo Von to insinuate the FBI is lying about who killed Charlie Kirk…. Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who typically loves spreading disinformation, turned on Owens, calling her a 'degenerate C-word' and an 'evil scumbag.' Even white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who hated Kirk when he was alive, has claimed he wants to 'expose' Owens, and has unleashed racist and misogynist abuse at her."

Marcotte argues that the "blizzard of conspiracy theories pushed by Owens and Carlson" has "destroyed the ability of GOP leaders to exploit Kirk's death in the manner they had intended."

"Owens is a classic case of a Frankenstein's monster, turning on the very people who created her," Marcotte writes. "Although it's a shame to see so many Americans continue to follow her down the rabbit hole, if it's causing the MAGA movement to turn on each other, then that’s a result all democracy-lovers can cheer."

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

Filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner and his photographer wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were murdered on Sunday, sending shockwaves through Hollywood and the Democratic Party.

Reiner was 78, but was still at work on projects, releasing "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" in September.

Tributes and stores poured in from the lives of those he and his wife touched.

Barack Obama wrote on X, “Rob’s achievements in film and television gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people—and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action."

John Cusack, who played Walter in "The Sure Thing" wrote on X, “Shocked by the death of Rob Reiner – a great man.”

Deadline posted a statement released from the family of Norman Lear saying, “The Lear Family is devastated by the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner. Norman often referred to Rob as a son, and their close relationship was extraordinary, to us and the world. Norman would have wanted to remind us that Rob and Michele spent every breath trying to make this country a better place, and they pursued that through their art, their activism, their philanthropy, and their love for family and friends. Lyn Lear had remained very close with them and said, 'The world is unmistakably darker tonight, and we are left bereft.'"

Trainer Neda Soderqvist posted on Instagram that close friends and family need privacy.

"Thank you for all your messages. I can't function right now. My brain can't even gather the words. I will get back with everyone. I was just with Michele Reiner yesterday," she wrote in the photo of her message.

"Thank you for all your messages but right now I cannot communicate with anybody," she wrote as the comment. "Michele was [one] of my BESTEST FRIENDS I’ve been with Michele and Rob Reiner for the last 15 years and I’ve spent five days a week with her and I was just with her yesterday. Please respect the family and respect me right now. I cannot answer questions."

Entertainment journalist Kyle Stevens wrote on X, "I remember asking Rob & Nick Reiner an innocent little question about pro wrestling on a show I worked on. Little did I know that 9 years later, the footage would be examined after the tragic death of #RobReiner in a story that is still developing. Nick’s response stayed with me."

Actress and producer Meredith Salenger posted a photo of her and Reiner together, saying, "There are no words. He was such a light. Beyond his talent in film, he advocated for the best of society. He was a true leader. This is an unimaginable loss."

Beach Boys guitarist and singer Al Jardine posted photos of himself with the Reiners.

Director and activist Julie Cohen highlighted that the couple was "thoughtful, money-where-your-mouth-is progressive activists. While police investigate their deaths as homicides, Hollywood mourns. RIP.

"Star Trek" legend and activist George Takei wrote on BlueSky, "Some of the best movies ever made were by Rob Reiner. They made us laugh and think: The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men. And he was a force on screen as well in All in the Family and so many films. What a tragic loss. Words fail with news like this."

Actor Josh Gad wrote on Instagram, "He was one of the greatest directors of our time. He was a friend. He was simply a beautiful person. Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were two of the most kind and caring souls you could ever imagine. He cared so much for those who had no voices. This loss is devastating. I cannot express how much this hurts. Love you Rob and Michelle. Thank you for all you gave us."

"Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig posted on X, "One of my most cherished pictures. Rob [Reiner] was my true hero. A true visionary titan and a lovely lovely person. One never knows if it’s proper to post during something as tragic as this. But I just want the world to know what so many of us know in the industry. Rob was the best."

Actress Virginia Madsen wrote on Instagram, "Damn this awful news out of Brentwood. God be with those who love them. Thank you Rob for giving us so much joy to hold on to. Life and talent always turned up to 11."

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Cal.) and spouse Jennifer Siebel Newsom issued a statement saying, in part, “Rob was the big-hearted genius behind so many of the classic stories we love, with projects as wide-ranging as ‘The Princess Bride’ to ‘A Few Good Men.’ His boundless empathy made his stories timeless, teaching generations how to see goodness and righteousness in others – and encouraging us to dream bigger."

Actor Kathy Bates, who worked with Reiner on "Misery" and "Primary Colors" told NBC, "I’m horrified hearing this terrible news. Absolutely devastated. I loved Rob. He was brilliant and kind, a man who made films of every genre to challenge himself as an artist. He also fought courageously for his political beliefs. He changed the course of my life."

She went on to call Michele Reiner a “gifted photographer.”

Actor Kevin Nealon wrote on X, "Rob Reiner. The humor is smart and the heart is real. His films were part of the air for us. Grateful for what he made, and for what he and his wife gave the world."

Retired celebrity reporter and AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld recalled speaking to Reiner's father Carl in a 1993 interview in which the elder Reiner called Rob his and his wife's "greatest creation."

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively expanded his outreach — picking up more support from Latinos, Generation Z, independents, swing voters and tech bros than he had enjoyed in 2016 or 2020. Trump, now almost 11 months into his second presidency, still brags about his relationships with the tech industry. But according to CNN's Matt Egan, not everyone who works in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street is benefitting from Trump's economic policies.

"Donald Trump's return to the White House set off a gold rush on Wall Street and in the crypto world," Egan reports in an article published on December 15. "Companies and crypto projects linked to Trump and his family exploded in value as traders bet they would benefit from the president's return to power. The crash back to Earth for many of these assets reflects the fact that many of these bets were hard to make sense of in the first place."

Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, told CNN, "Sometimes, irrational exuberance meets the brick wall of logic."

Egan notes that President Trump's company, Trump Media & Technology Group, "plunged below $11 a share on Friday, (December 12), leaving it down roughly 80 percent from the pre-election peak and worth less than $3 billion." And according to the CNN reporter, the Donald Trump meme coin "spiked to as high as $45.57 on January 19" but is now "trading at around $5.60" and has "lost 88 percent of its value from the peak."

Similarly, Egan points out, the Melania Trump meme coin "peaked at $8.48 on January 19" but is now "worth just 11 cent."

"More recently," Egan reports, "American Bitcoin, a bitcoin miner backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, debuted on the Nasdaq in September after merging with Gryphon Digital Mining. American Bitcoin's share price initially popped, climbing to as high as $9.31 on September 9. But those gains have since vanished amid a broader crypto pullback, and American Bitcoin dropped below $2 last week."

Egan continues, "Likewise, World Liberty Financial, a firm Trump and Steve Witkoff co-founded last year along with their sons, started trading a new token in September. It rose to 25 cents in late September but has yet to take off and on Friday fell to 14 cents."

Read Matt Egan's full CNN article at this link.

Zapata County Republican Chairwoman Jennifer Thatcher was shocked when she learned earlier this month that President Donald Trump had pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar, freeing him from legal peril for the federal corruption charges he faced.

By pardoning Cuellar, she said, Trump removed the Laredo Democrats’ main vulnerability, which Republicans had hoped to capitalize on in next year’s midterm election.

“The pardon felt like it was undermining the GOP’s efforts,” Thatcher said. “It just caused so much mixed messages for all of us. We’re just trying to sift through it.”

Republicans across Texas’ 28th Congressional District have ramped up their efforts in recent years to unseat Cuellar, who is now seeking his 12th term. Local party leaders have continued to project confidence about their odds in the days since Trump’s pardon — and yet, a number of them told The Texas Tribune they were left confused, disappointed and less confident than before.

“It's been a long time since I have felt disappointed in Trump, but I'm extremely disappointed in this,” said Mary Wilson, the Duval County Republican Party chair, adding that she was puzzled about why Trump would issue a pardon that could potentially hurt Republicans’ chances in the midterms.

Until the pardon, Cuellar and his wife were set to stand trial in April for various corruption-related charges. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted the pair in May 2024 on a dozen counts of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy, stemming from allegations that Cuellar had accepted $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-run oil-and-gas company and a Mexican bank.

Republicans at the local and national levels had planned to seize on the indictment, especially after the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew Cuellar’s district over the summer to become more favorable to the GOP. Now, one of the party’s biggest talking points against Cuellar has been diminished.

Reynaldo Montemayor Jr. — who lives in Cuellar’s home base of Webb County — said that he at first felt disappointed and surprised by the pardon. But in the days since, Montemayor, who is a precinct chair for the Webb County Republican Party, has come to accept the pardon due to his trust in Trump’s leadership.

Still, Montemayor said he’s unsure of how the pardon will impact the congressional race. Maybe it will prove to be the kiss of death for Cuellar among his party, Montemayor speculated, as it indicates the congressman is favored by the most hated man in the Democratic Party, perhaps turning some Democrats against Cuellar.

“It could play out in our favor,” he said. “We’ll see, because ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ can play against him in that sense.”

Cuellar drew two challengers in the March 3 Democratic primary: Andrew Vantine and Ricardo Villarreal.

In Washington, the National Republican Congressional Committee — House Republicans’ campaign arm — have included Cuellar’s seat on a list of top GOP pickup opportunities for the midterms. They’d made sure to highlight Cuellar’s legal troubles when talking about the race.

“Cuellar is broke, indicted, and completely out of touch with South Texans’ values,” NRCC spokesperson Reilly Richardson said in a statement to the Tribune last month prior to the pardon. “Cuellar is spending his time fighting off corruption charges and his own political headaches.”

Last week, the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections forecaster, changed its rating for the race from “Toss Up” to “Lean Democrat,” citing Trump’s pardon of Cuellar. The NRCC did not respond to a request for comment about how the pardon impacts their effort to unseat the Laredo Democrat.

Ahead of 2026, Republicans are rallying behind Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, who national GOP recruiters see as a promising candidate to unseat Cuellar.

But Trump put Republicans campaigning to flip District 28 in a difficult position, said Álvaro Corral, an assistant political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Tijerina likely won’t want to publicly disagree with Trump’s pardon, Corral explained, yet Republicans may also want to keep reminding voters about the allegations against Cuellar.

“It’s probably a little tricky to be in his shoes,” Corral said. “President Trump, to a certain extent, and the pardon sort of undercuts him a bit.”

Even though the pardon could make Tijerina’s campaign more difficult, the Republican county executive said he remained confident about his prospects.

“I did not launch my campaign because Congressman Cuellar was in trouble, I am running because South Texas is in trouble,” Tijerina, a former Democrat who switched parties last year, said in a statement. “Henry stopped fighting for South Texas years ago, instead working for his DC bosses and their special interests. That isn’t South Texas values. South Texans deserve honesty and common sense from their representative, not political games.”

Cuellar, meanwhile, has expressed palpable relief that his legal battle has come to an end. Last week, he was restored to his powerful position as the top Democratic member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, which he had to forfeit after his indictment.

“This pardon gives us a clean slate,” Cuellar said in a statement on X. “This decision clears the air and lets us move forward for South Texas.”

Thatcher, the Zapata County Republican chair, noted that the pardon could complicate the GOP’s attempts to strengthen their majority in Congress.

“It just made the effort by Republicans to flip his seat in Texas more difficult,” she said. “We’ve been trying for so long. We’ve had so many go up against Henry.”

As part of a broader effort to protect their party’s control of Congress, the GOP-run Texas Legislature redrew District 28 to make Cuellar’s path to reelection harder — one of five Democratic-controlled seats targeted under the new map. Trump won the district by 7 percentage points in 2024. Under the new map, he would’ve carried it by 10. The redrawn district remains anchored in Webb County, while adding territory in Hidalgo County — a major population hub in the Rio Grande Valley that includes McAllen — and dropping voters in the San Antonio area.

Given the redistricting push, and the pressure Trump placed on Texas GOP leaders to go through with the unusual redraw, some Republicans were confused about why Trump would pardon Cuellar.

La Salle County Republican Party Chair Susan Storey Rubio said it was disheartening to see.

“We actually thought justice was going to be served,” she said. “We were in hopes that the Cuellar era had come to an end.”

Immediately after the pardon, Storey Rubio was fearful for Republicans’ chances in District 28. But now she thinks the pardon has the potential to energize both Democrats and Republicans against Cuellar.

Several days after the pardon, Trump ranted on Truth Social about Cuellar’s decision to file for reelection with the Democratic Party, suggesting that the president may have expected Cuellar to switch parties in return for clemency.

Even though Cuellar is one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, Wilson, the Duval County GOP chair, said it made no sense for Trump to expect Cuellar to flip parties.

“Why did Trump think Cuellar would switch?” she asked. “It seemed very unwise.”

Jorge Tovar, a pastor and the vice chair of the Webb County Republican Party, said he’s confident the Republican nominee will come out on top in District 28 next year. He framed the pardon as just a reminder to Republicans that they have to put in the work to flip the seat.

“I don’t think it will affect us at all,” he said. “We need to always work hard. Always go out there and get the vote out.”

Disclosure: University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

In his New York Times column and frequent appearances on MS NOW, journalist David French isn't shy about attacking President Donald Trump from the right. Like other Never Trump conservatives — from attorney George Conway to MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace to The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — French believes that Trump and the MAGA movement have been terrible for the GOP and terrible for conservatism.

But French examines MAGA's belief system in his December 14 column for the Times. MAGA, according to French, believes that Trump is fighting to save the United States from a "death spiral" — and that combination of anger and "despair" is one of the things that makes MAGA and the "New Right" so dangerous.

"In this telling," French explains, "the 'strong men' of the American past had created a glorious and powerful nation. Our peace and prosperity had spawned a weak and feckless generation that had squandered America's strength and cultural identity, and now, it was time for hard men to arise to reclaim what was lost. This view of America's glorious past is indispensable to understanding MAGA's appeal — and the extremism of MAGA youth. After all, the slogan, 'Make America Great Again' implies the loss of greatness."

French continues, "This sense of loss provides the intellectual and — crucially — emotional foundation of the right's authoritarian turn. It's hard to overstate how much the New Right idealizes America's past. Online spaces are full of memes and images, for example, of families from the 1950s in idyllic settings, often with the caption, 'This is what they took from you.'"

The New Right, French observes, typically "contrasts its vision of a glorious past with a miserable present."

"Now, combine that hyperbole with smartphones and social media, and you've got a recipe for a nonstop sense of alarm," the conservative New York Times columnist warns. "I can open my Twitter feed and see video after video of outrageous conduct, and no amount of telling myself that these are isolated incidents in a nation of over 340 million people can blunt their emotional impact."

David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

In a November 20 column, conservative Washington Post opinion writer Marc A. Thiessen — best known for his frequent appearances on Fox News — sounded the alarm about white nationalist Nick Fuentes' relationship with the Republican Party and the MAGA movement. Thiessen warned Republicans that they will suffer politically if they don't distance themselves from "overt racists" like Fuentes.

Thiessen wrote, "Tucker Carlson's effort to bring neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes into the mainstream of the conservative movement is not only morally reprehensible; it is a path to political suicide for the right. Those defending or excusing Carlson's sane-washing of Fuentes need to ask themselves a simple question: Do they want to be a majoritarian movement or not?"

But in an article published on December 13, The Atlantic's Ali Breland laments that Fuentes is expanding, not reducing, his outreach.

Fuentes has a show that airs on the far-right Rumble online. Breland spent 12 hours watching it, and one of the journalist's takeaways is that Fuentes' "momentum" is real.

"Since Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast at the end of October," Breland explains, "Republican leaders have started to ask themselves just how much sway he has over the party. Fuentes has built an army of fans, who call themselves 'Groypers,' and his style of bigoted trolling has become the lingua franca of the young, ascendant right. Each episode I watched garnered at least 1 million views on Rumble. Fuentes has attracted attention for years, but as he's quick to remind his audience, he's operated from the fringes, pounding on the doors of mainstream conservatism and meeting fierce condemnation."

Breland adds, "Now, Fuentes has momentum — and based on what I saw, he's laying the groundwork to go even bigger."

The Atlantic staffer notes that Fuentes show on Rumble is "at the core of his political project."

"Each episode, after finishing his monologue, Fuentes begins a second segment: a mailbag-esque 'super chat' during which, for a minimum fee of $20, his fans can ask him questions," Breland observes. "Fuentes' financial situation is opaque, but he seems to bring in a significant amount of money from listener questions. I saw him receive sums as large as $1000 from a single donor, identified only by the username Zion_Don, who donated on four of the five nights I watched. In one episode, Fuentes accidentally shared his screen with the audience, revealing that he had made at least $5192 in the span of a few hours."

Breland adds, "The chat is just one of his several revenue streams. Fuentes repeatedly encouraged his audience to buy merch, including a $40 t-shirt that displays his face on the back…. Night after night, I watched Fuentes lay out his strategy for maintaining his momentum…. Fuentes has already infiltrated the right. Now, he's trying to make his movement a permanent fixture of it."

Read Ali Breland's full article for The Atlantic at this link (subscription required).

Like attorney George Conway, retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig is a prominent figure in the conservative legal movement who became an outspoken Never Trumper and rooted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the United States' 2024 presidential election. Luttig repeatedly warned that if Donald Trump won, he would do everything he could to undermine the rule of law and push the U.S. in an authoritarian direction.

Trump is now almost 11 months into his second presidency, and Luttig is still sounding the alarm. During a "How to Fix It" vodcast posted on the conservative website The Bulwark on December 14, Luttig discussed his worries about Trump with host John Avlon (formerly of CNN) and former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson but also offered some solutions. Luttig and Johnson are now co-chairs of the American Bar Association's bipartisan Task Force on American Democracy.

Luttig warned that 2025's Republicans "almost universally favor more limited access to voting because they believe that the political demographics have moved away from them."

Luttig told Avlon and Johnson, "The president of the United States has literally corrupted America's democracy and its rule of law. For the first time in American history, John — in almost 250 years, America has never experienced anything like this at all. Not a single time in American history."

One of the solutions Luttig offered was "civics education."

The retired conservative judge told Avlon and Johnson, "For years now, there has been a decline in the civics knowledge of American citizens…. You cannot have a democracy that is enforced by partisans at the election booth. That, of course, is what has occurred over the past several cycles. We must fix this if we fix nothing else."

Johnson laid out some ideas to combat Americans' "distrust of government."

The former DHS secretary told Avlon and Luttig, "We talk about how Americans distrust their government…. Trust in government has spiraled downward. Americans are drowning in conspiracy theories; they're deeply suspicious of the institutions of government. I believe — we believe — that elected politicians today have had a lot to do with that. They have pandered to that level of suspicion with extreme rhetoric, appealing to the extreme right and extreme left. And so, a big part of what we believe needs to be done to restore our democracy is reincentivize political behavior."

Johnson continued, "The way you reincentivize political behavior is you get politicians incentivized to appeal to the political center as opposed to the political extremes. Open nonpartisan primaries is a big step in that direction."

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During his first presidency, Donald Trump bitterly clashed with some of his own appointees to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — including former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions. And ex-FBI Director Christopher Wray, another Trump appointee, resigned in late 2024 rather than waiting to be fired.

Trump, however, has made a point of only choosing MAGA loyalists for DOJ and FBI. Among them: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, and federal prosecutors Jeanine Pirro and Lindsey Halligan.

But on Monday, December 8, Trump loyalist Alina Habba announced her retirement from DOJ's District of New Jersey. And Salon's Garrett Owen, in an article published on December 14, reports that Trump keeps stumbling in his efforts to use DOJ as a tool of revenge against his foes.

"Trump's interim U.S. attorneys are failing one by one," Owen explains. "Alina Habba, his embattled top attorney for New Jersey, resigned on Monday. A former lawyer for Trump, she was found to be illegally serving in her interim role after continuing past her 120-day mark…. Lindsey Halligan, the president's former personal lawyer, was explicitly picked to indict and prosecute two of Trump’s most high-profile enemies: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James…. James was ready to face a new indictment surrounding alleged mortgage fraud. But on December 4, a grand jury declined to indict her."

Owen continues, "The Justice Department then attempted to indict her for a third time — and the second time in one week — but they failed again. When the department will follow up with Comey is unclear. For the moment, it is missing a lawfully serving U.S. attorney."

Owen notes that although longtime DOJ prosecutors "cautioned against charging Comey due to insufficient evidence," Halligan "did it anyway."

"The Justice Department has no clear prosecutor," Owen observes. "Instead, it has questionable cases, indictments made possible only by manipulation that have drawn the ire of federal judges and cast what Trump wanted to be a highly-publicized case of political revenge into a fly-by-night legal circus."

Garrett Owen's full article for Salon is available at this link.

President Donald Trump's devoted MAGA loyalists aren't shy about trying to get his image into as many places as possible, from silver Trump coins to proposing that his image be added to Mt. Rushmore alongside famous images of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced that America the Beautiful passes for national parks would include a Trump image. But according to SFGate report Sam Mauhay-Moore, Colorado-based watercolor artist Jenny McCarty found a way to cover Trump's face on the passes.

In an article published on December 14, Mauhay-Moore reports that McCarthy announced she is "selling stickers that cover up the controversial and allegedly illegal new designs on the front of the passes, which include Trump's face next to a painted rendering of George Washington."

"McCarty's stickers are adorned with her own artwork of landscapes and animals at various parks," Mauhay-Moore explains. "One features a pika standing at the famous Rock Cut overlook in Rocky Mountain National Park with an alpine flower in its mouth; another shows a wolf howling on the banks of the Snake River with the Teton Range looming in the background; the third is of a grizzly bear looking out over a vast expanse in Denali National Park and Preserve."

According to Mauhay-Moore, more than 100 orders for the stickers were placed during a two-day period — which McCarty wasn't expecting.

McCarty told SFGate, "I'm definitely surprised, and we're a small business. So it is going to be a lot of volunteer hours dedicated to packaging everybody’s order, but it's all for a good cause…. So worst-case scenario, you could remove your parks pass and show that it hasn't been altered in any way, but it covers up the image that people maybe don’t want to see."

Read Sam Mauhay-Moore's full article for SFGate at this link.

For most of his life, Doug Wilson — the 72-year-old pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho — was a fringe figure even on the Religious Right. Wilson's Christian nationalist views were so extreme that he gained a reputation for being to the right of familiar evangelical fundamentalists like Liberty University's Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., the Christian Broadcasting Network's Rev. Pat Robertson, and Pentecostal televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

But during Donald Trump's second presidency, Wilson has become increasingly visible. Trump's allies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, openly embrace Christ Church.

Religion News Service (RNS) reporter Tracy Simmons examines Wilson's growing prominence in the MAGA movement in an article published on December 12.

"Critics say that Christ Church's renown has less to do with the Almighty than with Wilson's dedication to Christian nationalism and his ties to like-minded officials in the Trump Administration and among its allies," Simmons explains. "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has attended a Christ Church-affiliated congregation in Tennessee and has amplified Wilson's most controversial views, including his argument that women should not be allowed to vote. In the space of a month in April 2024, Wilson was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk on their respective podcasts."

Wilson, who believes that Christ Church is now "punching about our weight," started out as a Baptist but later moved to a severe form of Calvinism.

"Wilson came to national attention in 2003, when he organized a conference at the University of Idaho at Moscow about revolutions throughout U.S. history," Simmons explains. "Some in the community picked up on a booklet titled 'Southern Slavery, As It Was' that Wilson had co-authored some years earlier arguing that slavery, besides being allowed for in the Bible, was not as harsh in the antebellum South as is commonly portrayed. Soon, the campus and Downtown Moscow were plastered with flyers referring to Wilson’s university event as a 'slavery conference'…. To maximize his footprint in Washington, Wilson planted a church there this year, introducing what Wilson critic Kevin DeYoung called 'the Moscow mood' — cultural engagement 'with a spirit of … having fun while you’re doing it.'"

Read Tracy Simmons' full Religion News Service (RNS) article at this link.