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Despite his lack of national security credentials, Donald Trump loyalist Bill Pulte is now acting director of national intelligence following the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard. Many of Pulte's critics are pointing out that his background is in housing, not national security. And University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman believes that Pulte poses a "real danger" from both a national security standpoint and a civil liberties standpoint.

During an early June appearance on The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," Litman laid out a variety of reasons why she considers Pulte a terrible choice for the position formerly held by Gabbard (who said she is resigning to care for her husband, who is suffering from a rare form of bone cancer). And she warned that the appointment fits right into President Trump's overall push to use the federal government as a tool of revenge against his political opponents.

Since 2025, Pulte has been serving as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as well as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 2025. And he will continue his housing work with the second Trump administration while working as acting national intelligence director.

"It is so absurd as to be ridiculous," Litman told host Greg Sargent, a former Washington Post columnist. "It was always going to be hard to find a worse, more ridiculous DNI than Tulsi Gabbard, and Trump just might have done that. Bill Pulte has zero national security experience. He spent, as you were suggesting, the last 18 or so months just digging up dirt on Donald Trump's political enemies and made these criminal referrals in what I've been calling the mortgage fraud — accusing people of conducting mortgage fraud by misrepresenting some house as their primary residence when, as various outlets have reported, a lot of people do this, it can be accidental. And also, these criminal cases have gone nowhere."

The law professor added, "And so, the idea that we will have a director of national intelligence who is inclined toward basically ginning up accusations and targeting the president's political enemies is terrifying when you think about the vast powers that are part of our national security apparatus."

When Sargent criticized Pulte's "willingness to engage in extraordinary corruption to target Trump's enemies," he got no argument from Litman.

"I think it's a similar story as happened with acting — or auditioning — Attorney General Todd Blanche," Litman told Sargent. "Donald Trump wants the people who are willing to be subservient to him and are completely willing to cross every single legal guardrail in the name of loyalty. And so, yes, you're right. He wants to give someone like that more power. We have a vast federal apparatus — law enforcement powers are sweeping — but they pale in comparison to what the national security state has…. If you saw or heard some of the right-wing universe that was actually excited about this pick — like Steve Bannon, for example, talking with Jack Posobiec — they were talking about how maybe this would allow Bill Pulte to go after domestic terrorism in addition to foreign terrorism. And by that, they really meant the anti-ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) protesters."

The law professor continued, "And so, yes, I think that the people who are excited about this pick are excited about it precisely because they are envisioning weaponizing the national security apparatus. And the people who are concerned or hesitant about it are hesitant or concerned for the exact same reason."

President Donald Trump's latest big grift might be falling to pieces, but according to his former biographer, he remains "undeterred" and is driven by one "creed" above all in his pursuit of "shameless" cash grabs.

The Trump administration this week reportedly backed off on its plan for a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" slush fund, which was created in settlement of Trump's IRS lawsuit and intended to pay out money to people supposedly targeted by the government for their political views. In effect, critics said that this was just another way for Trump to reward his followers, potentially including Capitol riot participants.

The fund stalled in the face of growing backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as a federal judge's order temporarily halting its creation, and though it could be revived, reports indicate that the administration plans to move on from it altogether.

Michael Wolff, the longtime reporter and writer of numerous books about Trump's political career, revealed in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," that this is far from the end of the president's grifting, citing comments he got from sources close to the situation.

“I was poking the people I know who are close to this,” Wolff said. “‘What’s going on?’ And this is what they said: ‘Well, it’s back to the drawing board.’ And I said, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ Then they said, ‘What do you think it means?’”

He added later: “The whole thing is preposterous to begin with… This is more preposterous than even the usual preposterous. He sued the IRS, which is effectively suing himself. And then he settled with the IRS, which is effectively settling with himself.”

Wolff further argued that the backlash to the fund was the result of an “oh my God moment” for the “entire country,” becoming something that even the pliable Republicans could not stomach. In the wake of Trump's other self-serving cash grabs since returning to office, it finally became too much.

“This is adding up. The grift becomes a significant issue. And this was a grift beyond just — this was just a grab in which they didn’t even care,” Wolff continued. “So that’s the moment... in which this came tumbling down.”

Despite this setback, Wolff noted that Trump is in no way "chastened," and is still being driven to find new avenues for self-enrichment by one mantra above all: "the grifter's creed."

“Part of what is going on now is he’s figuring out what he gets, what he can get,” Wolff expained. “He runs this government. This government... offers all kinds of opportunities. So they have to figure out what’s the opportunity they can get away with... What he can get away with, that’s the grifter’s creed.”

President Donald Trump's library can't find the direct messages that he sent on Twitter/X, and it's proving to be yet another document problem for the GOP leader.

In 2020, upon leaving the White House, Trump took dozens of boxes that included classified information and refused to return them to the National Archives. The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 mandated that all documents created or received by the president or vice president are the property of the U.S. government. Still, Trump refused to turn them over, which eventually resulted in a raid by the FBI to seize the files.

The National Archives documents everything in an administration, and each presidential library has its own documents. It doesn't include all documents from the administration and sifts out anything that is classified. Trump claimed that he took those documents because they were "mine" and would be in his presidential library. But none of those were archived before being sent off to the Trump library.

Now, according to the Washington Post, Trump's own library says all of the president's DMs have disappeared.

"This no-records response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post comes as the Trump administration argues it does not need to follow the Presidential Records Act, a law designed to ensure the public has access to records of the president after he leaves office," the report said.

Trump had his Department of Justice write an "opinion" saying that they don't have to follow the PRA. Last month, a judge put a stop to that in an emergency order. It's unknown, however, whether the administration is following the court order. It's part of a lawsuit by groups that include American Historical Association.

On Jan. 20, The Washington Post made a Freedom of Information Act request for Trump's Twitter accounts @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS during his first term.

There is evidence Trump used the feature while in office, yet somehow, the National Archives said, “[w]e have been unable to locate any records related to” any direct messages, the report said.

It's unclear if someone deleted them. If they did, they're in violation of the law, the report said.

The National Archives published a notice of intent on Jan. 14, 2021, saying that it would use "ArchiveSocial" to "capture and manage [Presidential Records Act] social media accounts."

About a month later, Archivist David Ferriero sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, saying that they “opted not to enable capture of direct messages” using the software.

The White House wouldn't respond to questions about it.

The Justice Department has claimed that the deadlines under FOIA are not enforceable for the Presidential Records Act. So, everyone requesting info can "wait their turn."

The Washington Post explained that it knows the direct messages exist because there were at least 32 of them included in Jack Smith's investigation and the public report.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is showing signs of growing frustration with President Trump after 18 months of walking in lock-step with the president's agenda. With few exceptions, Thune has maintained Trump's demands, but as the midterm elections approach, it is becoming increasingly clear that the president is out of touch with his own voters.

Axios reported Wednesday that Thune is beginning to break with the president publicly, showing that Trump's influence over congressional Republicans may be coming to an end as the primary campaigns come and go.

Trump has invested some effort in eliminating his GOP opposition in the Republican Primaries, but those "lame ducks" are still in office. They're quickly becoming known as the "YOLO Caucus" because they have nothing to lose. Meanwhile, Republicans who have made it through their GOP primaries recognize that Trump doesn't have anything to offer them to help in the general election.

Their shift signals that Trump’s influence over congressional Republicans may be waning. Thune has questioned Trump’s appointments and policy proposals in a low-key but unmistakable way, marking a departure from the unified front the Senate GOP has maintained.

Politico released an extensive report Tuesday about the headwinds Trump faces in getting anything done. It comes as the Republican Party is desperately trying to score a win.

Hardline Trump loyalist Steve Bannon, a former Trump campaign manager, thinks that Trump still holds control over the GOP and needs to clean house with Thune.

“Is this how MAGA ends — with a whimper not a bang?” Bannon asked. “Texas shows that the President still has all the juice — it needs to be applied starting with [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune’s removal.”

Last week, Thune bucked Trump in the Texas U.S. Senate race, supporting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Trump's candidate won.

Trump's longshot Director of National Intelligence nominee, Bill Pulte, is another example of the Senate leader moving against the president.

"We don't need a weaponized DNI, we need professionals there," Thune said on Tuesday after the announcement. The Senator explained that if the White House wants Pulte in the job, "he's got a lengthy road ahead of him."

It isn't the only clash the GOP leaders have had with Trump.

"I'm not a big fan," Thune said about Trump's proposal for a $1.78 billion slush fund. Many of his Senate allies agree with him.

"I don't see a purpose for it." He added that the proposal "doesn't pass the smell test."

The nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian shut down Trump's demand to fund his ballroom by sneaking it into a bill about immigration enforcement.

But Thune said it wasn't the parliamentarian who was the problem. The votes simply weren't there.

Meanwhile, Thune is still miffed about Trump choosing Ken Paxton over Cornyn, who has a 99 percent voting record with the president.

"I think the president has overwhelming support among Republicans across the country," Thune said when chatting with reporters on Tuesday. "We continue to listen to his advice and counsel and do everything we can to help the country succeed, because I think in the end that's what the American people expect, and frankly, that's what our jobs are all about."

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Axios in a statement that there's a nonexistent divide between Trump and Thune and that the media is attempting to drive a wedge between them.

A bloc of voters once staunchly loyal to the Republican Party is being left "frustrated" by the pains of President Donald Trump's failures, and according to The Hill, they might be reaching their breaking point in the upcoming midterms.

As the outlet laid out in its Wednesday morning report, farmers in the Midwest have been hit brutally hard by Trump's economic policies and the fallout of his war with Iran, all of which have sent the cost of agricultural supplies into the stratosphere. These farmers have long been "a key GOP voting bloc," but amid these struggles, their loyalties could prove vital for deciding which party controls Congress.

" Trump was overwhelmingly backed by farmers in 2024 — winning all but 11 of 444 farming-dependent counties, as defined by the Department of Agriculture," The Hill explained. "But the president has seen a drop in support from farmers since taking office, with the latest Farm Futures Q1 survey showing confidence in the president down 10 points from the previous survey."

It added later: "Fertilizer prices have become a major concern, with 70 percent of farmers saying in a recent poll that they cannot afford all the fertilizer they need. At the same time, farm bankruptcies reached their highest level in six years this April, raising concerns that Trump’s policies could become a political liability for Republican candidates in key Midwestern states this November. Last year, Trump’s tariffs triggered retaliatory import taxes from many of the country’s largest trading partners, contributing to a sharp decline in U.S. exports. In Canada, one of the top two U.S. trade partners, consumers boycotted some American goods, and U.S. agricultural exports fell by more than $1 billion."

The Trump administration has made some efforts to try and ease these pains, announcing this week a temporary tariff rate cut for agricultural products, set to last through the end of 2027. In doing so, it quietly admitted that tariff costs are ultimately paid by American consumers and businesses, something that Trump has long insisted against.

Timothy Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, told The Hill that while some farmers were understanding about Trump's claim that the tariffs required some short-term pains to create long-term gains, it is becoming an increasingly tough pill for them to swallow.

“At a certain point,” Hagle said. “As a farmer, you probably can’t make that trade off anymore because you’ve got other things that become more pressing just for your own personal financial stability.”

Marc Short, an aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed cited by The Hill that the signs are everywhere for those who look that farmers are growing more and more distant from Trump, highlighting the specific example of "Make Our Farmers Great Again" hats disappearing from his campaign rallies. This trend, he warned, should not be ignored.

"But things are different now,” Short wrote. “President Trump’s trade policies have punched farmers in the mouth, and this time there’s no global pandemic to blame... Republicans who continue to ignore this reality do so at their peril."

In New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, incumbent GOP Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. now knows who he will be competing with this year in the general election: Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who, in a Tuesday primary, defeated three other Democrats. And Never Trump conservative George Conway used the outcome to take a swipe at the "missing" Kean.

Political Polls reported the election results on X late Tuesday night, tweeting, "Former navy helicopter Bennett wins the democratic nomination in NJ-07, the most vulnerable seat for Republicans in NJ. She will run against Missing congressman Kean Jr." And Conway had a humorous response to that tweet: "Maybe she can lead a search-and-rescue mission for her opponent."

Kean, according to many reports, has been missing from Congress for months.

The 39-year-old Bennett defeated three fellow New Jersey Democrats in the primary: businessman Brian Varela, medical doctor Tina Shah and former Biden administration official Michael Roth.

Conway himself is running for office in the United States' 2026 midterms.

Although the conservative attorney, now 62, spent most of his life as a Republican and was a prominent figure in the right-wing legal movement, he became a Democrat in 2025 and is seeking the Democratic nomination for a race in New York's 12th Congressional District — where Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler isn't seeking reelection. Conway is promising to "make America boring again" if he wins the primary and the general election — an obvious swipe at President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

Despite his conservative background, Conway is a scathing critic of Trump and the MAGA movement. Conway supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, and he has been quite active in The Lincoln Project (a conservative anti-Trump group).

Conway attacks Trump repeatedly during his frequent appearances on MS NOW; Trump, Conway argues, is terrible for conservatism and terrible for the Republican Party. His ex-wife, GOP strategist Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, however, was among Trump's top allies during his first administration.

Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. is the son of another well-known New Jersey Republican: Thomas Kean Sr., who served as governor of New Jersey from 1982-1990. Before that, in the early 1970s, the older Kean was speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly.

Although New Jersey is a blue state, it sometimes goes GOP in gubernatorial races. The Garden State's other Republican ex-governors include Christine Todd Whitman (who is very much a Never Trumper) and Chris Christie (who, unlike other GOP primary candidates, attacked Trump vigorously when he ran for president in 2024).

The US Supreme Court late Tuesday gave Alabama a green light to use an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map that a lower court said was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”

The unsigned decision, from which the high court’s three liberal justices dissented, enables Alabama’s Republican-dominated government to replace its current congressional map, which has two majority-Black districts, with a map that the US Supreme Court struck down in 2023. That map has just one majority-Black district.

In her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the court today doubles down on chaos.”

“In addition to being wrong on the merits, the court’s decision inflicts two grave harms on the public,” wrote Sotomayor. “It debases the democratic process by upending Alabama’s entire election in the name of permitting Alabama to discriminate against Black Alabamians. It also corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”

The liberal justice noted that in order to switch to the map previously struck down by the high court, Alabama election officials “will have to reassign hundreds of thousands of voters across the state to new congressional districts.”

“Three of Alabama’s counties will be particularly hard hit because they are split across two congressional districts,” Sotomayor noted. “These counties have about 600,000 registered voters between them (roughly 15% of the state’s total number of registered voters).”

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, postponed US House primary elections in the wake of the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which severely narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial discrimination and paved the way for Alabama and other states to impose new maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“The Supreme Court’s shameful ruling allowing Alabama to move forward with a gerrymander that was drawn with the explicit intent to dilute Black voting power—as found by a panel of judges that included two Trump appointees—is an absolute affront to the founding principles of our democracy, and wipes out whatever was left of the court’s credibility,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation. “This country deserves better, and we must continue to work toward federal legislation that not only bans partisan and racial gerrymandering but also ensures that our rights cannot be undermined by captured courts.”

The ruling drew condemnation from the two Democrats in Alabama’s US congressional delegation. Rep. Shomari Figures, who was elected to the US House under the independently drawn map that Alabama Republicans are working to replace, said in a statement that “the Supreme Court has now confirmed that there is no longer a Voting Rights Act in America, and states are essentially free to discriminate against minority voters with no consequences.”

“This is a dangerous ruling that sets the state and this nation back decades,” said Figures.

Rep. Terri Sewell called the ruling “just the latest in a pattern of outrageous Supreme Court decisions that help Republicans desperately cling to power ahead of the midterm elections while diluting Black voices and erasing decades of hard-fought civil rights progress.”

“No matter how hard Alabama state officials may try, they will not succeed in silencing our voices,” said Sewell. “We will not go back to the Jim Crow era. The fight for fair representation continues.”

Donald Trump is wasting no time on legal niceties in pushing for quashing of mail ballots for the November election.

Last Friday, one day after a federal judge declined temporarily to block the provision in Trump's election-related executive order, the U.S. Postal Service essentially announced that it would only deliver mail ballot applications to voters that the federal government recognizes, stopping the delivery of applications to tens of millions or more.

What the Postal Service rules made public last Friday was that it would strictly follow new mail-in ballot rules that require states to submit voter names, addresses and unique ballot barcodes for federal elections. The order also sets forth mandatory "best practices" for federal elections including Election Mail logos, tracking barcodes and design reviews.

No Democratic-run state as well as some Republican-run states has agreed to provide these names and private information to the government, arguing instead that this order is unconstitutional.

Whatever the wording, two things are true: Trump is seeking to stomp out mail-in voting with a federal order telling the states how to run their elections, and despite that single judge's decision not to put a stop to the order right now, the legal issues here are still very much in question.

Nevertheless, we should view this as a shot at blocking mail ballots that Trump has decided will run against his leanings about how the election should turn out. Along with redistricted Congressional lines now being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, attacks on voting machinery and vote-counting methods, the reduction of polling places particularly in rural, minority districts, Trump and Republicans are going full bore at derailing our November elections. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on two elections-related cases, one on a Republican effort to strike state laws that allow late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day, and the other about erasing more legal limits on campaign spending.

A Broad Campaign for Control
However broad the Trump campaign to control elections is, the challenges must be specific about each aspect. What we are seeing already in the redistricting cases is that confusion is building about which contradictory court orders in different states are changing or upholding procedures for early voting in primaries going on even now.

The official explanation from the Postal Service is that the rule would help determine how many ballot applications were mailed and allow officials to compare that figure with the number of returned to detect potential issues for further investigation. The rule would apply to general, special and runoff federal elections, but not primaries or ballots sent to military and overseas voters.

The postal service apparently would create state-specific "Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists" through a new Federal Ballot Mail Portal. The proposal would also let the USPS return outbound federal ballot mailings that do not meet the new standards or are not tied to state-submitted voter lists.

Where Trump sees "rigged" elections through encouraging voting from home, democracy defenders see aggressive steps to block the vote.

In its statements, Democracy Docket headed by election lawyer Mark Elias calls these Postal Service rules "a radical crackdown on mail voting" and "an alarming step" towards trying to control who can vote this November. It also represents a massive expansion of federal control over voting, without congressional authorization.

Trump's March 31 executive order on elections directed the Postal Service to begin rule-making on mail-in and absentee ballot services. It triggered immediate lawsuits that have yet to be heard. The judicial ruling against blocking the new procedures said the challenge was premature because agencies had not yet carried it out. Publishing the new rule – expected today — could be the start of implementation as well as a period of public comment.

Democrats and voting rights groups argue that Trump's order intrudes on states' authority over elections and have defended mail-in ballots. The use of mail-in balloting expanded during COVID for health reasons, and ballot by mail strategies are used by both major parties, but Trump has decided the practice favors Democrats.

Under the Constitution, states run elections and only Congress can set national standards.

The lawsuits challenging limits says the new rules will lead to eligible voters being unable to cast ballots. In part, that's because the lists would rely on Department of Homeland Security databases that have been shown to have serious flaws.

The resolutions of all these cases would be easier with a huge turnout of voters.

President Donald Trump's return to the White House was once hailed as a shot in the arm to the global right-wing movement, but now, a report from Politico has revealed that he is becoming a lead weight on one of his biggest European allies.

Giorgia Meloni is an Italian politician often described as far-right with past connections to neo-fascist groups, and since 2022, she has been Italy's prime minister, making her one of the most prominent right-wing leaders in the world. She is also a staunch ally of Trump and his MAGA movement, no matter how unpopular he has become all across the world, particularly in Europe.

According to a new report from Politico, however, Trump's toxicity might finally be sinking in for Meloni, as "pressure builds" on her to cut ties with the American president to save her prime ministership ahead of Italy's elections next year. Meloni's support for Trump amid the disastrous Iran war is at the heart of the issue, per the report, as she "can no longer afford" the price of loyalty to the U.S., both politically and literally.

"[The] bills from the war in Iran are now coming due, and a weakening economy poses a grave threat to her electoral prospects in 2027," Politico explained. "Many Italian voters blame Trump for their households' soaring energy costs, and there is a growing political consensus that U.S. demands for increased military spending are simply unaffordable in Rome."

The report added: "Facing up to her domestic political and economic realities, the Italian leader has already started to pivot away from Trump, publicly criticizing him and blocking U.S. jets from access to an Italian airbase."

This pivot has, predictably, drawn a venomous reaction from Trump, who said in a phone interview from April that she was "no longer the same person" he once supported, after she criticized his attacks on Pope Leo XIV.

"I thought she was brave, but I was wrong," Trump said.

"But Meloni's big strategic headache is military spending — and it threatens to be the decisive make-or-break factor looming over the U.S.-Italian relationship," Politico continued. "Italy currently spends barely 2 percent of its economic output on defense, but Trump is pressing all NATO countries to raise that to 5 percent by 2035. Meloni has signed up to the 5 percent goal, but Italy's economy is creaking, and her opponents are quick to point out that Rome has more critical spending goals than Trump's demands for NATO."

Meloni's commitment to defense spending to appease Trump while her country suffers under skyrocketing energy costs "is becoming an increasingly tough sell."

"The NATO commitment to 5 percent is completely unrealistic for Italy," Antonio Misiani, a former deputy finance minister and a senator for Italy's center-left Democratic Party, told Politico. "For a year, Giorgia Meloni told us she was the bridge to Trump, but that bridge never existed, and now the chickens are coming home to roost."

U.S. President Donald Trump, in a recent series of GOP primaries, unseated one prominent Republican after another — including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), none of whom will be competing with Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms' general election.

But on Tuesday, June 2 in Iowa's GOP gubernatorial primary, Trump suffered what the New York Times' Reid J. Epstein describes as a "shock defeat."

Trump, four days before the election, endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) for governor of Iowa. But Feenstra narrowly lost that primary to businessman/farmer Zach Lahn.

"The primary loss for Rep. Randy Feenstra, whom the president endorsed on Friday afternoon, came at a time of mixed signals of Mr. Trump's power over the Republican Party," Epstein explains in the New York Times. "He has won a series of dominant primary victories over Republican opponents, but has faced rising pushback from his party in Congress."

In the past, GOP and Democratic strategists considered Iowa a swing state. Former President Barack Obama won Iowa in both 2008 and 2012. Yet the midwestern state has trended Republican in recent years. Trump carried Iowa in three presidential elections in a row, defeating Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 13 percent in the state in 2024.

But Trump's endorsement wasn't enough to get Feenstra past the finish line in Iowa's 2026 GOP gubernatorial primary. And Epstein describes that outcome as a "rare high-profile primary loss" for the president.

"In modern Republican primary politics," the New York Times reporter notes, "Mr. Trump's endorsement is the gold standard. In the last month, it has ousted sitting senators, a congressman and state legislators whom the president deemed insufficiently loyal. So when Mr. Feenstra won Mr. Trump's endorsement for governor last week, it felt like the push he needed to get past four candidates in the primary."

Epstein continues, "Yet Mr. Feenstra was toppled on Tuesday by Zach Lahn, a conservative political operative and farmer who ran an insurgent campaign. Mr. Feenstra was seen as having run a lackluster campaign, and also faced the wrath of former Rep. Steve King, who lost to Mr. Feenstra in a 2020 primary and backed Mr. Lahn. Mr. Feenstra's defeat makes him the highest-profile candidate endorsed by Mr. Trump to lose a Republican primary race in years — perhaps since Luther Strange, an appointed senator in Alabama, fell to Roy Moore in a 2017 special election primary. Mr. Moore went on to lose the general election to Doug Jones, a Democrat."

The presumptive nominee in Iowa's gubernatorial race is State Auditor Rob Sand. Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, decided not to seek reelection.

Iowa's last Democratic governor was Chet Culver, who left office in January 2011.

The corporate media is brimming with headlines after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was rushed to Capitol Hill to claim that the Trump administration will not move forward with a terrorist slush fund—$1.8 billion for January 6th insurrectionists and others.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said to the House Appropriations Committee. But there are few details of how this will play out. And unlike the announcement of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Blanche refused to put it in writing, nor does its demise appear on the DOJ website.

“You started it; you established it in writing, so it just makes sense to rescind it in writing,” New York Democratic Rep.Grace Meng told Blanche.

“I’m not committing to put anything in writing,” Blanche replied.

Are we really supposed to believe these people?

On top of that, Blanche confirmed that the part of the “settlement” in which Trump and his family get immunity from tax audits for dropping the $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, is staying. Let me remind you that none of the others among many wealthy people whose whose returns were leaked when Trump’s were leaked by an IRS contractor—during Trump’s first administration—got anything. Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin sued the IRS and settled—for an apology, that’s it.

“Nothing has changed with that,” Blanche sad at the hearing regarding the Trump family’s immunity from audits for the rest of their lives, which is insane. President’s are routinely audited each year by the IRS. Trump is estimated to own $100 million under an ongoing audit. Now it disappears, even as his administration claims they’re not paying out the $1.8 billion to the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol and bludgeoned police officers.

It makes you wonder if that had been the plan all along. But I doubt it. Trump wanted this slush fund to create his own armed militia, looking toward the elections. And he’s going to have to find another way to do it. Don’t think he won’t try.

Still, it’s true that those of us opposed to the authoritarian regime had a big win, helping to raise the temperature enough on Trump’s terrorist slush fund to the point at which Republicans in the Senate came to see it as a liability.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he went to Trump and “made clear” that the $72 billion budget reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through 2029 wasn’t going to pass unless Trump dropped the slush fund. Getting the ICE funding, even though ICE has lots of money from the big, bad bill, has been a priority, and keeping the agency shut down was hurting the regime’s efforts.

And when unnamed sources in the White House fed the media the story that Trump was dropping the slush fund, it wasn’t enough for Republicans in the Senate, knowing Democrats would still have impact in forcing the issue. So Blanche was hauled up to the House to say it publicly—even though he wouldn’t put it in writing—while Trump still hasn’t addressed it.

The Democrats executed a great strategy on the ICE funding bill. They blocked funding, forcing the GOP to try to pass the funding bill under budget reconciliation, a process that would only require 51 votes. And after Trump demanded his billion-dollar ballroom be added into the bill, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Trump’s ballroom couldn’t be added. There weren’t enough votes for the ballroom anyway.

Democrats had planned to introduce amendments on the ballroom, but when that was dropped, they switched to the slush fund. It caused the GOP to go home for the holiday without taking the ICE funding vote, fearful of the amendments.

After two rulings by judges that dealt blows to the fund late last week, and after the blowback from the GOP, the White House began to cave. But Chuck Schumer said Democrats will still add amendments to the ICE funding bill. And they’re right to do so.

Those amendments need to say that the slush fund can never be brought back in any way, shape, or form. We can’t trust the word of this administration.

The New York Times reported before Blanche went to the hill that “some administration officials privately expressed relief” at the judicial rulings but then added, “As with all things involving Mr. Trump, he could still decide to reverse course, especially as he tracks media coverage of his decision.”

That’s an indication that Trump won’t let it be.

The Florida judge who reopened the lawsuit against the IRS that Trump claimed to have dropped, creating the “settlement” for the slush fund, will keep this in the news for a while as she seeks to determine if the administration engaged in “fraud.”

And the decision to keep the part of the deal that prevents Trump and his family from being audited is another massive disaster for the GOP heading into the midterms. Even if the courts stop it, Democrats will be able to use this against the GOP, showing that Trump is executing his power to protect himself and enrich himself, while everyday Americans are suffering.

Spencer Gear told a judge that he is not a killer by nature, despite his disturbing threats. He’d merely caught a virus, reports The New Republic.

“The 34-year-old Nevadan was sentenced to five years in prison Monday for threatening to murder federal judges who handled cases involving Trump and January 6ers,” reports TNR. “His messages, which were mostly delivered by way of phone calls between November 2023 and July 2024, were explicit: ‘This is a death threat,’ he told one victim. ‘I’ll spill your blood,’ and ‘You can’t do s—— to Donald Trump,’ Gear warned targets.

But TNR reports the seeming MAGA fanatic changed his tune as he sat across from the judge handling his criminal case Monday, pleading for mercy as he tried to walk back his violent promises.

“I’m embarrassed that I ever talked to people in such a manner,” Gear reportedly said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The republic cannot survive if we continue this path of political discourse.”

Gear claimed his brain had been infected by a “mind virus” from the internet and that the alleged disease had caused him to lash out at people he believed were going to destroy the country by, reported the Reno Gazette Journal. It did not matter that the people allegedly destroying the nation were judges overseeing the legal issues of Trump and his supporters.

This isn’t the first so-called attack from an internet head virus. Christian Zionists, say MAGA influencer Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, have been 'seized by this brain virus.'"

Billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk complained repeatedly of a “woke mind virus” threatening “modern civilization,” which he said prompted him to buy the social media platform now known as X.

The jury that convicted Gear of 20 counts, including nine counts of threatening a federal official and 11 counts of transmitting threats, appeared to have made no accommodations for Gear’s “virus.” His 5-year prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.

Gear threatened to assault and murder public officials over a seven-month period before he was sentenced Monday by United States District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey.

But while Gear is packed away, social observers warn the increasingly hostile political climate is showing no signs of abating, and some political scientists were worried about what that could mean for Americans in the near future, particularly after the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk inflamed political tensions across the nation.

President Donald Trump has created such a strong political movement, some compare it to a cult. Yet on Tuesday Rick Wilson, the head of the anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project, spoke with a former Trump supporter at a group called Leaving MAGA about how to deprogram Trumpers.

"And let me just open with my usual customary apology," Leaving MAGA founder Rich Logis told Wilson. "I would like to say that I'm sorry for my past support of Trump and MAGA. When I was in MAGA, the Lincoln Project was the devil — loathed and despised. And if I had met you when I was in MAGA, I would have said that you were an existential threat to our country."

Logis continued, "My journey really started in 2015. I was very politically disillusioned. I believed that the two parties had been the same — that they failed to represent most of the country, except for the wealthy and the powerful. I was unapologetically all in. I spoke to Trump groups. I donated to them. I was a sponsor. There was probably no one who was as devout a supporter of Trump and MAGA as I was.And born from that apology and recounting of my story was our organization, Leaving MAGA, which we founded as a new community — a new destination for people who are leaving MAGA, who are having doubts."

After Wilson gave Logis credit for realizing he was wrong about Trump, adding that that is difficult for many people to do, Logis predicted that many MAGA supporters will stick with the president no matter what.

"The fact is that MAGA, unfortunately, is going to remain, which I think makes our work at Leaving MAGA even more crucial," Logis said. "I believe that we're at the vanguard of trying to create this new community for people."

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who also previously supported Trump, argued in February that Trump supporters lost the right to deny they are in a cult when they continued to back Trump despite his wars against Venezuela and Iran. Trump had run for president in 2024 claiming he would end all wars.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh said. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

He added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters?What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

The former congressman then concluded, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”

President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general reportedly admitted that he blames the children and women who were sexually exploited by the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — even as he continues to resist efforts to fully disclose Trump’s relationship with his own longtime friend.

After mentioning that Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, appeared before Congress earlier in the day and was asked about Epstein, CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Rep. Madeleine Dean (R-PA) about her private conversation with Blanche after their public interaction before the House of Representatives.

“He actually did blame the victims — to me, to my face,” Dean told Tapper about Blanche. “When I said, 'When are you going to begin the prosecutions?' Because after all, we have one dead guy and we have a lady in a summer camp, and that's it — for more than a thousand children, girls and women who were trafficked, raped, and sexually assaulted by Epstein and the other perpetrators. And you know what he said to me at the Department of Justice, privately, just between us? He blamed the victims.”

Dean quoted Blanche saying “'Well, they didn't give us the names’” before saying that America’s top prosecutor should investigate more fully rather than simply let it rest at that.

“What I walked away with was: the cover-up is complete,” Dean said. “He blames the victims for not giving names. The victims have said, 'Please meet with us.' And the Department of Justice has not met with them. And of course, there are 20 years of investigation — the names are known to this Department of Justice, to this acting attorney general.”

She then argued Blanche is acting not with Americans’ best interest at heart, but as a personal advocate for Trump.

“He was paid nearly $10 million a year or so ago to defend Donald Trump as a private attorney,” Dean told Tapper. “He then hung a 30-foot banner on the Department of Justice — which I think is grotesque and revealing of the failure of independence of the DOJ — a menacing Trump face as the face of the DOJ. And then, do you know what he said when asked if he doesn't get confirmed as attorney general? He said, 'I would say to the president, I love you, sir.'”

She concluded, “The guy is under terrible conflict. You could see he was quite dismissive and agitated — in our conversation both privately at the Department of Justice and then publicly before the American people. He has no interest in pursuing justice. And that's what I'm going to keep pushing for.".

Trump denies all the sexual misconduct accusations.

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Dispatch writer Nick Catoggio barely contains his disdain for the Republican Party’s confirmation of a slew of President Donald Trump nominees that they knew were bumbling idiots.

“Naively, lawmakers assumed that anyone nominated for a powerful position and confirmed by the Senate would necessarily have the competence and integrity to serve in another powerful position briefly, while a permanent appointee is chosen,” Catoggio complained. “That the president might nominate henchmen and that a compliant Senate might rubber-stamp them seems not to have occurred to them.”

It also didn’t seem to matter that people like law professor Jack Goldsmith warned in 2024 that Trump would “game the vacancy process” by arguing that any Senate-confirmed officer serving anywhere in the government can fill his or her position if the president desires, potentially for years.

“Confirming Bill Pulte — or Todd Blanche or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Pete Hegseth or Kash Patel — to any position effectively meant confirming them to every position, at least on a temporary basis,” spat Catoggio. “No matter: Every Senate Republican voted yes on Pulte’s nomination to the FHFA anyway.

Federal laws permits an acting director — no matter how bad — to remain in the job for up to 210 days, then for an additional 210 days if a nominee to replace him is rejected by the Senate, and then for another 210 days if a second nominee is rejected.

“In other words, Bill Pulte can lawfully hold the position of director of national intelligence for the rest of this year—and then for all of next year, provided that Trump is willing to nominate two unconfirmable putzes in succession to replace him,” Catoggio said, adding that the authors of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act didn’t anticipate an autocratic executive who so adores the word “acting” in front of a job title. This, said Catoggio, leaves the nation with an acting attorney general who seems “downright eager to commit impeachable offenses to show the boss how eager he is to stay on the job indefinitely and a new director of national intelligence who will doubtless behave the same way.”

“It’s a coincidence, I’m sure, that two positions with outsized potential for abuse in harassing the president’s critics are now held by two of the biggest Trump chuds in the government, neither of whom was approved by the Senate for their current jobs,” said Catoggio. “Just as it must be a coincidence that this is an election year and the White House clearly expects both the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to play influential roles in preventing, ahem, fraud at the polls this fall. In Bill Pulte, the president now has a figure who’ll wield that influence enthusiastically.”

This is Trump’s “middle finger” to a “Duma-fied Republican” Senate that is beginning to “resist his most loathsome impulses,” Catoggio said. “ … If the Senate GOP won’t make him happy, he’ll make himself happy by filling a key vacancy with a putrid loyalist appointment whom he surely knows they disdain.”

The GOP could amend the FVRA to prevent dirty appointments, provided they can find 20 Senate Republican votes “to override the inevitable Trump veto” But don’t get your hopes up, said Catoggio.

“The caucus of disgruntled GOP lame ducks, while big and growing, ain’t that big,” said Catoggio. “If there were 20 civic-minded conservatives in the chamber, the president would have been convicted and disqualified from holding future office five years ago.”

Catoggio also doubted the Senate GOP “has the stomach” to muster just four Republicans to join Democrats to roadblock Trump’s nominations and stall conservative judicial nominees and leave their fate to a Democratic Senate next year.

“Pulte will likely serve for as long as the president wants him to serve, and not a day less,” said Catoggio.

President Donald Trump’s policies have hurt farmers so badly, Republicans are getting nervous that they could flip the state in both its Senate and gubernatorial elections.

“Well, number one, this is Iowa and the tariffs are hitting them really hard. Before the tariffs, Donald Trump had a 52 percent approval rating in the state — still not super great for Iowa — but he is currently at 42 percent,” The Bulwark’s conservative founder political expert Sarah Longwell wrote on Tuesday. “Farmers are losing money, even with the federal subsidies that are trying to offset the impact of the tariffs.”

She added that “soybean farmers are losing about $75 an acre. Trump's one big, beautiful bill kicked nearly 100,000 Iowans off their health insurance. And [Republican Gov. Kim] Reynolds is one of the most unpopular governors Iowa has seen in a while.” In addition to complaining that the school vouchers program requires students to go down to four days a week of schooling, many voters also believe that “the six-week abortion ban they enacted there in Iowa, which people think is too extreme. And then there's this issue of cancer water, which I had not heard about until I started focus grouping in Iowa — but essentially you've got a lot of chemicals going into the water, and a lot of people in Iowa say that they're experiencing incredibly high cancer rates.”

As a result of all these issues, “Cook Political Report currently rates this race as a toss-up. So that's interesting for Iowa — they've got a toss-up for governor. Democrats looking strong.” Reynolds is not running for reelection, but Democratic nominee State Auditor Rob Sand has focused on her unpopular record and is expected to tie his eventual Republican opponent to Reynolds’ governorship.

“Now let's move to the Senate,” Longwell wrote. “We also have an open Senate seat because [Sen.] Joni Ernst has decided not to run again. There's no Republican primary because Ashley Hinson, who is a sitting member of Congress — she's been there for three terms, she's a former state rep, and she was also a news anchor in the state — is the de facto Republican nominee. But the Democrats have kind of an interesting primary. There are two of them: Josh Turek, who I think is likely to win, and Zach Walls.”

She added, “Now, Josh Turek — if you don't know who he is or you haven't seen him — he's in a wheelchair. He has spina bifida, and his dad had exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He's knocking on doors by pulling himself up step by step. He's also a four-time Paralympian and a two-time gold medalist.”

In April, The Economist/YouGov conducted a poll which found that farmers are overwhelmingly opposed to Trump’s tariffs and Iran war, as both policies have raised prices on farmers on important products like fertilizer and gasoline. Despite these concerns, farmers remain one of the most staunchly pro-Trump groups and refuse to abandon their support, instead hoping that he will provide them with economic relief.

“A recent Economist/YouGov poll suggests such troubles are now commonplace,” wrote The Economist on Monday, referring to farmers who struggle to make ends meet thanks to Trump’s policies. “27 percent of rural respondents said it would be ‘impossible’ to cover an unexpected $1,000 bill. It would be easy to blame Mr Trump for the downturn. After all, he campaigned on promises to bring down prices and revive the heartland. But rural America does not.”

The article continued, “The president’s favourability rating is higher among rural voters than among any other group in our survey. Most still think he is doing a good job. In interview after interview with The Economist, farmers said they trust the administration—but that they need help to recoup the losses its foreign policy is causing them.”

President Donald Trump has already built a reputation for defying court orders, but now Politico reports his top Homeland Security commander, Secretary Markwayne Mullin, repeatedly confirmed to senators on Tuesday that he, too, is loath to accept court decisions that he does not like.

“If we didn’t think courts were politicized, then I would probably be able to answer that,” Mullin said. “But we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law.”

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the panel that funds DHS, pointed out to Mullin that even Republican-appointed judges have accused the department of violating almost 100 court orders this year. Murphy added that the Trump administration’s noncompliance as the main factor fueling the ongoing partisan feud over DHS funding that led to the longest funding lapse in U.S. history this year.

“This is a really important discussion for us to have, because this is — whether you want to believe it or not — at the root of our disagreement,” Murphy told him, adding, “it is very hard for us to figure out how to fund an agency that is violating the law.”

Somehow, Mullin, a former Oklahoma Republican senator, argued that DHS “will never break the Constitution, and we’re not going to break the law,” despite claiming they will not follow court orders they don’t like.

Court judges have recently handed Trump a flurry of losses. A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order against the National Park Service, ordering it to not interfere with a group that had been flying an “8647” flag in Washington, D.C. Common restaurant slang for “eighty-six” goes back nearly a century, the judge noted, saying that it meant “to throw out” or “to get rid of.” He made no reference to Trump’s politicized DOJ lobbing investigations and indictments against Trump perceived enemy former FBI head James Comey for posting pictures of the same numbers with seashells on a beach.

Anther federal judge recently dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking access to Arizona’s detailed voter registration records, dealing another blow to the Trump administration’s national effort to obtain expansive voter data. And still another judge recently ordered that Trump to remove his name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and that he could not close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.

“[If] you look at the big constitutional suits against this administration — big separation-of-powers issues, big violations of law. There are hundreds of those cases, I think north of 700 in the courts, and the administration has been losing those 2-to-1 in the lower courts,” said Trump’s ex-security expert Miles Taylor on MS NOW.

Former Republican speechwriter Tim Miller told MS NOW that there is a reason President Donald Trump keeps delegating so many jobs to so few lackeys. He says it’s all comes down to math.

Trump recently appointed Bill Pulte to oversee the entire national security apparatus of the United States. He will serve in the job while also remaining in his current job as Federal Housing Finance Agency Director. This will add to Pulte's other job as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But Miller said there’s a reason Trump keeps nominating lackeys and yes-men to multiple positions.

“I think there is something interesting about the fact that he's going to have three jobs and … their ability to investigate enemies and go after enemies is limitless,” said Miller — adding, however, that his work “might be limited by having the horses to do so.”

“And, like, the fact that they can't find enough stooges to do all these jobs is the tiniest silver lining here, said Miller. “I expect that we'll start to hear more leaks out of DNI, and that there's some remaining people that are legitimate public service folks that's still work there. And so, you know, I'm a slightly skeptical about his ability to execute on all of this.”

But on the other side of that coin, warned Miller, the fact that Trump is spreading his stooges so thin means there is nobody competent working any particular problem at any particular time.

“Part of the reason that he can do the three jobs is that, again, like he's not gonna do the job of director of national intelligence — like he is only put in there to do the muckraking, to go after the political foes. Like that's why he's there. And I think that there's some areas of about that in particular that are pretty concerning.”

Do not expect, for example, National intelligence to astutely uncover plots to attack the U.S. homeland with any kind of deft. Miller says instead Pulte will be digging up research to sic DOJ prosecutors on Trump’s enemies, as he likely did with the DOJ’s failed investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Federal Reserve board of governors member Lisa Cook on shaky mortgage charges.

“I might not be an intelligence expert … but I'm a little bit of a MAGA-ologist. And I just think back to the 2020 election fraud stuff and think about all the fake allegations of foreign interference. There were Italian satellites, the claims of Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelans had gotten inside the Dominion voting machines. There were all the Chinese bamboo ballots in Arizona. They had all these accusations that there was foreign interference on behalf of the democrats that were all false. This falls in [Pulte’s] remit no,” said Miller. “Now, you have Kash Patel and Pulte, who can either chase down these fake investigations, fabricate them, and do what they did on the mortgage documents, come up with small pieces of evidence that Democrats or election officials were communicating with overseas people in ways that might have been totally appropriate. I think that is like the real plan.”

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President Donald Trump has earned a vicious new moniker: “commander in thief,” writes New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who chastised the president for his efforts to engage in a “brazen, in-your-face attempted heist of the U.S. Treasury to benefit himself, his family and his political allies.” Those allies, he said, could include Trump’s supporters who were present at the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — whom Friedman labels “phony defenders of freedom’s frontier.”

Friedman also accused Trump of having “conspired with his own Justice Department, headed by his former personal lawyer, to use taxpayer money to create a $1.776 billion political slush fund.”

Having a president who “behaves like a commander in thief — not a commander in chief — is costing us dearly at home and abroad,” he writes. “This perversion of the American presidency is undermining the very alliance structure that won two world wars and the Cold War and generated one of history’s longest ages of peace and prosperity. Every day we tolerate such behavior we endanger our children’s future.”

Friedman argued those are just a few of several reasons why Trump has failed as commander in chief.

Trump has not even tried to get Democrats to support his war against Iran.

"Generally, when our nation has been at war, the commander in chief’s top domestic priority is to keep the country united,” says Friedman. “Because there is nothing more demoralizing for U.S. troops fighting abroad than to look back and see our country ripping itself apart at home.” And he warns that “seeing America at war with itself” just encourages the enemy.

Friedman also expressed alarm at how Trump’s actions toward America’s allies have forced them to engage in deterrence — not just against Russia, but against America.

“Our allies have watched Trump threaten to make Canada the 51st state and to seize Greenland from Denmark,” writes Friedman. “They have watched him start a war with Iran without consulting NATO and then demand that NATO help rescue us from what has turned into a mess. They have watched him slash U.S. financial assistance to Ukraine, put the Russian aggressor on the same moral footing as that country and then top it all off with reckless, ill-conceived tariffs on all our allies.”

Friedman also pointed to the early days of Trump’s second term, when the president “forced Ukraine to give the United States access to critical minerals in return for U.S. help against a Russian Army trying to overrun it. This is the real ‘Trump Doctrine’: Oppose America, and I will tariff you; depend on America, and I will extort you.”

A prominent conservative commentator recently argued that Democrats and Republicans are both applying a double-standard regarding seemingly disqualifying scandals for their Senate candidates in key races.

“Maine Democratic Senate primary candidate Graham Platner and Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton are different candidates dealing with different scandals,” wrote The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone on Tuesday. “Paxton’s infidelity is not the same as Platner’s, nor is Paxton’s pattern of corruption and other moral shortcomings the same as Platner’s Nazi tattoo and history of racist comments online. I am not equating their wrongdoings, nor do I propose doing so.”

Perticone is referring to the reports that Platner — an oyster farmer — had extramarital affairs, supported homophobic and sexist comments online and has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. Paxton has also had multiple extramarital affairs, fired whistleblowers, is accused of multiple financial crimes and participated in Trump’s coup attempt after the president lost the 2020 election. In 2023 he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on abuse of office and bribery charges, although the Texas Senate later acquitted him. Both Platner and Paxton are now considered by polling experts to be potential political liabilities to each of their parties’ chances of controlling the Senate after the 2026 midterm elections.

“I asked some senators from both parties, many of whom either jettisoned all principles after coming to Washington or came to power in the first place simply by not having any, whether Americans should demand more of their elected officials on the character front,” Perticone wrote. “Yes, they all seemed to agree: Americans should hold politicians from the other party to a higher standard.” He then cited comments supporting Paxton from Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas as well as Democrats backing Platner including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (technically an independent) and Andy Kim of New Jersey (whose response to Platner was wishy-washy).

“Selective moralizing has been around in politics as long as the profession has been practiced. The prominent Republicans who admonished Bill Clinton for his peccadilloes in the 1990s were hardly men of high character themselves,” Perticone continued. “White evangelicals grew more supportive of Donald Trump the more his traditionally sinful behavior came to light. Many Democrats who admonished Trump for his character are now biting their tongue about Platner. That’s the way this stuff goes.”

While ha acknowledged understanding why partisans on both sides might support Platner or Paxton despite these scandals, simply because they don’t want their party to lose, he warned there is a practical as well as moral consequence to this attitude.

“Candidates like this are still a massive risk, and not just because we don’t know what is yet to come out about either,” Perticone wrote. “Just consider the recent spate of expulsions, resignations, and absences in this Congress alone. Very thin majorities are often just one scandal away from stopping regular business for an entire chamber.”