alaska election

The Justice Department wants a federal judge to stop Alaska from certifying its Senate election under certain circumstances if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) loses.

According to a court filing submitted on Thursday, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward wrote that because there is another person in the race named "Dan Sullivan," the election could somehow be paused and reconsidered.

In a complaint filed October 22, federal attorneys allege that Daniel J. Sullivan entered the race to confuse the incumbent’s supporters and help Democratic challenger Mary Peltola win.

The government asks the court to block certification if the incumbent loses but would have won if ballots cast for the other Sullivan had been cast for him. This isn't the first time Alaska has used ranked-choice voting in a general election. They did it in 2024 when Trump was elected.

The lawsuit names Alaska, its elections director and state election boards as defendants. However, the citizens of Alaska passed a ballot measure going to ranked-choice voting in 2020 using it for the first time in the 2022 election. The court filing invokes the National Voter Registration Act’s election-integrity purpose as the basis for federal intervention.

The complaint alleges that, Daniel J. Sullivan requested the ballot name “Dan Sullivan” and switched his affiliation to Republican shortly before filing. It also alleges that the Daniel J. Sullivan campaign website resembles the senator’s.

An attached letter from Alaska elections director Carol Beecher adds that he initially requested “Dan S. Sullivan,” using the incumbent’s middle initial rather than his own.

Beecher has been saying since June that the other Sullivan intentionally announced to cause confusion. His name was then removed from the ballot. However, Alaska courts reversed that decision. A trial court found the exclusion erroneous, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. The federal complaint nevertheless relies heavily on Beecher’s rejected determination.

According to the DOJ's filing, Peltola received 49.5 percent of the vote in the primary, the incumbent Sullivan received 41.4 percent and Daniel J. Sullivan received 2.5 percent. Republican Gerald Heikes also advanced. The GOP expects a close race, so confusion over the two Dan Sullivans could decide it.

The government doesn't just ask the court to remove the challenger. Instead, it seeks an order preventing certification of an outcome meeting its hypothetical test, pending investigation and further judicial relief

"And the efforts by Trump to stop certification of election results they don't like has begun," Bulwark reporter Sam Stein wrote Friday on X. "DOJ now seeking to block Alaska Senate results if Peltola wins and the other Dan Sullivan gets votes[.]"

A psychotherapist with 20 years of experience pointed to a viral family exchange about politics that perfectly illustrates the ways that MAGA has trapped people into loyalty through fear.

Elliott Connie hosts his own show, executive produced by Tiffany Haddish, that deals specifically with solution-focused behavioral therapy practices. It helps people build on what’s already working in their lives and take practical steps toward specific goals, rather than taking a broader approach to analyzing their lives and mental health as a whole.

In a quick video, Connie pointed to the popular video podcast "The Necessary Conversation," where two children have a civil dialogue with their MAGA parents in Oklahoma and discuss their political cognitive dissonance. Earlier in October, cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan spoke with the family.

Connie explained in his video that so much of the MAGA philosophy is contingent on fear "that is used to manipulate the voting public." That fear helps create an identity to manipulate people into loyalty. In the clip, mother Mary Lou Kultgen explains that she's probably voting Republican even though all but one of the issues align with the Democrats. The one issue that doesn't is the fear of boys playing in girls sports.

"So if you're simply just voting on the ideals, then she would vote Democrat," Connie said. "But they have caused her to fear trans athletes. They've caused her to fear boys playing with girls, girls playing with boys. Now, I want to be clear. In all of sports, if you add up all of the trans athletes in sports, it is less than 1/10 of 1 percent."

The other issues important to Kultgen are pulling out of the war in Iran, the release of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files, universal healthcare and ICE out of communities. But she planned to vote Republican.

"So, clearly the issue of the war, the issue of the Epstein files, these are much bigger issues," Connie said. "But she's hanging her hat on this one thing that the machine of the MAGA cult has convinced her to fear. And that has formed her identity. And now asking her to vote for another candidate is like asking her to go against her identity."

He explained that it's what makes it so difficult to deprogram people in the MAGA world.

"That's why it's so difficult to get people to vote based upon the morals of the candidate and the ideals of the candidate because they've done a really good job of helping them to form their identity as being a part of the party, or in MAGA's case, the cult. You have to realize that this is happening and then work to fight against it," Connie closed.

President Donald Trump once claimed “tariff” is the “most beautiful word” in the dictionary. Now, the signature trade policy he made central to his economic agenda is haunting vulnerable Republicans

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, Greg Ip reported that tariffs went from a potentially popular tool to protect American industry to a weapon Democrats are using against the GOP ahead of the midterms.

Many Republicans are unable to defend Trump’s tariffs even as Democrats throw attacks at them over the cost of living and businesses getting the raw end of the deal.

Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers has called for the Trump admin to end the trade war with Canada.

“We need to end this tariff war now,” Rogers said in a campaign ad released earlier this month. Sitting at a bar with a Canadian beer, he argued that Michigan and Canada are not enemies.

The message matters in Michigan, where automakers and other manufacturers rely on trade with the neighboring nation. Rogers is in a tough race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a high-profile Senate race.

The Journal noted that, in a 2024 survey, tariffs enjoyed more support than opposition, before Trump returned to office and imposed sweeping import duties, which he called Liberation Day tariffs.

A recent Economic Innovation Group survey found that support for Trump’s tariffs among blue-collar workers shifted, with 58% opposing them and 36% supporting them, after previously supporting them narrowly in 2025.

A Pew Research Center survey released October 8 found that 56% of Americans expected Trump's tariffs to have a mostly negative effect on the country, while just 20% anticipated positive results.

Even among Republicans, there is not much faith in his landmark economic policy, with just 40 percent expecting mostly positive results, down from 52 percent in August 2025.

The Journal’s analysis put the problem down to timing, as Trump imposed his tariffs while Americans were already anxious about the price of groceries and household expenses. In addition, the president frequently making policy changes to his tariffs only increased the feeling of uncertainty.

Democrats are using the tariff chaos to pitch to voters that they will challenge them if they are put in control of Congress. However, Trump's veto authority could complicate any rollback.

With the midterms less than two weeks away, it is an urgent issue for Republicans who may lose their races when Trump’s favorite word keeps voters away.

Top advisors and officials in President Donald Trump's administration aren't impressed with the new plan for Iran after the midterms. Following Nov. 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is repackaging the old strategy of endless bombing to see if they can get a "win" out of the Iran war.

“It’s moron time, again," was the comment from one Trump advisor, according to Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng.

Hegseth made a secret trip to Iran to plot with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces his election next month. According to the New York Times, “U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections,” and the “targets would likely include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenal.”

Suebsaeng said officials are telling him preparations have ramped up significantly, and they're now working on a target list that will include civilian infrastructure.

"Several senior officials I spoke to are (to put it mildly) massively skeptical that revving Trump’s war machine back up will bring about the (supposedly) intended result of forcing the Iranian government to make significant concessions and end the war in Trump’s favor," he reported.

They also worry the move will worsen the U.S. economy and drag down the global economy.

The Guardian predicted in a Thursday report, “Iran will strike oil facilities, undersea cables, data centers and AI facilities across as many as seven countries in the Gulf in the event of a fresh U.S.-Israeli attack, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, has said.”

Meanwhile, Trump is saying both publicly and privately that he won't stop the Iran war before the election despite how unpopular it is. Doing so would mean admitting he was wrong and that he has lost the war.

In fact, the U.S. may even still be in the war this time next year. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the Financial Times that the war with Iran could even last another year, a Friday report revealed.

"It’s as close to as an admission that you can get that his management of the war is now motivated by partisan politics – the obvious hope that his timing may spare him and Republican candidates the headache of p—— off the electorate right before Election Day," wrote Suebsaeng.

In the background, Trump's administration constantly claims that the war was necessary because "Iran can't have a nuclear weapon." But he won't start bombing until after the election. It prompted Suebsaeng wonder, "either his bumbling war of aggression ... is an urgent national-security imperative, as the Trump White House routinely lies that it is, or it isn’t." So why would he wait a few weeks until after the election if he was so concerned about nuclear proliferation?

To Suebsaeng, this is an open confession that the nuclear problem has nothing to do with the war to begin with.

"He’s rubbing it in your face that this is all a game to him, for him to play at his convenience and pleasure, all while his government continues to cover up the extent of U.S. casualties in a fight Trump picked for no good, sane reason," Suebsaeng closed.

Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) isn't up for reelection, but it hasn't stopped some MAGA followers from championing her removal from office after she began pushing to protect a major corporation that is making people sick, the New Republic reported on Friday.

Wade Hanicker’s lungs are scarred, and his income has fallen by half. Just playing with his kids leaves him gasping for breath. Moody wants to take away his right to sue the company he said did this to him.

The 39-year-old Florida stoneworker and Trump supporter worked a lot with engineered stone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report in January saying that "countertop fabricators working with engineered stone are at risk of developing silicosis due to the high respirable crystalline silica content."

"Silicosis is an irreversible occupational lung disease," the report explained, and it's caused by respirable crystalline silica (RCS).

The disease is potentially fatal and it has completely upended Hanicker’s life and livelihood. He's closed his countertop business and had a double hip replacement after complications and now he may even need a lung transplant.

His medical bills are stacking up to roughly $100,000 and that was the reason he decided to join the lawsuit against the manufacturers.

In California alone, which tracks the silicosis cases, there are 668 confirmed engineered stone silicosis cases and 35 deaths, the New Republic reported. Australia has already banned engineered stone, and California regulators are considering doing the same.

Against that backdrop, Moody has sponsored the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Stone Slab Products Act of 2026. The report says it would grant manufacturers sweeping protection from civil lawsuits. Another bill doing the same has already been introduced in the House and approved by the Judiciary Committee.

The New Republic revealed some of that might come from the campaign donations she got from the family of Cambria CEO Marty Davis, who is also a major Trump donor. So far, Davis and his family members have given $38,000 to her campaign and political action committee. One contribution came from an industry lobbyist after she introduced the bill.

At a time when Americans are hyperfocused on political corruption, the donations raise questions about a quid pro quo.

Cambria blames unsafe practices, not the products, for workers' illnesses. It’s a little like the ‘the product is perfectly safe until you use it’ defense. The slab is safe, they argue, as long as nobody does the work of turning it into a countertop. Moody’s bill similarly declares the materials themselves are not dangerous.

The stones “do not pose an inherent risk of injury to human beings," Moody's bill claims.

Hanicker counters that cutting is unavoidable and that even using a wet saw sends dust into the air. Even if someone were cleaning up or handling the material rather than cutting it, they risk exposure.

“Once the slurry dries, there’s still dust. Even if it gets sucked into a vacuum, somebody still has to clean that filter out. There’s going to be human interaction with the dust regardless of the form of the dust," he explained.

The report said Moody's bill is unlikely to pass in the two months before the new legislative session, but it raised questions about Hanicker's loyalty to the GOP. He's now "up in the air" about whether he'd vote for Moody again.

“I don’t support her on how she’s supporting this bill,” he said. “She was the main sponsor on that. I can’t stand that. There are certain aspects where I want the Democrats to win here for everyone that’s being affected in this industry.”

Moody may have good reason for wanting to stay quiet on the issue.

The New Republic cited a recent Bloomberg investigation that revealed Cambria’s own internal studies of air sampling showed “dozens of times” that respirable crystalline silica exposed those working with it. The numbers were well “above the threshold that the company insists it’s staying below." In fact, some tests showed that the exposure is higher than what OSHA said was permissible in 2016.

Hanicker knows that Trump is connected to Davis and Cambria and even bragged that his trade policies have helped the company. Trump slapped hefty tariffs on imported engineered stone.

Hanicker is still trying to work and now when he does fabrication he has a robot cut the stone while he stays in an office.

“I’m sure they’re also paying Trump off on these tariffs,” he said. “It’s hurting the industry all the way around.”

Still, Hanicker doesn't want to support a Democrat.

“Just because I’m a Republican and a Trump supporter doesn’t mean I agree with everything he does," he said.

He even sent the president a letter talking about his illness. What he got back was essentially a note that Hanicker summed up: “Sorry about your health and hope that you and your family are well.”

President Donald Trump's increasingly strange habit of complimenting male politicians' bodies is becoming a fixture of his campaign rallies, potentially serving as a weird distraction from the Republican Party's efforts to win over voters as many polls predict a wipeout.

Writing in The Guardian on Friday, Adam Gabbatt examined how Trump's speeches have repeatedly shifted from prepared political talking points to detailed assessments of Republican candidates' physical appearances. The pattern has emerged as many candidates wonder if having the backing of the president helps or hurts their campaign.

One notable example that made headlines came at the October 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where Trump said he studied Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s body after learning he played college football.

"I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn't know he was a great athlete," Trump told supporters.

The president then described how he glazed over Husted’s backside and hands before praising him as a talented athlete.

Just five days after, Trump continued gushing about Husted’s backside and went into more detail even though the Senate candidate wasn’t there at the time.

"I examined his a--" Trump told the crowd, before describing the senator's shoulders, feet, jawline and hands.

The analysis also points to other times during the campaign when Trump went off script to talk about men’s looks.

At an October 16 appearance in Georgia, Trump gushed about Republican challenger Mike Collins looks while downplaying his opponent, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s appearance.

“Somebody said he’s a good-looking man. I don’t think he’s a good-looking man,” Trump said of Ossoff. “I actually think Mike Collins is a good-looking man, and he’s all man. All man. I’m not sure about Ossoff.”

In Kentucky, Trump complimented Republican Ed Gallrein, who is challenging Rep. Thomas Massie, describing him as a "beautiful guy."

The frequent praise of men’s looks has become media fodder, with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper mocking the president with the nickname "a--man-in-chief," while Fox News host Jesse Watters sort of defending the rhetoric.

"Sometimes it sounds a little gay. But he can get away with it because he's straight," Watters said.

Gabbatt wrote in his analysis that the weird off-script rants about men’s looks are actually creating a problem for the GOP, arguing that he is wasting valuable campaign time that could be spent convincing voters to support his candidates.

He questioned whether Trump is simply serving his own interest rather than strategically selling the candidates who are certainly not going to win votes based on their looks.

While it is yet to be seen if Trump’s rallies are swinging voters in the direction of the GOP, Gabbard suggests that Trump’s weird fixation is unlikely to improve the GOP’s prospect of keeping a majority in Congress.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on August 16, 2026, Attorney General Todd Blanche admitted that he has abandoned the principle that has guided the Justice Department since Watergate.

Asked if he would pledge to act independently of the White House, he said: “No, I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should make that pledge.”

He is tragically wrong. Blanche has forgotten that he works for all Americans, not the single man he refers to as “the boss.”

Blanche might consider this: Trump is a fickle friend who can quickly become a fierce foe.

In the near term, he’s angling to thwart the midterm elections in which Republicans are poised to lose President Donald Trump’s death grip on Congress. In the long run, the nation will bear the consequences of his weaponization of the Justice Department for years to come.

Blanche’s Pursuit of Trump’s Retribution Agenda

Attorney General Pam Bondi failed in her valiant efforts to satisfy Trump’s obsession to punish all of his perceived enemies. Her most visible failures involved former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Career prosecutors at the Department of Justice (DOJ) found the evidence insufficient to indict Comey for posting a photograph of seashells forming “86 47” on a North Carolina beach. US Attorney Eric Siebert—whom Trump had nominated—recommended against charging him.

Career prosecutors likewise informed Siebert that the evidence was insufficient to indict James, who had won a civil fraud case against Trump and his organization.

Trump didn’t care that experienced prosecutors found the claims against his targets wanting. In a social media post that he intended as a private message to then-Attorney General Bondi, Trump told her to get moving against Comey and James. Trump urged Bondi to give the job to Lindsay Halligan, an unqualified White House staff attorney whose prior experience consisted primarily of defending insurance companies against homeowners and corporate plaintiffs.

Bondi obeyed, and Halligan used dubious tactics to obtain indictments of Comey and James. But a federal court dismissed the indictments, ruling that Halligan’s appointment had been illegal from the outset.

Two weeks after dismissal of James’ indictment, the Justice Department tried again. In a remarkable rebuke, the grand jury refused.

On April 1, 2026, Trump fired Bondi.

With Bondi’s departure, then-Deputy Attorney General Blanche—Trump’s personal defense counsel between his two presidential terms—became acting AG. Before the month ended, Blanche had secured Comey’s re-indictment.

Five weeks later, Trump said that he would nominate Blanche as Bondi’s permanent replacement. On August 8, 2026, he was confirmed on a 50-49 Senate vote.

Long before his confirmation, Blanche had moved quickly to please “his boss.” Here’s a sample:

• In July 2025, Blanche was involved with senior White House staff in the Situation Room to develop strategies minimizing the ongoing damage to Trump personally from the Epstein files.
• In March 2026, he boasted that the Justice Department had rid itself of more than 200 career prosecutors and FBI agents—anyone “who had anything to do with prosecuting Trump.”
• In May 2026, he alone signed the document that—contrary to federal law—gave Trump and his family immunity from Internal Revenue Service investigations in return for settling Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS that a federal judge found to be a sham. Apparently, Blanche ignored his prior pledge to recuse himself from Trump-related matters.

Blanche’s Pursuit of Trump’s Attack on Democracy

Since his August confirmation, Blanche has promoted Trump’s assault on the democratic process:

• Despite the uniform rejection of the DOJ’s position by 26 federal courts—including Trump-appointed judges—he has continued to pursue lawsuits seeking state voter rolls as part of Trump’s effort to subvert the upcoming midterms.
• In September, he asserted without evidence that “common sense” proved what is demonstrably false—that mail-in voting presents a greater risk of fraud than in-person voting with identification. That specious argument is another element of Trump’s crusade to undermine public confidence in the democratic process.
• In October, he relaxed longstanding DOJ rules limiting presidential appointees in the Justice Department from participation in political gatherings. By then, he had already hit the campaign trail for Republicans and spoken at the party’s midterm convention.

And most recently, Blanche has taken the preemptive effort to discredit the results of the upcoming midterms to new levels:

In violation of the Justice Department’s 60-day rule against actions that could affect the outcome of an approaching election, the Justice Department executed a search of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)'s home only 22 days before the election in which she is on the ballot.

In violation of federal and state law (and probably a prior court order), DOJ sued California after demanding that it use the federal government’s unreliable database to purge 20,000 voters from the state’s rolls. But as California’s secretary of state explained in rejecting DOJ’s pre-suit, 48-hour ultimatum:

To give just one example, in a similar incident in the State of Nevada, DHS initially alleged that Nevada’s voter roll included nearly 16,000 potential non-citizens. However, after working with the State of Nevada, DHS officials failed to establish that a single non-citizen was on the voter rolls.

Blanche’s lawsuit is another Trumpian effort to promote public doubt about the integrity of the midterm elections and lay the groundwork for baseless post-election challenges.

Blanche’s Reckoning Has Only Begun

Blanche’s actions are already costing him:

• He has been the subject of ethics complaints relating to his work at DOJ.
• US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams made a direct judicial referral of Blanche to the New York bar—where he is licensed—based on his “troubling testimony” and the questionable legality of the Trump-IRS immunity agreement that he alone signed.
• Federal courts across the country have blasted Blanche’s Department of Justice as no longer worthy of the “presumption of regularity.” Federal judges no longer trust DOJ attorneys to tell them the truth.

None of this fazes Blanche. Perhaps his ambition was to be Trump’s latest “Roy Cohn”—Trump’s infamous early mentor who rose to notoriety as Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) chief legal counsel during the 1950s “Red Scare.” If so, he has succeeded.

But Blanche might consider this: Trump is a fickle friend who can quickly become a fierce foe. And eventually, Cohn was disbarred.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

Those of course were the words of Republican Special Counsel Robert Mueller, May 29, 2019, in the weeks following the submission of his too-long 448-page report looking into Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Those should be the only words worth mentioning and remembering from the shocking findings in the Mueller Report that Donald Trump was knee-deep in Russia in the lead-up to the 2016 election that shifted the Earth’s orbit.

After all, Trump had openly asked for Putin’s help during that election — “Russia if yer listening …” — to take down the woman, Hillary Clinton, who had correctly labeled him “Putin’s puppet” on the campaign trail.

Russia was listening alright, and pulling the strings to help make all the madness and treason that has followed possible.

As we sadly know now, everything Mueller said on that spring day had long since been drowned out six week’s earlier by America’s biggest mouth, Trump, echoed by his Barney Rubble-looking toady, Attorney General Bill Barr, and a willing mainstream media that was only too happy to go along with their faulty narrative that it all was just “a hoax” and basically leave at that.

While I would have preferred that Mueller had been more direct in nailing Trump for his high crimes, he pointedly said that Barr’s coverup “did not adequately represent his findings” and that “under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited.”

Mueller was telling Congress without actually telling Congress that there was more than enough potential criminality by Trump to proceed with indictments.

But nothing happened, and it became the most galling example in American history to date of just how readily Americans and their feeble representatives will go along with anything, even if it threatens everything.

By January 6, 2021, our broken judicial system asked the world to hold its beer yet again, when it refused to punish and jail Putin’s puppet for his violent attack on America, while trying to overturn an election he lost by more than seven million votes.

This time it was a Democratic-appointed Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who cleared the stacked deck against Trump, and let him wriggle free from prosecution.

God, I curse these men …

Today, as we close in on what might be the country’s last free and fair election, the anti-American team of Trump and Putin are at it again, this time as fast friends, trying to crush America’s allies starting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy’ Ukraine, which has been fighting heroically on the frontlines defending Democracy across the world.

After telling us 53 times on the 2024 campaign trail that he could end the Russia war on Ukraine in one day if elected, to the surprise of absolutely nobody who has been paying attention, Trump has once again taken the side of Putin, and is actively threatening Ukraine’s independence.

It took a while, but we were ALWAYS going to get to this place.

Trump has never said a negative word about his Russian puppet master. In fact, he goes out of his way to keep Putin plenty appeased. When Russia went into Ukraine, Trump wasted no time defending him, and depicted Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy.”

When Trump traveled to Helsinki, Finland, armed with the knowledge Putin had most certainly attacked America’s 2016 election, he emerged from a closed-door meeting with Putin, and put on a gruesome, weak display of subserviency that made this two-ton wad of filth, and the country he was supposed to defend, seem somehow even tinier.

"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be …”

Those words should have been the last things Trump ever said in public office. It should have been over for him right there. But once again he slithered away under cover from a morally-busted, America-hating Republican Party that has proven it believes in nothing but holding power no matter who or what gives it to them.

Republicans have proven they will pledge allegiance to any flag featuring the colors red, white and blue, especially if it’s Russian …

Trump’s latest capitulation to Russia should close the case on his treason. By lifting sanctions on the murderous Putin, disrupting crucial satellite systems used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations, and pushing for Ukraine’s surrender to Putin, Trump is no longer even bothering to hide his contempt for Democracy, and his love of Mother Russia.

Trump is actively taking the side of a country that wants to diminish us, and break us in two. A decade ago, this would have been impossible to imagine, yet here we are.

I am no longer interested in why Trump is doing this, anymore than I am interested in why he falsifies bank records, abuses women and potentially little girls, lies as he breathes, poisons our air and water, or empties taxpayers’ wallets for his gain.

I am only interested in seeing to it that this grotesque human being is jailed for his ongoing crimes against America and humanity.

It is long past time this is said as fact: Donald Trump is an enemy of the American people.

He is a serial liar, a crook, a felon, a coward, a draft-dodger and a traitor.

Trump is not guilty of treason and an assortment of other crimes because I am saying he is, my friends, he is guilty of treason and an assortment of other crimes because he is showing us he is.

Lock him up.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and awarding-winning journalist, who headed newsrooms, and worked as a reporter in the newspaper business for decades. You can find all his work here.

Former Republican strategist Sarah Longwell believes President Donald Trump could sacrifice Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as criticism mounts over his disastrous war with Iran.

Speaking with Ezra Klein in a New York Times interview, Longwell says that Trump may eventually need someone in his administration as the sacrificial lamb over the public anger over the most unpopular war in US history that has sent prices skyrocketing.

"I do think that Donald Trump needs somebody to take the fall for the war," Longwell said, adding: "My guess is that Pete Hegseth goes, but nobody buys that," she added.

Klein noted that Hegseth has enthusiastically taken ownership of the war but questioned whether the public would accept him as the person ultimately responsible for it. Longwell suggested Trump's continued support for the defense secretary is due to appreciating him as a cheerleader.

“I have no idea why he’s still there. He shouldn’t be,” she said. She also criticized Hegseth's leadership style as "preposterous," criticizing his plans for the live execution of the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, his transphobic language, and his focus on “fatties, beardos and weirdos.”

The interview centered around Longwell's extensive focus groups with Americans who voted for Trump in 2024.

She said Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war have been the focal point of contention with MAGA voters because they are directly connected to the president’s decisions and can’t be blamed on the previous administration in a way that would convince voters.

Longwell explained that the MAGA voters backed him believing that he would lower prices and not involve America in foreign wars. But instead, he left them facing high gas prices, more expensive household bills, and a war that doesn’t have an end date.

She said some supporters initially expected the Iran operation to follow the pattern of the administration's intervention in Venezuela, where U.S. forces quickly nabbed Nicolás Maduro without casualties.

"I thought it was going to be like Venezuela," she said voters have told her.

Despite the fighting continuing, Trump repeatedly claimed it would be over quickly, which also made it harder for his voters to separate the president from the consequences of his policies, she argued.

Longwell also described a growing split between Trump loyalists and the “America First” faction that includes the likes of Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who split from the president over the Iran War among other White House decisions.

For those voters, opposition to the Iran war is about American military personnel dying in a foreign war along with the rising cost of living that reminds them of his failed promises.

Whether Hegseth ends up being the sacrificial lamb is yet to be seen, but Longwell believes that the political responsibility is unlikely to disappear with him.