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President Donald Trump's head-spinning decision to publicly offer the White House Press Secretary job to one of his vocal business allies prompted much speculation about his decision-making, and after some digging, observers now believe a laughable name mix-up is behind the situation.

On Saturday afternoon, Trump took to Truth Social to offer the vacant press secretary gig to Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship MMA promotion and one of his longtime vocal supporters. Trump also appeared to invite White to bring on several notable MMA competitors with him as "assistants."

"I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States," Trump's post stated. "I have requested that he bring with him assistants, even though some are not from our Country, of Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Kayla Harris. We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!"

Based on the phrasing of the post, it appears that White has not officially accepted the position yet, if he was even aware of the offer beforehand. White has no experience in politics or public service, with his only applicable background for the role being the many media scrums he has taken part in as head of the UFC.

While trying to make sense of the insane logic behind offering White the job, users on BlueSky stumbled upon the bio page for a woman named "Dana W. White" on the Department of Defense's official website, and noted her background seemed much more applicable to the White House Press Secretary job than the UFC CEO.

"Dana W. White served as the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs," her official bio explains. "In this role, she was the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense for communications, news media relations, public outreach, engagement, public affairs and visual information. Ms. White served as the Pentagon Chief Spokesperson for both the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. As the communications policy lead for Department of Defense, she provided departmental guidance to the U.S. Armed Services and Combatant Command Chiefs of Public Affairs as well as more than 4,500 public affairs personnel worldwide. Ms. White directly oversaw the Defense Media Activity, an organization of approximately 2,000 personnel which provides a wide variety of multi-media information products to more than one million U.S service members, civilian employees, and their families."

Sharing a link to her page, a BlueSky user theorized that Trump might have been told about Dana W. White as a potential successor to Katie Zacharia, misunderstood the suggestion and run with the idea of his ally taking over the role.

"Oh my god. That is EXACTLY what happened," user Dave Lack posted. "Someone suggested a Heritage Foundation and Fox contributor and he mixed them up. Or he was given the name of the qualified Dana White, heard the name and thought, 'I have a better idea,' and the rest is history."

Several users also noted the amusing similarity to the "Four Seasons Total Landscaping" debacle of 2020, in which Rudy Giuliani held a press conference at a small landscaping business after trying to book a space at the luxury hotel with the same name. That incident took place on November 7, 2020, six years to date prior to Trump's Dana White announcement.

President Donald Trump was, unsurprisingly, irate and lashing out behind the scenes as the GOP was wiped out in historic fashion in the midterms, with reporter and biographer Maggie Haberman revealing new details about the targets of his ire.

Haberman, who has had extensive access to Trump throughout his time in politics and written multiple books about him, appeared on CNN Saturday to discuss the continuing fallout of the midterms. During one segment, host Kaitlan Collins asked what she had heard about Trump's motivations for replacing Susie Wiles as his chief of staff with his widely loathed top ally, Stephen Miller.

Haberman first stressed that, as reports suggested leading up to the midterms, Trump had been tiring of Wiles for a while, explaining that her departure had "been brewing for some time" and was "not a surprise" once it finally happened.

"This is not just in recent days," Haberman said. "The president has been incredibly critical of Susie Wales behind the scenes, to her face, to other people over the course of the last, I would say, at least six months, if not longer. There have been a bunch of people inside the administration undermining her as well."

Haberman noted that Miller, despite replacing her, was not among those in the administration pushing for her ouster and was said to be fine with her staying on.

She also revealed that on Election Night, Trump was particularly vicious towards Wiles as he watched the results pour in.

"And yes, the president berated her in front of other people on Election Night in the East Room, blamed her for the losses," Haberman said. "He had also been very critical in other circumstances of James Blair, her close associate."

She added further: "When you have a wave, Kaitlan, that sweeps seats from Mississippi to Maine, that's not really a tactical campaign decision. And this is a White House where the policy is largely set by the president. He does not want to be reined in. He wants decisions to be made by a small number of people. And he's been berating her for months about not finding the, quote, unquote, 'leak' related to his travel to Turkey during the NATO summit over the summer, when he was put in the refrigerator, when he was put in the refrigerator truck, and they told everybody that he was actually on a plane that the press members and cabinet members were on, and including Stephen Miller, by the way."

Why I vibed with "Drummer Boy."

There is a scene in "Drummer Boy" with which I strongly identified. Benjamin Clem (Lucas Leach) is criticizing King George III's administration and offending the customers at a business he co-owns with his mother Rachel (Melora Hardin) and the film's protagonist, big brother Jeremiah (Joel David Smallbone, who co-directed with his real life brother Ben). Jeremiah orders Benjamin to hold his tongue, but Benjamin cannot stop himself. While I won't spoil the details, suffice to say that his boldness (some might call it pigheadedness) sets the subsequent main plot in motion.

It's worth noting that Benjamin is at a disadvantage when he decides to take his stand, as he has a disabled leg. I am physically disabled myself — I have a hand-eye coordination disability that means I can't drive, a balance disorder that makes it hard to walk straight and a body that feels like a bag of rocks I drag around — and also like Benjamin, I'm prone to expressing my political views even when others tell me to be quiet. You don't need to share those traits to enjoy "Drummer Boy," though; all you need to be is an idealist with a taste for American history and catchy, uplifting Christian pop.

Set during the American Revolutionary War, "Drummer Boy" tells the story of two brothers whose professional and personal lives are caught up in the early phases of America's founding conflict. It was released by Angel Studios, the company that has pushed other subtly right-leaning movies into the marketplace like"The Brink of War" (which was about President Ronald Reagan during the Reykjavík Summit) and "Young Washington" (which was about President George Washington's early military career). In the case of "Drummer Boy," the conservatism mostly manifests in the protagonists' full throated Christianity, which at times seems to imply that American ideas about liberty cannot be separated from Christian theology.

The filmmakers, however, disavow any such intention.

"Look, the separation of church and state is a part of the government, and I believe that is an essential part of that," Ben Smallbone told AlterNet. "For the story of the film, no, we don't make a direct statement about that, and we don't plan to make a direct statement about that in the film. This was the founding of the United States 250 years ago. There was no acknowledgement of really what was gonna happen, who was gonna win. Were the British gonna take over? Were they gonna free the slaves? Were the United States gonna free the slaves if the patriots won? And so this is a story truly trying to discover what unites us instead of what divides us."

Smallbone reiterated, "And so, look, I don't know exactly where that would be stated in the film, but it is not in there presently."

Why I recommend "Drummer Boy."

Taking Smallbone at his word, I can recommend "Drummer Boy" as wholesome family entertainment not only on its surface level, but also beneath the skin, where insidious agendas sometimes lurk. Like the best Angel Studios fare, it is a straightforward story rather than a propagandistic one, and it includes the nuanced characterizations one expects in high art rather than the melodramas often churned out by Christian-leading studios.

Perhaps the movie's most important virtue is its world-building. In many movies set during the American Revolutionary War, especially those intended for families, the late 18th century is presented not as an inhabited era of history but as a style, a patois, an aesthetic, a collection of fashion and architectural choices. By contrast, the Smallbones and co-writer Ramsey L. Ramsey allow their version of colonial America to get its hands dirty. Between the expected period touches, "Drummer Boy" is stuffed with characters and corner-of-the-screen details that massage our minds into suspending disbelief. Before long, "Drummer Boy" no longer feels like a story set in history, but one whose characters could very easily be grappling with modern concerns.

As such, when characters like the Clem brothers quarrel over politics, the fact that we are being educated and provoked to think is secondary to the fact that we are being entertained. The filmmakers, I know, very much hoped this would be the case.

"There's an old saying: We make our plans, but God orders our steps," Joel David Smallbone told AlterNet. "And I'm so proud of the fact that this film is coming out three days after midterm elections, and that as people are grappling with exactly the question you just asked. Is this a reflection of history? Are we repeating ourselves? All of these questions, those are the questions we were asking ourselves as we wrote it. You know, what is freedom? What is forgiveness? Who are we? What is our identity? And I like asking questions, Matthew. That's my heart, is to ask questions. And so I love that you're pulling all of these pieces. My job is to provoke them."

Smallbone then laughed.

"Your job is to ask the question as well," he added.

The question I had asked, incidentally, was whether the Smallbones realized their conservative-leaning audience would soon hear criticisms of King George III that are awfully similar to how people today blast President Donald Trump.

"At one point in the film, the British remind me of, dare I say, President Trump," AlterNet told Smallbone. "They defend King George III by citing the divine right of kings, much as Trump says he was put here by God to lead America; that we must fight a war against France, as opposed to Iran, to protect our way of life; and they confiscate grain like Trump levying tariffs willy-nilly."

None of this was intentional, of course, but it still says a lot about "Drummer Boy" as a deeper narrative that it provoked these thoughts in me. Like the younger Clem brother refusing to be quiet, "Drummer Boy" is a determinedly positive celebration of American history that refuses to shut its mouth. Indeed, it is a tribute to this distinctly American trait, a Valentine to American obstreperousness toward tyranny.

In a year when Americans are debating existential issues, thanks in no small part to Trump's attempts to steal the midterm elections, the message of "Drummer Boy" is particularly appropriate to the year 2026, even as it is also timeless.

President Donald Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social with a truly baffling update on his hunt for a new White House Press Secretary, announcing that he had made an offer to an outspoken ally whom he praised as "violent" and "a fighter."

Weeks after Katie Zacharia flamed out of the role in less than a week, Trump announced that he had "offered" the role to Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship MMA promotion, as well as a long-time friend of the president and booster of GOP politics overall. White, like most of Trump's appointees, lacks any political or White House experience, though he has participated in countless press scrums relating to his role leading UFC.

While the announcement left many observers online baffled and grimly amused, the post made clear that White has not actually accepted the role. The president also claimed that he had asked White to bring in various notable MMA fighters as "assistants," making the post all the more surreal

"I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States," Trump's post stated. "I have requested that he bring with him assistants, even though some are not from our Country, of Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Kayla Harris. We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!"

White previously promoted a UFC event on the grounds of the White House to commemorate Trump's birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U.S., an event widely condemned for besmirching the dignity of the presidency and the People's House. He has also spoken at past RNC events and donated extensively to Republican candidates and political ventures.

Prior to Trump's post on Saturday, speculation had run rampant that he might choose rapper Nicki Minaj for the press secretary role, after she made a major pivot towards MAGA politics during Trump's return to the White House, and in the wake of appearances she made at the president's midterm rallies.

"I thought nothing he could do at this point would surprise me but I had to like quintuple check this was not fake," Forbes writer Paul Tassi wrote about the news on X.

"We’re living at the intersection of the darkest of times and the dumbest of times," political organizer Melanie D'Arrigo wrote in her own post.

"Susie Wiles has not even been gone for a day," Wired's Hugo Lowell posted.

Former and current White House insiders are not holding back on the Cabinet official they see as a "dead man walking," according to a recent report from The Intercept, claiming that the hammer is going to drop on them one way or another.

In the wake of the GOP's brutal implosion in the midterms this week, much of the blame is already being placed on the Iran war, increasing the likelihood that one of its main leaders, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, will suffer major consequences. GOP Rep. Thomas Massie has already announced his intention to continue bringing articles of impeachment against Hegseth once Congress returns from recess, with other reports suggesting that he might be looking for other ways out of the Cabinet to avoid accountability.

However things shake out for him, various insider sources who spoke to The Intercept this week believe that Hegseth is doomed no matter what and deserves the biggest punishment possible. The outlet said that it had spoken with "six current and former defense officials as well as additional sources on Capitol Hill, most on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely."

"By Wednesday evening, sentiment within the Pentagon suggested that Hegseth’s days are numbered, with names of potential replacements already being bandied about," the report explained.

One anonymous Pentagon official called the self-styled "War Secretary" a "Dead man walking," with another source, credited as a "former defense official," agreeing.

"They pinned the failure in Iran on him. Now it’s only a matter of time," they told The Intercept.

One of the non-anonymous sources the outlet spoke with was Wes J. Bryant, "until last year a senior targeting adviser and policy analyst at the Pentagon," who pulled no punches while sizing up Hegseth's predicament. Bryant was pushed out of the Defense Department by Hegseth in response to his efforts to expose his former boss's attempts to weaken protections for civilians.

"He is conducting state terrorism," the former official said. "He is 100 percent a war criminal. He needs to be prosecuted."

An anonymous GOP staffer in D.C. told the outlet that it was looking increasingly likely that Hegseth "could easily become the president’s fall guy," with another senior staffer adding that he “might be purged, himself, to avoid additional embarrassment."

“If Hegseth does stay and he survives this moment, Oversight is going to come crashing down on his head,” the senior staffer said. “Will Hegseth continue to obstruct? Yes. But wait until the subpoenas start.”

The Washington Post reports it has nailed down confirmation of MAGA influencer Laura Loomer getting paid to make posts, with the help of a former campaign aide to President Donald Trump and three other people familiar with her arrangements.

“The allegations were made by Alex Bruesewitz, an adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and three other people who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” reports the Post. “Two of the three people said they had paid Loomer directly to post political messages on her X account, where she has 1.9 million followers. The third said they had overseen clients who paid her to post on the account. The three spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

Additionally, the Post reviewed bank transaction emails and a wire transfer statement that appeared to show four payments totaling more than $60,000 sent to Loomer and a Florida-based company registered in her name, King Breaker Media, since May of last year.

The documents do not specify the purpose of the payments, but two sources confirmed they were for political posts.

“Loomer, one of Trump’s best-known online acolytes, denied to The Post that she is paid to post on social media. She instead described herself as a journalist and activist and disputed the idea that she is an influencer paid to promote any political cause,” The Post explained.

However, the new claims and documentation about the transactional shape of Loomer’s influence business could “add fuel to a growing debate about the little-regulated industry of political messaging on social media, where influencers on both sides of the aisle have operated in a legal gray area between advocacy and advertising.”

Bruesewitz told the Post that he paid Loomer for tweets last year, saying the money had been sent through his political consulting firm, X Strategies, for posts related to policy issues. But Loomer disputed Bruesewitz’s account and said that his firm contacted her last year offering to pay her for research.

“He paid me to make a one-page research document for him, and then he wanted me to distribute the information. And that’s what I did,” said Loomer, explaining that she was expected to distribute the research either through X “or maybe an article.”

But when asked how that was different from being paid to tweet, Loomer argued that she had been told to create the research document and that Bruesewitz claimed he would be the one to arrange circulating it.

But two of the people speaking with the Post confirmed that Loomer does indeed charge $3,000 to $5,000 per tweet, and sometimes more. Loomer denied the claim.

“The four people who had paid or oversaw payments to Loomer for posting political statements on social media said she is an effective, if sometimes unpredictable, messenger and a key way of trying to get a line directly to Trump,” reported the Post.

Republicans across the country are not taking their historic midterm beatdown in stride, and according to a recent report from Right Wing Watch, a notably MAGA-linked pastor has taken his despair a step further, calling for "another January 6."

Lorenzo Sewell is the leader of 180 Church, a non-denominational Christian church based in Detroit, and has become increasingly connected with GOP and MAGA politics in the last several years. In 2024, he was a guest speaker at the Republican National Convention, and in 2025, he conducted one of the benedictions at Trump's second-term inauguration. Recently, reports have even suggested that he is considering running for public office himself as a Republican.

Right Wing Watch's report this week also described Sewell as "an ardent stolen election conspiracy theorist whose obsession with exposing alleged voter fraud has become too extreme even for the Trump White House." Now, his rejection of election results that are unflattering to Republicans and the MAGA movement has continued, as during an appearance on the "FlashPoint" podcast after the midterm blue wave, he once again called the elections fraudulent and suggested Trump's followers should rise up against them.

Sewell's argument for why fraud must have taken place in the midterms echoed the common right-wing misconception about elections, often lampooned with the phrase "land doesn't vote." Often, conservatives might share electoral maps of certain states with more counties colored red, and argue that this must be an indication that the state should elect Republicans in state-wide races, despite the fact that Democrats tend to win counties that are more heavily populated, giving them the edge.

"Apparently unable to understand the concept of population density, Sewell insisted that states like Texas, Michigan, and Ohio are red states and therefore could not have possibly elected Democrats," the report explained.

"Out of 83 counties in Michigan, [Republican gubernatorial candidate] John James won 69 of them," Sewell declared. "Do you know that even [Democratic Senate candidate James] Talarico, he won—watch this—he only won 31 counties? There's over 204 counties in Texas. In [Republican Ohio Senate candidate Jon] Husted and [Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod] Brown, Brown only won 16 counties. There's 88 counties in Ohio."

He continued: "These are Democrat Socialists. How is it that they take every single important seat? They literally did the midterm massacre. That's what happened last night and I have a spiritual suspicion, Gene, I got a Holy Ghost hunch that we need another January 6th. I'm telling you, I'm gearing up for it. I'm ready to go to the Capitol. I'm ready to present my evidence because I won't let them steal my nation... I'm not taking this lightly. I've already talked to a few of my friends, and we're ready to go and literally present our evidence, because the president doesn't have a presidency anymore. We gotta understand this. His presidency is done. The only thing the church can do is stand up. We have to pursue, overtake, and we need to reclaim all that the devil has come to steal, kill, and destroy."

Lawfare writer Anna Bower reports that Judge Ana Reyes is appointing a veteran from President Donald Trump’s own first administration as Special Master to investigate whether or not the Department of Justice and Department of the Interior representatives "lied" to her about Trump's intentions for the East Potomac Golf Course.

“The court intends to appoint a Special Master to investigate whether Department of Justice or Department of the Interior Council have committed ethical violations in this matter,” wrote Reyes on Saturday. “… The Court gives notice of its intent to appoint former U.S. attorney Jesse K. Liu as the special Master.”

Reyes may have sprung a nasty surprise in choosing Liu, a Federalist Society member who served Trump as former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in his first term. In serving under Trump, Liu may have the experience with the Trump administration to sniff through it's tactics for manipulating courts. And as a D.C. veteran, she likely comes with a database of reliable investigators who can ferret out Trump’s ethical violations.

Reyes, however, argues in her notice that Liu served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 2017 to 2020, the same office in which she previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney. Reyes also commended Liu for holding senior positions at the Justice Department, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division, counsel to the deputy Attorney General on National Security issues and Deputy Chief of Staff for the National Security division. Additionally, Liu served as deputy general counsel of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

However, Reyes is a distrustful judge who already suspects the Trump administration of serious ethical violations in misleading her court — and she is not likely to appoint someone who will go easy on the president. Additionally, Liu’s inside knowledge of administration practices is not likely to be lost on Reyes.

The case springs from Trump’s effort to tear down and renovate the East Potomac Golf Course, an effort that preservation groups sued to block. But Trump personally blew up his own case before the court with his own words. After Reyes’ court barred any action regarding the park pending its final decision, a social media post by Trump suggested that he was ignoring the order.

“Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting president,” Judge Reyes raged after spying Trump’s post. “Not to believe him that a cabinet secretary has ‘developed’ a federal land project. Not to believe him that the secretary’s agency will destroy a historic golf course already on the land. Not to believe him that ‘restoration work’ will begin ’IMMEDIATELY!’ Not to believe him that the course ‘will be closed’ for over a year. Not to believe what the president has repeatedly told the American public.”

“And yet, here we are,” Reyes added.

Afterward, Reyes put federal attorneys on notice, warning that Trump's social media posts may have directly broken a court order.

“The Court ORDERS Defendants to clarify, as part of their response to the Court's show-cause order from October 26, whether any plan exists to close East Potomac Golf Course on or around November 15, 2026. And, if so, how that can be reconciled with Associate A.G. Woodward's representation to the Court,” said Reyes.

President Donald Trump is desperately trying to maintain a hold on his "authority" after the historic beating his party took in the midterms, according to one psychologist's analysis, with his efforts to do so in a recent Oval Office address coming across as "incoherent" as his decline continues.

Dr. John Paul Garrison is a clinical and forensic psychologist with a specialty in body language, who also makes a series of YouTube videos in which he uses his professional insights to examine the behavior of public figures. Many of his recent videos have concerned Trump, with Garrison suggesting that the president is suffering a severe decline, possibly accelerated by a stroke.

In his latest video, Garrison examined Trump's recent Oval Office address after the midterms, in which he signed an executive order designating the office as a landmark, meaning future administrations could not undo his redecoration efforts without congressional approval or another order reversing his own. Garrison noted that Trump continued to show "apparent neurological dysfunction" while struggling to communicate clearly, highlighting an "incoherent" attempt at sharing a "meaningless anecdote" about Chinese and British leaders supposedly complimenting the Oval Office during recent visits.

"As you could probably tell from his very brief and meaningless anecdote right there, President Trump struggles to get his points across and to communicate clearly if it's not written down for him," Garrison said.

Garrison further noted one sentence in particular where Trump was "entirely unable to articulate himself," with his coming out as a mumbled jumble, another potential sign that he is grappling with dementia.

"So, if you really listen to what he just said, those were fragments of ideas that truly do not belong together," Garrison explained. "What he's saying is basically incoherent. And this is something that we sometimes observe when people have dementia — as I've talked about before — someone has a stroke, and there's different types of lesions or scarring in the brain or something like that. There are a wide variety of reasons that people can struggle with something like this. But what we're observing is problems producing language, and we're also finding problems with him forming coherent thoughts and ideas. So we're seeing multiple layers of issues right here... We typically associate that with stress or anxiety. So it's very interesting to see right now, as he's talking about this, the blink rate is unusually high."

He added further: "Now he's been doing that at times when he was not actually reading off the page, and this goes back to the idea that he's struggling with eye contact, something else that we see as dementia progresses for a wide variety of reasons related to attention, poor social communication. There's a wide variety of reasons that eye contact becomes worse, but we're seeing his eye contact get dramatically worse."

President Donald Trump flushed his first major midterm scapegoat with the replacement of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller this week. However, this desperate move to rebound from the Republican Party's devastating midterm defeat raises fresh questions about who could be next to leave his administration — and about how much difference it could make.

In addition to Wiles, Newsweek reports FBI Director Kash Patel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are also among administration people worth watching as Trump barrels into a decimated Republican Congress that can no longer act as a White House rubber stamp.

“The personnel questions extend well beyond the chief of staff's office,” reports Newsweek. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing renewed speculation about his political future and a possible 2028 presidential campaign. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has come under pressure amid questions about the administration's Iran policy, and is facing articles of impeachment when lawmakers return to Congress next week. Even Vice President JD Vance has begun publicly distinguishing himself from the president over the war.”

The answers are difficult to foresee, said Newsweek, because of the history of deceptive answers and marketing by the Trump White House. Both Trump and staff mislead propaganda allies like Fox News in addition to legitimate news services.

In a Tuesday night interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Trump was asked directly whether he planned to make changes to his Cabinet following the Republican slaughter, and Trump answered, “No, I don't think so. Had nothing to do with my Cabinet.”

And when Newsweek asked the White House on Thursday whether Trump had complete confidence in Wiles or intended to review other positions, White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told Newsweek, “The self-serving individuals peddling stories to undermine the President and his team are only exposing their own personal ambitions.”

John T. Woolley, professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-director of the American Presidency Project, identified Hegseth, Patel, former White House adviser Peter Navarro, Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as people who could potentially come under scrutiny. But Woolley warned their replacements would now need confirmation by a less puppet-like Congress, and that “would have to signal some policy changes."

In any case, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a scholar who studies presidential staffing and turnover, said high turnover after second-term midterm defeats are relatively rare, primarily because they’re useless for changing public opinions. Reagan dumped Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger after the Iran-Contra affair, and George W. Bush asked Donald Rumsfeld to leave amid the fallout of the disastrous Iraq War, but tossing controversial aides usually does not translate with the public.

"There's research, political science research, that shows that staff purges and firing people, it doesn't change presidents' approval ratings," said Tenpas, adding that changes may have symbolic value, particularly when presidents “want to demonstrate to members of Congress that they are responding to concerns.”

However, in Trump's case, the president has little hope of “winning back the public” and may be more trying to toss perceived bad eggs and reduce “controversy ahead of congressional investigations.”

Nate Silver, cohost of Crooked Media’s “Still Counting” podcast and author of the “Silver Bulletin” newsletter, has been deftly recording the enduring and seemingly unbreakable relationship Republicans and GOP voters have had with President Donald Trump over the years

So, forgive him if he feels surprised to see it seemingly on the ropes this morning.

“If you have been in, like, a toxic relationship that maybe you didn't realize was toxic originally… sometimes just some little trigger reminds you that ‘I've put up with this s—— for a long time and this just, it's just not going to work.’ And you reach a point of no return, and I feel like the voters did that,” said Silver, speaking with Bulwark Publisher Sarah Longwell.

The Tuesday throw-down that tossed Republicans from their House and Senate majorities was a clear result of voters feeling “promises were broken,” according to polls, specific promises by Trump on gas prices, on foreign wars, on the Epstein files.

So much so that Trump and Republicans’ attacks on trans rights and other culture war issues could not save them as they seemingly had in the past.

“[It turns out] it's a distraction from the bad economy. I think it kind of, that almost doesn't work,” Silver told Longwell. “When people feel like their material conditions are not being taken care of, they don't give a f—— about culture wars, right? It's when they actually feel taken care of that you can win marginal voters on culture stuff because people have kind of like the luxury of thinking about that kind of thing.”

The stark reality facing the Republican Party this weekend, as voters continue to bump them from office days after the Tuesday rout, is the fact that “voters like the idea of Trump more than the reality of Trump,” said Silver. “And we're as far along in reality of Trump as we're going to get with an election on the ballot. And finally, Democrats get this incredibly cathartic and satisfying outcome, with a lot of cherries on top, too.”

But things could change in a few years as the political pendulum swings, if Democrats fail to accomplish voters’ agenda, Nate warned.

“I think you could have, maybe if Democrats win in 2028, you could have a GOP landslide in 2032. … [Likely Sen.] Scott Colom in Mississippi probably would be vulnerable in 2032 in a non-D+13 environment, but I think the partisan fever might be breaking a little bit,” said Silver. “… And it's partly generational, too. One thing that hasn't been talked about much is the Democratic Senate nominees are like 20 years younger on average than they were in the previous midterm. And voters are finally souring on the Clintons and the Cuomos and the Trumps and the Bushes and the Bidens, maybe even the Obamas a little bit, although he remains relatively popular.”