A new poll commissioned by NBC News finds that 71% of Republican voters now identify with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement—a massive jump from the 40% who identified as MAGA a little over a year ago.
Trump is, unsurprisingly, crowing about the poll. “A just out NBC Poll says that MAGA is gaining tremendous support. I am not, at all, surprised!!!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
Of course, Trump is exaggerating the poll’s results, suggesting in his Truth Social post that the entire country is becoming MAGA—and not primarily Republicans, as NBC’s poll found.
“All of that shift is coming from Republicans,” Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who helped conduct NBC’s poll, told the outlet.
Ultimately, the fact that Trump's MAGA movement is steadily taking over more of the Republican Party could be a major problem for the GOP in upcoming elections. While Republican voters may support Trump, voters more broadly—including independents—do not.
President Donald Trump
A new poll by YouGov for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found just 31% of independents support Trump. A Quinnipiac University poll from last week had similar findings, with just 36% of independents approving of the way Trump is handling his job as president, compared with 58% who disapprove. What's more, 51% of those independents in Quinnipiac’s survey “strongly disapprove” of Trump.
Of course, in swing districts, Republicans need to win over independents and possibly even some Democratic voters to get elected. Since the party has been taken over by MAGA, Republican candidates now have to embrace Trump and his movement to win primaries. And that could hurt them in a general election.
In fact, this dilemma has been a problem for Republicans in the past.
Kent was the GOP nominee after he ousted a normie Republican, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
And in 2022, MAGA hurt Republicans in the midterms, with Trump's hand-picked candidates losing races Republicans should have won in a typical midterm year when a Democrat was in the White House.
Trump’s picks sank Republicans' chances at holding the Senate that year, with nominees Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters, and Herschel Walker losing winnable Senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia, respectively.
What’s more, the MAGA candidates whom Trump endorsed in competitive House seats lost as well. That includes Trump superfan J.R. Majewski, who lost in Ohio’s Republican-leaning 9th District, as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who lost in Alaska’s at-large House seat.
Polling shows that non-MAGA Republican Susan Collins, a senator in Maine, is caught between a rock and a hard place. Collins is running for reelection in a state Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in 2024. But her penchant for caving to Trump on certain issues, while standing up to him on things like tariffs, has made her unpopular with both Democrats and Republicans.
The feeling from both sides that Collins is letting them down leads to a rare poll finding in these polarized times where voters across the aisle agree about something. Asked whether they consider Collins to be a strong or weak leader majorities of both Harris (19/66) and Trump (28/51) voters call her weak. Overall just 24% characterize her as strong with 59% calling her weak.
These findings are putting Collins in a position where she could be vulnerable next year both in a Republican primary and the general election. 69% of Trump voters think Collins is ‘too liberal,’ presumably leaving her vulnerable to a challenge from someone to her right. But 69% of Harris voters think she’s ’too conservative,’ suggesting she may also struggle to win the sort of crossover support from Democratic leaning voters that’s fueled her success in the past.
As Collins would say, all signs say Republicans should be very “concerned” about elections over the next two years.
To no one’s surprise, House Republicans can’t seem to get their priorities in line.
While some far-right Republicans are directing their attention to further punishing Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas—who was ejected from the chamber after dissenting during President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress—the GOP caucus should really turn its attention toward preventing a federal government shutdown.
But leave it to the House Freedom Caucus to be too bogged down with scheming ways to show their fealty to Trump to work on averting a shutdown, which could furlough thousands of federal workers.
Both chambers of Congress only have until midnight Friday to pass a funding bill, and House Republicans only released their 99-page measure to avert a shutdown this past Saturday. The bill, which would fund federal agencies through Sept. 30, would increase defense spending and cut non-defense discretionary spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson will bring the bill to the floor for a vote this week, likely on Tuesday, but we don’t know whether it will pass. Trump is publicly pressuring Republicans into voting for it, but Democrats will likely oppose it.
At least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has already said he’d oppose the bill. And given the Republican’s razor-thin majority in the chamber, Johnson can’t afford to lose another GOP vote. Given this, one might think that Republicans would be working to whip up votes for the bill, but some of the more hardline caucus members have other priorities.
Rep. Al Green, Democrat of Texas, dissents during President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025.
According to Punchbowl News, Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a member of the far-right House Freedom Conference, authored a bogus resolution calling Green’s actions “a breach of decorum” and suggesting that he “be removed from his committee assignments.”
Later that year, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who made appearances at white nationalist events, also lost his assignments after he shared a violent animated video depicting him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
In comparison, this form of punishment is often used as petty retribution against Democrats. For example, Rep. Eric Swalwell and then-Rep. Adam Schiff, both of California, were booted from the House Intelligence Committee in 2023 as punishment for voting to eject Greene and Gosar from their committees and for their roles in the impeachment of Trump.
Green’s worst offense is waving his cane in the air and declaring that Trump had “no mandate” to cut Medicaid, which he and other Republicans are pursuing to help pay for tax cuts for the rich.
That’s not much different—or worse—than what happened in 2022 when Greene and fellow Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado relentlessly heckled former President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address.
While Republicans certainly have a reputation for pettiness, there’s a sense that this new measure against Green won’t go anywhere. Johnson, for his part, reportedly thinks “that this measure should go away.”
That’s probably because he’s more focused on appeasing Trump and avoiding a shutdown. It’d be a bad look for Johnson, Trump, and the GOP at large if the government shut down less than two months into his second term.
The resolution against Green hasn’t formally been filed, but Republicans already feel like they won since they successfully censured him last week with the help of some traitorous Democrats.
In any sense, the move to further punish Green and pass a bill through the chamber at breakneck speed shows how far Republicans will go to ensure that Dear Leader gets what he wants.
But if anything, these moves don’t signify the GOP’s fealty to Trump so much as how truly terrified they are of him.
There were numerous, er, notable moments from President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, but perhaps one of the most striking was when he turned to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, patted him on the back, and said he “won’t forget it.”
“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” the president said while shaking Roberts’ hand after delivering his speech.
We don’t know exactly what Trump meant by this, considering all of the favors Roberts has done for him. After all, Roberts is responsible for authoring the decision that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution, essentially giving them power to commit crimes under the guise of “official acts” in office.
There was also the Roberts-authored ruling that narrowed obstruction charges for defendants accused of participating in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and the time when the Supreme Court’s conservative majority usurped the Fourteenth Amendment, ruling that states could not disqualify Trump from the ballot despite the Constitution’s ban on insurrectionists holding office.
In short, Trump could have been thanking Roberts for a number of things, but the president insists that his gesture was merely routine.
“Like most people, I don’t watch Fake News CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they are going ‘crazy’ asking what is it that I was thanking Justice Roberts for? They never called my office to ask, of course, but if they had I would have told these sleazebag ‘journalists’ that I thanked him for SWEARING ME IN ON INAUGURATION DAY, AND DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB IN SO DOING!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, with “MSNDC” being a portmanteau of MSNBC and the Democratic National Convention.
Judge Juan Merchan presides over proceedings in the hush money case against President Donald Trump on May 7, 2024.
But as judges who bow to the president receive gratitude, those who don’t are met with death threats.
According to Reuters, law enforcement has warned federal judges that they are facing unusually high levels of threat as they attempt to uphold the law despite Trump and his allies’ efforts to undermine it.
Eleven judges expressed concern to Reuters about their physical security, saying that they’ve faced death threats in recent weeks.
And Musk isn’t the only one criticizing the judiciary.
In February, Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” suggesting that Trump possesses ultimate authority.
While Roberts hasn’t been as compliant as some other members of the Supreme Court—and has even shown a willingness to break with his conservative colleagues—he’s still unlikely to serve as a check on Trump’s lawlessness.
At least two judges, Tanya Chutkan and Juan Merchan, faced threats for presiding over cases involving Trump where the verdicts were rejected by conservatives.
Meanwhile, the six Republican Supreme Court appointees, three of whom were appointed by Trump during his first term, have delivered some stunning victories in the president’s favor. And considering that conservative judges often assist Trump in his continued assault on democracy, he might have even more to thank them for in the future.
Roberts stated in December that “violence, intimidation, disinformation, and threats” jeopardize judicial independence, so it would be hypocritical if he’s now helping Trump dismantle existing statutes.
Donald Trump is a Russian asset, whether willing or unwilling. His obsequiousness toward Russian strongman Vladimir Putin during his first term wasn’t just embarrassing—it became a grave national security threat.
Trump literally sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies. And why wouldn’t he? Russia was a major factor in his 2016 election victory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s first impeachment was literally centered on his effort to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, drumming up a fake Hunter Biden investigation in exchange for anti-tank weapons to try to stave off a looming Russian invasion.
Last year, Trump repeatedly promised to end Russia’s war in Ukraine within “24 hours” of taking office, which many took to mean pulling U.S. support for Ukraine and freezing the conflict in its current state—something Russia desperately needs.
Yet a funny thing has happened. Trump slobbered over Putin, believing that he and Russia are strong and mighty, serving as an example for his own imperialist and undemocratic designs. But Russia is not strong and mighty. In fact, Russia has run out of tools to prop up its failing economy. And out-of-control inflation, sky-high interest rates, and lower global energy prices have put Putin in a precarious position.
Somehow, Trump noticed this, and his disdain couldn’t be clearer. We just might have somehow lucked into a pro-Ukraine Trump presidency.
Trump shared his thoughts about Russia’s war in Ukraine on Truth Social Wednesday morning.
I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!
How does Trump always manage to get so much wrong?
Russia didn’t lose 60 million lives in World War II; it lost 27 million. And, really, seven million of those were Ukrainian, as that total is for the Soviet Union, not Russia. That’s a lot, so why the need to exaggerate it? Probably because the total number of people killed in World War II is around 60 million, and Trump is just too stupid to know the difference—or to fact check.
Furthermore, tariffs don’t mean shit to Russia, since the U.S. doesn’t really trade with them. In 2022, the United States imported just $15 billion in Russian goods and services. Thanks to deep sanctions, what little we exported, like intellectual property (movies and such), was either appropriated by Moscow or just stolen.
But sanctions are something that could be hiked up, which would be a welcome response from the Trump administration.
If Trump really wants the war to end (and to take credit and have statues raised all over Ukraine in his honor), then he needs to do what former President Joe Biden was loath to do: open up the arms spigot and remove all restrictions on their usage.
More specifically, he needs to flood Ukraine with aircrafts—Ukraine now flies F-16s—and long-range missiles.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump
Russia has endless manpower to incrementally take ground in Ukraine. In October 2024, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated Russian casualties for the entire war at more than 600,000, including those killed and wounded. And that pace has increased year over year as Russia runs out of armor but continues to send soldiers on foot, motorcycle, and even civilian vehicles.
Yet manpower continues to be sourced from Russia’s poorest, more remote regions, insulating the oligarch elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg from direct consequences.
That economic instability, on the other hand, hits those oligarchs in the only place it matters, and a continued 10% inflation rate is taking a bite out of everyone’s earning power.
How long can the czar remain in power if his people are starving?
Meanwhile, the country’s banking system is on the verge of collapse as Moscow forces them to lend to the military industrial complex—at levels that far exceed their ability to cover the risk. With their inability to access foreign reserves due to sanctions, they are isolated and exposed. Wary of being caught up with retaliatory sanctions from the United States and the European Union, China is steering clear.
While Russia still has significant financial reserves to cover its massive defense-related budget deficits, they are on pace to be depleted by 2030, according to an analysis by Janes—and that’s assuming energy prices don’t crater.
Saudi Arabia has been threatening to open the spigot, and if Trump’s policy to encourage additional domestic drilling pans out, global prices might further tumble to Russia’s great peril. And additional Western sanctions on oil and on countries that help Russia circumvent sanctions (cough, cough, looking at you, India) will further tighten the noose.
Long-range missiles would help accelerate Russia’s economic woes. Ukraine’s biggest war gains the past year came from systematically targeting Russian economic engines like refineries and factories. On the ground, Ukraine needs to merely hold the line, extracting a steep price on Russian advances. But if they want to win the war, it will be with long-range missiles.
Unfortunately, Trump didn’t threaten that, but once Putin ignores Trump’s demands for “A DEAL,” it would be a logical next step to ratchet up the pressure. Someone might even whisper in his ear—with their fingers crossed behind their back—that if he helps end the war, a Nobel Peace Prize is on the table.
Trump’s 180-degree turn on Putin clearly stems from Russia’s weakness not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria following the country’s humiliating defeat.
One Russian Telegram channel claimed that secret negotiations between Russia and Trump representatives in December failed when the Americans made demands that Putin was unwilling to meet.
All media, public authorities and controlled leaks of [Russian] economic data not only abroad, but also inside the country, the main goal was to convince first the ruling group of Biden, and in the last few months of Trump, about the normal state of the Russian economy, its moderate growth, the absence of critical problems, and the ability of the Russian Federation to continue the confrontation as long as necessary.
For example, our group had all the real indicators of the Russian Federation – a growing decline in GDP by 1-4%, inflation growth of up to 25% over the last year, etc. The main figures for the public space were carefully adjusted, the emerging holes were quietly filled with reserves from the National Wealth Fund. While there was a high probability of reaching an agreement with the US by demonstrating ‘muscles’, it was much more profitable and cheaper to demonstrate them with hidden doping.
There was a categorical ban not only on discussing serious restrictions and deprivations for the population, but also on actually working out such measures – because of possible leaks and confirmation of the ‘weakness’ of the Russian economy for US analysts.
The main scenario assumed that the newly elected U.S. president, who had his hands ‘untied’ at the beginning of his term, would be convinced of Russia's ability to continue the conflict throughout his presidency would want to resolve the crisis quickly, and that this would be the best time for agreements.
There were tense secret negotiations between Russia and Trump's representatives through almost all of December, but the conditions put forward by the Americans were completely unacceptable for the pro-Chinese elite group in Russia, which at this stage has the greatest weight [...]
China will not allow an agreement with the US (probably, China leaked the real data of the Russian economy to the US, hence such tough conditions from their side), it will not only receive resources below the cost price and supply its products with 200-300% markup but it will also solve its geopolitical task – talking about friendship and partnership of the Russian Federation, Russia's forehead will hit the US and the EU, bargaining for agreements for itself and preventing its open conflict with the US.
That is quite the conspiracy theory.
The United States doesn’t need China to know the state of the Russian economy. Heck, I’ve linked to a bunch of Western media sources and analysts who have had their finger on Russia’s true economic situation throughout the entire war.
But the underlying point is quite interesting. Not only is it against China’s interests for the war to end, but Russia is also reliant on it for just about everything right now. Plus, China loves to see EU and U.S. dollars and assets spent on Putin’s theater rather than on Taiwan.
The end result is a weak Russia and a pathetic Putin, groveling before North Korea for weapons and manpower. And if there’s one thing Trump abhors, it’s weakness.
By aligning himself against China, Republicans’ favorite geopolitical boogeyman du jour, Trump is further susceptible to influence from pro-Ukraine voices inside the GOP and his administration.
If he wants to end the war, Trump needs to give Ukraine the means and permission to further target Russia’s failing economic engine. Long-range missiles are the way to do it.
Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s pick for chief of staff, issued a memo Sunday to Trump’s Cabinet nominees ordering them to stop making social media posts without approval ahead of the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.
“All intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel,”the memo said, according to the New York Post.
Wiles also noted, “I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself.”
The missive comes after the spectacular flame out of former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general and the ongoing controversies of several other nominees, including Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, and Tulsi Gabbard.
Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn after the resurfacing of sordid allegations of illicit drug use and sexual behavior, including sending money to multiple women via PayPal and Venmo. Gaetz’s activity on social media was a key part of the controversy, as the House Ethics Committee's report notes.
“From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” the report states.
Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has been accused of financial mismanagement, sexual assault, and public drunkenness. In response to reporting on these allegations, Hegseth has taken to social media to complain about “anti-Christian bigotry” in the media, the “lying press”, and the “Left Wing hack group” ProPublica.
Anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has also made strange social media posts. He recently posted a meme on X characterizing the medical industry as “financially dependent on you being sick,” as well as a video of himself with CGI-generated electric eyes and a link to his merchandise site.
An anonymous source with the Trump transition team claimed that the order to stop social media posts is not related to the recent online infighting between Trump megadonor Elon Musk and anti-immigration MAGA supporters. But the timing of the edict, coming directly from Trump’s right-hand woman, is extremely convenient.
Musk recently went on a posting frenzy, calling MAGA fans “upside-down and backwards” in their understanding of immigration issues, while telling one person to “take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face.”
The controversy generated international headlines, and Trump was dragged into commenting on the discussion—a less-than-ideal situation as he prepares for his inauguration.
Trump of all people telling others to be more mindful about social media posts is an ironic development. Trump made a name for himself as a political figure largely due to constantly posting inflammatory messages online. Most notoriously, he called on his supporters to protest the results of the 2020 election after losing to President Joe Biden.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he wrote.
GOP Rep. James Comer held a House Accountability and Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday titled, “A Legacy of Incompetence: Consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Policy Failures.” The laughably biased display is the latest Republican attempt to bash President Joe Biden, tarnish Vice President Kamala Harris’ record, and bolster Donald Trump's flailing presidential campaign.
Not unlike the committee’s abject failure to find a single shred of evidence to impeach Biden, this new attempt did not go the Republican Party’s way. Instead of creating angry and aggrieved sound bites for MAGA minions to salivate over, the hearing was mostly a boring stream of conservative lies.
Enter Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who used his time to detail the Biden administration’s many accomplishments on behalf of the American people. Connolly enlisted Skye Perryman, CEO of public policy organization Democracy Forward and the only witness the Democrats were allowed to call during the hearing, as his willing accomplice in this brief history lesson.
He began by countering the GOP claims that the Biden administration’s environmental regulations preventing energy industries from drilling for oil willy-nilly are “impeding energy production.”
Not only are Trump and Republicans lying about how superior they are when it comes to American energy production, they are lying about the Biden administration’s historic success in reaching new levels of energy independence.
Connolly moved on from there, asking Perryman about the Trump administration’s attempts to pass an infrastructure bill.
Connolly: Did they ever pass an infrastructure bill?
Perryman: They did not.
Connolly: Did President Biden pass an infrastructure bill?
Perryman: He did.
Connolly: Is it also the largest infrastructure bill in American history?
Perryman: The Biden-Harris infrastructure bill is the largest in American history.
Connolly: And pretty comprehensive, covers lots of different kinds of infrastructure. Is that correct?
Perryman: Many infrastructure and lots of investment.
The Biden administrationdid indeed pass an infrastructure bill with nearly zero support from the Republican Party.
Connolly then detailed the Trump administration's failures in Afghanistan, including the rushed withdrawal timeline that Republicans now decry and blame on Biden. Trump tried to make his already terrible plan catastrophic by ordering a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan after he lost the election in 2020. Thankfully, senior military staff did not follow through.
“Would it be fair to say that that development, that threat and that withholding of weapons, might be construed—if you were Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin—as a sign of weakness on the part of Ukraine and a sign that maybe the United States wasn't going to be there should something bad happen between Russia and Ukraine?” Connolly asked.
Connolly: Iran and nuclear weapons: Was there not an agreement that the United States actually led that involved Russia and China, Europe and Iran, to limit nuclear weapon production in Iran?
Perryman: There was a historic agreement.
Connolly: And was it working?
Perryman: Yes.
Connolly: In all respects?
Perryman: I believe so.
Connolly: Inspected by IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] and the Trump administration, and certified by both.
Perryman: Yes.
Connolly: Is that correct? And what happened to that treaty?
Perryman: President Trump pulled out.
Connolly: And has Iran been less active in producing nuclear weapons, or more?
Perryman: Iran is now a greater threat because of that failure.
Connolly: So much for efficacy. Just thought I'd revisit that revisionist history.
Comer seems to have found a novel way to waste taxpayer money: using his position as chairman of the Accountability and Oversight Committee to nakedly campaign against the Biden-Harris administration and prop up Trump’s dogged quest to return to the White House.
If Thursday’s display was any indication, this latest effort will be about as effective as Comer’s last set of bogus hearings.
Corey Lewandowski is back in the Donald Trump campaign business again—if he ever really left. Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager from his 2016 run, and it’s unclear what his role will be this time, according to Politico.
CNN reports that current campaign co-managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles are not believed to be losing their positions despite the past three disastrous weeks for the campaign, which have seen Trump’s steady lead in the polls disappear.
Lewandowski is an all-time villain in Trump World. Let’s dive into a list of his MAGAchievements.
In March 2016, as Trump’s campaign manager, Lewandowski was charged with battery of a female reporter at an event in Jupiter, Florida. After he denied he ever touched the woman, video of the altercation came out and threw a big bucket of reality on how much of a scumbag Lewandowski was.
You don’t rise in the world of MAGA without disrespecting the laws of our land, and Lewandowski tried to do his part. During the first impeachment inquiry into Trump, he testified that he had no qualms with lying publicly, telling Congress, “I have no obligation to be honest with the media 'cause they're just as dishonest as anybody else.”
Then, in 2021, a GOP donor claimed Lewandowski had sexually harassed her, telling the press, “He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful. I am coming forward because he needs to be held accountable.”
Even for those in Trump’s orbit, the allegations were so bad that Lewandowski was fired from his job as the head of a Trump-affiliated super PAC. He later cut a deal with Las Vegas prosecutors that allowed him to not admit guilt in the incident.
Desperate as he faces Harris, Trump is bringing back Lewandowski (along with many other former aides) even as rumors of an affair with Kristi Noem, the married governor of South Dakota, continue to swirl. I guess it might take some of the attention away from how worthless and weird the GOP’s ticket is.
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, best known for fabricating her entire life story, told Fox News that she has a plan to get the sergeant-at-arms to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“Several months ago, I introduced a resolution for something called inherent contempt of Congress. This is something that Congress has the authority to do, and it hasn’t been done since the early 1900’s,” she told host Maria Bartiromo on Monday.
Luna was responding to questions about the Justice Department’s announcement that it would not prosecute Garland for not turning over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
“And what that allows Congress to do is really be the punitive arm and really hold Garland accountable by using the sergeant-at-arms to essentially go and get him,” Luna went on, “as well as the tapes, bring him to the well of the house and really be a check-and-balance on the Department of Justice.”
Like most of what Luna says, there are all kinds of facts being misrepresented here. For one, her assertion that she introduced her inherent contempt of Congress resolution “several months ago” is belied by the fact that she actually announced it on May 7. And while that is technically more than one month, it is far less than several months. Though, to be fair, her announcement could have been missed, since it came the same day that Stormy Daniels was testifying … in Trump’s criminal trial.
The sergeant-at-arms is "the chamber’s primary law enforcement official and protocol officer, responsible for maintaining security on the House floor and the House side of the U.S. Capitol complex.”
The case from the “early 1900’s” that Luna is referring to is something some legal scholars felt was more apropos to the unwillingness to comply with requests from Congress by the Trump administration.
The Teapot Dome scandal, which involved President Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall’s no-bid contract to lease federal oil fields in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, happened in 1922. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty was heavily criticized at the time for not more thoroughly investigating Fall, who was later convicted of taking a $100,000 bribe.
The scandal escalated to the Senate committee subpoenaing Mally S. Daugherty, the attorney general’s brother.
When Mally Daugherty refused to show up to testify before Congress, the Senate Sergeant at Arms David S. Barry deputized John J. McGrain to arrest him and bring him to Washington to testify.
The Republicans’ fixation on getting audio, despite having already received the entire transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden, has been a transparently political endeavor. Hur, a Republican, released a 375-page report in February saying that no charges were warranted and that Biden had likely kept the documents as a private citizen by “mistake.”
Since then, House Republicans voted to hold Garland in contempt. Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to take the Garland contempt case to court after the DOJ announced it planned no further action. But whether Johnson will bring Luna’s resolution to a vote remains to be seen.
There has been very little tangible action that has come out of the GOP’s neverending political theater. This past year it spent an inordinate amount of time attacking Biden’s border security while trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—a stunt that failed miserably.
Luna’s newest resolution is the GOP’s latest political stunt to create a cloud of doubt over Biden’s reelection campaign against convicted felon Trump.
Hopium Chronicles' Simon Rosenberg joins Markos to discuss the “red wave-ification” of the economy and how prepared Democrats are for November. There is still work to do but we have a better candidate—and we have the edge.
For nearly a year, Head of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer has used the power of his position to produce an evidence-free investigation into what he has called the “Biden family cover-up.” Warping half-truths in order to drive an investigation into old and debunked conspiracy theories has resulted in virtually no meaningful evidence of wrongdoing by President Joe Biden. It has, however, exposed the world to how much of a raging hypocrite Comer is.
In August, Comer told Newsmax that “Joe Biden was using pseudonyms to hide the fact that he was working with his son to peddle access to our enemies around the world.” The Kentucky congressman has repeatedly implied Biden’s use of aliases, a “common practice” in government correspondence, is proof he was involved in shady activities connected to his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
The Daily Beast reports that when he was Kentucky’s commissioner of agriculture in 2011, Comer was sending pseudonymous emails for government business. In fact, he was bungling hemp seed deals with China, and sending those emails from a government account, named after his 7-year-old son, to a big campaign donor who had a possible interest in the hemp product.
This is just the latest example of how enormous his hypocrisy is in regards to the allegations he levied against President Biden.
Back in November 2023, Comer accused Joe Biden of corruption based on a check for $200,000 he gave to his brother Jim Biden in 2018, which was repaid. Comer called it a “bombshell” piece of evidence. Days later, it was revealed that Comer had also paid his own brother $200,000, in one of many “land swaps” deals the Comers and their businesses had been involved in over the years.
In March 2023, the Congressional Integrity Project—the Democratic-aligned group committed to putting Republicans on the defensive—wrote a letter asking for a Kentucky prosecutor to investigate Comer for possibly committing “at least one, and perhaps multiple, felony offenses during his failed attempt to secure the Republican nomination for governor in 2015.” The motivation for the letter was a New York Times profile on Comer, in which the congressman talked about the tight gubernatorial primary he had lost—which included allegations by a blogger against him that he was abusive to a college girlfriend:
The month before the primary, a story appeared in The Lexington Herald-Leader in which leaked emails suggested coordination between the blogger and the husband of the running mate of one of Mr. Comer’s opponents in the race, the Louisville developer Hal Heiner.
The rumor whispered around Kentucky political circles at the time was that Mr. Comer had swiped the emails from the computer server for the husband’s former law firm and leaked them to the newspaper. In an interview with The Times, Mr. Comer confirmed, for the first time, that he had been behind the leak and strongly hinted he had gotten them from the server.
“I’ve had two servers in my lifetime,” Mr. Comer said when asked about the emails. “Hunter Biden’s is one, and you can — I’m not going to say who the other one was, but you can use your imagination.”
This tactic by Comer seems to have worked out as well as his investigation into Biden, as Comer’s former girlfriend, angered by the leaked emails, wrote and published a letter detailing what she described as a “toxic, abusive” relationship with Comer. Comer has denied the allegations of abuse.
Recently, reports say Comer spends his days fantasizing about the dead-end Biden impeachment disappearing. The constant humiliation of having failed to actually prove anything against Biden has prompted even right-wing news outlets like Fox News to stop giving him primetime mentions.
However, Donald Trump is running for president again, and the demands to create the semblance of corruption by Biden seems to be Comer’s primary job. On Sunday, Comer told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo he was not done with trying to get Biden, saying “This is just the beginning.”
He’s had almost a year, and all he’s proven is that Biden is a supportive father.
Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records on May 30. What are potential voters saying about this historic news? And what is the Biden-Harris campaign doing now that the “teflon Don" is no more?
