Mitch McConnell’s legacy comes under fire in Kentucky race to replace him in the Senate

Republican Nate Morris had deftly warmed up a crowd of party faithful, gushing about President Donald Trump and recounting his own life’s journey — from hardscrabble childhood to wealthy entrepreneur — when he turned his attention to the man he wants to replace, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

That's when things got feisty. While bashing Kentucky's longest-serving senator at a GOP dinner on the eve of Saturday's Fancy Farm picnic, a tradition-laden stop on the state's political circuit, Morris was cut off in midsentence by a party activist in the crowd, who noted that McConnell isn't seeking reelection and pointedly asked Morris: “What are you running on?”

Morris touted his hard line stance on immigration and defended Trump's tariffs as a boon for American manufacturing. But he didn't retreat from his harsh critique of McConnell.

“We’ve seen 40 years of doing it the same way," Morris said. "And, yes, he’s not on the ballot, but his legacy is on the ballot. Do you want 40 more years of that? I don’t think you do.”

McConnell's blunt-force approach used against him

The pushback from a county GOP chairman revealed the political risks of attacking the 83-year-old McConnell in the twilight of his career. Towering over Kentucky politics for decades, McConnell is regarded as the master strategist behind the GOP's rise to power in a state long dominated by Democrats. The state Republican headquarters bears McConnell's name. As the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, McConnell guided Republican policymaking and helped forge a conservative Supreme Court. Back home, his appropriating skills showered Kentucky with federal funding.

Now, his blunt-force style of campaigning — which undercut so many foes — is being used against him.

Related | McConnell announces he's done taking a dump all over democracy

Morris is running against two other prominent Republicans — U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron — for McConnell's seat. The outcome will be decided in the spring primary next year. Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

All three Republican hopefuls lavish praise on Trump — in hopes of landing his endorsement — but also have ties to McConnell, who mentored generations of aspirational Republicans. Cameron and Barr have chided McConnell at times, but it's been mild compared to Morris' attacks. Morris interned for McConnell but glosses over that connection.

McConnell pushes back

Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, acknowledge applause at the annual Fancy Farm picnic on Aug. 2 in Fancy Farm, Ky. 

At events surrounding the Fancy Farm picnic, an event long known for caustic zingers that he has always relished, McConnell showed no sign of backing down.

“Surely this isn’t true, but I’ve heard that one of the candidates running for my office wants to be different,” McConnell told a Republican crowd that included Morris at a pre-picnic breakfast in Mayfield. “Now, I’m wondering how you’d want to be different from the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. I’m wondering how you’d want to be different in supporting President Trump.”

McConnell received multiple standing ovations. Morris stayed seated.

McConnell has consistently voted for Trump's policies more often than Kentucky's other Republican senator, Rand Paul, according to a Congressional Quarterly voting analysis. McConnell recently supported Trump's signature tax and spending measure. Paul opposed it, saying it would drive up debt.

Yet Morris has taken on McConnell, who has famously had an up-and-down relationship with Trump.

McConnell teamed with Trump to put conservatives on the federal bench and pass tax cuts during the president's first term. McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals. But the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by Trump's supporters.

McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024, but in a biography by Michael Tackett of The Associated Press, released shortly before the election, McConnell described him as “a despicable human being.”

Running against career politicians

Morris, who started a waste management technology company, says the senator has been insufficiently loyal to Trump and allowed festering issues like immigration and the national debt to grow worse during his years in Senate leadership.

Morris wants to tether his opponents to McConnell while running on anti-establishment themes that his campaign thinks will appeal to legions of Trump supporters in the Bluegrass State.

Nate Morris speaks at the annual Fancy Farm picnic on Aug. 2 in Fancy Farm, Ky.

“Let’s face it, folks, career politicians have run this country off a cliff,” Morris said.

Morris' rivals sum up the anti-McConnell attacks as an angry, backward-looking message. Cameron called it a diversionary tactic to obscure what he said is Morris' lack of both a message and credibility as a supporter of Trump's MAGA movement.

"He can’t talk about his actual record. So he has to choose to pick on an 83-year-old,” Cameron said.

At Fancy Farm, where candidates hurl insults at one another against a backdrop of bingo games and barbecue feasts, Morris took a swipe at McConnell's health.

“I have a serious question: who here can honestly tell me that it’s a good thing to have a senior citizen who freezes on national television during his press conferences as our U.S. senator?” Morris said. "It seems, to me, maybe just maybe, Mitch’s time to leave the Senate was a long time ago."

McConnell had his customary front-row seat for much of the event but wasn't there for Morris' remarks. He typically leaves before all the speeches are delivered and exited before his would-be successors spoke.

Living by the sword

McConnell complimented Trump in his speech, singling out Trump's bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.

“He turned Iran's nuclear program into a pile of rocks,” McConnell, a steadfast advocate for a muscular U.S. foreign policy, said to cheers.

At the GOP dinner the night before in Calvert City, where candidates typically are more politely received, party activist Frank Amaro confronted Morris for his anti-McConnell barrage.

“He keeps bashing Mitch McConnell like he’s running against Mitch McConnell,” Amaro, a county Republican chairman, said afterward. “Overall, he’s helped Kentucky and the United States, especially our Supreme Court, more than any other U.S. senator in this country.”

But Morris' blistering assessment of McConnell hit the mark with Trump supporter Patrick Marion, who applied the dreaded Republican-in-Name-Only label to McConnell.

“Personally, I think Mitch has been a RINO for way too long,” Marion said later. “I don't think he was a true MAGA supporter of President Trump.”

Afterward, Morris was in no mood to back off.

“He’s the nastiest politician maybe in the history of this state if not in the history of this country,” Morris said of McConnell. "Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

Republicans won’t stop beating up on Biden because it’s all they have

President Donald Trump hasn’t even been back in office for 200 days, and already, his second term is a full-blown disaster.

He’s sort of breaking up with his tech billionaire co-President Elon Musk. His so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” pitched as the cornerstone of his legislative revival, is tearing the GOP apart. His power grabs are being dragged through the courts. And his tariff plan—if it survives—could drive up prices and tip the economy toward a recession.

With all that chaos on their plate, Republicans should be laser-focused on solving problems. Instead, they’re still obsessed with former President Joe Biden.

Two recent stories gave them just enough cover. First, a Beltway tell-all claimed Biden’s team downplayed his health issues when he launched his reelection bid. Then came news of his metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis—and Republicans immediately, and without evidence, cried “cover-up.” 

Rep. James Comer, after leading a failed 15-month impeachment investigation, even suggested that Biden should testify before Congress over his use of an autopen, as if that somehow proves cognitive decline. For the record: Autopens are legal. Presidents, including Barack Obama, have used them, despite MAGA’s ongoing paranoia.

To be clear, Republicans aren’t the only ones who raised questions about Biden’s mental and physical fitness. Democrats did too. So did the media. His age and decline weren’t hidden—they were headline news. Voters knew what they were signing up for.

And sure, it’s possible this issue could resurface in 2026 or 2028. But if it does, it won’t be because MAGA world kept doomposting about Biden’s brain scans; It’ll be because Democrats failed to give voters anything else to care about.

Let’s be real. The defining story of the next election won’t be Biden’s prostate. It’ll be Trump—his chaos, his legacy, and the wreckage he’s already leaving behind.

To name just a few lowlights: He’s nuked the economy with asinine tariffs. He’s gutted the federal workforce, undermining basic services like Social Security and weather forecasting. He’s threatened law firms to scare them away from challenging his illegal moves—or defending his political enemies. He’s openly ignoring court orders, plunging the country into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Voters won’t forget. Republican lawmakers are already getting grilled by angry constituents at town halls. The idea that Biden’s medical chart will outweigh Trump’s reign of chaos is laughable.

But that’s the GOP’s bet because they need Biden in the narrative. They need a scapegoat, a boogeyman, a distraction. They can’t run on their record, so they run on fiction.

Just look at how Democrats have responded to the Biden book: no freakouts, no backstabbing. Most agree he shouldn’t have run again—but they aren’t re-litigating 2024 or knifing one another over 2028. That unity says more than any hot take. Republicans need Biden in the story. Democrats have already moved on.

Of course, in MAGA-land, Biden’s name will never die. His health, his staff, his supposed “cover-up”—all filed under the same deranged umbrella as Benghazi, birth certificates, George Soros, and Kamala Harris’ laugh. None of it’s real. It’s just Republican fan fiction. And when the headlines dry up, the fever swamp always circles back to its favorite fantasy villains.

Still, if swing voters are actually talking about Biden in 2028, Democrats will only have themselves to blame for failing to give the country something better to talk about.

Campaign Action

How the GOP becoming more MAGA could be bad for the GOP

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.

For example, in the 2024 election, MAGA Republican Joe Kent—an election-denying white nationalist now in Trump's administrationlost a House race in Washington State in 2024 to Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, even though Trump carried the district.

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.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine

Now, in 2025, even fairly normal Republicans are defending and embracing Trump, which will make it hard for them to shy away from him and the MAGA movement in the midterms. Indeed, since Trump was sworn in in January, Republicans have lost winnable state-legislative special elections and severely underperformed in a pair of House races in Trump country—a sign the backlash to Trump is already here.

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.

From a Public Policy Polling survey in March:

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.

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The Recap: DOGE threatens world peace, and Texas makes first arrest for abortion

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know.

Now they're coming for judges who dare to enforce the law

“There needs to be an immediate wave of judicial impeachments,” said super legitimate government official Elon Musk.

Unqualified DOGE bro leads raid on agency dedicated to world peace

It’s not the first time these goons have tried to shut down a congressionally funded entity.

Texas makes first arrest under state’s terrifying abortion ban

The state continues to be a leader in oppressing women.

RFK Jr.'s anti-vaxx stance is jeopardizing cancer treatments

Meanwhile, the measles outbreak continues to ravage Texas.

Agriculture head touts falling egg prices—but farmers are still scrambling

“There may be some bumpy times ahead.”

Cartoon: My other car

It might be time to ditch the Tesla …

Oh great, QAnon nut Michael Flynn is back, just like Trump promised

At least that’s one promise he didn’t break, though we wish he did.

Watch Ted Cruz fanboy over Elon Musk in super cringey interview

Maybe he’ll be Musk’s plus-one to Mars.

Click here to see more cartoons.

Campaign Action

Texas makes first arrest under state’s terrifying abortion ban

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement Monday boasting about the arrest of a Houston-area midwife for illegally performing an abortion, marking the state’s first criminal charge for abortion since its near-total ban was implemented in 2022.

The morally corrupt Paxton alleged that the midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, “owned and operated multiple clinics” around Houston, including two in Texas’ most populous county, Harris County. 

The statement said that Rojas was charged with performing an illegal abortion and practicing medicine without a license. The former charge is a second-degree felony, which comes with a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

One of Rojas’ employees, Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, was also arrested for the same offenses, Paxton’s office announced on Tuesday. 

“In Texas, life is sacred. I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”

According to The Texas Tribune, Rojas, who identified herself as “Dr. Maria,” and Ley attempted to perform an abortion on someone identified as E.G. twice in March. In a separate bail motion, the state also alleged that Rojas performed an abortion in Harris County earlier this year.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

The consequences for Rojas could be severe, with Texas law increasing the penalty for performing an abortion to a lifetime in prison. Rojas also risks getting her medical license revoked.

Similarly, Ley will likely be intensely scrutinized, especially since court records indicate that Ley is not an American citizen, but a citizen of Cuba.

“Individuals killing unborn babies by performing illegal abortions in Texas will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and I will not rest until justice is served. I will continue to fight to protect life and work to ensure that anyone guilty of violating our state’s pro-life laws is held accountable,” Paxton said on Tuesday.

Texas has one of the nation’s most extreme abortion laws, though it’s far from the only state with a ban. Notably, Texas has been at the forefront of draconian abortion restrictions, with its law being introduced to the state’s GOP-dominated legislature even before Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.

Under current law, Texas only permits abortions in extreme circumstances—and even then it isn’t guaranteed. In 2023, Kate Cox of Texas was denied an abortion even after she received a lethal fetal diagnosis, for which her doctor said she needed an abortion to preserve her health and future fertility. As Paxton’s office threatened felony charges against any provider who dared to help her, Cox was forced to leave the state to receive the abortion care she needed.

Since then, Texas Republicans’ views on abortion have only gotten more extreme. 

In December, Paxton’s office sued a New York doctor for prescribing an abortion pill to a Texas resident. And ahead of this year’s legislative session, a Texas lawmaker filed a bill that would reclassify abortion pills as controlled substances, though the measure still has not gained any traction.

A friend of Rojas’ told The New York Times that she was shocked by news of the arrest.

“She was on her way to the clinic and got pulled over by the police at gunpoint and handcuffed. She said they wouldn’t tell her what was happening. She said they took her to Austin,” fellow midwife Holly Shearman said.

Shearman, who identified herself as a conservative, said she didn’t “believe the charges” against Rojas. 

“She never, ever talked about anything like that, and she’s very Catholic,” she said.

But, as feminist writer Jessica Valenti pointed out, Paxton’s office is likely to paint Rojas as a villain, regardless of the truth. 

This is somewhat laughable coming from Paxton, of all people, who was impeached by the Texas House in May 2023 after he was accused of abusing his power to help a friend and political donor. He was later acquitted by the Texas Senate.

You’d think that Paxton would have bigger things to worry about, but, of course, he has his sights set on appealing to conservative voters by prosecuting a local midwife—or even running for the U.S. Senate.

Campaign Action

As shutdown looms, fringe Republican won’t let go of punishing Democrat

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.”

Removal from committee assignments is usually a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst. In 2021, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has a reputation for sharing baseless conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism, was stripped of her committee assignments after the discovery of her past statements endorsing the execution of Democrats, among other heinous things. 

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.

Campaign Action

Judges have 2 options: Rule in Trump’s favor or face death threats

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.

These threats come as Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire who seems to have undue influence over the federal government, has made several posts on X attacking judges as “corrupt” or “evil.” In one case, Musk called for a federal judge’s impeachment after he blocked DOGE access to sensitive Treasury Department data.

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.

Trump has previously encouraged his followers to break the law on his behalf, and his actions on Tuesday will only serve to further politicize the courts.

Campaign Action

Why is Trump being so hard on his former pal Putin?

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.

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Fox News host’s description of Jan. 6 rioters will make your blood boil

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy described the insurrectionists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “political dissidents” during a rant about federal law enforcement on Friday.

Campos-Duffy, who is perhaps best known for appearing on MTV’s “The Real World” in the 1990s, made her claim during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We have an FBI, a DOD, and a Homeland Security that has given us zero confidence. They've said nothing with a border open and terrorists flowing over the borders. They've been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists,” Duffy said while commenting on the New Orleans attacker who was reported to be inspired by ISIS.

Campos-Duffy’s sympathetic description of the insurrections echoes that of Donald Trump, who has floated the idea of pardoning them and has referred to the armed attack as a “day of love.”

In reality, the attackers violently forced their way into the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from fulfilling one of its longest-running and most important functions: certifying the presidential election results.

At least seven people died as a result of the Jan. 6 attack, a direct contradiction to the casual language that Campos-Duffy used to describe the rioters. More than 1,200 people have been arrested and charged in connection with the insurrection, with some charges including sedition against the United States. In fact, Trump was also charged—and even impeached—for his role in inciting the attack.

Campos-Duffy’s underlying argument that the U.S. government fails to go after terrorists is also faulty. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. military executed a drone strike in 2022 that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, who, alongside Osama bin Laden, led the terrorist group Al Qaeda and assisted in the planning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The drone strike was a continuation of policy from Trump’s predecessor President Barack Obama, who ordered the operation that successfully killed bin Laden in 2011.

Looks like the latest Fox News rant was just that—a rant.

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Trump’s team has this ironic request of Cabinet nominees

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.

In the aftermath of his post, more than a thousand were arrested (including Trump), several related deaths occurred, and Trump was impeached for a second time.

But, hey, Trump’s Cabinet nominees won’t be posting on social media for a little while.

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