Veteran journalist Dan Rather sees potential good that can come out of the GOP's "never-ending trainwreck" playing out before him. In his latest Substack piece, Rather wrote that infighting between Republicans and Trump will "be good for the country" if it manages to nix some of the president's more outrageous plans. Rather observed how Republicans are responding to the creation of Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund. It was created as part of a settlement for a lawsuit by Trump against the IRS."The settlement has upended a lot of pieces on the political chessboard," Rather wrote. "Senate Republicans canceled a planned vote on an immigration enforcement bill. It should have been a slam-dunk." However, Rather expects the GOP-controlled Senate to be hostile territory for Trump. "For the rest of the year, the Senate is going to be a hard place for Trump to get his unpopular measures passed," he wrote. "Both Houses of Congress have the power to at least slow him, if not stop him," Rather stressed. "But only if they have the courage to do so."Even Republican strategist Karl Rove was coming out against Trump with a Wall Street Journal editorial. Rather found it "more surprising" to read Rove had "argued that the only way Republicans can hold onto control of Congress is to rein in the president."Rather even envisioned "impeachment and conviction could become a factor" against Trump, "but we're a long way from that."
Republicans promise that $50 billion in new health funding will help rural America. But it's not expected to aid the years-long effort in North Carolina's Martin County to reopen its only hospital.
The cancellation comes just after four GOP senators joined Democrats to pass a Senate war powers resolution.
American outrage continues to grow as President Donald Trump's administration moves forward with its nearly $1.8 billion fund that aims to compensate Americans who feel they've been wronged by the government. Speaking on CNN this week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that he thinks taxpayers "do want their tax dollars spent on things like that."Journalist John Harwood issued his own warning, "Does Todd Blanche recognize that this disgraceful chapter in American life is going to end with his disbarment?"National security expert Marcy Wheeler similarly commented that, given the frustration from lawmakers on display Thursday, it's entirely possible that Blanche could be removed from office. She shared law school Professor Steve Vladeck's recent post, which argues that the best way to defeat the fund is through politics. However, she doesn't think it's the only way to stop Blanche. "I think you START impeachment with Blanche," she wrote on BlueSky. "25 GOP Senators spoke up (in private) yesterday. 25+47-Fetterman = 71. Better yet, INCLUDE the dismissal of the Sedition verdicts NOW."Blanche only took over the Justice Department after Pam Bondi was fired, serving as acting attorney general.Vladeck's piece recalled that Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his majority opinion of NFIB v. Sebelius (which dealt with the Affordable Care Act in 2012). Roberts "defended the Court’s endorsement of Congress’s power to adopt the individual mandate by noting that it is 'not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.'"He urged, "One can believe in substantial judicial power without believing that literally every political dispute in our country can and should be resolved by unelected judges."Vladeck, too, turned to impeachment, which hasn't proved successful in the ongoing efforts to hold Trump accountable for crimes. He argued that despite the GOP majority, "impeachment itself is feasible in this House ... because forcing every member of Congress to vote on the record whether this brazen, corrosive, and affirmatively dangerous corruption is impeachable is itself a point worth fighting for (and fighting with our friends over)."
President Trump celebrated the end of late-night comedian Stephen Colbert’s decadelong run hosting “The Late Show” on Thursday evening, after he previously championed Paramount Skydance’s decision to fire the comedian. “Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long!” Trump wrote early Friday on Truth Social. “No talent, no ratings, no life.…
President Trump on Friday celebrated the cancelation of “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert and suggested other late night TV hosts would also shortly be on the chopping block. “Stephen Colbert’s firing from CBS was the ‘Beginning of the End’ for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts,”…
When outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) decided not to seek reelection in the 2026 midterms, he likely avoided the fate that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and at least five Indiana state lawmakers recently suffered when they were voted out of office via GOP primaries. Trump was angry with Massie, Cassidy and the others, railing against them relentlessly and endorsing MAGA primary challengers — and Massie realized he was in danger as well. But Tillis plans to serve out the rest of his term, and he candidly spoke his mind about the Trump administration and the state of the Republican Party during an interview with Politico's Jordain Carney.Although the conservative senator isn't a full-fledged Never Trumper, he hasn't been shy about criticizing the president at times. And he attacked a variety of Trump administration and MAGA policies during the interview, giving fellow Republicans what Carney described as "a dose of bitter medicine." "Every time I've disagreed with the president," Tillis told Politico, "it's been almost exclusively because I think it's divergent from Republicans' interest in getting reelected this November. Every single time. The health care policy that got airdropped in the 'big beautiful bill,' I knew it was going to be a problem. It is a problem now. Now, everybody sees that. That's why I objected to the reconciliation last year. The reason I'm objecting to the ballroom and the slush fund for the DOJ — bad politics, really bad timing, bad policy. I mean, that's the trifecta. Every time I have opposed this president is because I believe it's at odds with getting Republicans reelected."Tillis offered a scathing critique of Pete Hegseth's performance as defense secretary, once again calling for him to be fired.Tillis told Politico, "I suspect that Hegseth cast aside concerns he was hearing from some of the finest people that ever served in uniform and took his cowboy-ish approach to going into Iran. I'm glad the president did what he did in Iran; I'm not glad that he has Hegseth advising him on the details…. I'd love to see Pete Hegseth fired because he's incompetent and doing a horrible job."During the interview, Tillis criticized Trump's "anti-weaponization fund" as "an embarrassment" — calling for Congress to "nuke it." And he was highly critical of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations of outgoing U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and others.Tillis told Politico, "I’m thinking about the picture that right now is the only basis I have for a new indictment against (former FBI Director) Comey. Some of the other bogus lawsuits from now no-longer-acting acting U.S. attorneys. All that, I want to know whose fingerprints were on it. I don't think big DOJ knew about the Powell investigation, so I wouldn't hold that against them; that was a boneheaded move in the bowels of DOJ. But anything where they were in the decision loop, yeah, they got a lot of questions to answer to get my support."
President Donald Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party was evident when a long list of incumbents he was angry with — including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and at least five Indiana State Legislature lawmakers — were recently voted out of office via GOP primaries. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a former Trump critic turned staunch ally and supporter, bluntly told NBC News that for Republicans, the message is: "if you try to destroy" Trump, you will be destroyed yourself. But Republican primaries and general elections are two very different things, and GOP strategists interviewed by The Hill are arguing that while Trump's dominance of the party remains undeniable, he could be a huge problem for Republican candidates in the 2026 midterms.Reporters Amie Parnes and Julia Mueller, in The Hill, explain, "President Trump's grip on Republican primaries appears tighter than ever as a string of GOP officeholders who came under his wrath fell to defeat in contests over the past month in Indiana, Kentucky and Louisiana. Yet there's a disconnect for the party, which is facing alarm bells about its standing as it heads into the midterms. Trump’s approval ratings are down amid voter unhappiness with the war in Iran and the economy, and Trump's power in a GOP primary may not be enough to prevent heavy Republican losses in the fall when more independents and Democrats are also casting votes for the House and Senate."GOP strategist Susan Del Percio believes that her party is facing major challenges as the November elections draw closer.Del Percio, a Never Trump conservative and frequent guest on MS NOW, told The Hill, "It’s simple: He has a hold on the Republican base, which you see come out in primaries. Most primary voters are Donald Trump voters, but not all Donald Trump voters are primary voters. They only show up every four years for Donald Trump….Republicans are in bad shape. The primaries will have very little effect on what happens in November, except for the candidates Trump put up."Del Percio added, "At the end of the day, candidate selection will be where his influence begins and ends."Similarly, Republican strategist Doug Heye told The Hill, "The MAGA base is not the broader electorate." A GOP consultant, interviewed on condition of anonymity, was even more blunt than Del Percio.The consultant told The Hill, "It's a very challenging environment for Republicans. It's live by the sword, die by the sword. Trump is not the leader of the Republican Party; he is the Republican Party. There's nothing better than a Trump endorsement in a primary…. But it's shaping up to be a 1000-pound albatross around your neck in the midterms."Another GOP insider, also interviewed on condition of anonymity, warns fellow Republicans that Trump's ability to sway hardcore MAGA voters in primary battles doesn't mean that independents and swing voters will view him favorably in the general election in November.The insider told The Hill, "In a way, the president hasn't done us any favors. We need independents to turn out for us. We don't need the base."
A Trump administration official tasked with proving debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories tried to ban voting machines used in more than half of U.S. states — and failed spectacularly when he couldn't produce a shred of evidence to back it up.Reuters reported Thursday that White House adviser Kurt Olsen asked the Commerce Department to declare components of Dominion Voting Systems machines national security risks. This move would have effectively banned them before the November midterms. The plan advanced far enough that Commerce officials began exploring legal grounds to execute it last September. Still, it ultimately collapsed when Olsen's team failed to provide evidence to justify the move, according to sources.Olsen's team had physically torn apart Dominion machines seized from Puerto Rico, hoping to find components from adversary nations. Instead, they found a chip packaged in China by U.S. company Intel — not generally considered a security threat — along with chips from Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia.The Reuters scoop is the latest chapter in the Trump administration's sweeping effort to wrest control of elections away from states. Trump signed a March 2025 executive order demanding proof of citizenship to register to vote and sought to block states from counting mail ballots received after Election Day, major parts of which were blocked by federal courts. The federal seizure of 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia, and Arizona has heightened fears that Trump may try to interfere in the 2026 midterms, including by deploying federal troops or ICE agents to polling places. Trump's attempt to interfere with voting systems is not novel — in his first term, he tried to direct the attorney general, the Department of Defense, and DHS to seize voting machines. Olsen was also pushing a broader scheme for the federal government to take control of elections from states — an idea Trump has publicly aired."Changing to hand counting would be chaotic," University of Michigan computer-science professor Alex Halderman told Reuters, "and it might facilitate cheating."