A small but growing number of Democrats are embracing their own version of "America First" in response to Donald Trump's ongoing war with Iran in partnership with Israel.Why it matters: Trump's war is scrambling the politics of a slogan he once owned, fracturing the right even as some Democrats — including potential 2028 presidential candidates — embrace it.Driving the news: Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Senate candidate in Michigan who campaigned with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) last weekend, told Axios: "I'm the most America First candidate in the country, proudly.""When you keep our money here rather than sending it to some other country's war machine, that's America First," he said.California Rep. Ro Khanna, who's weighing a run for the White House, also is embracing the label.In April, he said it's time to "put America first" when he reintroduced a bill to ban gas exports during periods of high gas prices.In February on the House floor, Khanna said that "another war in the Middle East is not America First."And Dan Osborn, a union leader running for Senate in Nebraska as an independent against the Republican incumbent, wrote on Friday: "We need to be putting America first, not Israel first.""We can't undermine the independence of the American military for any ally," he added, "much less an untrustworthy one that's already forced us to throw money at a useless forever war overseas."Zoom out: Some Republicans agree with Democrats that Trump's war with Iran was a betrayal of his pledge to put Americans first — and that it's given Democrats a political opening.Tucker Carlson, who introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2024, lobbied the president against attacking Iran and has since apologized for "misleading people" about Trump.El-Sayed agreed with Trump's critics on the right, saying that "the MAGA version of America First is to make a show out of America First, only to sell you out.""They'll always be beholden to the interests of a foreign interest lobby like AIPAC, and always be beholden to the interests of the corporate war machine, the military-industrial complex, the folks who win every single time we send our weapons abroad," he added.Between the lines: Most national Democrats still stop short of using Trump's phrase, but they increasingly echo its main arguments.Campaigning in Memphis this month, Ocasio-Cortez — who's considering a run for president or the Senate in 2028 — said that "all that money we're spending on bombs abroad could be spent on schools right here."In a speech to Arkansas' Democratic Party in April, former Vice President Kamala Harris said, "To spark an American revival, we must start with a bold agenda where our public dollars go to affordable housing and healthcare and childcare, not spent on reckless foreign wars that no one wants."Trump himself repeatedly decried "stupid foreign wars" during the 2024 campaign.Beyond antiwar statements, many Democrats have embraced domestic industrial policies aimed at reviving American manufacturing.In June, Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Cory Booker of New Jersey — both potential presidential contenders — were among those introducing the Make More in America Act.Kelly argued the bill would "build more things here at home and create good-paying jobs while reducing our dependency on foreign adversaries."Bottom line: Trump will finish his term in 2029, but the politics that led him to embrace "America First" now appear bipartisan, and here to stay.Polls indicate voters are tired of the decades of battles in the Middle East, particularly when they don't feel positive about their economic situation at home. Now politicians in both parties are trying to meet voters where they already are.
A former Republican lawmaker lamented recent election victories by MAGA candidates in Arizona during a new interview on MS NOW, warning that it could lead to a world of hurt for the party in the midterms. Charlie Dent, a former Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania, told MS NOW's Alex Witt that the recent victories of candidates like gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs, a Republican congressman who supported President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and Mark Lamb, a Trump-endorsed candidate to replace Biggs in the House who faced a sexting scandal ahead of the primary, could weigh on the party going forward. "It doesn't help, and it makes it much harder for ... not just Arizonans, but Republicans generally to win general elections," Dent said. Dent's comments came at a time when Republicans are gearing up for a tough midterm season. Democrats have won a slew of statewide races since Trump's second term began, prompting some analysts to suggest the party could win back both the House and Senate in November. However, some analysts also worry that Trump may be trying to blunt those gains through illicit means. For instance, Trump recently gave a national address about alleged foreign interference in the 2020 general election, which some saw as the president laying the groundwork to contest the upcoming election results if Republicans suffer steep losses. Dent said the recent MAGA election victories put Republicans in a position to lose more than they gain. "Arizona has done this before, by the way, with Kari Lake and other nominees who are simply repulsive to a lot of, I'll say. To mainstream voters, those more centrist voters, independents, [they are a] total turn-off," Dent said. "So, election deniers, they might please the president in some elements of the base. But republicans end up losing far more than they gain." "I never quite understood it," he added. "I don't know when Arizona Republicans are going to learn their lesson. They haven't had a lot of success statewide since Governor [Doug] Ducey. And so, it looks like they're [going to] have another bad year."
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Sunday said that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is “being too cautious” in his talks with Senate Democratic leaders in an effort to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September. “Look, I mean no disrespect. I love John Thune. He’s my leader. He’s got a big brain.…
People close to President Donald Trump are giving GOP candidates some startling advice as the midterms approach, according to new reporting. MS NOW's Jake Taylor revealed on Sunday's edition of "Alex Witt Reports" that Trump White House insiders are quietly telling GOP candidates to distance themselves from the messaging Trump has put out about the war in Iran. Taylor pointed to the consistent negative polling about the war and Trump's public messaging that the war is going well as reasons allies have put forward for candidates to create the airspace. "They're advising, whether they're incumbents or challengers, Republican candidates to essentially not talk about the war the same way President Trump is," Taylor said. "They're encouraged to actually put some distance [and] space between the way Trump talks about the war and the way they do, because they're aware they don't have a winning strategy when it comes to the midterms."Taylor's report underscores the growing divide between Trump and the Republican Party over the war against Iran. Several Republican lawmakers have sharply criticized the president for launching the war without Congressional approval, although that feeling has yet to metastasize into an official vote to curtail Trump's war powers. "Obviously, we are just 100 days out [from the midterm elections]," Taylor said. "Every bit of messaging on this matters. And the Republicans around Trump know that, and that's why they're encouraging others to distance themselves from his language in this moment."
A MAGA Senator took to the airwaves to call out President Donald Trump for hypocrisy. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) admitted on "Face the Nation" Sunday that he was not "comfortable" with Trump's newly announced and already problem-laden nuclear deal."We're bombing a country to keep'm from getting a nuclear weapon," said Kennedy. "But we're signing a deal with another country...that the world perceives as possibly, someday leading to a nuclear weapon."The countries, of course, are Iran — which Trump ostensibly started to dismantle their nuclear program — and Saudia Arabia, the nation Trump wants to allow to enrich uranium.The U.S. struck the deal Wednesday but hit a snag over the Saudi government's relationship with Israel. Less than 24 hours after announcing the deal, Trump added a condition that the Saudis normalize those relations. Experts warn the deal could trigger a cascade of nuclear ambitions across the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal has reported, and critics note the Saudis gave Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm $2 billion."Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan noted Sunday that any deal would have to be approved by Congress, which prompted Kennedy to list off his concerns. "The world's on a hair trigger," Kennedy said. "The world looks at what's going on in Ukraine, the Middle East, the world looks at America's relationship now with Europe."He added, "People are scared." The Louisiana lawmaker is hardly the first U.S. senator to vent frustration with Trump this week. White House demands that Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) do more to pass the SAVE America Act — a non-citizen voting ban critics describe as redundant and dystopian — have infuriated GOP members of the Senate. "Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans," Thune said, "they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats."Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) added, "I have 1000 percent confidence in Thune, and anybody in the White House who thinks he's not a good leader isn't qualified for their job.""This idea that he can just command members of the Republican conference to get in line is just a fantasy," responded Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). “It’s creating a circular firing squad for Republicans.”Kennedy himself added, “John can’t put a gun to people’s heads."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday dismissed a warning from Rahn Emanuel, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “Bernie bros” could “spoil” the Democratic Party’s chances in the midterm elections. “There is a strong division within the Democratic Party,” Sanders told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan during an appearance…
President Donald Trump is so weak that political experts anticipate potentially Democrats flipping the House of Representatives, Senate or both — and yet an anti-Trump Republican strategist warns they may be undone by incompetence at the top of their organization. “The Democratic National Committee is failing every person reading these words,” Steve Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, wrote for his Substack on Sunday. “You should be very angry about it because that failure is neither providential nor pre-ordained. It’s a choice — like Trump — and it’s killing the United States of America.”Schmidt reviewed the party’s financial travails, writing that “the MAGA Republicans have more than $128.5 million cash on hand compared to the Democratic National Committee, which is more than $2 million in debt. It’s also on track to spend exponentially more money on politics in Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa than across Mississippi and Louisiana, both of which have great US Senate candidates.”He added, “It’s unacceptable. The DNC is terribly led by Chairman Ken Martin. A sign of the political ineptitude of both [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries is their inability to deal with what must be dealt with.”He went on to quote The New York Times story that shed light on these travails. The report found that when it came to Democrats’ troubles “at the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”The Times added, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”Schmidt condemned Martin’s reported behavior, writing that “personally, I’m sick of the tolerance for losing and the Democratic Party mediocrities, careerists and hustlers who can’t, won’t, and will never stop losing because deep down they’re simply doing what they’re good at: losing.”He continued, “The problem is that we’re losing the country because it isn’t being properly defended by the institution that’s built to stand up to MAGA and be for something better. It’s one of the foremost tragedies of this whole era. It’s deeply true and very real.”AlterNet previously reported on criticisms of Martin’s performance. In June anonymous high-ranking DNC sources told AlterNet that Martin has failed to prepare for Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting, mishandled releasing an autopsy of its failed 2024 presidential campaign and refused to adequately address threats to voting security on electronic machines, even though it admitted that "any assessment of the state of technology in the Democratic party would be incomplete without an acknowledgement that comprehensive data warehouses like Phoenix represent an irresistible target for hackers and other bad actors seeking to undermine the integrity of the modern political process."
