How Lindsey Graham’s Journey From Trump Critic to Ally Made Him a Power Player
Source: NYT > U.S. > Politics · Bias: Center Left
Summary
He initially called Donald Trump a “kook” who was “unfit for office,” only to join the new president’s Mar-a-Lago circle. “I’m still in the game,” Mr. Graham once explained of his much-analyzed turnabout.
How Lindsey Graham’s Journey From Trump Critic to Ally Made Him a Power Player
Center Left
He initially called Donald Trump a “kook” who was “unfit for office,” only to join the new president’s Mar-a-Lago circle. “I’m still in the game,” Mr. Graham once explained of his much-analyzed turnabout.
President Donald Trump's voters are foreshadowing a midterm calamity for Republicans after their election lifeline was rejected by his base.A new Politico poll conducted in July by the independent firm Public First found nearly half of Americans cannot explain the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — Trump's signature tax law.Those who can explain it are far more likely to say it helped the wealthy, not them, reporter Bernie Becker found."And in a notable warning sign for Republicans, only around a quarter of people who voted for President Donald Trump believe the working class got substantial breaks from the tax law, signaling how low public opinion is of the bill among their own base," Becker wrote.It amounts to "a frustrating situation for top Republicans," Becker reported. They rushed to finish the law by mid-2025 and have since tried to rebrand it as the "Working Families Tax Cuts.""It also hasn't helped that Trump himself rarely discusses a law that he helped name," Becker reported, even as Cabinet members travel the country promoting its contents.One in three Americans said the megabill hurt their bottom line, the poll found. More than half said billionaires should pay much more in taxes, the poll also found.More than 40 percent of voters making over $100,000 a year said they had gotten help from the law — more than twice the rate of those making less, according to the poll.Republicans faced a "similar problem in 2018," Becker noted — "voters rejected Trump and his policies," and Democrats reclaimed the House."The best time for successfully framing and reinforcing the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill were in the initial three months after it passed," Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist, told Politico. "It's just a challenge in this crowded issue environment to re-engage on legislation from last year."The poll found 57 percent of Americans say the conflict with Iran has made things more expensive for them, adding to the headwinds Republicans face before November.
John Oliver returned from a weeks-long vacation Sunday night and opened his show with a brutal bit questioning whether Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still alive.The "Last Week Tonight" host used the cold open to run through headlines he'd missed, sliding the Kentucky senator's monthlong hospitalization in between a parasitic outbreak and the death of a Senate colleague."We are back, and we missed a lot over the last few weeks. A parasitic infection has caused explosive diarrhea across the country. Lindsey Graham died, and Mitch McConnell...maybe didn't," Oliver quipped, displaying a hospital-room photo of the 84-year-old senator seated next to his wife, Elaine Chao.The dig comes after McConnell collapsed at his Washington, D.C. home on June 14, and an EMS dispatch recording that later became public showed responders had been called there for "cardiac arrest" and performed CPR before transporting him. His office withheld key details on the episode for weeks. On July 12, staffers finally released the hospital photograph alongside a written statement in which McConnell conspicuously ruled out a laundry list of diagnoses."I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. I don't have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital," McConnell wrote. "While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I've also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia."A McConnell spokesperson later told The Washington Post that the senator "continues to improve in rehab."Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has said even he can't get information out of the senator's team. "I haven't heard a thing. Not an email, not a letter, not a call, not a video... absolutely nothing," the Democratic governor told SiriusXM earlier this month, adding that he'd received two calls from separate agencies suggesting McConnell had died.Beshear urged the senator's office to "call into a news station for 5 minutes or put out a short video" to end what he called concerning speculation.The stonewalling is being managed by McConnell's longtime chief of staff, Terry Carmack, whose taxpayer-funded salary rose to $226,849.94 in fiscal year 2026. Graham's funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at Washington National Cathedral. McConnell's office has not said whether he will attend.
President Donald Trump warned Iranian negotiators Monday that time was running out to reach a negotiated settlement to end the war, warning that unless a deal was reached soon, the United States would “go back to very strong military action,” Axios’ Barak Ravid claimed.“We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don't work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” Trump said in a phone call, Ravid claimed.When asked how much time he was “willing to give diplomacy,” Trump reportedly told Ravid “not much time,” and that for negotiations, “either it goes fast or not at all.”The U.S.-Iran tentative peace deal reached in June has since crumbled as the United States ramped up attacks on the Middle East nation earlier this month. A brief pause in the fighting began on Saturday, however, with reports suggesting the Trump administration was motivated to temporarily halt its strikes due to dwindling stockpiles of interceptors.Last week, Trump told Axios that he was ready to order a “massive attack” on Iran, though his inner circle almost unanimously believes such an attack to be a “terrible f------ idea,” Zeteo reported Monday.🚨Trump told me: "We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don't work out, we will go back to very strong military action"🚨Asked how long he's willing to give diplomacy, the president said: "Not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all" https://t.co/buEhUcTI8D— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) July 27, 2026
White House officials and insiders are growing increasingly worried that President Donald Trump may soon move forward with an idea they fear could “plunge the U.S. and global economy off a steep cliff,” Zeteo reported Sunday, and one that could be executed “as soon as within the coming days.”Trump’s idea, as he told Axios last week, was to stage a “massive attack” on Iran and reignite the conflict in a bid to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table on terms more favorable to Washington. However, “practically everyone in Trump’s inner circle” believes Trump’s plan is doomed to fail, Zeteo reported after speaking with multiple White House insiders.“Terrible f------ idea,” one White House adviser told Zeteo regarding their thoughts on Trump’s plan, speaking on the condition of anonymity.“Trump has no f------ way out,” a senior administration official told Zeteo, also speaking on the condition of anonymity.A third White House official, also speaking anonymously, told Zeteo there was "almost no scenario where Americans don't die" if Trump moves forward. And yet, despite the apparent consensus among Trump’s inner circle that further escalation would be unwise, one major "problem” persisted.“[The vast majority of Trump’s most senior advisers are] too scared to just say it to the president,” a U.S. official told Zeteo, also under the condition of anonymity. “No one is just telling Trump this won’t work… They soft-sell it or tone it down when they talk to the president about this, when what they all should be doing is telling him that none of this is going to work and it will destroy everything he’s worked for.”The White House insiders’ fears were further supported by recent reporting from The New York Times about a secret meeting on Friday between Trump and his top advisers, during which the majority of those close to Trump advised against intensifying attacks on Iran.
Thomas Massie accused President Trump and Secretary Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution, joining Democrats in a resolution to sue over the Iran war.
During the run-up to President Donald Trump’s election in 2024, he told his followers that “mass deportations” were on the way. Now, while the immigration crackdown has undoubtedly been one of his most visible policies, many in the MAGA movement are beginning to say they were “intentionally misled,” arguing that Trump isn’t doing enough to deliver on his xenophobic campaign promises. This is according to the conservative publication the Dispatch, which asserts that “a vocal part of his base is beginning to publicly break with the administration over immigration enforcement.”While the Trump administration has pursued “maximalist enforcement for more than a year — with deadly consequences — while also claiming the deportation campaign is prioritizing the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals” and that “its enforcement policies have resulted in a record-high number of deportations,” “the agency has stopped releasing the underlying data that would substantiate — or possibly undermine — its claims.” Now, says the Dispatch, “a vocal contingent of mass-deportation activists don’t believe the topline numbers coming from DHS and argue the administration is failing to honor Trump’s promise to deport millions of people.”“I’m confused, I’m frustrated, and quite frankly, I’m angry because I believe we’re being intentionally misled,” said Mark Morgan, a former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) acting commissioner and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director during Trump’s first term. Morgan is involved in the Oversight Project, “an activist group lobbying for mass deportations that recently sued the administration to get access to enforcement data DHS used to publish regularly.”Since Trump entered office, the White House has stopped releasing detailed immigrant arrest data via platforms like the ICE website, which used to be updated quarterly. Instead, DHS now puts out simple topline totals asserting hundreds of thousands of deportations along with millions of self-deportations. Currently the agency claims that more than 2 million undocumented immigrants have left the country. “Significantly,” notes the Dispatch, “this number was not based on actual records DHS has of millions of people leaving. DHS cited a Center for Immigration Studies researcher’s analysis as the source of the initial number, but has not explained how it has calculated the subsequent increases; the researcher, Steven Camarota, told The Dispatch last fall that how DHS has used the estimate doesn’t add up.”Deportation lobbyists accuse the White House of fudging the numbers by including removals that were not previously considered deportations, like those turned away at airports due to visa paperwork issues or those apprehended while attempting to cross the border. As a result, “Immigration hard-liners in the House sent a letter to DHS last month requesting detailed data releases, citing conflicting reports on the numbers of deportations and the lack of transparency in how the agency is calculating self-deportations.”While earlier in the month, DHS released data indicating that immigration arrest levels have reached the highest of the term, peaking at 1,400 per day in July, according to the Dispatch, “after more than a year of DHS circulating unsubstantiated and conflicting data, deportation hawks seem unimpressed and disinclined to believe the numbers.” As Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project and head of the Mass Deportation Coalition, pointed out last week, the 356,000 removals claimed by the administration in 2026 “includes exits and removals other than from interior deportations. ‘The numbers are also strikingly out of step with press releases claiming deportations cresting one million and self-deportations exceeding 2 million,’ he added.”Other MAGA figures have expressed similar disappointment. According to the Dispatch, “Tomi Lahren, a Fox commentator, dedicated her podcast show last week to criticizing DHS for fudging the numbers and producing underwhelming results. Deportation advocates like Lahren and Howell argued that even taking the latest 356,000 figure at face value ... it’s still a far cry from the expectations set by Trump during the 2024 campaign when he promised the largest deportation campaign in history that would remove millions and millions of people from the country.”
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta issued his “friends in the press” a blistering rebuke Monday for having missed a “golden opportunity” to stand up to President Donald Trump, one he attributed to “cowardice.”In a video published on his Substack, Acosta chastised journalists who attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday, most of whom sat quietly as Trump hurled broad attacks on the media and individual journalists.“What we saw at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the other night was an absolute monstrosity. Donald Trump got up on stage, and he went after the free press,” Acosta said.“He targeted individual journalists as political enemies. He celebrated the fact that the oligarchs are taking over the networks. And the people in the audience just sat there in this stunned silence.”Among the many targets of Trump’s attacks on the press during his WHCD speech was Acosta’s former CNN colleague Kaitlan Collins. After having just won an award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure, Collins was attacked by Trump for not smiling enough. Trump also said Collins shouldn’t have won the award and called her reporting “fake.”“A depressed, distraught, despondent, whatever you want to call it, but it was not at all an adequate reaction to what he was saying,” Acosta said. “This was a golden opportunity for people in that room to stand up to a wannabe dictator and walk out of that room! And I hate to say it, but I just think that my friends in the press, they just blew it!"Acosta continued, “The American people could see it and it crystallized what is, I think, a real problem that we have in this country right now. And that is that the legacy and corporate media in this country, it’s just broken.”'They Just Blew It!' Jim Acosta Destroys Trump WHCD Rant — Rips Press Corps For Sitting There And Taking It by Jim Acosta'An Absolute Monstrosity!'Read on Substack
Miles Taylor, who served as a senior Homeland Security official under the first Trump administration, warned Monday that President Donald Trump has spent years indulging in "nuclear fantasies," and that recent developments suggest Trump may be edging closer to acting on them.“Between Trump’s unchecked brinksmanship, possible nuclear proliferation to new countries, and broken treaties, you have a radioactive cocktail being stirred on the international stage,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack. “Add in the unresolved war with Iran, and you get the picture of a president who’s just one mood swing away from putting his finger on the proverbial red button.”Taylor recalled that during Trump's first term, the president "fantasized quite openly to advisers about wanting to blow up bombs," prompting then-Defense Secretary James Mattis to order Homeland Security officials to prepare contingency plans for a potential nuclear strike on American soil.Taylor pointed to Trump's recent comments to Axios, in which the president said he was "close" to ordering a "massive attack" on Iran – rhetoric Taylor compared to Trump's April warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight."Compounding the concern, Taylor noted, was the administration's new nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia, which omits standard safeguards giving international inspectors expanded access to nuclear sites. A former International Atomic Energy Agency official said “the U.S. should never have agreed to enrichment without a really strong inspections regime,” Taylor noted.Taylor also cited the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which in January set its Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight it has ever been in its 79-year history.“So why does he keep doing this? Why does the president of the United States keep circling back to the most dangerous machinery humans have ever built?” Taylor mused. “I can’t tell you his answer for sure. But based on close study of the man, I can give you my best guess. Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency on a power quest, always hunting for the next most powerful thing he can do. And nuclear weapons are at the top of that list.”Why does Trump keep toying with nuclear bombs? I think I know why. by Miles TaylorThe president has terrified close advisers with the prospect of nuclear escalation. Now, he's spreading his radioactive dreams overseas.Read on Substack
