GOP’s populists flex muscles with wins on Capitol Hill

White House staffers failing to keep Trump’s messaging on track: GOP insiders

President Donald Trump continues to suffer from low approval ratings in poll after poll, including, in late May, an Economist/YouGov poll showing his approval down to 34 percent and a CNN poll showing him at 36 percent approval. And GOP insiders interviewed by MS NOW are pointing the finger at Trump White House staffers, who, they argue, are failing to keep him on track from a messaging standpoint.Jake Traylor and Soorin Kim, reporting for MS NOW, explain, "President Donald Trump's numbers on job approval and the economy have sunk to record lows. His aides know it. His former advisers are saying so publicly. And yet, the president keeps talking about what he wants to talk about, not the issues voters say are driving their discontent — much to the White House's chagrin. As the U.S. war with Iran stretches into its fourth month — driving up gas and grocery prices and stoking inflation — Trump has instead devoted time to topics that make some of his own staff wince."The reporters continue, "There's his latest construction projects, including the new White House ballroom and the renovation of the reflecting pool on the National Mall. There's the purge of Republican lawmakers deemed insufficiently loyal, most recently four-term Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. The SAVE America Act."A former Trump adviser, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told MS NOW that the president's current White House advisers are "no longer effective" when it comes to keeping him on message.The ex-adviser argued, "I think it's a failure on the part of his staff. They're not focused on the issues that Americans are focused on, which is obviously, affordability."That MS NOW source lamented that the Trump Administration's $1.7 billion "anti-weaponization fund" and the proposed White House ballroom aren't helping Trump's popularity a bit.The former Trump adviser complained, "While obviously, the president is going to do what the president is going to do, his staff has just so ill-prepared him or ill-informed him of the political consequences of what he's doing. It's malpractice.”Another former Trump White House staffer, also quoted anonymously, told MS NOW, "While beautifying our nation's capital is surely important and appreciated, if you don't live, work, or visit DC, you don't really reap the benefits of the president's passion projects. What people do feel is $4.50 gas, and that's the real passion point for Americans."A current Trump White House official told MS NOW, "There's no new messaging approach. There can be no new approach. You can't do that with (Trump)."

White House directly intervened to win $620M deal for company linked to Trump's son

When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism.The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism.But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, said an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly.After defense officials got the White House request, they asked Pentagon staff to move at an unusually rapid pace, said another person who was involved in the deal at the Pentagon but not authorized to speak about it. The staff worked late nights and with little sleep to get the loan through in a matter of weeks, the source said.“The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” the person said.The deal is one of many actions by the Trump administration that have helped companies in which the Trump family holds stakes. Government contracts and other benefits have gone to various Trump-linked companies, prompting allegations of self-dealing by Democratic lawmakers and good government experts. But ProPublica’s reporting on the Vulcan loan represents the first time the awarding of a contract from a federal agency has been directly linked to White House intervention.The loan was a massive financial commitment from the Pentagon in its effort to fund companies that could help the U.S. reduce dependence on China’s critical mineral supply chains. The deal was a dramatic win for Vulcan, a North Carolina rare-earth magnet company launched just two years earlier. Estimates of its valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced. It was also a win for Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, which took a stake of undisclosed size in Vulcan about three months before the Pentagon announced the deal.And there may be more good news on the way for the president’s eldest son. Among other companies under review for a Pentagon loan was a drone parts manufacturer that Trump Jr. advises and owns a stake in, according to one of the defense officials who spoke to ProPublica.Navarro, who served as trade adviser in Trump’s first term, and Trump Jr. have formed a close bond in recent years. The president’s son visited Navarro in prison while he served time for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump Jr. was one of the small group of people Navarro dedicated his latest book to for having “my back when it was against the wall.” And a week before the Vulcan deal was announced, Trump Jr. hosted Navarro — now the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing — on his streaming show, encouraging his nearly 2 million subscribers to buy Navarro’s book. That interview was not long after word came down from Navarro to Pentagon staff to make the massive loan to Vulcan, one of the defense officials involved in the deal said.Navarro did not respond to questions from ProPublica sent to him directly. Neither did Vulcan. A White House spokesperson said in a statement that the administration is working “in the best interest of the American people,” adding, “The President’s entire team, including Senior Counselor Navarro and officials at the Department of War, is working together and with private industry to secure America’s critical mineral supply chain at Trump Speed.” Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said the president’s son does not discuss companies he has invested in with federal government officials and did not speak to Navarro about Vulcan. He “has no knowledge about how this deal came together,” the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, said it also played no role in Vulcan getting the loan and did not learn about the deal before it was public.“No company receives preferential treatment,” a Pentagon spokesperson said. “Outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said aides to the president should not be intervening in contracting and lending decisions by agencies, particularly in matters that financially benefit the president’s family.“This is our money they’re spending,” Painter said.

Rubio, Vance neck-and-neck in 2028 GOP matchup: Poll

Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are neck-and-neck in a new poll on a hypothetical Republican presidential primary as chatter builds about who could lead the GOP in 2028.  An Emerson College Polling survey found Vance with 36 percent support among Republican voters, nearly tied with Rubio at 35 percent. They were…

Talarico says he brought in $3M in 24 hours after GOP runoff

Texas Senate Democratic candidate James Talarico announced Thursday that his campaign brought in over $3 million after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) won the GOP runoff against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Tuesday. “In just 24 hours, working people from every corner of Texas have come together to shatter grassroots fundraising records and send a…

Trump meddling sparks GOP fears of new 'horror movie' midterm scenario

Ken Paxton's primary victory over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is sending shockwaves through Republican donor circles, with party strategists warning the Texas Senate race could become a financial nightmare that bleeds resources from competitive battlegrounds across the country.Nine GOP strategists and donors told Politico they fear the general election could force the party to spend up to $150 million defending a state Republicans never expected to truly contest — and one donor didn't mince words, comparing the final stretch of the Texas runoff, after President Donald Trump issued a last-minute Paxton endorsement, to a "horror movie.""It means that $100 million will have to go to bail out the Texas seat instead of helping win seats in Maine, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and elsewhere," the anonymous donor told Politico. "[It] will go down as one of the worst self-inflicted political wounds of all-time."Cornyn, a former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was expected to largely fund his own general election campaign through a deep donor network. Paxton, by contrast, had just $2.3 million in the bank heading into the final stretch of the primary — leaving Republicans scrambling to identify who will foot the bill.Many expect Trump and his $350 million MAGA Inc. war chest to step in, though the organization declined to reveal its strategy.“[Democratic state Rep. James]Talarico’s going to raise all sorts of cash,” a Senate GOP strategist told Politico. “There’s a very clear view that Trump took out one of the largest, most successful fundraisers in Senate history, and it’s a huge hole to fill. So the expectation is that Trump will fill that hole. He’s a prolific fundraiser and has a huge war chest.”Making matters worse, Paxton faces a formidable opponent in Talarico, a prolific fundraiser who hauled in $600,000 within two hours of Paxton's victory — the strongest fundraising stretch of his entire campaign. Analysts project total spending in the race could surpass $550 million, dwarfing the $210 million spent in the 2024 Texas Senate race.With Trump's approval ratings underwater, rising gas prices, and an unpopular war in Iran, Republicans can ill afford to play defense in Texas.“Texas is a complex place. The question is, can you get a deep number of MAGA voters… and then get Cornyn establishment voters to convert to [Paxton]?” said another GOP donor. “That’s going to be difficult, and so you’re gonna have to spend a lot of money."

Trump doesn't want the GOP to win in November — and his actions prove it

On Monday, I went to the Stop & Shop and had that old familiar feeling. I spent over $80 on a bag of groceries. Nothing fancy, just regular groceries, not even everything I need for the week. One bag. Eighty United States dollars. Something's gotta give. Maybe it already has.The Times said last week that 61 percent of Americans are cutting back on food. Another 59 percent are cutting back on extra spending. Three-fourths have forgotten about Joe Biden and blame the current president for the disaster. Economic confidence hasn't been this low since 2022. A stunning 80 percent blame him for gas price spikes, according to a Fox poll. Donald Trump was already burning us up with tariffs, but the burn rate has accelerated dramatically since the start of the war. He won't end it, because he can't. He's a terrible war president. His idea of a deal is "I get everything; you get nothing." Iran knows this about his nature, exploits it, and here we are: in war that could stretch into the summer and fall.Yet Trump is not acting like he's in trouble. He yak-yak-yaks about ballrooms, about gas prices being "peanuts," about how the Democrats made up the word "affordability" to make him look bad. (He is hosting an ultimate fighting circus at the White House, for God's sake.) He created a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund to pay J6 insurrectionists for their service to him. His party is practically begging him to take the midterms seriously. "We need Republicans to do well in November," Thom Tillis told the Times, “but the stupid stuff is killing our chances."Stupid stuff" might be too generous. Trump will not end his illegal war. He will not end his illegal tariffs. He will not pretend to care about the hardship Americans are experiencing as a consequence of both. (Nor does he not care about the optics of asking taxpayers to pay for a ballroom when they can't pay for food.) On top of that, he's endorsing primary challengers to incumbent Republicans who would otherwise coast to victory in the coming midterms. Reporters say he's "tightening grip on the GOP." But it looks more like he's sabotaging it.After all this time, we still interpret the president through a partisan lens that attempts to explain his behavior. Everyone assumes he wants his party to keep the House, at the very least to avoid impeachment. It's because of this assumption that Republicans are growing frustrated. “The president was elected to juice the economy, to bring down inflation, to stop illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture,” a GOP pollster told the Times. “If his highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing.”We should consider the alternative: that control of Congress is not his highest goal.Anthony Scarammuci suggested as much in an interview with Bloomberg. He was the White House communications director during Trump's first term whose tenure famously lasted 10 days. He told Mishal Husain that we're misreading the president. His personality is such that he doesn't want the GOP to succeed. Success would mean there's life after Donald Trump.And, according to Donald Trump, that's impossible."His personality is 'you guys were nothing before I got on the stage and I’ve carried you for the last 12 years, and the 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it, and I should’ve won that election, and I’ve returned to the presidency carrying all the Republicans on my back, and when I leave ... you’re going back to nothing' ... that’s Donald Trump's personality."Scarammuci added that "we try to normalize him, sane-wash him, and put him into a bucket. 'Oh, he’s a Republican, he'll want a Republican to succeed him or he’ll want JD Vance or Marco Rubio.' He doesn’t want those guys to succeed him. Let's say he has a successful remaining two years of his presidency, which seems unlikely, but let's say he did. He wouldn’t want those guys taking any credit for anything that happened in the administration. "It’s an administration of one person and there’s one spotlight on," he said.We assume Trump wants to end the war, because we assume he wants the Republicans to win in November. But what if he doesn't care about ending it any more than he cares about his party? It might even be in his interest to prolong it, as it boils the GOP down to its pure maga essence, making it even more dependent on him. Indeed, victory would suggest his party doesn't need him anymore. And that, according to Donald Trump, is impossible.During today's made-for-TV cabinet meeting, the president claimed that he had the advantage in negotiations with Iran. "They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, ‘We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms,'" Trump said. "I don’t care about the midterms.” We all assume he's lying. We had better hope he is. If Donald Trump really doesn't care about losing the congressional elections, the last remaining partisan constraints have fallen away. The war could go on indefinitely.

Market expectations for rate hike haunt Warsh and GOP

Investor expectations that rising inflation will force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year are creating a political quandary for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, as well as new chairman Kevin Warsh. Bond markets show that traders see it as a fifty-fifty proposition that the central bank will raise its interest rate […]

No, Iran and China Are Not 'Winning'