A "disheveled and exhausted" Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was heard complaining before he died that his GOP colleagues wouldn't help him, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.The new revelations come from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who had “been granted extensive access to Graham since 2023” for a documentary he was filming about the South Carolina Republican, per the Journal. Holder revealed a number of new details about Graham to the Journal, chief among them being what occupied Graham’s mind in his final weeks.“Graham frequently looked tired, prompting Holder to ask if he was doing OK,” the Journal’s report reads.“Graham would say he didn’t have time to sleep because he needed to finish off the Iranian regime; sort out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine; and establish ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel by the end of the year," the report stated. "At one point, when Graham looked ‘absolutely disheveled and exhausted,’ Holder said, the senator complained that others weren’t helping him.”Graham had long been a proponent of U.S. military action against Iran, and played an outsized role in pushing President Donald Trump to approve a more aggressive posture against Tehran. In a newly published video filmed by Holder of Graham’s reaction to the U.S. attacks on Iran in late February, Graham could be seen struggling to contain his excitement.“Look what we’ve done here," Graham could be heard saying. "I almost cried."Holder told the Journal the GOP senator remained dedicated to achieving his self-imposed goal of toppling Iran, among other things, despite a growing weariness. Holder told the Journal, “He’d say, ‘There’s no way I can die yet.'"🇺🇸🇮🇷 Unreleased documentary footage of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham reveals his years-long effort to push for regime change in Iran and lobby President Trump to expand U.S. military action against Iran, according to WSJ.The footage shows Graham speaking candidly with world… pic.twitter.com/xIb8gRWS1J— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) July 26, 2026
A high-ranking official in President Donald Trump's administration was subjected to ridicule and scorn Sunday after he struggled to answer basic questions.CNN anchor Dana Bash asked White House Border Czar Tom Homan about Immigration Control and Enforcement officers in Texas and Maine who fatally shot unarmed fathers this month. "Do you know specifically what happened to the officers involved in the Texas and Maine shootings?" Bash asked. "Are they on administrative leave?""I don't know, specifically," he said. "The policy would be to put them on administrative leave."Bash pressed, "But as border czar, you don't know for sure if they have been?"Homan shrugged and said, "No."Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed during a traffic stop in Texas on July 7 — FBI claims that he had drugs in his car were later disproved.Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, 25, was fatally shot in Maine on July 13 by an ICE agent identified in reports as David Brouillette, an Army veteran whose two ex-wives have accused him of abuse.Bash quizzed Homan on this point. "One of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives…Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?" asked Bash.Homan replied, "No, if those are facts, I don't think he should have ever cleared vetting."Homan's admissions of ignorance stunned onlookers who expected greater detail from an official who oversees Trump's mass deportation initiative."If Tom Homan doesn't know he should be fired on the spot," replied X user Craig Carl. "This is a blatant lie or gross incompetence.""ICE has vetting?" political commentator Mike Bates quipped. "Who knew!""Feckless lying stupid sack of s---," fumed Lizzie Cochrane.Even Bash joined in on the bashing, as video shows, when Homan declared, "I wouldn't say that mistakes were made.""We've seen with our own eyes that mistakes were made," she said. "Deadly mistakes were made. At least 5 of them."
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."
It's not the number of service members who've been killed in the war with Iran. It's not the number of people who have died in ICE custody. It's not the millions of people imperiled by the Trump administration's decision to dismantle USAID.The number terrifying Republicans, according to a new Washington Post report, is the amount of voters worried about the economy. “This is a big chunk,” Nathan Nascimento told the Post. “This is a scary number.”Nascimento, executive director of the conservative super PAC Americans for Prosperity Action, told the Post Sunday that he's disturbed by polling that shows even loyal Republicans and consistent voters are losing enthusiasm for President Donald Trump.About 1 in 5 of those voters in swing states such as Ohio and New Hampshire told the PAC they think they'll either stay home of vote blue in November, the Post reported. There is however enthusiasm on the left, Mitchell Brown, a Republican pollster, told the Post. "Democrats are as enthusiastic about voting as they were at the same time ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, when they swept back into power in the House," Brown said. "But Republicans are far less excited to vote at this point than they were then, posing an issue for the party." In particular, men under 40 represent the greatest risk as they are most likely to have concerns about the economy and prices. "This group proved pivotal to Trump’s 2024 electoral victory," the Post reported, "which included a sweep of some of the same battleground states holding critical elections this year."Natalie Baldassarre, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, denied a dour state of affairs within her party. “Republicans are united, on offense, and armed with our largest war chest in party history because voters are energized and understand what’s at stake in November’s election,” said Baldassarre. As of Sunday, the number of service members who've been killed in the war with Iran is 18. The number of people who have died in ICE custody is 19. The number of people imperiled by the Trump administration's decision to dismantle USAID is 14 million.
President Trump late Saturday night once again urged Republican senators to “terminate the filibuster” in an effort to pass his oft-championed voting bill and other legislation “before it’s too late.” “The all Republican Senators! Terminate the Filibuster, which the Dumocrats will do as soon as they get the chance, and PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,…
"Have you ever been to the U.S.-Mexico border?” “No.”One word. That may have been the most revealing moment of New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent interview with the New York Times.Sanctuary policies are easy to defend from a podium at New York City Hall. They are much harder to defend before communities that have already paid the price.Mamdani defended his city’s sanctuary policies, which he reinforced after taking office by signing an executive order reaffirming them.The problem is not so much that Mamdani has never visited the border. It is that he seems unwilling to understand why communities that lived through the border crisis reached a very different conclusion.That lesson is visible far beyond the Rio Grande.Consider Goliad County in South Texas. The rural county has about 7,000 residents and sits roughly 160 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Sheriff Roy Boyd described how the crisis transformed the community he serves.Boyd’s office averaged 77 arrests a year during the five years before 2021. From 2021 through 2024, that average jumped to 413. Deputies discovered 16 cartel stash houses, and pursuits involving suspected human smugglers became routine.Residents began hearing voices and movement on remote properties after dark. Many no longer felt safe alone in their own homes.Those facts expose what Mamdani’s answer overlooks. The border crisis did not remain at the border. Cartel activity and illegal immigration reached inland communities that lacked the personnel and equipment to confront them. Former Border Patrol agent and Texas Public Policy Foundation senior fellow Ammon Blair calls cartels “hybrid threats.”As Blair puts it, “Cartels don’t just smuggle. They destabilize.” Boyd has described them as “contractors and subcontractors” in a network moving migrants and drugs from the border into Texas’ largest cities.That reality changed Texas’ response. In 2021, as illegal crossings surged under President Joe Biden, Goliad became one of the first inland counties to declare a local disaster. Boyd suggested giving local law-enforcement agencies flexible grants for overtime, new officers, patrol vehicles, and other equipment.Those grants became part of Operation Lone Star.According to Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, Operation Lone Star has produced more than 535,700 apprehensions and referrals, 57,400 criminal arrests, and 47,500 felony charges. Texas law enforcement has also intercepted more than 779 million lethal doses of fentanyl.RELATED: The revolution will not be televised — it will be livestreamed in 4K Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty ImagesBoyd later launched the Operation Lone Star Task Force, which allows local agencies to share deputies, intelligence, and resources across jurisdictional lines while targeting human smuggling, cartel activity, and organized crime.New York has felt the downstream effects too. Former Mayor Eric Adams warned that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City.” Mamdani nevertheless continues to defend sanctuary policies that impede cooperation with federal immigration authorities.Goliad’s experience carries a national lesson. Criminal organizations do not recognize state boundaries. The same networks that move people across the border traffic drugs, weapons, and money into communities nationwide. They exploit ports of entry, the northern border, and weaknesses far from either frontier.The farther those networks spread, the more Americans discover that border security is not someone else’s problem.Mamdani may be proud of New York City’s sanctuary stance.His one-word answer showed more than where he has never been. It revealed what he refuses to see.Sanctuary policies are easy to defend from a podium at city hall. They are much harder to defend before communities that have already paid the price.
