It seemed like a straightforward task. The Department of Health and Human Services set out to file an argument in an arbitration case, presenting claims about alleged mistakes made by an arbitrator. Such documents are filed all the time, and under normal circumstances, none of this would be notable to the public at all.

But these are not normal circumstances. The Washington Sun reported:

The Trump administration apparently still hasn’t learned its lesson about double-checking sources.

A federal labor agency flagged so many problems in a recent arbitration filing that it suggested the Department of Health and Human Services used artificial intelligence to draft its brief.

There’s a lot of evidence to support those allegations: The Federal Labor Relations Authority identified 10 “entirely fictitious” citations in the filing; and as the Sun’s report added, 22 of the HHS filing’s 29 footnotes and 35 of the 42 total legal or record citations were deemed “fictitious, erroneous, or irrelevant.” There were also “incorrect page numbers, case numbers and other details.”

The Trump administration’s embrace of artificial intelligence has a long track record of sloppiness. In July, for example, a State Department representative delivered a presentation at an AIDS 2026 conference and referred to a map of Africa that mislabeled multiple countries. A Reuters report noted that the image “contained an artificial intelligence watermark that ⁠signals it was made with OpenAI tools.”

This was embarrassing, but it was not an isolated incident. Border Patrol officials, for example, were caught misusing ChatGPT last fall. Around the same time, Tulsi Gabbard, then the director of national intelligence, used an AI program to determine which documents to release related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and that process did not go well.

But Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS has suffered more than its share of humiliations on this score.

Last year, for example, the department produced “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which cited multiple nonexistent scientific studies after staffers misused AI. Soon after, the Food and Drug Administration unveiled an AI tool intended to speed up drug approvals, but the tool did not work.

As recently as last month, HHS included nonexistent, AI-generated citations to support sweeping changes to federal teen pregnancy prevention programs. The Washington Post reported that a federal judge discovered that the department cited seven articles, two of which were made up entirely and three of which did not exist in the journals to which they were attributed.

Now, the list has grown a little longer.

“While nothing prohibits parties from using AI tools when preparing filings for submission to the Authority, we caution those who do so to be aware that AI continues to present significant risks of error,” the Federal Labor Relations Authority reminded HHS in its ruling.

The warning was worthwhile, though if recent history is any guide, the department is not likely to take the reminder to heart.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Kennedy’s HHS appears to have been caught misusing AI — for the fourth time appeared first on MS NOW.

Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas is generally known to national audiences as the Democratic leader who spearheaded a redistricting effort in the commonwealth. This week, however, she made headlines for a very different reason. The Associated Press reported:

Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.

An indictment unsealed on Thursday charged Lucas and six other defendants, including several of her relatives, the Department of Justice said in a statement ahead of a scheduled news conference. Lucas surrendered, a Justice Department spokesperson said.

The charges come roughly five months after the FBI searched Lucas’ office and a cannabis shop in which she invested.

“I grew up under Jim Crow,” Lucas said in a statement. “I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now.”

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of this case. What’s more, I’ll concede that it is entirely possible that investigators have worked in good faith as part of a responsible law enforcement operation, and that there’s no reason to question the legitimacy of the probe or the motivations of those behind it. But while I don’t know whether the case against Lucas has merit, I do know that the hyperpartisan leaders of the Justice Department and the FBI have failed to earn the benefit of the doubt.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but this is why we don’t politicize federal law enforcement. Because even if the underlying case is legitimate, it’s impossible to avoid the larger context and the degree to which this looks like a retaliatory investigation against a Democrat, launched by a weaponized department known for its retaliatory investigations against Democrats, with less than two weeks remaining in a critical election cycle.

There have simply been too many abuses, launched too frequently, against too many Trump targets, even as other corruption cases against White House allies have been cast aside.

That Fox News, an outlet aligned with Republican politics, apparently received a heads-up about the FBI’s operation in May and was able to air live footage of the search further reinforces concerns that this case is political.

But perhaps most notable of all is the timing. “While federal officials have historically avoided taking public steps in politically fraught cases ahead of elections,” a Washington Post report added, “the case against Lucas is the second prominent action the administration has taken against a Democratic critic of Trump in the past 10 days.”

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s DOJ prosecutes key Virginia Democrat, generating difficult questions appeared first on MS NOW.

For nearly two years, Donald Trump’s Justice Department has been unusually aggressive in pursuing the White House’s political opponents. Now, however, it appears that a presidential ally is the one facing scrutiny from federal law enforcement.

MS NOW has confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department over allegations that Corey Lewandowski profited from his role at DHS.

A Lewandowski spokesperson issued a statement Thursday saying that the former DHS official hadn’t been contacted by the Justice Department, adding that Lewandowski “denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity.”

For those who would benefit from a refresher on Lewandowski, around this time 10 years ago, it appeared that his role as a member of Trump’s team had run its course. The Republican operative was Trump’s campaign manager for several months in 2016, but after clashing with his colleagues and facing a criminal charge after a confrontation with a reporter, the future president ousted Lewandowski from his political operation.

Although it seemed implausible, the operative gradually worked his way back into Trump’s good graces, and when the president returned to power after the 2024 election, Lewandowski received a striking reward: Trump tapped him to serve as a “special government employee” to help run the Department of Homeland Security alongside then-Secretary Kristi Noem.

Predictably, Lewandowski’s tenure proved controversial — in part because of the policy agenda he championed; in part because he wanted to carry a gun (for reasons that were never fully explained), to the alarm of DHS officials; and in part because of the nature of his close relationship with Noem.

But it’s the corruption allegations that are of particular and ongoing significance.

In July, for example, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators found evidence that Lewandowski “may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts” during his time at DHS. Last month, the Journal published a separate report, alleging that the operative used his role in the department to pursue side deals for himself with officials in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (Lewandowski slammed the reporting as “fiction.”)

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the inquiry, though if it reaches a more serious stage, it will create a difficult test for the president and his political operation.

Indeed, if Trump’s former campaign manager faces a possible federal criminal indictment, it’s an open question as to whether the president will intervene and derail the case, or whether he’ll add Lewandowski to his list of close allies whom he pretends not to know.

Complicating matters further, it was just last week when Trump sat down with Newsmax for a lengthy interview, and when the discussion turned to pardons, the Republican said, “I can tell you this, I don’t want to see my people go through — because these people are lunatics on the, on the left — I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense, hire lawyers and everything else, all for nothing.”

This came a few weeks after Trump also told Time magazine that he’s prepared to issue pardons to members of his administration. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Corey Lewandowski faces Justice Department inquiry, creating key test for Team Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* An intensifying outbreak: “The Ebola epidemic that began in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this year has achieved a grim new milestone, turning up in a third region of the African continent, the widest footprint of any Ebola outbreak to date. This week, health officials identified a new case in Abuja, Nigeria, more than 2,000 miles west of the outbreak’s epicenter in Central Africa. The news came the same day as the announcement of a ninth case of Ebola in the East African country of Kenya.”

* The latest in a series of key departures at the department: “Calley Means, a top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced Thursday that he is resigning. … The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Thursday that Means was unhappy about the White House dragging its feet on some of Kennedy’s policy ideas and blamed other administration officials for allowing special interests to have too much influence. The Journal was the first to report Means’ departure.”

* A prosecution worth watching: “Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.”

* This report probably won’t be the final word on the subject: “President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said. The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.”

* The White House’s war on the free press is ongoing: “The White House this week launched new broadsides against the news media, blocking a reporter from serving in the pool covering the president and sending a letter threatening Politico over its coverage of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.”

* Another case worth watching: “Top Democrats and allied organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and his administration over their attempts to stymie the midterm elections, including by removing voters from state rolls.”

* The White House won’t like this honor one bit: “The International Criminal Court and its embattled staff have won the European Union’s top human rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, an official said Thursday. The award came just days after the Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions on the court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, as part of its campaign to dismantle the tribunal over investigations into the United States and its allies, including Israel.”

* A Washington Post investigation identified “at least 11” instances in which “government officials have discovered unauthorized users have gained access to Flock databases and searched them without permission, sometimes to track the locations of romantic partners.” The more common the abuses, the more intense the public backlash becomes.

See you tomorrow.

The post Thursday’s Mini-Report, 10.22.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In Ohio’s closely watched gubernatorial race, JD Vance publicly urged Republicans to stop criticizing GOP nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s abhorrent attack ad, but a growing chorus of conservatives is ignoring the vice president’s appeal.

On Thursday morning, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio denounced the ad featuring the estranged mother of Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee, calling it “deeply, deeply troubling.” The governor added, “It’s wrong to run this ad. I would urge Ramaswamy’s campaign to take this down.”

The comments came a day after Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican who is running for state auditor, similarly said during a local radio interview, “I probably wouldn’t run an ad like that, but every candidate gets to make their own decision.”

For his part, President Donald Trump defended the ad and said it doesn’t have “anything to do with” Ramaswamy, despite the fact that the Republican candidate’s campaign created and aired the ad.

Trump on Vivek Ramaswamy's ad featuring Amy Acton's estranged mother:I don't know anything about it. It's a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much. But I don't think that has anything to do with Vivek.

— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T20:57:12.498374172Z

Hours after the president’s comments, the latest Fox News poll found Acton narrowly leading Ramaswamy, 50% to 48%, though the poll was conducted before the latest controversy.

* Speaking of Ohio, in the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, the aforementioned Fox News poll found former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown with a 5-point advantage over appointed Republican incumbent Sen. Jon Husted, 52% to 47%.

That said, Brown is facing a daunting new challenge: Politico reported that a super PAC funded by the cryptocurrency industry is dumping an additional $9 million into the effort to defeat him, raising the group’s total spending in the race to a staggering $55 million.

* Though Mississippi was assumed to be a safe red state, Trump’s political operation confirmed that the president will hold a rally Monday in the hopes of boosting Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who’s facing an unexpectedly tough challenge from local prosecutor Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee.

The news coincides with an Axios report that said Senate Republicans are so concerned about the Mississippi race that it’s “weighing a cash infusion” for the contest.

* In Minnesota’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan did not qualify to be a member of Phi Beta Kappa when she graduated from college, as she had previously claimed, but Phi Beta Kappa soon after provided evidence of her membership in the academic honor society, defusing the story.

* And it appears New York’s gubernatorial race is slipping away from Republicans: The latest Quinnipiac University poll found Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul with a double-digit lead over GOP nominee Bruce Blakeman, 55% to 41%.

The post Thursday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.22.26: GOP opposition to Ramaswamy attack ad grows appeared first on MS NOW.

In July several Democratic senators wrote to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano with a specific concern. The agency he leads, they wrote, has sent “unsolicited” messages to Social Security recipients, pushing misleading statements about Donald Trump.

“You are misusing official resources to heap praise on him,” the letter said, adding that the Social Security Administration appeared to be “bombarding Americans with blatantly partisan emails” touting the president.

If Bisignano saw the letter, he apparently didn’t care.

On Thursday morning, with less than two weeks remaining in the election cycle and with early voting underway across much of the country, the Social Security Administration sent out yet another political message, which began:

Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Working Families Tax Cuts, which included a historic tax cut for America’s seniors. That law also created Trump Accounts, individual investment accounts for America’s children designed to grow with the U.S. economy and build long-term savings.

Today, nearly 70 million Trump Accounts are open for all American children. … Trump Accounts are one of the most significant investments in the next generation of Americans in our nation’s history, by giving every American child a stake in our country’s success and a strong financial foundation for the future.

The relatively brief email referenced the president’s surname 10 times.

It also misnamed the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill: At Trump’s insistence, the GOP package was named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Republicans later decided that name wasn’t doing them any favors, so party officials were told to start referring to the package as the “Working Families Tax Cut Bill” or the “Working Families Tax Plan” as part of a clumsy rebranding, which the Social Security Administration has apparently embraced as part of its election-season messaging.

Making matters worse is the broader pattern. In early July the Social Security Administration sent out an unsolicited email celebrating Republican tax breaks — it referred to Trump, by name or title, six times in a five-paragraph email — which followed related political emails to Social Security beneficiaries in July 2025 and August 2025.

Americans need to be able to rely on ostensibly apolitical federal agencies for accurate information, free of partisan taint. When the public sees Trump rant online or during a media interview, most probably realize it’s best to approach his nonsense with skepticism.

But when people get unsolicited official statements from the Social Security Administration, they should be able to have some confidence that the agency isn’t trying to lobby them with political messaging.

And yet, here we are, watching the SSA join a list of politicized agencies, being used as partisan tools in the White House’s political toolbox, creating a dynamic in which many Americans are likely to approach the next message they receive from the government about Social Security with some skepticism.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Social Security Administration pushes yet another Trump-centric message as elections approach appeared first on MS NOW.

At a distance, it’s tempting to think Donald Trump would want his defamation case against the BBC to move forward as quickly as possible. The president, however, has apparently been reluctant to sit down for a deposition in his own lawsuit.

Over the summer, attorneys for both sides negotiated a schedule, which included plans for an Oct. 16 deposition. That didn’t happen: The Republican’s lawyers recently canceled the session and said he was unavailable “due to other matters of national importance.”

Left unsaid was that the “matters of national importance” were campaign rallies in red states as the president tried to rescue the careers of Republicans struggling in their campaigns due to his historic unpopularity.

Lawyers for the British broadcaster, dissatisfied with this state of affairs, went back to court to ask the judge to force Trump to set a firm date to submit to questioning in the case. This proved effective, as U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett on Thursday morning ordered the plaintiff to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11.

An Associated Press report noted that Lett went on to say that if Trump failed to comply with the new deadline, the court could penalize him, possibly by dismissing the lawsuit altogether.

While Trump has earned a reputation as a president who loves to file outlandish lawsuits against major news organizations, this gambit against the BBC was weird even for him.

Late last year, Trump sued the British broadcaster for $10 billion over a news program that focused on the Jan. 6 attack. Defending the litigation, Trump told reporters that the network “literally put words in my mouth,” adding, “I guess they used AI. … They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say.”

That wasn’t quite right. For one thing, the BBC didn’t use artificial intelligence. For another, the network did air a program that edited Trump’s Jan. 6 speech, connecting two clips that were delivered roughly 50 minutes apart, but the news outlet didn’t manufacture words or phrases out of whole cloth.

Nevertheless, the editing sparked a controversy that led to an internal investigation, and the BBC ultimately fired some senior officials and issued a written apology.

Trump, however, apparently doesn’t want an apology. He wants $10 billion.

The president has filed a great many dubious lawsuits against independent news organizations, nearly all of which have ended in failure, and given what’s publicly known about his case against the BBC, there’s no reason to assume it will fare any better.

As for why Trump appears reluctant to be deposed, his lawyers haven’t offered any explanation, though it’s worth emphasizing that the president has a rather embarrassing track record when it comes to his performance in depositions in other, unrelated cases — a point one would expect his attorneys to be aware of.

Another point of contention in the BBC case is the network’s interest in speaking to former special counsel Jack Smith, whom Trump’s lawyers want to exclude. That matter has not yet been resolved. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Judge orders Trump to sit for deposition in his own BBC defamation case appeared first on MS NOW.

Those who spend enough time reading about current events on social media will inevitably come across the “writers’ room” joke. The basic idea is that our civic lives during Donald Trump’s presidency have become so ridiculous — and at times, almost literally unbelievable — that they more closely resemble a satirical television show than actual political events in the world’s preeminent global superpower.

The joke came to mind reading The Washington Post’s latest report on developments inside Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon.

According to the reporting, the hapless defense secretary decided earlier this year that he wanted to decorate his office with one of the floor globes said to have been used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II. That did not turn out well. From the article:

Ordinarily, moving historical items within the building is a deliberate process overseen by trained curators. Instead, Hegseth’s staff dispatched its own team to relocate an Eisenhower globe. They lost control of the artifact and dropped it, sending the globe crashing onto its base and impaling the fragile shell near Antarctica, according to those familiar with the incident. The resulting gash appears to be several inches wide.

Pentagon officials denied The Washington Post’s request for a photo of the globe or to examine the artifact in person, but The Post separately obtained images of the damage.

In a written statement, the Army acknowledged that the globe had been damaged and said it occurred during an “attempted move” in February. (“Attempted” is apparently a key detail: After Hegseth’s staff damaged the priceless artifact, they abandoned the plan to relocate the 30-inch globe.)

If I’d seen this in an episode of “Veep,” I would’ve quietly chided the writers for concocting a ham-fisted metaphor about an unqualified defense secretary, in the midst of a failed war, literally breaking the world.

And yet, in this case, there is no writers’ room. This is just our reality.

The Post went on to note that there are experts at the U.S. Army Center of Military History who know exactly how to ensure safe transport of treasures like these. But since the history staffers were furloughed due to a partial government shutdown, Hegseth’s staff decided to move the globe themselves. From the article:

It is unclear why Hegseth’s team did not wait for experienced help to move the artifact during the partial government shutdown, which ended the same day the globe was damaged. An “apparent lack of patience,” said one person familiar with the situation, appeared to be a factor.

The episode became instant fodder for gossip and jokes inside the Pentagon, with some decrying the apparent brashness and affinity for World War II nostalgia that they characterized as common themes throughout Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary.

That this leaked is itself evidence of Hegseth’s unpopularity inside the Pentagon he ostensibly runs.

What’s more, let’s note that this incident came on the heels of the Trump administration firing the director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home after he objected to a White House request. Team Trump wanted to give an Eisenhower sword to King Charles as a gift, and when the library’s director, Todd Arrington, said it would be illegal to give away U.S. property like this, his nearly three-decade career came to an abrupt end.

Team Trump also, incidentally, wants to paint the entire exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, turning the building white.

The moral of the story: Maybe these guys should stop messing with Eisenhower?

The post Hegseth staffers damage historic Eisenhower globe in an unusually apt metaphorical incident appeared first on MS NOW.

Many of Donald Trump’s recent campaign rallies have been interrupted by protesters, but as MS NOW reported, the president’s Wednesday night rally in South Carolina, intended to rescue appointed Republican Sen. Darline Graham, featured an unusually high number of disruptions. From the article:

The effort was an uphill battle from the start, and it didn’t get easier. … Roughly five minutes into Trump’s speech, security escorted at least four protesters out of the event, with that number rising to at least 11 by the end of the 93-minute remarks. About 20 minutes into the speech, an attendee appeared to punch a protester on the floor directly right in front of Trump. As those involved were escorted out, Trump remarked on the altercation.

“Wow, thank you, that was great, man,” Trump said. “I love — I watched that. Man. You know I watched that, I saw that. That was incredible. Wow.”

The president added, in apparent admiration, “Who was the guy that threw that punch? Who threw that punch?” After identifying the pugilist who hit a protester, Trump said, “You know, you reminded me of Evander ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield,” referring to a retired professional boxer.

The Republican went on to celebrate the fact that the protester “got whacked.”

Trump effusively praises his supporters for punching a protester:Who's the guy that threw that punch? You reminded me of Evander "The Real Deal" Holyfield. That guy stood up and he just got whacked. Man! Evander, he wants your autograph! Don't fight him, Evander, don't fight him!

— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T23:53:16.857158105Z

If this sounded a bit familiar, it’s not your imagination. In June 2017, after then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that the president had never “promoted or encouraged violence,” The Washington Post published an analysis that characterized the claim as “laughable,” adding, “Even if you don’t believe Trump has technically incited violence (which he has been sued for), he clearly nodded toward violence at his campaign rallies. Sometimes it was veiled; other times it was unmistakable. Sometimes he was talking about self-defense, but it was clear he was advocating for a ‘form of violence.’”

In February 2016, for example, Trump offered some advice to supporters in Iowa. “[I]f you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell,” he said. “I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees; I promise, I promise.”

A month later, in response to a protester at a rally, the then-candidate said, “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it.”

Around the same time, after one protester was punched by one of the future president’s supporters, Trump declared, “Maybe he deserved to get roughed up.”

To be sure, many Americans are probably familiar with Trump downplaying Jan. 6 violence, but this is qualitatively different: A decade ago, the Republican offered tacit support for his followers assaulting protesters, and Wednesday night in South Carolina, he did it again, reinforcing concerns that he sees political violence as a legitimate response to detractors.

The post As Trump celebrates violence against protesters, it’s like 2016 all over again appeared first on MS NOW.

By any fair measure, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has long been at roughly the center of the Democratic Party’s mainstream. Few observers could credibly accuse her of being a conservative Democrat along the lines of former Sen. Joe Manchin or of being a progressive firebrand trying push the party to the left.

I mention this because Clinton took a policy position this week that’s likely to raise some eyebrows.

Expanding the Court is the moderate position

— Thor Benson (@thorbenson.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T17:47:34.491Z

In the latest episode of “High Stakes,” a limited series from podcast host Kara Swisher and Clinton, the discussion turned to possible Supreme Court reforms, and the former presidential candidate raised some practical concerns about term limits on Supreme Court justices — before expressing support for an alternative solution to the status quo.

“I think, instead, we should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power,” Clinton said. “You know, it used to be that you’d have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits, we should have 13 justices. So I would be in, you know, favor of looking at that and see if we could make it work.”

The former secretary no longer holds public office, so it’s not as if she would be in a position to vote on such a proposal, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees: When Hillary Clinton expresses public support for Supreme Court expansion, it’s evidence that a reform idea has reached the political mainstream.

She’s not alone. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina is also widely recognized as a prominent voice representing the Democratic establishment — the 17-term incumbent has spent much of his career as a member of the party leadership in the House — and in late August he also publicly endorsed expanding the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13.

“I think we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress and we ought to expand,” Clyburn said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding that “13 is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen, it would be a good number to have on the court.”

Clyburn’s comments came just a few weeks after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention and voiced support for “dramatic” Supreme Court reforms.

“The Supreme Court, the conservative right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, has become basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party,” the New York Democrat said, adding that the justices seem to believe “the status quo is acceptable. It’s not.”

Jeffries didn’t elaborate on which specific reforms he had in mind, though the Democrat, positioned to be the next House speaker if his party reclaims the majority, said there are “a variety of different options that are on the table” and he’s not prepared to “foreclose any single one of them.”

If it seems like leading Democratic voices are embracing similar stances with increasing frequency and enthusiasm, it’s not your imagination. Just two weeks before Jeffries made his comments, former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the National Urban League’s annual conference and said, “We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices, like we have 13 district courts.”

A month earlier, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro voiced support for “radical reform” of the Supreme Court, which came on the heels of Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia agreeing that “all options have to be on the table” when it comes to changing the high court.

In the coming months, there is likely to be plenty of debate among advocates about the kind of changes to pursue and the political viability of the competing ideas. It’s also a safe bet that many reformers will disagree about the details. But the bottom line remains the same: In Democratic politics, the conversation has shifted rapidly to how, not whether, to reform the Supreme Court.

As many in the party start eyeing the 2028 presidential race, don’t be surprised if this issue becomes a litmus test for many Democratic voters.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Hillary Clinton joins growing chorus in support of Supreme Court expansion appeared first on MS NOW.

Over the past decade or so, Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been subtle about his support for Vladimir Putin, but in recent weeks, the American president has gone to almost cartoonish lengths to reward his Russian counterpart.

The list includes instances in which the Republican offered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel, echoed Kremlin talking points, pumped billions of dollars into the Russian economy, peddled false accusations against Ukraine, ignored existing U.S. laws that ban Russian oil imports, looked the other way on Russia aiding Iran during the ongoing U.S. war, and delivered diplomatic victories for Moscow — all in exchange for nothing except more deadly attacks.

On Wednesday morning, however, Trump finally claimed to have secured a concession of sorts from the Russian leader. In a statement published to his social media platform, the American president said Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher who had been imprisoned by the Putin government, had been released from detention and was headed home.

After some pointless and gratuitous whining about the Biden administration, Trump wrote that Putin agreed to free Hubbard “out of respect” for the American president, adding that the United States “was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia.”

Just 12 minutes later, the Republican published a follow-up item, which read, “Numerous people, who requested that sanctions be immediately imposed on Russia, have called to apologize to President Trump in that they didn’t know that he was negotiating the release of Stephen Hubbard, a truly big and important deal for the U.S. If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt.”

Putting aside the fact that those calls of apology almost certainly didn’t happen in reality, the second message clearly contradicted the first. After saying his administration didn’t have to give Russia anything to secure Hubbard’s release, Trump effectively conceded that he had to waive sanctions on Russia in order to secure Hubbard’s release.

Hours later, at an unrelated White House event, he did it again.

TRUMP: We gave nothing in exchange for Stephen. We never give anything in exchange for hostages.TRUMP LITERALLY MOMENTS LATER: If I implemented sanctions on Russia, Steven wouldn't be coming out right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-21T19:33:20.698Z

“We gave nothing in exchange, which is very rare,” the American president boasted. “We never give anything in exchange.” Moments later, he added that if he had implemented sanctions on Russia, as required by the U.S. law he recently signed, Hubbard “wouldn’t be coming out right now, he’d be in there for another 20 years.”

Trump seemed entirely oblivious to the obvious tension between claiming that he made no concessions, except for the concessions he made.

During a Wednesday afternoon Q&A with reporters, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed him on this point, subtly trying to explain to Trump that, based on his own explanation, he obviously did give Putin something in return for Hubbard’s release.

Apparently frustrated by the cognitive dissonance, Trump decided to resolve the dispute by telling Collins, “You’re a low-IQ person. You’re a dummy.”

Hours later, Russia launched a new round of attacks on Ukraine’s capital, killing one person and wounding 22, as part of an assault that targeted civilians. A day earlier, Russia also unleashed another missile and drone blitz of civilian areas in Ukraine, killing at least four people.

As recently as Monday, Trump told reporters, “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much.” The White House has not yet explained why the Republican routinely sounds like he’s reading from a script written by the Kremlin.

The post Trump struggles to keep his story straight on prisoner release from Russia appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Stephen Hubbard is headed home: “Russia has released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.”

* In related news: “Special envoy Steve Witkoff heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, the latest sign that Ukrainian and European efforts to get Washington to ramp up pressure on Russia to end the war are failing. … ‘You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again,’ Witkoff said.”

* Even some Republicans criticized Witkoff’s gushing praise for the head of a government that imprisoned Hubbard in the first place: “WTF, Steve? Look up the definition of ‘humanitarian,’’’ Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., posted on X. “You should go back to Ukraine and ask the families of the children Putin has kidnapped and murdered whether they agree your friend Putin is a ‘humanitarian.’” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded, “Putin is stone cold killer.”

* In the Middle East: “The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members ​to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia ‌and is planning to move out family members from a number of other US missions in the Gulf, US officials told Reuters.”

* Crisis conditions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Health officials in California and Washington, facing outbreaks of measles this past spring, asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May to validate a test that can diagnose 500 cases in eight hours. They did not hear back for two months.”

* An intensifying climate emergency: “Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading for a hotter world than experts projected last year — and the United States is a big reason for that, a new United Nations report says.”

* Good for Kagan for speaking out: “With Americans deciding the congressional balance of power in November’s midterm elections, Justice Elena Kagan is reminding the nation of how the Supreme Court’s decisions have shaped the ballot. It’s an antidemocratic shape, according to the Obama-appointed justice’s remarks Tuesday at Catholic University’s law school in Washington.”

* I’m with the majority on this one: “A majority of Americans say artificial intelligence is a bad thing for society and about two-thirds oppose the construction of new data centers in the U.S., with opposition even higher to building data centers in people’s own communities, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.”

* Facebook’s parent company: “Meta is finally being forced to pay for its near-decade-old falsehoods about the Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw millions of users’ data harvested for political purposes. On Wednesday, a judge in New Mexico ordered the social media company to pay a $25 billion penalty following a jury’s determination in late September that the company’s executives broke state laws with knowingly false statements they made in the wake of the scandal.”

* Speaking of New Mexico, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez “has filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of helping to facilitate and conceal Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 10.21.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

By any fair measure, Donald Trump’s second term has been brutal for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a variety of reasons. At the heart of the problem is the president’s stated determination not merely to brazenly politicize federal disaster aid, but to destroy the agency altogether, for reasons he has struggled to explain.

In May 2025, then-acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton testified before Congress that it would be in the public’s interest if FEMA continued to exist. He was fired the next day, because Hamilton’s line was at odds with Trump’s stated position, which is that FEMA should be destroyed and states left to their own devices.

A year later, after quite a few acting FEMA administrators had come and gone, the president made an unexpected move: He brought Hamilton back for a second stint, and the Senate confirmed him soon after.

I can’t help but notice that Hamilton’s position is far more in line with the White House’s than it was early last year. Politico reported:

The Trump administration’s disaster chief told state officials Tuesday they must increase their financial reserves and emergency capabilities to handle most disasters on their own, without federal help.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Cameron Hamilton gave unprecedented detail at a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, about the administration’s long-planned shift of disaster responsibilities to states.

“Every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and other abilities “to ensure that recovery efforts can start immediately and not necessarily be held up simply because of the federal [disaster] declaration process,” Hamilton said, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by Politico.

“A future that I hope we would shoot for is one where we wouldn’t require as many disasters because the capability of states is so high and so substantial,” Hamilton added, referring to presidential authorizations of federal disaster aid.

Whether the current FEMA chief is allowed to say so or not, the Trump-backed model that Hamilton endorsed will not and cannot work. State and local governments simply do not have the wherewithal — financial resources, personnel, equipment, etc. — to respond to major disasters. It’s why FEMA was created in the first place: The federal government can marshal effective responses before and after a crisis in ways others cannot.

As Politico’s report added, Eric Holdeman, a longtime emergency management official, wrote on LinkedIn on Monday in response to Hamilton’s memo, “There are many states with [minuscule] emergency management offices and budgets. There are states with slim rainy-day funds and no capacity to make up for a lack of federal disaster recovery funds — without RAISING TAXES!”

Holdeman added, “Reducing the number of federal disaster declarations will be difficult and its implementation will be impossible! All Presidents, not just the one we have today, will ignore such a policy when it becomes politically expedient to do so.”

Nevertheless, in the leaked audio recording of Hamilton’s comments, the FEMA administrator said to expect changes to get underway in earnest “in the next six months.”

If there’s a Democratic Congress next year, it’s a safe bet that the administration will get meaningful pushback long before such plans are implemented. Watch this space.

The post FEMA chief tells states they shouldn’t count on disaster aid under Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

Most Americans probably understand that politics can be an ugly business. As long as there have been campaigns, there have been candidates and parties trying to appeal to voters’ worst instincts by aiming for the gutter.

But once in a while, a campaign ad comes along that manages to disgust a wide variety of decent people, regardless of party or ideology. MS NOW reported:

In a new, unaired attack ad against Amy Acton, the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, her estranged mother speaks directly to the camera to accuse her of lying about her past.

“Don’t vote for people who lie,” says Donna Arthur — who married a man whom Acton accused of sexually abusing her as a child — in the video.

The campaign team for Vivek Ramaswamy, Acton’s Republican rival, confirmed to The Associated Press that it produced the ad and plans to spend $4 million airing it, apparently indifferent to the condemnations.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement.

“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

Plenty of Republicans also slammed the vile attack, including former GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley, who said via social media that Ramaswamy is “a bad guy.”

One day later, however, JD Vance traveled to Ohio, in large part in the hopes of boosting Ramaswamy, who’s trailed Acton in several recent statewide polls, with time running out in the election cycle. Any chance the vice president might take the high road on the year’s most offensive attack ad?

Evidently not.

On Wednesday morning, Vance, himself an Ohio Republican, initially said the propriety of the ad (or lack thereof) was “not really my concern.” But he didn’t stop there.

Reporter: "Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent's mother…was [that] appropriate?"Vance: "I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans…whining more about that ad than they are about what…Democrats want to do to the United States of America."

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-10-21T16:25:47.443Z

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” the vice president said.

In other words, Vance isn’t disgusted by the ad, which features a woman who sided with her alleged rapist husband over her own daughter, whom she calls a “liar”; Vance is disgusted by Republicans who have a problem with that ad.

Soon after, the vice president headlined a rally and went even further, insisting that the commercial “calls it out like it is.” Vance went on to accuse Acton of somehow controlling independent news organizations, adding that Ramaswamy has never complained about any of the criticisms he’s faced — which might be credible if anyone had ever targeted the GOP nominee with an ad this abhorrent.

We’ll see soon enough whether the commercial ends up backfiring on Ramaswamy, who almost certainly wouldn’t have pursued such an attack if he thought he was likely to win the gubernatorial race. But in the meantime, Vance just faced a test of his personal character, and he flunked.

The post JD Vance is ‘disgusted,’ not by Ramaswamy’s vile ad but by its bipartisan critics appeared first on MS NOW.

A group of veterans has made very serious claims about contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine Corps training facility in North Carolina. The fact that Donald Trump brought this up at his latest campaign rally in the state was unexpected, but more important still is what the president promised to do.

Trump on Camp Lejeune water contamination claims: "If we win the House and Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible … if we don't win, there's no money."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-21T00:56:42.020Z

“[I]f we win the House and the Senate,” he said, referring to Republicans, “I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished.”

Trump added moments later, however, “If we don’t win, there’s no money. If we do win, you’re getting it.”

For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that, in the recent past, it would’ve been considered a real controversy for an incumbent to talk about “directing” his Justice Department to do much of anything.

Instead, what we’re left with is another extraordinary example of Trump’s radical approach to transactional politics: He’ll deliver worthwhile results, the president keeps saying, but only if voters make him happy by delivering the election results he wants to see.

Consider the recent pattern:

Sept. 16: Trump told a North Carolina audience he wouldn’t approve federal disaster relief funds for the state unless they elected former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley to the Senate. (He seemed to be kidding about this, though it wasn’t funny, and with him, it’s sometimes tough to tell.)

Oct. 3: Trump told an Ohio audience that his administration would “very strongly” consider the state for the Space Force Academy, but only if Republicans win in the midterms.

Oct. 3: At the same campaign rally, the president said he might look unfavorably at the state’s future emergency aid requests if they don’t elect a Republican governor.

Oct. 17: Trump told a Kentucky audience that his administration would invest in a local economic revitalization project, but only if his preferred GOP Senate candidate won.

Oct. 19: Trump told a Kansas audience he was prepared to approve a yearlong waiver for selling fuel blended with 15% ethanol (the E15 policy), but if Kansans elect a Democratic senator, “I’m not doing it.”

Almost daily: At effectively every 2026 campaign rally, Trump vows to send $5,000 checks to every American adult — but only if the election results make him happy. (On Tuesday night in North Carolina, the president explicitly said, “If we lose, you get nothing. You’re going to get nothing. If we lose, you get nothing.”)

The Camp Lejeune comments were outrageous, but they were clearly part of an unsubtle pattern.

In case this isn’t obvious, there’s nothing about a Democratic-led Congress that would prevent Trump from delivering any of these benefits to any of these states. The president made the policy commitments conditional anyway, not because he had to, but because he chose to.

In any normal American election, candidates tell voters about the kinds of priorities they’ll advance if elected. That’s not controversial in the slightest. What Trump is saying is qualitatively different — and vastly worse. The incumbent Republican is effectively telling voters, in state after state, that he could deliver for them, but if he’s not satisfied with the election results, he simply won’t bother.

So they better make sure he’s satisfied with the election results.

Trump has goodies he wants to hand out, and the public will benefit from his benevolence — unless voters dare to hurt his feelings. This isn’t how elections are supposed to work in a healthy democracy. Evidently, the president doesn’t care.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s fixation on transactional politics becomes an election-season scandal appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* With less than two weeks remaining in the election cycle, and with early voting underway in much of the country, a new national poll from The New York Times and Siena University offers nothing but good news for Democrats.

For example, the survey found Democrats with an 11-poing advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 52% to 41%. The same poll showed Democrats ahead on every major issue, as well as big leads on questions such as which party “understands the problems facing people like me,” best represents “the working class,” can “fix the problems facing people like me” and “keeps its promises.”

The latest national CNN poll pointed in largely the same direction and showed Democrats ahead on the generic congressional ballot by 10 points, 49% to 39%.

* As if Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas weren’t already struggling enough, an MS NOW analysis of the incumbent’s campaign-finance filings found that the senator still has no one on his campaign payroll, reinforcing ongoing concerns that Marshall is using his taxpayer-funded Senate staff for campaign purposes.

* In Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, the latest Marist poll found Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with a narrow lead over former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, 50% to 48%.

* Donald Trump held a campaign rally in North Carolina on Tuesday on behalf of Senate hopeful Michael Whatley, though the president seemed to concede that he expects former Gov. Roy Cooper to win the race. “He’s going to become your senator and it’s crazy,” Trump said, referring to the Democratic nominee.

* Though several billionaires have already taken steps to give Republicans a boost in the midterm elections, one notable billionaire is suddenly stepping up on behalf of Democrats: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new $80 million investment in support of Democratic efforts to reclaim a congressional majority.

* In case campaign ads created by artificial intelligence weren’t bad enough, Democrats are fighting GOP-led efforts to use AI-generated robocalls ahead of this year’s elections.

* Florida Republicans are so concerned about a new Democratic ad highlighting the Hope Florida scandal that GOP officials are threatening to criminally prosecute television stations that air the commercial.

Meanwhile, in Florida’s gubernatorial race, the Democratic Governors Association is making a new $1 million investment in support of Rep. David Jolly’s candidacy. And on Tuesday, Bill Clinton campaigned with Jolly in the former president’s first appearance of the cycle.

* And in New Hampshire’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, former Sen. John Sununu has a new attack ad that takes aim at House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, despite the fact that the California Democrat hasn’t been a congressional leader in nearly four years, and despite the fact that she’s retiring this year. This won’t help the Republican candidate shake off criticisms that he’s more focused on the past than the future.

The post Wednesday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.21.26: Democrats’ lead grows on the generic ballot appeared first on MS NOW.

As part of an extended riff on his animosity toward Europe and the NATO alliance, Donald Trump did express a degree of gratitude toward the traditional U.S. allies about a development that only happened in the president’s imagination.

Trump says NATO was "nice enough to give us Greenland. We got Greenland."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-20T18:44:47.130Z

NATO members, the president asserted, “were nice enough to give us Greenland, despite all the bad talk.”

“‘Oh, he’s not going to get it,’” Trump added, mocking his critics. “We got it; we got Greenland.”

No, we didn’t.

To be sure, the rhetoric was wrong but familiar. At a campaign event in Arizona last week, the president also said that Greenland “was owned by Denmark,” but it has since been added “to our beautiful plate.” Earlier in the day, Trump posted an item to his social media platform in which he referred to “our new and beautiful Greenland,” suggesting U.S. ownership of the Arctic island.

Five days earlier, the president headlined a rally in New York, where he boasted to attendees, “I also, by the way, got Greenland. I hope you’re happy about that.”

I’m not in a position to say with certainty whether Trump is deliberately trying to mislead the public or is genuinely confused about something even he ought to be able to understand. But to the extent that people might be tempted to believe the president, it’s probably worth emphasizing that the United States didn’t “get” Greenland; it’s not “ours”; and at no point was it added to our “plate.” As The New York Times reported in September:

On Tuesday, he signed a document that paves the way to expanding the U.S. military presence on the island, opening new bases. But it explicitly stops short of conveying any territory to the United States. And no one — especially Denmark, which governs the vast but mostly empty space — wanted to emphasize that point, for fear that Mr. Trump might renounce the agreement he had just hailed as “tremendous for Europe and for the United States.”

For Mr. Trump, it was a major retreat. He first raised the possibility of buying Greenland during his first term and never let go of the idea.

I can appreciate why the president finds this embarrassing. He did, after all, make a “100%” guarantee to Americans that he would acquire the island — nine months before he settled for a deal that gave him what he already had.

Joseph Cirincione, the vice chair of the Center for International Policy and a longtime expert on nuclear policy, described the deal as a “complete farce” designed to do little more than “soothe Trump’s unstable ego.”

The more the president peddles nonsense about his imaginary acquisition of Greenland, the more obvious it becomes that he’s still tending to his unstable ego after one of the more notable foreign policy fiascos of his second term.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post ‘We got Greenland’: Trump pushes a made-up line about ownership of the arctic island appeared first on MS NOW.

At an unrelated event in the Oval Office, Donald Trump wasn’t asked about Sen. Elissa Slotkin, but the president apparently felt the need to lash out at the Michigan Democrat anyway.

Trump says that Sen. Slotkin "should be tried … we'll see what happens"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-20T19:06:12.877Z

“The senator from Michigan made a statement yesterday that was amazing, where they want to frighten people, young people from ever working in the Trump administration or a Republican administration, that they want to go and they want to frighten people,” he said.

Trump added that “even the most liberal commentators” were amazed by Slotkin, whom the president described as a “stupid person” who “made a statement that was very, very dangerous.”

Then, taking it still further, Trump said the senator “should be tried for what she did,” although he didn’t elaborate on what crime he believes Slotkin had committed.

It’s likely that many of those who heard the president’s remark had no idea what he was talking about, even if the Republican’s message was likely well received in some far-right circles.

What Slotkin actually said wasn’t especially remarkable. Last week (the president got the date wrong), the senator spoke at an academic event at the University of Chicago, where she made a brief, unscripted comment about accountability for those who work within a corrupt bureaucracy and discouraged younger people from joining corrupt bureaucracies.

“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’” she said. “I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’”

The senator added that meaningful congressional oversight should focus not just on Trump, but on officials who’ve “enabled him” and are “doing his bidding.”

As the discussion continued, Vox’s Astead Herndon noted that Trump has put loyalists in key positions, making it difficult to hold him accountable, at which point Slotkin made the case that shining a light on White House corruption would likely discourage people from joining the administration in its final two years.

The Michigan Democrat made these rather anodyne comments on Tuesday, Oct. 13, and no one seemed to care. No articles about Slotkin’s remarks appeared in any major news organizations the next day, and no one had reason to think presidential threats of prosecution would soon emerge.

But as The Atlantic’s Jon Chait noted, it was roughly five days after the event that “a tidal wave of conservative outrage suddenly crashed over” the senator, with condemnations coming from Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and a variety of conservative media voices. Trump himself told reporters earlier this week, “Slotkin said that there should be prosecutions in order to scare people from going into politics.”

Except that never happened. The president attributed made-up comments to the senator, since the benign truth wasn’t good enough to sustain a credible smear.

Stepping back, a few elements to this nonsensical “controversy” stand out. First, the degree to which Trump and his party appear terrified of any scrutiny, accountability or congressional oversight into corruption allegations is tough to miss.

Second, Republicans are so desperate to make the case that Democrats are trying to weaponize government — even as Republicans themselves brazenly weaponize government to a degree without modern precedent — that they’re forced to concoct absurdities like these.

And third, this is a classic example of how the right manages to manufacture outrage out of nothing. “So here’s how the game works,” The New Republic’s Greg Sargent explained. “Right-wing propagandists dishonestly clip a Democrat’s comments to conjure up the impression of a dark plot to persecute supporters of Donald Trump. A bunch of them post on it with an algorithmic boost from Elon Musk. Soon the sheer noise itself vaults the story out of the right-wing ecosphere and into mainstream coverage, where the evenhanded airing of both sides’ ‘positions’ transforms it into a ‘controversy.’ Paydirt!”

As for whether Trump’s Justice Department, which already launched one failed effort to prosecute Slotkin, agrees that the senator “should be tried for what she did,” watch this space.

The post How (and why) Republicans manufactured a faux controversy about Elissa Slotkin appeared first on MS NOW.

As recently as July, few political observers were willing to give South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race a second look. Sen. Lindsey Graham had prevailed in a Republican primary, and the longtime incumbent was on a glide path to another term.

Roughly three months later, in the aftermath of the senator’s unexpected death, the political world’s approach to the race is now spectacularly different. Indeed, Donald Trump is headed back to South Carolina for another campaign rally with appointed Sen. Darline Graham — the president will appear in Pickens County, which he carried by 53 points two years ago — as part of an apparent rescue mission. The Post and Courier in Charleston reported:

President Donald Trump will campaign for Darline Graham tonight at a mid-week, midterm rally many see as a last-minute effort to push her over the top in her unexpectedly close race against Democrat Annie Andrews.

A year ago, the idea of a Republican president campaigning for a Republican incumbent in one of the state’s most conservative regions would have been unthinkable. Trump won South Carolina by nearly 18 points just two years ago. … But a lot has changed in a year.

The problem for Republicans isn’t just that Trump’s visit would have been “unthinkable”; it’s also that it’s apparently necessary. The party is having to invest several million dollars in the South Carolina race, and a new GOP attack ad against Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee, is so hysterical that it reinforces impressions of Republican panic.

This coincides with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifting the race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” the race’s second rating change toward Democrats in as many weeks.

Meanwhile, the same Cook Political Report also moved Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican,” as local prosecutor Scott Colom’s Democratic candidacy starts to make headway against incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

The Washington Post reported a few weeks ago that Colom was proving to be such a capable candidate that “top Democratic officials and donors [are] increasingly hopeful that he could pull off the inconceivable.” This week, the party actually opened its wallet. Politico reported:

Senate Majority PAC is putting an initial $1.2 million on television statewide through Election Day to boost Scott Colom, the group announced Tuesday — another plunge into deep-red territory for Democrats as they take advantage of a dismal environment for Republicans. […]

Until now, Democrats said their resources were stretched too thin across a widening map to allow them to play in the Magnolia State. SMP is launching its first ad Wednesday, attacking Hyde-Smith as a “do-nothing” senator, and is planning a digital program as well.

“This really could be the year for a Mississippi miracle,” E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in his latest New York Times column.

With 13 days remaining in the midterms cycle and the wind apparently at Democrats’ back, the scope of what constitutes a “long shot” is changing in ways that must be making Republican leaders awfully nervous. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post As the midterm map expands, Democrats take a bold look at Senate races in the Deep South appeared first on MS NOW.

When Donald Trump pardoned Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, earlier this year, an unavoidable controversy soon followed: It wasn’t long before the public learned that Velutini had not only hired a former member of the president’s legal defense team, but also that the pardon came on the heels of generous campaign contributions Velutini’s daughter made to Trump’s super PAC.

But as damaging as those details were, the latest reporting from The New York Times pushes the controversy to a new level.

The surface-level details were already widely known: Velutini, a billionaire banker, was facing felony bribery and other charges in the United States, but his Trump-aligned defense attorney helped negotiate an unusually lenient plea deal in August 2025. Velutini ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation.

But that wasn’t quite enough. Velutini still hoped to wipe the slate clean altogether.

To that end, his lawyer — Christopher Kise, the former Florida solicitor general who was part of Trump’s personal legal defense team — tried to use his position to advocate on behalf of his client, and Velutini’s daughter donated $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., the super PAC the Republican president has said he controls.

But while these details are notable in their own right, the Times’ new reporting, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, adds new details related to Alina Habba Mildon, better known at the time as Alina Habba. From the article:

Then the Herrera family hired Alina Habba, who had been one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and at the time was an adviser at the Justice Department. They offered her $10 million a year for four years along with a range of bonuses. In total, including bonuses, she was guaranteed more than $50 million over four years, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

Under the agreement, Ms. Habba would become general counsel at Concord Partners, a company that Ms. Herrera set up in late October 2025 in Florida. The company has no public profile and its business remains unclear even to some people associated with the Herrera business empire. Ms. Habba finalized her deal days after the company was registered, while she was still serving as U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

Mildon’s first day at Concord Partners was on Jan. 1, just a few months after the company was created. Weeks later, Trump pardoned Herrera, for reasons the president has never publicly explained or tried to defend.

For her part, Mildon, whose role on Team Trump has long been a point of contention, issued a statement via social media after the Times’ report was published, alleging that the article is part of plot hatched by “left wing media” to “distract” voters during an election season.

Mildon’s lengthy statement added, “Big Scoop: After leaving public service, I’ve gone back to doing what I have done for my entire career: being a lawyer. If the New York Times simply went back and looked at their own reporting, they have already credited another capable attorney for what he successfully did without me and took credit for.  Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the D.O.J. — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false and defamatory.”

It’s worth emphasizing, however, that according to the Times’ reporting, Mildon didn’t just begin work in private practice after parting ways with the administration: The article specifically noted that when she began working with Velutini’s daughter, Mildon was a senior adviser to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and “had an office at the Justice Department and a protective detail from the U.S. Marshals.”

The Times’ report added, “Ms. Herrera and Mr. Herrera did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Neither did their companies. In a statement, the Justice Department said Ms. Habba did not speak to anyone about a pardon.”

Throughout the president’s second term, Trump has faced difficult questions about his scandalous pardons, efforts to secure pardons though lucrative lobbying campaigns, and allegations that pardons might effectively be for sale in this White House.

If the latest reporting is accurate, these questions are not only poised to get louder, they’re likely to be the subject of post-midterms congressional investigations if Democrats are in the majority in either chamber.

The post New reporting escalates controversy surrounding Trump pardon for Venezuelan billionaire appeared first on MS NOW.