A Salon columnist said Thursday that President Donald Trump looked so worn out at this week's Group of Seven summit in France that his appearance revealed more about his standing than the Iran agreement he traveled there to tout.
In a column published this week, Heather Digby Parton wrote that the 80-year-old president seemed unusually low on energy in Evian-les-Bains, a setting where his meetings with European leaders have turned combative. She opened by recounting that Trump had stayed late celebrating his birthday at a UFC event on the White House lawn before flying to the summit.
"Trump really looks worn out. On Tuesday, he appeared to have forgotten his usual bronze makeup, which was a startling sight. His energy is notably low, especially for a gathering like this one; meetings with Europeans usually turn him combative and hostile," she wrote.
Parton tied that flagging energy to what she described as a weakened position, writing that the president is "still smarting" from Western leaders' refusal to back his war with Iran and is now promoting the memorandum of understanding he signed as proof he is a hero, even as, in her telling, he "lost the war and is desperate to get out of it." Another op-ed similarly argued that Trump's leverage is fading as the midterms approach.
The column noted the agreement would extend a ceasefire for 60 days, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift sanctions on Iranian oil and establish a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran while pushing nuclear talks into future negotiations. Trump signed it during a dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, a choice of venue that drew its own mockery.
Trump called Versailles "the real deal" and speculated that he might add a hall of mirrors to his planned White House ballroom. Parton's broader read echoed a conservative commentator who said Trump stumbled into a war he is now desperate to exit.
According to former CIA official Marc Polymeropoulos, Donald Trump’s Iran deal, which has set off a deluge of criticism within the Republican Party, has left the leadership of Israel in a state of shock.
Appearing on MS NOW with “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist, Polymeropoulos, who just returned from Tel Aviv, claimed he found a sense of betrayal during his visit. Geist prompted the 26-year veteran of the CIA with, “Marc, take us to Tel Aviv this morning. And what Bibi Netanyahu must be thinking; that he got his man in the White House in Donald Trump, that he went to the Situation Room, sold the war successfully. He thought that Donald Trump, the United States military, would come in and finish off Iran, take out the regime, and now he sits here this morning with this memorandum of understanding anyway, with explicit language that says there can be no attacks on Lebanon.”
“So the Israelis I speak with are in a state of panic, one former Mossad official said, literally, ‘I can't believe this is happening,’” he reported. “But in some ways they should have known better,” he explained. “And one analyst actually told me, ‘Look, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu decided to ride the tiger — that's Donald Trump. And the tiger just turned around and just bit him on the rear end.’”
“And like many of us predicted he would, he continued, “Because Trump was no dedicated, you know, savior. He was not the messiah for Israel. He's too transactional.”
“Let me just add one quick thing, Willie,” he insisted. “Let's not forget at the end of the Biden administration, if you calculate what President Biden did after October 7th, he gave the Israelis $18 billion in military aid. Yet somehow, he is seen as not a supporter of Israel. That was preposterous. And right now, I think the Israelis are realizing that Trump was not who they thought he was, and that this MOU actually puts them in a very precarious national security situation, particularly in terms of ballistic missiles and what to do about Hezbollah, a terrorist entity sitting on their northern border.”
President Donald Trump's administration is quietly diverting over $350 million from the Secret Service to pay for "security" elements in the president's White House ballroom project.
According to The Washington Post, the Office of Management and Budget "did not specify the purpose of the unusually large shift in response to questions on Wednesday." However, an anonymous source involved with the budget for the Secret Service "told The Washington Post the funding was to help pay for a new White House East Wing that includes a large ballroom."
The diverted funding was intended to pay for training and retention for Secret Service agents.
A White House spokesperson did not deny this when asked by reporters, saying simply, “The East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets.”
Trump initially promised that the White House ballroom project, which has already seen the summary demolition of the old East Wing, would be paid for entirely by donations from corporate benefactors, which was itself controversial since it opened up the White House to bribery and conflicts of interest.
But in recent months, as the cost of the project has doubled and tripled, the Trump administration has grown more insistent in finding a taxpayer source for at least some of the funding, pushing hard — though unsuccessfully — for "security" funding to be included in the GOP's Homeland Security reconciliation bill.
Federal courts have called out the Trump administration for trying to claim that anything they deem to be a "security" feature in the ballroom project automatically is one and can divert money from elsewhere.
CNN's Audie Cornish schooled a former Donald Trump staffer who pooh-poohed the opening of Barack Obama's presidential library.
The 64-year-old former president will be joined at his library's grand opening Thursday by George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and the event will include performances by legendary artists like Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Eddie Vedder, Jennifer Hudson and The Roots, and Cornish couldn't help but compare that to President Donald Trump's lackluster Freedom 250 lineup.
"It's very Obama erain terms of all the celebritiesbeing there, and we made a listof, like, who's going to be,who's going to be at this Obamaevent and their global recordsales, and then what's going onwith the Trump-backed Freedom250, which pretty much kickedoff a few weeks ago in terms ofwho was leaving it," Cornish said. "In theend, it's Lee Greenwood, apresident, the president'sfavorite, and a handful of otherartists. Is this a reminder of,like, kind of where Hollywood'sheart lies or the complicationthat Trump has his relationshipwith pop culture?"
Mike Dubke, a former communications director in Trump's first term, seemed caught off guard by the question.
"Is this to me?" he said. "I don't know that it's afair comparison."
Cornish disagreed, saying they were both massive events taking place within weeks of one another.
"I love presidentiallibraries," Dubke filibustered. "I think they are, andespecially to the point thatthey tell the story of thepresident in their own words. SoI've been to a few. I've beento Bill Clinton's down in Little Rock, I've been to Ronald Reagan's out in California. I think it'sincredibly interesting to walkthrough each of these libraries, and I'm in Chicago, I willprobably go to Obama'spresidential library because Ithink they're fantastic things."
"Trump is not invited," Cornish prodded, "just so we're clear."
"No, that's fine, but I don't – I will take a little issue onthis pop culture thing because Idon't know that comparing America's 250 and all thepolitics that are surroundingthis with what should be acelebration for Obama," Dunke said. "I'm not sure I'm there. We should be celebrating America's. 250 but look, thisis this is a celebration for Obama and the folks that reallyenjoyed his presidency, and, youknow, good on them for having a go."
Cornish then offered to provide some historical context to Obama's event in comparison to Trump's partisan takeover of the celebration of the United States' semiquincentennial.
"In an era where [diversity, equity and inclusion] has been completely, not justDEI, when Black American historyhas been carved out of the hallsof the federal government with awith like a butcher knife, themdoing this library on Juneteenthweek is on purpose and issignificant because maybe for Black Americans, that is ahistoric moment that this nationwill no longer celebrate underthe Trump administration," Cornish said. "Theyare not interested in talkingabout the history of slavery. Soit feels like the Obamas aredoing something very purposeful. They're creating an alternativehistorical celebration forpeople who feel like part oftheir history is forgotten."
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform Thursday to praise a comparison of himself to murderous 20th-century dictators.
The president screenshotted a lengthy quote from someone he referred to as David King, who he identifies as a "presidential historian" which compared historic “powerful” people known for “brutal conquest and the fear that they instilled in the populations” during their reigns.
He did not give any further identifying information on who "David King" is or where he found the quote. But the same quote in a book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan actually came from a golfer's caddy, the pair wrote.
“Common names that would come to mind are Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Tamburlaine, Napoleon and, more recently, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin,” King said. Ultimately, he said, Trump has a power advantage over all of them because of his "global reach."
"Their power was limited to restricted local areas (even though some of these areas were quite large in a local context)," the quote read. "They had nowhere near the control over modern logistics, manpower, technology, and the global economic muscle that President Trump can enforce.”
Trump didn't appear at all offended by the comparison. On the contrary, he shared the write-up with the words, "Presidential Historian Dave King — Sounds good to me!"
Trump has faced a number of comparisons to dictators in the past. Ironically, one of the most notable came from now-Vice President J.D. Vance, who prior to joining Trump's inner circle condemned him as potentially "America's Hitler."
Donald Trump's highly controversial Iran peace deal is causing the Republican Party no small measure of angst, with conservative journalist David Drucker half-jokingly stating on MS NOW that the GOP is caught up in the throes of the “35 stages of grief" — a far cry from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's "5 stages of grief" when death approaches.
Appearing on “Morning Joe,” the conservative “The Dispatch” pundit attempted to explain how Republicans — with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) leading the charge — are laboring to defend the president just moments after co-host Mika Brzezinski read off widespread criticisms of the president and his deal from GOP lawmakers and conservative media outlets.
Asked what he is hearing, Drucker reported, “We've talked about this before, but, you know, there were so many Republicans in Congress and and center-right thinkers who have believed that after nearly 50 years, the action President Trump took going to war against Iran with israel was a courageous decision, was the right decision, and the United States needed to see it through.”
“And they were very gratified by the president's policy here,” he added, “And now they're going through the, you know, the 35 stages of grief, which is ‘If this is true, it's going to be really bad. Well, I don't know if it's true because I haven't seen the text. I'm not going to react until I've seen the text. All right. Well, I've seen the text, and now that I've, you know, now that I've looked at the text, maybe it's really not so bad because look, he did say he'll bomb them if they don't follow through.’”
“There are others who are just very honest about their disappointment, about their disappointment with both President Trump and the deal,” he added. “But it's a real mixed bag politically. I will just say the president boxed himself in here, because this is what happens when you don't make a public case for major military action. The president never asked for the support of the American people, for the support of Congress, for support from our allies. And so when things inevitably bog down, because we were only willing to do so much militarily for understandable political reasons, the president didn't have any allies and friends with skin in the game who were there to back up the policy and see it through. And that's part of why he ended up looking for a get out of jail free card here."
A Marine Corps colonel who appeared on a podcast in which a co-host later called for now-Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to be shot has been promoted to brigadier general.
The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve Thomas Siverts’ promotion after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) released his hold on the nomination. Wyden said his concerns were addressed when he listened to Siverts’ March 2023 interview on the Berm Pit Podcast, and didn’t hear anything objectionable. He also cited a letter Siverts wrote to him “unequivocally condemning antisemitism and racism.”
Siverts received his promotion to brigadier general on June 10, a Marine Corps spokesperson told Raw Story.
Roughly 18 months after Siverts appeared on the Berm Pit Podcast, the podcast's co-host stated that Hegseth deserved to be shot for his support of Israel. At the time, Hegseth had recently been named by then-President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense.
During the exchange, Scott Siverts, who is the younger brother of the Marine Corps brigadier general, asked his co-host, Matt Wakulik, to rate Trump’s Cabinet appointments.
“Why don’t we grade them on a scale of how many bullets I put in their head?” Wakulik suggested, as previously reported by Raw Story. The underlying premise of the exchange, based on the antisemitic views of the two men, was that support for Israel is treasonous.
Working through a list that also included Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Border Czar Tom Homan, Scott Siverts eventually queried Wakulik on how he would rate Hegseth.
“Six bullets,” Wakulik responded. “I’d have to put another one in there after I emptied the whole chamber.”
Siverts could not be reached for comment for this story, but he said in his letter to Wyden that at the time of his appearance "the podcast had no association with the hateful ideologies expressed by others on different episodes many months later.
“The ideologies of antisemitism and racism are antithetical not only to the values of the Marine Corps, but to the core of who I am as a person,” Siverts wrote. His letter did not specifically address Wakulik’s “six bullets” comment, either to condemn it or clarify his own views on the matter.
"Col. Siverts clearly stated in his letter to Sen. Wyden that he does not share the views of these hosts," acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez told Raw Story. "Shame on those attempting to smear his name after writing this letter to a senator in good faith."
Wyden told Raw Story, "I condemn anyone who uses their platform to openly discuss murdering government officials, or to amplify antisemitism. The Berm Pit hosts have done both."
Hegseth, who has vowed to root out “woke garbage” from the military while deriding efforts to remove extremists from the ranks, announced Siverts’ nomination for promotion last December, after the Marine Corps Inspector General declined to open an investigation in response to a complaint against the officer.
Wakulik died of cancer in April. The X account for the Berm Pit Podcast, which appears to be operated by Scott Siverts, has continued to circulate old clips of Wakulik’s inflammatory rants, including ones that discourage service in the U.S military.
In May, Scott Siverts re-posted a clip of Wakulik saying, “Let me tell you this, American people: Your government hates you.” Using an antisemitic acronym that stands for “Zionist Occupied Government,” Wakulik continued, “How much are our veterans getting for being blown up fighting ZOG wars which they’ve got nothing from?”
ZOG stands for Zionist Occupied Government.
And in April, Scott Siverts posted a clip of Wakulik saying, “I would have to support the draft-dodging. Why should you have to fight for ZOG?”
Scott Siverts wrote in an X post earlier this month that he supports his brother “condemning any views shared on the show."
“He’s still at the Pentagon and he got promoted to a 1 star,” Scott Siverts continued. “When we go golfing this summer we’ll cheers to a couple cigars. A for effort to all the r----ds that tried hard to harm his career. You lost.”
In contrast to Brig. Gen. Thomas Siverts, who is white and linked to a blatantly antisemitic and racist podcast, Black and female officers have found themselves blocked from promotion to one-star general through repeatedinterventions by Hegseth. Since taking office, Hegseth has “fired or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military leaders,” nearly 60 percent of whom are Black or female, the New York Times reported.
Scott Siverts, the colonel’s podcaster brother, has taken note of the pattern.
Matt Wakulik gives his assessment of President Trump's cabinet appointments, including Pete Hegseth, in an episode of the Berm Pit Podcast that was released in late 2024. roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms
President Donald Trump signed an agreement aimed at ending his war in Iran, but many noticed the symbolism of the location he chose to do it.
The 80-year-old president signed the so-called memorandum of understanding Wednesday during a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron in Versailles, the historic setting of the 1919 treaty that ended World War I, and CNN's Audie Cornish asked her panelists about his choice.
"This was signed at Versailles," she said. "Lots of things have been signedat Versailles. But usually when youcall something a Versaillestreaty, it's, in foreign languagepolicy land, kind of an insult,right? It's a self-defeatingagreement. What's your responseto the critics out there who aremaking those analogies?"
Germany signed the original Treaty of Versailles under protest, and the severe penalties it imposed ultimately destabilized its government and led to the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the "CNN This Morning" panelists agreed the symbolism was strange.
"President Trump didn't have tosign that peace deal at Versailles today," said Middle East expert Sina Azodi. "He could havehad an agreement in Februarybefore he decided to go to war.He was dragged into a war ofchoice that didn't have to [and] 13 Americans died, billions ofdollars [were] spent. He could havetaken the deal that the Iranianshad offered, and it was a prettygood deal compared to the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and I know that President Trumpis very sensitive to the war and JCPOA and Obama.But that was a very good dealthat he had on Feb. 26 in Geneva."
"Well, the hope is from the White House that 60 days fromnow, whatever they have will bemuch better than happened in2015," Cornish added.
President Donald Trump's administration came closer to suspending habeas corpus — the constitutional right that lets a detained person challenge their imprisonment in court — than was previously known, according to a Slate analysis of recent reporting.
Writing in Slate's "Executive Dysfunction" newsletter, Shirin Ali described the idea as what would have been "perhaps the most aggressive and terrifying attack on the rule of law yet." The right has been formally suspended only a handful of times in U.S. history, all during wartime.
The push was detailed in reporting drawn from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who is not a lawyer, championed the move to speed deportations after judges repeatedly found immigrants had been unlawfully detained. In May 2025, Miller said suspending the writ in "a time of invasion" was "an option we're actively looking at."
The proposal drew pushback from conservative lawyers inside the White House. Staff Secretary Will Scharf wrote a confidential April 2025 memo to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles warning that only Congress can suspend habeas, and only in cases of rebellion or invasion.
The idea was ultimately shelved, though reporting indicates it has not been entirely set aside. Legal experts have since warned how close the country came.
"Removing a person’s right to challenge a detention via habeas petition would essentially be a death knell to any semblance of protection from deportation for pretty much anyone, regardless of legal status," wrote Ali.
Ali noted that more than 54,000 habeas petitions have been filed since Trump's second term began — more than the past three administrations combined. The administration has admitted to mistakenly deporting people, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Ali wrote.
Ali pointed to detainees like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, who used the petitions to win their release — for many, one of the only tools left before deportation.
Ali concluded with a grim warning.
"For now it seems as if Trump, Miller, and the rest of the White House have abandoned the idea of suspending habeas. Still, as long as Trump is in office, there is plenty of time for the administration to change course."
President Donald Trump's director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is firing back after a Democratic lawmaker accused the administration of giving luxury treatment to Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell, who authorities said helped run Epstein's child trafficking operation for years, was controversially moved from a facility in Florida to an amenity-filled "prison camp" in Bryan, Texas generally reserved for low-level offenders, breaking the rules that usually would prohibit sex offenders from such a facility — right around the time the administration was trying to get her testimony to turn down the temperature on public outrage over the Epstein case files.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, broke down the apparent injustice of it all in an interview on CNN this week.
"Oversight and Judiciary Dems visited Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison today, it is essentially a pristine park with fountains and ample green space," said Garcia, posting his reaction to X. "She’s the only convicted sex offender there ... this isn’t justice."
He demanded answers as to why then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now Trump's acting attorney general and nominee for the permanent role, sent her to that facility.
This comes amid separate reporting that prison staff at the Bryan facility refused to answer basic questions from lawmakers on the tour.
In response, the official X account for the Federal Bureau of Prisons lashed out.
"Inmate Ghislaine Maxwell’s designation and transfer were made independently by BOP and were based on these factors that required additional security measures," said the statement. "Inmate safety is a key consideration, and we could no longer ensure her safety at her original facility. The current facility provided BOP the opportunity for improved security measures and a leadership team specifically equipped to handle the management of these needs."
"Chairman Garcia’s comments on CNN are not only categorically false but also serve to denigrate the men and women of BOP, who work hard every day to ensure safety and security in often challenging and demanding environments," the statement concluded.
Reacting to remarks Donald Trump made at a press conference in France on Wednesday that he could easily start bombing Iran again just before signing a peace deal with the war-torn country, left MS NOW’s Mika Brzezinski baffled and appalled.
MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” began with a clip of the president standing between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, with Trump remarking, “It's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, that's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good, but we might have to because we're never going to let them have a nuclear weapon. But they've agreed not to and you'll see that very clearly in the agreement.”
That led the “Morning Joe” co-host to ask incredulously, “What, what, what? It's like, I'm going to give you a gift and I'll bomb you if you don't take the gift that I'm giving you?”
“President Trump yesterday repeatedly threatening to bomb Iran if the country violated the memorandum of understanding, which has finally been released,” she elaborated. “The president is defending the deal amid widespread criticism here at home, with one Republican senator calling it ‘the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.’”
“The agreement appears to give Iran everything it wants in exchange for opening up the Strait of Hormuz, which was wide open before Trump started the war in late February,” she continued. “While Trump tries to spin the terms of a big win, here are the key items: Iran gets its sanctions lifted, gets access to hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction funds, and can now sell its oil across the world. Tehran's nuclear program also stays at its status quo while negotiations continue for the next 60 days.”
Addressing co-host Joe Scarborough, she blurted, “Joe, I am aghast.”
"Aghast, aghast, aghast,” Scarborough offered before teasing her with, “This is the first time you're going to be upset at what's been going on over the past decade.”
“A couple of things really that bear repeating for the uninitiated, and certainly for some people that are listening to what Donald Trump is saying right now, that, ‘Oh, they've agreed not to have a nuclear weapon,’” he continued. “This is the same position they have had for 50 years as the Wall Street Journal editorial page and everybody else will tell you it is the same exact position that they've had for 50 years. Secondly, why would Iran not take this deal, this memorandum of understanding is as [MS NOW’s] David Rohde is reporting, and we'll talk to him about it in a second, everybody else is reporting, this is a dream. They [Iran] can't believe they got what they got from Donald Trump.”
There's a new occupational hazard wafting through the upper ranks of the Trump administration, and it's not policy disputes — it's the lingering scent of fermented cabbage, according to a new report.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Vice President JD Vance have all bought into a sauerkraut-and-kimchi-heavy diet pushed by physician Dr. Sean O'Mara, who promises weight loss and a healthier gut microbiome in exchange for daily helpings of fermented food and a steady diet of grass-fed steak, reported the Wall Street Journal.
"They all apparently have determined the health benefits outweigh the slightly sulfurous odors that have been the cause of some domestic friction," the newspaper reported.
Sauerkraut doesn't exactly travel well, and officials around them have apparently noticed.
The diet's devotees, however, have decided the tradeoff is worth it.
Kennedy, who has been on the regimen for about a year, has said he initially found the tangy, pungent flavor off-putting before warming to the results, and his wife Cheryl Hines says he wakes up at 6:30 every morning to cook steak and eat sauerkraut.
“We’ll be in the car, dressed up. I’ll have my little clutch, right?" Hines recalled in an interview on Katie Miller’s podcast. "One of my good bags that I only take out every once in a while, because I want to keep them nice, and he’ll hand me a bag of sauerkraut and say, ‘Can you put this in your bag?’ and I’ll say, ‘I actually cannot.’”
Lutnick, meanwhile, has leaned into the lifestyle at home, fermenting his own vegetables rather than relying on store-bought jars, while Vance reportedly snacks on pickles and fermented sides even while traveling on Air Force Two. Duffy's commitment to the diet was apparently visible enough that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy noticed his glowing skin and asked about it directly, leading McCarthy to become a convert himself.
For now, the cabinet's fermented-food faithful seem unbothered by the social cost. O'Mara, who has built a private practice around the diet — with consultations running as high as $18,000 — argues the benefits to appearance and energy are worth any lingering odor.
President Donald Trump's years-long crusade against election fraud is sparking fears inside his own party that he's about to sabotage their chances of hanging on to the Senate.
The 80-year-old president has been on a tear, demanding the so-called SAVE America Act get rammed through Congress by whatever means necessary, even if it means torching the Senate filibuster or firing the chamber's parliamentarian to get there, reported Politico.
“None of this should be new," said a senior White House official. "They’ve heard it for the last three years, essentially."
This week, he took the fight nuclear, holding up the confirmation of his own pick for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, until lawmakers moved on the bill.
It's the latest flashpoint in a brewing GOP civil war, with insiders warning the president's stolen-election obsession is colliding head-on with Senate Republicans' survival instincts five months before voters head to the polls.
Trump still hasn't let go of his baseless belief that the 2020 election was rigged against him, and allies say that grievance is driving his insistence that the SAVE America Act — which would impose voter ID and citizenship-verification requirements — is the only thing standing between Republicans and a Democratic triumph in November.
“My God, we were about to fast track the DNI director and now we’re in this holding pattern,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). “At some point, we’ve got to return ourselves to being a board of directors versus like a manufacturing facility that just creates whatever product the White House wants. It’s not the way you can manage the Senate agenda over time.”
Republican strategists say the math doesn't add up.
Polling suggests voters are far more locked in on the economy — inflation, gas prices, the cost of living — than on election integrity fights most Americans aren't tracking. One person close to Senate dynamics put it bluntly: Voters who decide general elections care about pocketbook issues, not arcane Senate procedure.
Making matters messier, Trump has waded into GOP primaries himself, backing Ken Paxton in Texas and squeezing Indiana state senators who balked at redrawing maps in his favor — moves critics call a costly distraction. One longtime GOP strategist pointed to Georgia's Senate seats, lost in back-to-back cycles after Trump-backed picks flopped, as a cautionary tale.
Trump allies are losing patience with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, accusing him of treating the president "worse than a lame duck," as right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon said.
“If everyone just follows his lead, follows the blueprints he’s laid out, and runs on the record that he has, then I think we’ll fare well,” the senior White House official said.
Thune's camp, for its part, insists he's trying to keep the party focused on its real wins — tax cuts and economic policy — rather than chasing a fraud narrative that may not move a single swing voter.
“The president didn’t accept the results of the 2020 election. He still thinks he won. He wants to prevent what he calls cheating,” said a former administration official who's still close to the White House. “The Senate’s kind of like, this isn’t the issue that’s going to keep us the Senate, or gain seats … This is a primary debate, this is not a general election conversation.”
With control of the Senate hanging by a thread, the question gripping Washington isn't whether Democrats are stealing elections. It's whether Trump's fixation on the idea ends up costing Republicans the one they're trying to win.
“Poll after poll shows that voters — the ones who decide general elections — are increasingly driven by the economy, not the SAVE America Act or arcane Senate rules, which is why John Thune has been practically begging his colleagues and the president to focus on wins like the president’s signature achievement: The One Big Beautiful Bill,” the former administration official said.
"It’s no accident that he’s clearly trying to reset the narrative amid the litany of daily distractions," that persona added.
