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Trump issues pardon for conservative Texas Democrat indicted for bribery

President Donald Trump issued another major pardon on Wednesday morning through Truth Social — this time, for a conservative Democratic congressman in Texas indicted for bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy.

In his announcement, Trump baselessly claimed that Cuellar was the victim of a hit job because he supports border security.

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MS NOW host refuses to let GOP lawmaker off the hook over Trump cocaine pardon

An MS NOW host refused to let a Republican lawmaker off the hook Wednesday over questions on President Donald Trump's pardon of an international drug kingpin.

MS NOW host Mika Brzezinski pressed Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) on his thoughts about Trump's pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández.

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'Shifted completely': Trump's signature policy shown to be 'dragging him down' with voters

The American public has soured dramatically on one of President Donald Trump's signature policies, according to a new analysis.

The president campaigned on imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners and launched his trade wars soon after returning to office, but after months of on-again, off-again duties that spiked consumer costs and rattled markets, CNN's Harry Enten said polling showed support for those policies has evaporated.

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'Rising tide of MAGA' pushes famously 'purple' state to the extreme: report

U.S. politics have become increasingly polarized over the last few decades, a shift accelerated by the pressures of President Donald Trump. Under his aggressive second-term agenda, the state of New Hampshire, famed for its "purple" voting habits, is struggling with new divides and uncertainties amid a "rising tide of MAGA."

The issues were catalogued in a new report from Salon published on Wednesday. New Hampshire, despite its varied mix of Republican and Democratic officials, is now contending with a new influx of Trump-friendly state-level politicians and outside pressures from Trump-backed allies.

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Trump hands multi-million dollar deal to son's company in 'cloud of conflicts' moment

Donald Trump has handed a company partnered with Donald Trump Jr. a multi-million dollar deal in what has been described as a "cloud of conflict".

The deal for Vulcan Elements will see the company given a government contract to increase the domestic industrial supply of magnets. Trump Jr. had invested heavily in Vulcan Elements earlier this year, and they are now set to receive a $260 million Defense Department loan as part of a deal.

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GOP 'sniping' grows as members lose patience with Mike Johnson's denial they're in trouble

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is increasingly drawing the anger and frustration of rank-and-file Republican lawmakers who are tired of him denying their party is in any trouble in next year's midterms, NOTUS reported on Wednesday morning.

"The tension between GOP members and House Republican leadership has been brewing for a while, but it was especially evident in Tuesday’s closed-door conference meeting," wrote Oriana González and Reese Gorman. According to the report, "Some lawmakers ... scoffed at several of Speaker Mike Johnson’s talking points. Johnson told members at the meeting that he expects Republicans to not only retain the majority in 2026, but expand it, another source said."

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Republicans should be 'running for the hills' after just getting 'a very bad omen': expert

Democrats lost a hard-fought special election in a deep-red Tennessee congressional district, but CNN's Harry Enten said the results should send a shiver down Republicans' spines.

Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn in a district President Donald Trump won by nearly 22 points last year, and Enten told "CNN News Central" the results predicted a midterm beatdown looming for the GOP.

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'Little choice but to bend': Analyst says top Trump ally's fight is neutering Mike Johnson

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is picking an ugly public fight with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) — and Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman reports that Johnson is on the brink of folding.

Stefanik, an outspoken loyalist to President Donald Trump and herself one of the most powerful Republicans in House leadership, was briefly nominated for ambassador to the United Nations, but withdrew amid fears her seat could be vulnerable in a special election — and she is now running for governor of New York.

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'Sharp step down!' Alarm as new jobs data shows fresh nosedive

New figures from payroll processing firm ADP are sending out red alerts over the continuing plummet of Trump's economy.

On Wednesday— the day ADP's report was released — CNBC reporter Jeff Cox wrote, "The U.S. labor market slowdown intensified in November as private companies cut 32,000 workers, with small businesses hit the hardest, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday. With worries intensifying over the domestic jobs picture, ADP indicated the issues were worse than anticipated. The payrolls decline marked a sharp step down from October, which saw an upwardly revised gain of 47,000 positions, and was well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate from economists for an increase of 40,000."

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Dem plots to take $175B from Trump 'slush fund' to tackle the 'number one issue' of 2026

A Democrat representative has laid out a plan to take $175 billion of funding from Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill for use on the "number one issue" of 2026.

California U.S. Representative Jimmy Gomez suggested the housing affordability crisis could be solved with money cited in the upcoming bill but it would go to waste on the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. Speaking with Newsweek, Rep. Gomez said there needs to be an investment in people and their homes to tackle the rising cost of rent and lack of quality properties.

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Pete Hegseth's week is 'about to get worse' — and it's not about war crimes: MS NOW host

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces increasing scrutiny for reportedly being part of a war crime, his first blunder as Pentagon chief is about to raise its head again, according to an analyst.

During a discussion on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” about the latest scandal engulfing Donald Trump’s appointee, co-host Jonathan Lemire pointed out that a report on the so-called “Signalgate” fiasco has been sent to lawmakers and is expected to be released in the coming days.

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Republican says women will shoulder burden for GOP health plan: 'They're great shoppers'

A Republican senator sketched out the contours of President Donald Trump's health care overhaul that would shift the burden for coverage to women.

The president has floated a proposal to send federal funding directly to consumers, instead of paying insurance companies to subsidize health care premiums, as Republicans once again consider ways to replace the Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama more than 15 years ago.

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'Dire predicament': Republicans reeling as MAGA base throws a wrench into election gears

Republicans got a massive scare on Tuesday night as a special election for a heavily gerrymandered Tennessee district President Donald Trump carried by 22 points was decided by single digits. But this result, the latest in a long string of Democratic overperformances in elections this year, shows a broader "dire predicament" facing Republicans going into the midterms, wrote Paul Kane for The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Specifically, he argued it shows that the MAGA base is "losing faith" in the movement, at the same time that independent voters are breaking away from the GOP in huge numbers.

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