Dennis Kucinich to seek Ohio congressional seat: filing

ALSO READ: Snowballing crisis rocks GOP as Trump lambasted by his own allies

Former U.S. House representative and two-time Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has filed paperwork to run for Congress in Ohio, according to a "statement of organization" document filed Wednesday evening with the Federal Election Commission and reviewed by Raw Story.

The listed campaign treasurer for the "Re-elect Dennis Kucinich" committee, John Sullivan, would neither confirm nor deny Kucinich's political comeback bid when Raw Story reached him by phone Wednesday evening.

"I'm not able to confirm that right now," Sullivan said before explaining he was in a "business meeting" and would call back "later."

Sullivan also served as the presidential campaign treasurer for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during much of last year, leaving in November, according to federal records. Kucinich served as Kennedy's campaign manager until his own departure in October.

The filing with the FEC lists Kucinich, 77, as an independent, not a member of the Democratic Party. The filing says he's seeking the open seat in Ohio's 7th Congressional District, which Republican Max Miller currently represents.

ALSO READ: Trump suggests he will ‘suspend my campaign’ to seemingly dupe supporters out of cash

Kucinich served as mayor of Cleveland from 1977 to 1979 and in the U.S. House from 1997 to 2013, where he earned a reputation as one of Congress' more liberal members. He also made failed runs at Ohio's governorship in 2018 and for mayor of Cleveland in 2021.

But Kucinich is best known nationally for his two runs for the U.S. presidency, in 2004 and 2008.

A filing from "Re-elect Dennis Kucinich" made January 17 with the Federal Election Commission. Source: Federal Election Commission

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Karl Rove warns Trump's midterm rally blitz will backfire on GOP candidates

Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove warned that President Donald Trump's plan to headline the midterms himself will backfire on the GOP.

In a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Rove laid out the case. Trump announced during a Rose Garden Dinner on Wednesday that he plans to spend thirty days leading up to the midterms rallying for candidates narrowly behind or ahead or tied in the polls.

Trump's pitch is to lean into his own record, Rove noted, based on reporting by The Atlantic and Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy. Trump will build ads from his on-camera statements and barnstorm toss-up districts himself, Rove predicted. Trump's reasoning is that since Democrats will make November a referendum on him regardless, he might as well own it, Rove wrote.

Rove's objection is a numbers problem. Trump is at 39.6 percent approval against 56.9 percent disapproval in the RealClearPolitics average. Rove argued that when a president is that unpopular, "making the election even more about you only helps the opposition."

Midterms are almost always a choice between more of the same and change, and "plastering his face on every screen in every toss-up race will make the midterms even more about him and tie those candidates to an intensely unpopular status quo," Rove argued.

A rally a day compounds the risk because an unscripted Trump would "dominate the news," Rove warned.

"Republican candidates will constantly have to fend off questions about whether they agree with his latest insult or half-baked idea," Rove wrote. "The narrative won't be on anything positive about them or the GOP."

Rove asked, "Given all this, why is Team Trump talking about giving Democrats what they want?" They'd be making him the face of the GOP campaign ahead of the midterms, Rove warned.

"The answer: narcissism," Rove wrote. "Mr. Trump believes that in 2024 'the beauty' was 'that we won by so much.' He thinks 'the mandate was massive,' the biggest in '129 years in terms of the overall mandate.' Not so much...that support has rapidly eroded."

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Trump's meeting with 'billionaire beef bro' flagged by legal expert: 'The timing stinks'

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang is questioning the timing of a private Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and a bribery-linked Brazilian billionaire.

On August 20, Joesley Batista met with Trump, and the following day, the president announced the U.S. would allow up to 300,000 metric tons of imported beef product over the next 90 days, sold at 25 percent below market price, Phang explained in a Wednesday podcast episode. She noted that Batista's company, JBS, processes meat and is the world's largest meatpacker.

"I'm calling him the Brazilian billionaire beef bro of Donald Trump," Phang said.

She characterized the Trump White House as a "pay-to-play kind of place" and noted that the two men reportedly discussed how additional supply from Brazil could help if Trump dropped a 26 percent import tax.

"It's like you can't even script it, right?" Phang said. "You can't even script it."

The arrangement, which Trump framed as relief for "working American families," drew immediate pushback from cattle ranchers who say the move undercuts them, Phang explained.

"The timing stinks, does it not?" she asked. "Be mad. Farmers, ranchers, those of you that supported Donald Trump, be outraged. Be outraged that your bottom line is being impacted by corruption and grift and graft."

Phang tied the deal to a broader pattern and pointed to Pilgrim's Pride — majority-controlled by JBS — as the single largest donor to Trump's inaugural committee at $5 million. The figure prompted a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Phang noted.

"Its $5 million donation amounts to more than the contributions from Apple's CEO plus Amazon, Meta, and Google combined," Phang said.

JBS admitted in 2017 to paying bribes to Brazilian politicians. Joesley and his brother Wesley later served jail time, Phang said.

"You think that just because they got caught in Brazil bribing politicians to get favorable deals, you think that would stop in Brazil?" Phang asked. "What's to stop them from doing the same thing in America?"

The Justice Department is simultaneously running an antitrust probe into the major meatpackers, including Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS and National Beef, after Trump blamed foreign-owned processors for high prices.

MAGA pollster warns Republicans sleeping as red states slip from their grasp

A MAGA pollster who called President Donald Trump's last two White House wins warned Republicans are sleeping on red states now slipping toward Democrats.

In a Wednesday episode of Bulwark Takes, Rich Baris laid out the case during an interview with former GOP operative Tim Miller. Baris, the director of Big Data Poll, argued that the party is coasting on Trump's 2024 margins in states he won't be on the ballot to defend.

"Republicans are going to run out of a coalition soon if they don't build on what he started to build in '24," Baris said. He pointed to a cluster of seats that the GOP treats as locked down. The Republicans' assumption is "hubris," Baris said.

"They just thought Ohio and Iowa and even Texas would be within their grasp forever because of how Donald Trump performed in them," Baris said. "It's hubris. I don't know what else to call it."

Republicans have "repeatedly understated Democrats' chances" in Kansas, Nebraska, and Montana, Baris said. He described those three states as a "sleeper" cluster with "longtime populist and progressive roots that aren't as red as people seem to think."

Baris was blunter still about Texas, where the party redrew congressional maps off Trump's numbers.

"You don't perform like Donald Trump performs in Texas, folks. I hate to tell you, you don't," Baris said. "Hispanics don't like you the way that they like Trump in 2024."

He said the party built those maps "with the same arrogance," using Trump's ceiling as a floor and treating gains he called "squandered" as permanent.

Cost of living will be the biggest issue for voters, Baris warned. "Socialism" attacks fall flat with voters when "you can't pay your own bills," Baris said.

"They're much more afraid that they can't pay their rent or their car payment or get back-to-school clothes for their kids and fill up the refrigerator than they are about Republicans throwing around the word 'socialism,'" Baris said.

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