All posts tagged "mark kelly"

One Trump foe could be 'the biggest political disruption in a generation': Dem ex-lawmaker

There is one Trump-opposing Democratic lawmaker who could potentially represent "the biggest political disruption in a generation," according to a former Tea Party GOP lawmaker who recently became a Dem.

Former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh, who recently accused Donald Trump's administration of a massive coverup, wrote in a piece on Substack about who he thinks could be the next effective leader. According to him, the key is something that Trump himself has utilized: electoral populism.

"But here’s the thing: populism isn’t an ideology. It’s really a style, which is why it works across the political spectrum. A populist is someone who is brash, relatable, unfiltered, charismatic—someone who sounds like a normal human being instead of a talking-point robot. A non-politician politician. And God knows, in this moment, people are starving for authenticity like that," he wrote, hinting at who such a person might be.

"Listening to Sen. Mark Kelly punch back at Trump and Pete Hegseth earlier this week got me thinking about this concept. I was struck by the fact that, in that moment, Kelly channeled the kind of voice necessary to win nationally and, most importantly, the kind of voice that can restore our social contract. We need someone who is responsible, serious, moderate, decent, and service-minded—but who has a tough, take-no-bullshit approach understood by regular folks," the ex-lawmaker wrote. "What we need is a centrist populist. At first glance, it sounds like a contradiction. Centrist politics conjure up images of bland technocrats, committee chairs, compromise-for-the-sake-of-compromise. The establishment. Populism is raw, emotional, pissed off. Can these two ever coexist?"

He continued, saying, "I believe they can. And we desperately need them to."

Walsh added:

"Here’s the problem with today’s populists: they’re mostly captured by the fringes. MAGA populism channels outrage in service to conspiracy theories, culture war nonsense, and really ugly white nationalism. The left’s best-known populist voices are far more benign, but, for better or worse, the policies they espouse simply wouldn’t fly across most of America."

Walsh, who became a Dem six months ago, concluded with, "The big question: is it possible?"

"Yes! Absolutely. But it requires something rare these days: a leader willing to be loud without being reckless, bold without being destructive, authentic without being cruel. Someone who isn’t afraid to meet the country where it actually is: exhausted, divided, angry, and yearning for something different," the analyst answered. "A centrist populist would be the biggest political disruption in a generation. And I think it’s exactly what America needs."

Read the full post here.

'Major error' by Trump has created formidable opponent to MAGA's reign: analyst

President Donald Trump's violent threats aimed at several Democrats, and specifically Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), have now positioned the lawmaker for a potential presidential run in 2028, a commentator said Monday.

In an analysis published by Salon's Jason Kyle Howard on Monday, the writer described why Trump's move could be a "potential risk" for Republicans after the president had a vicious response to a Nov.18 video featuring Kelly, a retired Navy captain and combat pilot, and five other Democrats — all veterans and former intelligence personnel — who gave a direct message to veterans: "You can refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

Trump took to Truth Social and called the Democratic lawmakers "traitors" who should be imprisoned or face the death penalty. Later, he denied that he made those threats.

And then on Nov. 24, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Pentagon was investigating if Kelly had violated military law, saying the Arizona senator could be called back to active duty and could face “court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” The next day, an FBI probe was reportedly underway to investigate "the lawmakers’ conduct." The agency apparently wanted to schedule interviews with each of the six lawmakers in the video.

But the series of attacks has backfired on the Trump administration and Kelly has used the maneuvers to his advantage, making television appearances, sending out fundraising emails and speaking out against the president, Howard wrote. He "also seized the opportunity to go on the offense and talk about other issues."

"By virtue of the Pentagon investigation, as well as rumors of his presidential ambitions, Kelly has received the lion’s share of attention," Howard wrote. "That’s bad news for Republicans and constitutes a major error on the part of Trump, whose actions have had unintended consequences: He has elevated Kelly as a potential 2028 rival, if not for himself then for his MAGA successor, whether that ends up being Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Donald Trump Jr. — who’s in second place behind Vance according to a recent poll — or even Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently announced her retirement from Congress."

Trump might not have considered how his attacks on Kelly would pan out and how Americans would react.

"For all his achievements, Kelly is not a natural showman. A sober presence in interviews and on the stump, he has tended to fade into the background in the Senate," Howard explained. "But Kelly also has an unquantifiable quality that more voters, at least over the past couple of decades, have associated with Republican politicians: BDE. This understated confidence is something that Trump, with his hurricane of narcissism and swagger, has never possessed. It’s a trait that has been on full display in every interview Kelly has given since he became the target of the administration’s ire."

This outrage is too grotesque to absorb — yet it explains so much

Shocking as this moment is, none of us should pretend we weren’t warned. When Donald Trump installed Pete Hegseth — a television provocateur whose public record is soaked in belligerence, booze, and culture-war performance — as America’s Defense Secretary, the world could see exactly where it was headed.

Still, nothing prepared us for the Washington Post revelation that Hegseth personally ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” on a small wooden boat off the coast of Trinidad on Sept. 2.

You’d expect rogue militias or failed-state paramilitaries to speak that way. You don’t expect it from the man running the Pentagon.

What the Post reports is almost too grotesque to absorb.

After the first U.S. missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning, commanders watched on a live drone feed as two survivors clung desperately to the charred wreckage.

They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors.

And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.

History tells us to watch out for nations that lose their moral compass in real time.

It starts when the powerful stop seeing human beings as human. It accelerates when the government itself denies any obligation to justify its killings.

And when leaders begin lying to Congress and the public to cover what they’ve done, you’re no longer looking at isolated abuses. You’re staring straight into the machinery of authoritarianism.

Instead of telling Congress that the second strike was designed to finish off wounded survivors, Pentagon officials claimed it was to “remove a navigation hazard.”

That isn’t just spin: it’s an attempt to rewrite reality.

The Post quotes Todd Huntley, a former Special Operations military lawyer now at Georgetown Law, saying exactly what any first-year law student would immediately recognize: because the U.S. is not legally “at war” with drug traffickers, killing the people on that boat “amounts to murder.”

Even if a war did exist, Huntley notes, the order to kill wounded, unarmed survivors “would in essence be an order to show no quarter,” which is defined under the Geneva Conventions as a war crime.

This isn’t an obscure legal debate. This is basic civilization. Armed states do not execute helpless people in the water.

And yet this is now U.S. policy. The boat strike on Sept. 2 was not a one-off. It was the beginning of a campaign.

The Post reports that since that first attack, Trump and Hegseth have ordered more than 20 similar missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.

The administration insists the victims were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But in classified briefings to Congress, Pentagon officials have not provided even one single verified name of a trafficker or gang leader they’ve killed. Lawmakers from both parties say they’ve been shown nothing beyond grainy videos of small boats being destroyed from the air.

If these men had truly been high-value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.

Experts warn that many of the dead may not have been traffickers at all. They may have been border-crossing migrants, subsistence fishermen, or small-scale smugglers whose crimes did not remotely justify summary execution.

International human rights groups are already calling these killings extrajudicial and illegal. Some foreign governments are asking whether the United States has effectively created a free-fire zone over parts of the Caribbean, and several have limited intelligence sharing with us for fear of being complicit in prosecutable war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times.

Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply.

For years, right-wing media has been hyping Tren de Aragua as a kind of supercharged successor to MS-13, just as Trump once used MS-13 as a bludgeon to justify abuses at home.

The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.

This may also explain the ferocity with which Hegseth and Trump went after Democratic lawmakers when they reminded U.S. service members that they are duty-bound to disobey illegal orders.

Those officers weren’t being dramatic: they were issuing a warning grounded in fresh blood. And Hegseth’s and Trump’s panicked rage — calling for the death penalty for six members of Congress, including a decorated war hero and a CIA officer — now makes perfect sense: he knows perfectly well what he’s already ordered.

The strike on Sept. 2 is not just a policy failure; it’s a moral collapse. If the Post’s reporting is accurate — and multiple congressional offices say it is consistent with what whistleblowers have told them — then the United States has engaged in the deliberate killing of wounded, unarmed men floating in the sea.

That is the kind of conduct that topples governments, triggers war-crimes investigations, and leaves scars on nations for generations.

Nobody elected Trump or Hegseth to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for impoverished people in wooden boats. Nobody gave them the authority to murder suspects without trial. And nobody gave them the right to lie to Congress about it.

Congress must not let this pass. These allegations demand immediate public hearings, subpoena power, and full investigative authority.

If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted.

If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable.

And if Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law.

America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.

Conservative prosecutor warns Trump he's 'handing Democrats' his articles of impeachment

Former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has no love for the “craven video” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five Democrats released to the public advising military members to ignore illegal orders. But he said President Donald Trump’s executive power abuses in reacting to it represent a whole “new level” of threat.

McCarthy tells the National Review that he partially blames Democrats for Trump ordering the Pentagon to demote Kelly and cut his benefits because “Kelly knows, when Democrats poke another hole in another norm, the president’s MO is to drive a truck through it.”

The author and National Review Institute senior fellow also notes Trump is howling “sedition” like he knows what it means.

“What is truly bizarre is to find the president, who likes to remind us that he is the nation’s chief law enforcement official, grossly misstating the law while claiming that the ‘Seditionist Six’ are dangerously misstating the law (when in fact they’ve accurately stated the law),” McCarthy said. “As one of the few current or former prosecutors in the United States to have actually charged and convicted people for seditious conspiracy, I’m here to tell you that the heart of any sedition offense is the use of force against the nation or its government.”

Section 2384 of federal criminal law defines the crime as conspiring to levy war against the United States or to forcibly (1) destroy the government, (2) prevent execution of the laws, or (3) seize government property. The military law definition, said McCarthy, is even more narrow: One must join in the creation of a “revolt, violence, or other disturbance against” government authority, “with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of” that authority.

“Nothing on the Democrats’ video comes close to urging or promoting violence. Indeed, in comparison to Trump’s fiery Ellipse speech prior to the Capitol riot … the lawmakers’ video is vanilla,” said McCarthy. “If Kelly had been urging his fellow military members to disobey lawful orders, that would be insubordination, not sedition. But he wasn’t.”

“As the president watches his poll numbers plummet, it either doesn’t dawn on him or he just doesn’t care that he is in office, in part, because the voting public was unnerved by Democratic lawfare.” Said McCarthy. “Clearly, Trump’s statist mismanagement of the economy is his biggest problem, as it was Biden’s. But lawfare … is a bigger problem for Trump.”

“Trump and his minions revel in lawfare,” said McCarthy, which “further normalizes the noxious practice, potentially entrenching it.”

“Trump is also handing Democrats the articles of impeachment they will swiftly enact if, as seems increasingly likely, his erratic governance hands them back the House next year — and maybe even the Senate the way things are going,” McCarthy warned. “… Incorporating the Pentagon into the lawfare campaign against political enemies raises the abuse of executive power to a new level.”

“For the president to begin pulling the military he commands into his ongoing, punitive use of government processes against his partisan opponents is a red line,” said McCarthy. “Justice Department lawfare is bad, but the courts are equipped to handle it. Politicization of the military is a different, more threatening beast.”

Read the National Review report at this link.

Trump may never recover from this breathtaking backfire

US Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is one of six Democrats with national security backgrounds who released a video last week reminding military personnel they are obligated by law to refuse to obey illegal orders.

The reaction by the Trump regime is a distillation of animating force that has driven America to its current crisis: the impunity of elites.

First, the president suggested the Democrats should be executed for sedition, which is not only a lie but an incitement to violence. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, Trump accused his enemies of domestic terrorism. But what’s good for them isn’t good for Trump.

Then, the US secretary of defense threatened to prosecute Kelly under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for the fact that he and the other Democrats quoted from the Uniform Code of Military Justice in their video urging members of the military to refuse to obey illegal orders.

The president gave Pete Hegseth an illegal order. Hegseth obeyed. And now they’re mad about Kelly and the Democrats calling them out on it.

But impunity is only half the story. The other half is contempt.

Or it should be.

That’s why I was pleased to see Kelly’s appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNOW show this week. At the end, she asked how he was doing — if the stress of the president’s threats were getting to him and his family.

Kelly is a decorated combat pilot. He flew close to 40 missions during the first Gulf War. He was an astronaut. His wife survived an attempted assassination. To my ears, his reply was contemptuous — not of Maddow’s question, but of the idea that Trump can intimidate him.

“I’ve had a missile blowup next to my airplane. I’ve been nearly shot down multiple times. I’ve flown a rocket ship into space four times … My wife, Gabby Gifford, meeting her constituents, shot in the head, six people killed around her. A horrific thing. She spent six months in the hospital. We know what political violence is and we know what causes it, too. The statements that Donald Trump has made are inciteful. He’s got millions of supporters. People listen to what he says more than anybody else in the country. He should be careful with his words.

“But I’m not gonna be silenced here. Is it stressful? I’ve been stressed by things more important than Donald Trump trying to intimidate me in shutting my mouth and not doing my job. He didn’t like what I said. I’m gonna show up for work every day, support the Constitution, do my job, hold this administration accountable – hold this president accountable when he is out of line. That’s the responsibility of every US senator and every member of Congress. He’s not gonna silence us.”

The written word can do a lot but it can’t carry the emotion in the sentences above. Listen for yourself. What I hear is contempt.

That’s what this country needs to hear. That’s what this country needs to hear from men like United States Senator Mark Kelly. America needs more contempt for impunity for the law, morality and decency, and for one more thing — untouchable elites, like Trump, who never grew up.

Last week, when Trump met New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, he met a man who, like Kelly, could not be intimidated. The reaction from the president, according to Bruce Fanger, was “that strange little-boy energy, the hero-worship vibe, like he’s suddenly standing in line for an autograph from someone who embodies a version of power he’ll never actually possess: calm, earned, rooted.”

You could say Trump’s behavior with Mamdani was obsequious, Fanger said, but there’s more to it. There’s “that schoolboy glow — ‘Notice me. Approve of me. Let me stand near your seriousness so I look serious too.’ It’s the emotional posture of someone who’s been trying to cosplay adulthood for 50 years and gets starstruck by the real thing.” (My italics).

Trump has lived a long life believing he’s the exception to every rule – that he will never face the consequences of his choices, not even the seemingly heinous, like association with known child-sex trafficker.

Only the little people are accountable, not this One Special Boy.

That deserves contempt, or at least righteous anger, which is what D. Earl Stephens heard in Kelly’s voice when I asked him. In any case, Earl said, it’s amazing that everyone isn’t feeling one of those emotions.

Earl is the former managing editor of Stars and Stripes, a newspaper covering the military and military affairs. He now publishes the newsletter Enough Already. Like me, he’s a regular contributor to Raw Story.

“Either we are a law-abiding country or we aren't,” he told me.

Here’s my short interview with Earl.

JS: Rachel Maddow asked Mark Kelly if he was stressed by the president's attempts to intimidate him. Kelly's answer dripped with contempt. Is that the spirit we need to see from the Democrats?

DS: I didn't hear contempt. I heard righteous anger, and I just don't know how everybody isn't angry at this point right now.

Pete Hegseth talks endlessly about "warriors." Yet by his words and deeds, he's a fool. This is evident to the personnel inside of the military, isn't it? Or are there too many people willing to play along?

Sorry to say, there are far too many people willing to play along. Hegseth speaks to far too many young, immature white men, who are angry and aren't even sure why. They are led by their emotions, which is why we lean on them to do most of our fighting.

Ruben Gallego put it in terms of manliness. What's your view?

This is 100 percent correct, and goes to my earlier point of immaturity.

Am I right to say Kelly is going to get more famous thanks to Trump that Trump will look at him the way he looked at Zohran Mamdani?

You are. The more people get to know Kelly, the more they will be impressed by him. “Patriot” is a word that is tossed around too much, but Kelly fits the definition.

Is accountability the direction the Democrats need to go on? Whether it's the cabinet or ICE thugs?

I just don't see another direction. Either we are a law-abiding country or we aren't. This all should have been nipped in the bud with urgency following the attack on January 6. For whatever reason, Joe Biden and/or Merrick Garland dawdled, and allowed Trump a second wind.

We damn well better learn from that.

Trump's admin just revealed how rotten it really is

On Monday, the social media account of Pete Hegseth’s so-called “Department of War” posted that the department is investigating Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired Navy officer.

Kelly’s supposed offense? He participated in a video reminding members of the armed forces that they have no duty to follow illegal orders — a concept enshrined in the Code of Military Justice, the shameful case of Lt. William Calley and the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Trials.

I’ve known Mark for several decades. I saw him pilot rockets into space. I gave a blessing at his marriage to Gabby Giffords.

I visited with Mark soon after Gabby was shot, in Tucson in 2011. He was brave, steadfast. If she survived (which wasn’t at all clear at the time), he was determined to go on with their lives together, doing whatever needed to be done. He has done that. Today, although not entirely recovered, she lives a reasonably full life, and they continue to support each other in every way.

When Mark ran for Senate, he was equally determined to go on with the work Gabby had begun as a member of Congress.

Few people are more dedicated to the ideals of America and the principles of the Constitution than Mark Kelly.

As for Pete Hegseth, well, the less said the better.

The contrast between Mark Kelly and Pete “Whiskeyleaks” Hegseth or Donald “Bonespurs” Trump couldn’t be larger.

The social media announcement put out by Hegseth’s “Department of War” mentioned “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, suggesting that Kelly could be recalled to active duty “for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”

This is a dangerous move — almost as dangerous as putting federal troops into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors or killing sailors on vessels in international waters because they’re “suspected” of smuggling drugs.

Trump likes military tribunals because they don’t require the same extent of due process as regular trials — and Trump has shown his contempt for due process.

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump called for those he perceives to be his enemies to be prosecuted in military tribunals. He said former representative Liz Cheney was “guilty of treason” because she participated in the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Kelly has posted:

“When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired—which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.

“In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.

“Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.

“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”

Kelly refuses to be silenced by a disreputable secretary of defense and a twice-impeached occupant of the Oval Office who’s been convicted of 34 felonies.

I believe Mark Kelly would make an excellent president.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

'Can't make this up': Mark Kelly says Trump administration prosecuting him is ridiculous

Arizona senator Mark Kelly has ridiculed comments made by Donald Trump, who called his recent actions "seditious" in a furious Truth Social post.

The president had also implied Democrats calling on military personnel to reject illegal orders be "executed", with Kelly addressing the comments on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed an investigation was now underway into Kelly over "potentially unlawful comments", The Guardian reported.

In response to Trump's "seditious behaviour" comment, Kelly suggested the president is using the FBI against him and a select group of Senators who called on the military to oppose illegal orders as a "tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress".

Kelly went further in his comments during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's talk show, where he called the comment made by Trump "ridiculous".

Kimmel asked Kelly "what even is sedition?", to which the Arizona senator replied, "Well this is the investigation, because of what Donald Trump said. From what I can tell, and I don't know Pete Hegseth well, I sit on the committee that ultimately had to confirm him, so I know a little bit about his background. He's totally unqualified.

"From what I can tell, talking to some of my Republican colleagues, I mean he just wants to please the president. This is what he can do this week, he can go after me under the uniform code of military justice, which is a law in the military, which is kind of wild because we recited something in the uniform code of military justice and he's going to prosecute me under the uniform code of military justice."

Kelly would go on to call Hegseth's decision to prosecute him "so ridiculous", adding, "It's almost like you can't make this s**t up." It comes as a former Bush administration official calls the Trump administration on its bluff to prosecute Kelly.

Kelly had participated in a video published last week in which several Democratic lawmakers urged active duty service members to defy unlawful orders, a video that sparked outrage from President Donald Trump, who went on to accuse the lawmakers of “seditious behavior” and threatened to execute them.

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that it was investigating Kelly – a former Navy pilot – for his participation in the video, but on Tuesday, Cully Stimson – also a former Navy pilot – poured cold water on the prosecution’s chances at success.

Stimson said, "I don't think any military jury is ever going to convict this guy, ever. So I think the punishment here is the process, and they'll ultimately not prosecute him or bring him back on active duty."

'He's taken their bait': Strategist in awe as Trump falls into Democrats' trap

A former Biden administration official Monday commented that President Donald Trump is getting distracted from focusing on the economy — what people actually care about — and instead has pointed fingers at Democrats who are actively fighting back against him.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon on Monday threatened to court-martial Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) after Trump accused Democratic senators of "treason" over the video last week featuring lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds telling military members to remember to disobey unlawful orders.

Trump's reaction revealed a weak spot in the administration, and the president fell for the move, Kate Bedingfield, former White House communications director, told CNN

"I think it's important to remember, too, that Donald Trump's abuse, inappropriate use of the military, is unpopular," Bedingfield said. "If people are asked whether they think his use of the National Guard was appropriate, even those who say that they like what he's done to close down the border, will still say that it's an inappropriate use of the military.

As Democrats stand up to him, he's now fallen for it.

"So in many ways it strikes me that Donald Trump has given them exactly the response that they were looking for," she added. "His response is outrageous, it's over the top, it's continuing to drive the sense that he is, in fact, using the military inappropriately. And, it is preventing him from talking about the economy, which is what he needs to be doing. So in that way, I think he's taken their bait."

Brazil's only astronaut begs for help as Trump tariffs threaten to cripple country: Dem

WASHINGTON — Farmers, bankers and international policymakers find themselves in the same camp as President Donald Trump’s international trade war gathers pace: confused, freaked out and lobbying for clarity — if not a carve out.

Just this week, after Trump signed an executive order introducing 50 percent tariffs on most goods from Brazil, a leading Democratic senator met with a handful of concerned Brazilian counterparts, among them a friend from the senator's literally stellar contact book.

“I've met with eight Brazilian senators in my office, and one of them is a guy I’ve known for 30 years, who was the only Brazilian astronaut,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former U.S. astronaut himself, told Raw Story at the Capitol.

“I worked with him for over a decade. So he brought a bunch of people, because we have a [trade] surplus with Brazil and [yet] … they were told 50%.

“They don't know what to do. Because usually, [tariffs are imposed on] a country where you’ve got a trade deficit. This is the opposite.”

Kelly was a U.S. Navy aviator and flew combat missions in the first Gulf War before becoming a NASA astronaut and taking part in four space missions.

His Brazilian astronaut friend, 62-year-old former air force pilot Marcos Pontes, completed a mission to the International Space Station in 2006.

In 2019, Pontes became Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. In 2022, he was elected as a federal senator for São Paulo.

Trump announced punitive tariffs against Brazil July 9. On Wednesday he put his order into effect. Some Brazilian products were exempted — including orange juice, some aircraft, wood pulp and energy products.

But a U.S. government fact sheet explicitly linked the tariffs to what it called “the Government of Brazil’s politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters.”

Bolsonaro and seven associates are on trial regarding his attempt to stay in power in 2022, which opponents call an attempted coup similar to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited in an attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.

In his fact sheet on Wednesday, Trump claimed the current Brazilian government, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula, was guilty of “serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil.”

Kelly gave that short shrift.

“There's this whole political component that has to do with Bolsonaro and this prosecution, trying Bolsonaro, but they [Brazilian politicians] can’t interfere with their judicial process,” the senator said.

“They can't interfere. Lula's not going to interfere with their judiciary.

“That's just something that we do. This administration.”

Raw Story asked: “So [your Brazilian friends are] kind of freaked out” by Trump’s tariffs?

Kelly said: “Yeah, they're like, ‘Hey, have you got any advice?’ So I reached out to the Secretary of Commerce [Howard Lutnick] on this because they’d like an extension to try to figure [this] out, so this doesn't get put in at all. And they’re good trading partners.

“If these tariffs go into effect, prices are gonna go up on a lot of things. Depends on the country. Using Brazil as an example, I think something like a third of the coffee in the United States comes from Brazil, so you're gonna see higher coffee prices.”

Raw Story asked: “Are we gonna see now individual nations do like Brazil, ask for a carve out?”

Kelly said: “I think everybody's gonna try to ask for something. And I think some of these might benefit us, but the big picture is incredibly chaotic and haphazard, and not the way you're supposed to run trade policy, and the American people are going to be on the losing end of this.

“But I was trying to, you know, help out my friend of 30 years.”

'They're gonna regret': GOP warned disaster looms as Senate drama boils

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate kicked off a “vote-a-rama” — a lengthy process where senators from both parties get to offer amendments, political or otherwise, on budget measures — as Republicans rushed to appease President Donald Trump by clawing back funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

Whenever the party in control of the White House changes, lawmakers seek to undo the previous administration’s agenda. Only this time, the Senate’s debating a $9 billion package shipped to Capitol Hill by former Trump ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s an effort to enshrine otherwise illegal government-wide cuts — because, constitutionally-speaking, Congress is supposed to hold the nation’s purse strings, not the White House, agencies and un-elected DOGE team members.

Trump has demanded Republicans send him the measure by week’s end — even as veteran Democrats on Capitol Hill predict the political equivalent of nuclear fallout should the GOP pass the measure, thereby upending decades of bipartisanship on such matters in one fell swoop.

“We won't have the resources and capacity to respond to disasters,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story of likely effects in the realm of foreign policy should the recissions package pass.

“We'll retreat from fighting pandemics and investing in public health. Dozens of countries that have relied on us as trustworthy partners for decades are left abruptly questioning whether they can count on us at all. So across the world, there will be specific and concrete harms to people: clinics that close, classrooms that shutter, folks who don't get help.”

Three Republican senators tried to block the measure by opposing it in committee, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote, setting up Wednesday’s amendments marathon.

Among the GOP rebels, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) raised alarms over the measure's proposed $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a Bush-era program to combat AIDS and HIV in developing countries that’s credited with saving millions of lives.

The White House conceded the point, and agreed to exempt PEPFAR. But the measure’s still promising deep cuts to formerly bipartisan foreign aid programs.

Those cuts will “really hurt our position in the world,” Coons said.

“Isn't China just waiting in the wings?” Raw Story asked of Beijing’s efforts to take America’s place in the developing world.

“They're not waiting here,” Coons said. “They're filling the gap.”

Closer to home, the GOP cuts would hammer public broadcasting, an area long decried by conservative talking heads as biased and costly, even as more moderate Republicans and Democrats have championed public broadcasting as vital for under-served communities.

Rural communities will suffer harmful cuts if Trump gets his wish, said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), particularly among Native American communities throughout the U.S.

“For some people, that's their only access to local news,” Kelly told Raw Story while hopping an elevator up to the Senate floor as the “vote-a-rama” kicked off. “For kids, you know, being able to watch Sesame Street and just other shows, and emergency alerts.

“I think people are going to be shocked as some of these stations, whether it's public radio or public broadcasting stations, start to shut down. The public radio thing for the Navajo is really big.”

Asked if he thought Republicans would pay an electoral price for such cuts, the swing state senator predicted backlash for the MAGA-tinged GOP.

“There is a lot of stuff that they're gonna regret,” Kelly said.

He also pointed to the passage earlier this month of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — a mixture of deep health-care cuts, funding boosts for immigration enforcement, and tax cuts — which polls badly with the American people.

“They’re going to regret $4 trillion added to the debt, that they now own,” Kelly said. .

“I think they're going to regret kicking millions of people off their health care, because those people still get sick, and it's going to cost more. Ultimately, it's going to cost somebody more.”