David Badash, The New Civil Rights M

Author Jonathan V. Last, editor of the center-right news site The Bulwark, says President Donald Trump is exhibiting what he calls a “shocking” level of “noticeable mental decline,” citing the president’s remarks during his Monday speech to McDonald’s franchise owners and suppliers as his evidence.

Several times he quotes Trump at length, including here:

“But I want to thank, uh, as you know the famous Sundar and Sergey, Sergey Brin. These are two guys that own and run a place called Google. They called me the following day after I did that McDonald’s little um, skit, because it was it wasn’t a commercial. You got it for nothing. It was a skit and they told me that it and I didn’t know them. I just I said, ‘Who are they?’ They own Google. I said, ‘That’s pretty good. That’s not bad.'”...

A conservative political operative turned commentator and journalist has a grassroots prescription for what she believes ails conservatism in the age of Trump — a “cure” for Trumpism.

Sarah Isgur worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina, served as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is now an editor at The Dispatch, a conservative news site.

In an interview with The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, Isgur outlined some suggestions for everyday Americans who may identify as conservative — or who want to make changes....

The Heritage Foundation, billed as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement, has just lost one of the nation’s most prominent conservatives: Princeton Professor Robert P. George. His departure came after the organization’s president, Kevin Roberts, publicly called Tucker Carlson a “close friend” of Heritage — even after the former Fox News host gave a platform to far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes. The split lands at the same moment President Donald Trump extended support to Carlson, despite Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, who is widely seen as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.

George is a legal scholar who served as the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which opposes same-sex marriage. He was once described as the “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.”

“I have resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation,” George wrote at the National Review on Monday. “I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30. Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse.”...

One of Capitol Hill’s most prominent — and most vocal — Democrats is warning about what he says are the ways President Donald Trump could try to remain in power beyond his current term.

Trump has long hinted that he is interested in a third term, and even has had red “Trump 2028” caps as part of his merchandise offering. And while he recently appeared to put to rest questions about a third term — prohibited under a plain reading of the U.S. Constitution — by saying he has been told he cannot run, doubts among some still linger.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) on Friday shared what he suggested were possible ways Trump could try to stay in power past 2028 — and warned he thinks it’s possible that he will....

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, insists that despite five months of rising prices, inflation is actually “way down.” But polls and recent election results suggest voters see things differently.

Hassett on Tuesday told CNBC, “We’re comfortable that inflation has come way down — the 5% on average, for Joe Biden.”

“It’s probably a little less than half of that right now,” he continued. “And the trajectory is really, really, really good.”...