Elizabeth Preza

The popular, two-term Democratic governor of a deep-red state, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, sees an opening for Democrats to turn rural America blue.

Beshear, 47, is considered a moderate, pro-choice Democrat, and won re-election in 2023. Last year he was ranked the second-most popular governor in the U.S.

“Democrats won huge victories up and down the ballot this month,” Governor Beshear wrote in The Washington Post on Monday, “by relentlessly focusing on the pocketbook pressures families across our country are facing.”

He called those wins “a direct repudiation of the Trump agenda,” but said that “affordability is not enough. To truly lead again, Democrats must be the party of aspiration.”

“Democrats should be the party that will make it possible to build a better life — one in which you’re not just making ends meet but setting your family up for long-term success,” Beshear writes.

By focusing on reviving the American dream, “Democrats can win back voters who have been leaving the party in droves.”

He notes that President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” — which he calls “a slap in the face to rural America” — would kick millions off their health care and shut down rural hospitals. It has, therefore, “given Democrats a huge opening.”

Trump “is making it so much harder for people to even get by. During the government shutdown, he was willing to use the hunger of Americans — including children and seniors — as a bargaining chip. It was cruel and wrong, and, importantly, it backfired.”

He urges Democrats to focus on creating good-paying jobs, as he did, in “a former coal town that, like too many places in my state, had felt forgotten.”

And he’s urging Democrats to “start talking like normal human beings again.”

“We’re not going to win the messaging battle if we say that Trump’s policies make people ‘food insecure.’ No, they make people hungry. Kentucky was hit hard by the opioid epidemic. I didn’t lose … friends and acquaintances to “substance use disorder”; I lost them to addiction. Addiction is hard, it’s mean, and it kills people. So when people triumph over it, we should give them the credit they deserve by calling it what it is.”

“Finally,” Beshear writes, “we have to start communicating our ‘why.’ For me, it’s my faith. I vetoed the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation in the country knowing full well that the Republicans in the Kentucky legislature passed it to use in an election year. But tens of millions of dollars of misleading attack ads against me didn’t work. Why? Because I gave Kentuckians the respect of explaining my veto — that I believe all children are children of God and that I didn’t think the legislature should be picking on vulnerable kids.”

“Democrats,” he notes, “are good at explaining our ‘what.’ Let’s get good at explaining our ‘why.'”

President Donald Trump is praising his own tariffs, declaring that their impacts have yet to be fully felt, and predicting that payments are about to “skyrocket” — just as the holidays approach and Americans are increasingly concerned about being able to pay their bills.

Consumer sentiment has fallen to a near record low, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, noting that views of personal finances are “the dimmest since 2009, and consumers remain frustrated about high prices and weakening incomes.”

“Consumers are anxious about the high cost of living and job security, with the probability of personal job loss climbing to the highest since July 2020,” Bloomberg added.

The Washington Post on Monday reported that “More Americans are getting their power shut off, as unpaid bills pile up.”

An October CBS News poll found that “inflation and the economy now rank as Americans’ top national concerns.”

Inflation remains high at 3.0%. The unemployment rate is now the highest it’s been in nearly four years. Prices for items like beef, coffee, and bananas have increased by double-digit percentages. Major corporations have announced plans to lay off thousands or tens of thousands of workers. And millions of Americans are seeing their health care premiums for next year skyrocket.

But President Trump on Monday appeared unconcerned, celebrating the “massive amount of money being made by the United States of America, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars.”

The “amounts payable to the USA will SKYROCKET,” he wrote, “over and above the already historic levels of dollars received. These payments will be RECORD SETTING, and put our Nation on a new and unprecedented course.”

Studies have shown that American consumers and businesses pay the majority of the tariffs and that that figure is expected to increase.

Trump also equated tariffs with national security, vowing, “this Tariff POWER will bring America National Security and Wealth the likes of which has never been seen before.”

And he had a message for his detractors.

“Those opposing us are serving hostile foreign interests that are not aligned with the success, safety and prosperity of the USA. They couldn’t care less about us.”

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte responded to the president’s remarks: “Translation: Prices are about to get even higher.”

An email from the government’s own court reporter appears to muddy the Justice Department’s claim that a full grand jury reviewed the final indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, Lawfare’s Roger Parloff reports.

The Justice Depart on Thursday did “a complete reversal on its position about whether the full grand jury in the Comey criminal case reviewed the indictment before it was handed up to a federal judge in September,” NBC News reports.

Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was hand-picked by President Donald Trump to present the case against Comey.

On Wednesday, Halligan “testified … that when jurors voted to indict Comey on two of the three counts submitted in the original indictment, the full grand jury hadn’t reviewed a final revised document showing the two counts the former FBI director was charged with,” according to NBC News.

Halligan told the court only the jury foreperson and an additional grand juror saw the final indictment.

“Assistant U.S. Attorney Tyler Lemons, who is leading the prosecution of Comey, also said the full grand jury hadn’t reviewed the final indictment,” NBC News reports.

Thursday, the Department of Justice walked back that claim.

“[I]n a court filing Thursday … federal prosecutors said the full grand jury did review the final indictment,” NBC News reports. "In doing so, the Justice Department disputed the argument by Comey’s defense team that the indictment was invalid because of the missteps acknowledged in court Wednesday.”

Lawfare’s Parloff on Sunday posted an exhibit submitted by the government that appeared to contradict the prosecution’s claim.

The Monday, Nov. 17 email sent to Lemons and Halligan, among others, reads, “When [Halligan] was finished presenting her case, she and the court reporter left the room, as is standard procedure, to let the jury deliberate.”

"Nothing was missed or left out of the transcript," the court reporter wrote.

As Parloff explained Sunday, the email "shows that the full grand jury could not possibly have approved the operational 2-count indictment."

“The jury was ‘released’ when deliberations ended," Parloff wrote on X.

Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko seized on the report, calling the government's prosecution of Comey a “rushed, politically charged indictment.”

“This isn’t ‘procedural confusion,’” Parkhomenko wrote in a tweet. “This is what it looks like when a rushed, politically charged indictment falls apart the second sunlight hits it. They didn’t just fumble the timeline they indicted after the jury had gone home. You can’t make this stuff up.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was not "fully looped in until late” on a “controversial 28-point plan dropped suddenly by the Trump administration to Ukraine,” Bloomberg reports.

According to the report, the “take-it-or-leave it proposition … was mostly the result of several weeks of negotiations behind the scenes between Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev that excluded not only Ukraine and its allies but even some key US officials.”

Bloomberg spoke with “several people familiar with the deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity” to “reconstruct” the plan's origination. The framework has since been delivered as an “ultimatum” to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Per Bloomberg, Vice President JD Vance’s “close friend” US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, triggered the “alarm” for European officials after he “told their ambassadors and Ukraine officials in an urgent tone that U.S. President Donald Trump had run out of patience.”

“Before European leaders and Zelenskiy jumped into action, they needed to try and understand who was most responsible for the framework,” Bloomberg reports. “They had been entirely shut out and it wasn’t clear who had the most influence with Trump on the issue.”

As it turns out, “Witkoff and Dmitriev forged the plan during an October meeting in Miami that included Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law,” according to Bloomberg.

“Rubio hadn’t been fully looped in until late,” Bloomberg reports. “Trump also found out about it at the last minute, but he blessed it once he was briefed.”

Despite this, the U.S. State Department on Saturday pushed back on claims from U.S. senators that the plan originated with Russia.

After a phone call with the secretary of state, Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Saturday the framework was “not our peace plan.”

Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters the plan is "essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott, in response, called King’s comment “blatantly false,” and Rubio has since insisted "the peace proposal was authored by the U.S.”

Still, no one has walked back Rounds’ assertion that Rubio told him and fellow senators the peace plan “is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, on Saturday lashed out the administration’s shifting position on the deal.

"Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days," he wrote on X.

Republicans in North Carolina fear voters will be left with a “real sour aftertaste” as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown roils the state.

“Is the price of doing this worth it?” asked P Edwin Peacock III, a moderate Republican in Charlotte. “I don’t see this cloud moving away [from] what will be in the voters’ minds.”

As Politico reports, “Some North Carolina Republicans are worried President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the battleground state could backfire."

After focusing his immigration raids largely in blue states, the Trump administration recently turned to the Charlotte, NC area as “the first test for whether the White House’s strategy can hold up in a purple state,” Politico reports. And with next year’s North Carolina Senate race heating up, Republicans will likely face a key “tension at the center of the president’s immigration agenda.”

“The White House’s message, since January, has tied illegal immigration to violent crime in U.S. cities,” Politico reports. “But immigration officials are simultaneously under sustained pressure from the White House to increase arrests and deportation numbers, an effort that requires targeting immigrants well beyond violent criminal offenders — potentially treacherous territory for swing-state Republicans.”

Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory fears the optics of recent raids in Charlotte “may hurt the GOP on an issue it has long dominated,” according to Politico.

“Republicans had the upper hand on immigration, as long as they were going after the criminals and the gangs, but I think they’re losing the upper hand on that issue because of the apparent disjointed implementation of arrest,” McCrory said. “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”

North Carolina-based GOP pollster Patrick Sebastian warned the “narrative” of U.S. officials deporting working immigrants who are not breaking other laws "has gotten more play over the past week, and that could be a problem for Republicans.”

As Politico reports, “One GOP strategist working on races in North Carolina, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said there’s a risk that the picture of a citizen being separated from their family, rather than the arrests of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, will stick.”

“You don’t know what the enduring image is going to be in voters’ minds,” the anonymous pollster said.

Florida Republicans are experiencing a “rare rift” between themselves and President Donald Trump over his proposal to open up new offshore drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico, the Hill reports.

According to the Hill, the Trump administration on Thursday proposed “to auction off the right to drill in an area that includes part of the Gulf that had been considered part of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico." The move “represents something of a reversal for Trump, who put forward a moratorium on drilling off Florida’s coasts during his first term in office."

In a statement to the Hill, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best said the Florida governor “supports the 2020 Presidential Memorandum and urges the Department of Interior to reconsider and to conform to the 2020 Trump Administration policy.”

DeSantis’ statement comes after Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) on Thursday called the new maps “highly concerning.”

“The new maps released today by [Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum] and [the U.S. Department of the Interior] outlining potential new offshore oil drilling sites in the Gulf of America are highly concerning — and we will be engaging directly with the department on this issue,” Moody wrote on X, referring to the Gulf of Mexico by the president’s preferred language.

“Preserving our state’s natural beauty is deeply important to the millions who call the Sunshine State home, our visitors, and those whose livelihoods depend on tourism,” Moody added.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) likewise said the Florida coast “must remain off the table for oil drilling,” according to Spectrum News 13.

Florida Congressman Jimmy Patronis also asked the Trump administration to “reconsider the areas included in the drilling plans because of how he believes they could impact military operations,” Fox 10 News reports.

As the Hill reports, “It’s a rare rift between the state’s Republicans and Trump, who made the state his primary residence in 2019. While his Mar-a-Lago is situated on the state’s east coast on the Atlantic Ocean, drilling in the eastern gulf would be more likely to impact the state’s west coast.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday refused to admit inflation has gone up for Americans after NBC “Meet The Press” host Kristen Welker confronted him with the numbers.

"Inflation has gone up,” Welker said Sunday. “It's at 3 percent now up from 2 percent in April when the tariffs were imposed.”

“No, no no no,” Bessent replied. “So, inflation hasn't gone up. The one thing we're not gonna do is do what the Biden administration did and tell the American people they don't know how they feel. They are traumatized."

Bessent’s remark sparked outrage from observers who noted President Donald Trump’s administration is doing the same thing it accused its predecessor of doing — telling consumers not to believe their own pocketbooks.

As policy analyst Evaristus Odinikaeze posted on X, “the inflation went from 2 percent to 3 percent, literally and no amount of ‘no, no, no’ changes basic math.”

“Telling Americans inflation hasn’t risen right after tariffs pushed prices higher is the same gaslighting they accused others of,” Odinikaeze continued. “You don’t fight economic anxiety by denying lived reality. You solve it. But instead, Trump’s making it worse and lying about it.”

Bulwark Deputy Digital Director Evan Rosenfeld likewise argued “Trump and Republicans have learned nothing from how badly Joe Biden and the Democrats bungled inflation.”

“Instead they’re repeating some of the same mistakes,” Rosenfeld wrote on X.

Bessent also drew condemnation after offering advice for Americans feeling the pain from Trump’s economic policies.

"You know the best way to bring your inflation rate down? Move from a blue state to a red state. Blue state inflation is half a percent higher,” Bessent told Welker.

“Scott Bessent cannot stop staying really stupid things,” journalist John Harwood said of Bessent’s suggestion.

The U.S. State Department on Saturday pushed back on claims from U.S. lawmakers about the origin of a leaked peace plan for Ukraine after one Republican senator told reporters U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “made it very clear … it is not our peace plan.”

The leaked 28-point peace deal “demands sweeping territorial and security concessions from Kyiv while offering Moscow major economic and political incentives,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Speaking on the proposed plan at a Halifax press conference Saturday, a gaggle of senators claimed Rubio had distanced the U.S. from the deal.

“Secretary Rubio did make phone call to us this afternoon,” Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Saturday at a Halifax press conference. “I think he made it very clear to us that we are a the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives. It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

“It is a proposal that was received and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it,” Rounds continued. “And we did not release it, it was leaked. It was not released by our members.”

Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters the plan is not the “administration’s position — it is essentially the wish list of the Russians,” Newshour Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent Nick Schifrin reported Saturday.

According to Politico,“The lawmakers said the call came at their request after they grew alarmed by the proposal and heard global leaders railing against it. Rubio, they said, agreed to walk them through the situation and gave the lawmakers permission to describe what he told them.”

As Reuters reported Saturday, “many senior officials inside the State Department and on the National Security Council were not briefed” on the plan, citing “two people familiar with” the draft.

“One senior U.S. official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was read in on the 28-point plan, but did not clarify when he was briefed,” Reuters added.

According to the report, “The situation has sparked worries inside the administration and on Capitol Hill that [U.S. special envoy Steve] Witkoff and [President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared] Kushner skirted the interagency process and that the discussions with [Russian businessman Kirill] Dmitriev have resulted in a plan that favors Russian interests."

As the senators' Halifax press conference made the rounds Saturday, senior administration officials began “refuting what 3 U.S. senators say Rubio told them,” Wall Street Journal reporter Robbie Gramer wrote on X.

“This is blatantly false,” State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Saturday. “As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians.”

Rubio himself appeared to contradict the senators, insisting on X the proposal “was authored by the U.S.”

“The peace proposal was authored by the U.S. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations[.] It is based on input from the Russian side,” Rubio said. “But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.

As Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis noted, Rubio’s statement was “oddly all in passive voice.”

“A truly bizarre series of events,” Punchbowl News Senior Congressional Reporter Andrew Desiderio wrote Saturday. “Senators from both parties said in Halifax that Rubio told them via phone today that the Ukraine peace plan is actually a Russian document, not a U.S. proposal. State Department [spokesperson] says that’s not true, it’s a U.S.-authored proposal.”

Desiderio noted that “after the State Department essentially [accused] Sens. Rounds and King of lying about their phone call with Rubio,” Rounds issued a statement appearing to contradict his own Halifax remarks.

“I appreciate Secretary Rubio briefing us earlier today on their efforts to bring about peace by relying on input from both Russia and Ukraine to arrive at a final deal,” Rounds wrote late Saturday on X.

As Desiderio noted, while Rubio's statement insisted the plan was authored by the U.S., he didn't "address what he said or didn’t say to senators.”

“Also notable Rubio is framing it as ‘a strong framework for ongoing negotiations’ even though the [Trump administration] gave Ukraine [until] Thursday to accept it,” Desiderio wrote.

The Punchbowl News congressional reporter added that the Reuters report describing “worries” inside the Trump administration “is being passed around among senior Hill staffers in both parties who want to zero in on Witkoff’s role here.”

Reacting to the alarming back-and-forth Saturday, former defense department official Dan Shapiro exclaimed, “Holy hell. Can these people get their act together?"

“If Congress functioned, there would be hearings about this entire train wreck starting on Monday,” reporter Mike Rothschild wrote Saturday on X.

“What a complete mess,” journalist Aaron Parnas added.