A new poll reveals a striking erosion of public trust in the authenticity of alleged assassination attempts against Donald Trump, with nearly 55 percent of Americans expressing skepticism about whether the latest incident was on the up and up, revealing a crisis of credibility fueled by conspiracy theories, political polarization, and the president's reality-TV governance style.
According to a Washington Post report citing a NewsGuard survey, roughly one in three Democratic respondents said they believed the April incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was staged, compared with about one in eight Republicans. Young adults aged 18-29 were also significantly more likely than older Americans to doubt the incident's authenticity.
The survey of 1,000 American adults found that 24 percent believe the Washington Hilton shooting was fabricated, 32 percent was unsure, with only 45 percent believing it was legitimate.
Conspiracy theories claiming the Trump administration staged the incident to manufacture political support began circulating online immediately after the shooter's arrest. Those narratives have taken root among significant portions of the electorate across the political spectrum.
"It's very striking," Sofia Rubinson, an editor at NewsGuard, told the Post. "The results underscore broader skepticism that Americans feel toward the government and the press. Increasingly, people on all sides of the political spectrum are distrustful of both this administration and also the media."
Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who researches media manipulation, attributed the skepticism to Trump's theatrical approach to governance, telling the Post, "It just seems incredibly Hollywood to imagine that this is staged. The entire apparatus of the government has been turned into a reality TV show."
The April incident was the third alleged assassination attempt on Trump. In 2024, two attempts occurred: one at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and another at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Skepticism about staged assassination attempts extends to the earlier incidents, the Post's Liam Scott is reporting. Regarding the Butler rally shooting, 24 percent of respondents said they believed it was staged — with a stark partisan divide: 42 percent of Democrats believed it was staged compared with 7 percent of Republicans.
For the golf club incident, 16 percent of respondents overall believed it was staged, with 26 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Republicans expressing skepticism.
White House adviser Stephen Miller's romantic history at Duke University tells a starkly different story than the one he promotes today as a hardline immigration hawk.
During his time as a political science student, Miller reportedly dated an attractive light-skinned conservative Latina woman, though according to accounts from their dormmates, the relationship was notably one-sided.
As the Financial Times recalled over the weekend, Jean Guerrero, author of the 2020 biography "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda," reported that Miller's girlfriend was embarrassed to be seen with him publicly and did not want people to know he was her boyfriend—a rejection that stood in sharp contrast to his aggressive pursuit of her affections at the time.
"He liked her a lot more than she liked him," one person familiar with the relationship said. "She was embarrassed to be seen with him, and didn't want people to know he was her boyfriend."
Today, as one of the Trump administration's most vociferous anti-immigration advocates, Miller has built his political career on demonizing immigrants and pushing policies designed to restrict immigration and asylum protections severely.
He has been instrumental in crafting some of the administration's most controversial immigration policies, including family separation at the border and efforts to end sanctuary city protections.
The contrast between Miller's willingness to date a Latina woman during his college years and his current role as the architect of policies targeting Latino and immigrant communities has drawn scrutiny from critics who note the apparent disconnect between his personal history and his public agenda.
President Donald Trump is forcing mail carriers to play a complicated – and possibly unlawful – role in his war on mail-in voting.
The 79-year-old president issued a March executive order that would transform the U.S. Postal Service into an election enforcement agency, tasking postal workers with policing voter eligibility for mail-in ballots — a move that has alarmed postal unions, election officials and voting-rights advocates amid legal challenges and practical concerns about implementation, reported CNN.
“If the Postal Service decides to do this, it will be a disaster,” former USPS Board of Governors Chair S. David Fineman told CNN. “They don’t have the resources to build this or the administrative infrastructure to do it.”
The order directs the federal government to create "state citizenship lists" using Social Security and immigration records to determine mail-in voter eligibility, and USPS would then work with states to identify approved voters and reject ballots from anyone not on those lists, effectively making mail carriers responsible for voter verification despite no evidence of widespread mail-voting fraud.
Voting-rights lawyers argue it transforms "USPS into a gatekeeper of voter eligibility" when the Constitution grants states control over election administration, and election law experts predict the order will be struck down, noting Trump's previous voting executive order mandating proof-of-citizenship requirements was already blocked by courts.
Postal unions have voiced strong opposition. National Association of Letter Carriers President Brian Renfroe told CNN: "We are frankly very skeptical about our ability to even do this effectively" and expressed concern about politicizing the agency.
American Postal Workers Union President Jonathan Smith stated bluntly: "It is not a postal worker's responsibility to verify who can vote and who can't vote."
The order creates potential criminal liability for postal workers delivering ballots deemed ineligible by federal authorities — a prospect alarming to unions representing mail carriers – and the administration has not specified who would fund this new workload or clarify implementation details.
Current and former election officials warn the order clashes with state law requiring voter lists 60 days before elections, well before many states allow voter registration or ballot requests. Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said the provision would "put extra burdens on election officials with, of course, no funding, no infrastructure and no support."
The Postal Service finds itself in a precarious position. Announcing a nearly $2 billion quarterly loss, USPS warned it could exhaust funds within a year without legislative help, and the agency desperately needs cooperation from Congress and the administration for financial restructuring, creating vulnerability to pressure regarding the executive order.
Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed USPS is "working on a draft of a proposed rule," due by May's end. One option under discussion would require states to provide voter lists when submitting ballots, keeping USPS in its traditional delivery role. However, agency lawyers question whether USPS has legal authority to verify ballots against voter lists.
Democratic-led states and voting-rights groups are pursuing legal challenges, with a district court hearing scheduled before the May deadline. Former USPS board officials suggest the independent agency could simply refuse implementation, though it has not done so publicly.
Trump has nominated four candidates to the USPS board, potentially reshaping it to align with his agenda.
The Washington Post, already buffeted by a massive exodus of subscribers dating back to when Jeff Bezos pulled the plug on a 2024 endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to be president, attempted to stop the bleeding with a YouTube podcast that has failed miserably, according to media watchdog Status.
On Sunday night, Natalie Korach of Status reported that the struggling Post, which has undergone massive turnover due to departures by top reporters and columnists, followed by substantial layoffs, went to the expense of creating a podcast studio for members of the remaining editorial board to broadcast their takes on the topics of the day.
As Status is reporting: no one is watching — and that has staffers grumbling.
According to the report, the Post spent approximately $80,000 on video equipment to create a YouTube podcast called "Make It Make Sense" hosted by fledgling opinion editor Adam O'Neal and members of the editorial board. The studio features fresh couches, extensive new video equipment, a bar setup, and wood-paneled backdrops reminiscent of Joe Rogan's podcasting set.
So far, the investment has produced "an astonishingly small audience" with only 190 YouTube subscribers as of Monday morning after 179 videos, with many videos attracting only a few dozen views, Korach is reporting.
The studio renovation reflects a broader effort by Opinion Editor Adam O'Neal and Bezos to remake the Post's opinion section into a "personality-driven and video-focused operation" centered on commentary about "personal liberties and free markets." The Americana-coded aesthetic — complete with cowboy imagery and wood paneling — has sparked internal concerns about the section's rightward ideological shift according to Status.
"It's what the owner wants, I guess," one current staffer lamented when questioned about why the opinion section needed such an elaborate setup by Status. The Post's official line is that the set was built in a cost-effective manner, with the opinion budget cut by more than half. However, former employees are questioning the logic of the investment given the skeletal staffing.
"It does feel like this is just for an audience of one," one former staffer told Status, alluding to Bezos. "That audience of one is happy to put down money for a studio and programming that doesn't serve any of the existing audience."
The former employee suggested that while O'Neal has discussed making the paper's editorials more ideologically diverse, the content being produced "isn't something people on the right want either."
Another former staffer called the investments "haphazard," telling Status, "No one is even there anymore to make sure things run properly."
While an abundance of questions remain surrounding the 2019 death of indicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, famed journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez believes she’s discovered at least one answer to the puzzling incident – namely, who was responsible for creating the conditions that allowed one of the world’s most notorious sex offenders to die while in federal custody.
“I believe [President] Donald Trump needed Jeffrey Epstein dead,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote in a recent report on her Substack. “I believe William Barr’s [Department of Justice] made it possible.”
Immediately following Epstein’s death in 2019, Barr, who served as attorney general during Trump’s first term, announced that a federal probe had been launched to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident. The conclusion of that probe, released in 2023, was that Epstein died by suicide and that there were no indications of foul play.
However, Barr has closer connections to Epstein than he’s admitted to in public.
Barr’s former law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, had represented Epstein during negotiations over his controversial 2008 plea deal, a deal that provided him and potential co-conspirators broad immunity, and one that was offered by Trump’s former labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, who reportedly said he offered the generous deal because he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence.”
Barr’s father, Donald Barr, was also the headmaster of the elite Dalton School in New York in the 1970s when he reportedly hired Epstein as a teacher, despite Epstein having no college degree.
Barr refused to recuse himself from the 2019 sex-trafficking investigation into Epstein, but Valdes-Rodriguez argued it was what she described as Donald Trump’s “single greatest existential threat” that led her to believe Barr helped create the conditions that allowed Epstein to die in federal custody.
“Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends for decades. Trump called Epstein ‘a terrific guy’ who liked women ‘on the younger side.’ There are documented accusations against Trump in connection with Epstein’s network that have never been fully adjudicated,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.
"Epstein alive, in federal custody, facing trial, with his archive potentially accessible to prosecutors, was Donald Trump’s single greatest existential threat. Everything Trump had built – the presidency, the Russia relationship, the entire political project – was at risk as long as Epstein was alive and potentially talking to save his own skin."
Valdes-Rodriguez has uncovered several revelations as it relates to Epstein, largely revolving around his activity in New Mexico, including that his New Mexico property known as Zorro Ranch may have been used to surveil two U.S. nuclear weapons labs, and that the former chief federal prosecutor for the state had previously undisclosed ties to the disgraced financier.
A massive breach of Canadian voter data by a far-right separatist group is exposing what security experts say is a coordinated, cross-border assault on democratic institutions — one that bears striking resemblance to the Trump administration's aggressive push to seize American voter rolls.
In Alberta, a separatist-linked organization called the Centurion Project illegally obtained a database containing the names, home addresses and contact information of roughly 2.9 million voters, and the group's own organizer boasted that the software powering the operation had been presented to Donald Trump's White House, reported The Guardian.
Meanwhile, south of the border, Trump's Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to hand over their voter registration lists — a campaign that voting rights groups say is laying the groundwork for mass purges ahead of the November midterms – and the parallel is not lost on Canadian security officials.
"Data is a major force in modern politics, especially in the ways it can be leveraged," said Patrick Lennox, former manager of criminal intelligence for the RCMP's federal policing programs in Alberta. "Since Trump came back into power, he has destabilized democracy to the point where I don't think you can legitimately call it a democracy any more."
The Centurion Project's key architect, David Parker, is a veteran political organizer with documented ties to MAGA activists and far-right figures including Tucker Carlson. Parker has previously been fined by Elections Alberta for voting law violations, and the software underlying his voter-targeting app was developed by a U.S.-based company that has not been publicly identified.
“Parker is a shockingly effective political organizer. What he was doing was attempting to create a digital grassroots organizational tool, and on its face, there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Jen Gerson, an Alberta-based journalist. “But in order to populate the app that underlies the Centurion Project, he needed data.”
Security experts warn the breach may have already exposed Alberta's voter data to American data brokers operating under far weaker privacy protections than Canadian law provides, raising the prospect that foreign actors could exploit the information with impunity.
The Trump administration has also openly signaled support for Alberta's separatist movement as the 79-year-old president has repeatedly suggested Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, academics documented a surge in narratives questioning that country's sovereignty, and experts say that language is now being deployed against Canada.
"The Americans would like us to be as weak as possible," said Brian McQuinn of the University of Regina. "They are advancing their own interests — when it comes to trade, when it comes to weakening us in any way they can."
The panel on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” had a good laugh at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s expense on Monday morning after he lost an online battle over the weekend with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
Kelly has been a major target of Hegseth’s after he joined with other lawmakers who served in the military to advise current service members to remember their oath to the Constitution.
Over the weekend, the fighting between the two flared up again after the Arizona Democrat took a new shot at Hegseth’s prosecution of Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
Responding to a post on X from “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, who wrote, “After hearing the Pentagon classified brief on Iran war impact on US weapons stockpiles, Senator Mark Kelly says it is 'shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines.' He said the Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM-3, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds, so those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves have been hit hard. He says it'll take years to replenish those stockpiles, which could affect a hypothetical US conflict with China,” Hegseth linked to it and complained about Kelly.
“’Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review,” Hegseth threatened.
As MS NOW host Jonathan Lemire noted, Kelly was armed and ready for Hegseth’s attack.
“We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is,” Kelly fired back on X while including a clip of their interaction.
The led the entire “Morning Joe” panel to start laughing, with co-host Joe Scarborough pointing out, “He’s such a joke.”
He then added, “And instead of focusing on the war at hand, he's doing Donald Trump's bidding, trying to go after political enemies. Really, that's how he's spending his time.”
In solidly red Nebraska lies a “blue dot” around Omaha where Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris captured the majority of the vote in the last two presidential elections, but the incumbent Republican House representative kept his seat.
Now that Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) announced his plans to not seek re-election for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a crowded field of Democrats has lined up to compete in Tuesday’s primary, with the hope that the winner can flip the seat blue come November.
“We're a district that is really competitive and one that has been splitting its ticket,” said Crystal Rhoades, Democratic candidate and Douglas County clerk of the district court.
“It is a really unique opportunity for the Democrats to pick this up.”
As Democrats try to take back control of the House come November, they have their sights on the Nebraska district, which the Cook Political Report now ranks as leaning slightly blue from a toss-up.
However, an onslaught of negative ads focused on the top two Democratic fundraisers in the race, Nebraska State Sen. John Cavanaugh and Denise Powell, a political consultant and small business owner, may jeopardize the party’s chances of flipping the seat come November, other Democratic candidates say.
“It needs to have the right person, the right candidate, the right strategy, because if we don't, we're not going to win it,” said Kishla Askins, a Democratic candidate who is a retired naval officer and physician's assistant.
“That is the truth from the ground that people will either not show up, or my fear is that some of the dynamic in this primary is going to actually hurt people in the general, if they get through.”
Cavanaugh said there has been "a huge number of billionaires and dark money groups funding attacks against me." A newly formed Republican super PAC spent $200,000 to run ads against Cavanaugh in the final five days before the election, according to his campaign.
Democratic PACs backing Powell have run a series of ads against Cavanaugh as well, according to Nebraska Public Media.
Cavanaugh’s campaign has released ads attacking Powell as “Dark Money Denise.”
Powell campaign did not respond to Raw Story’s requests for comment.
“My experience over 20 years of doing this is that the voters do not like it when you attack another Democrat,” said Rhoades, who is the former Douglas County Democratic Party chair.
“The Powell and Cavanaugh camps have decided not to talk about anything other than each other, and the voters are really turned off by that. It appears to be affecting their chances in a really negative way.
“I think unfortunately, if John or Denise ends up being the nominee, it's going to be very difficult for them to bring the party together because of the vitriol between the two camps.”
The Democratic nominee will need to be someone who challenges “status quo politics” in order to beat the sole Republican candidate, Brinker Harding, said Melanie Williams, a Democratic Socialist candidate.
“I guarantee that the only person who would beat this man in November is someone who is advocating for progressive policies because that's different. Otherwise, it's just two politicians up against each other and voting for lesser evils, and people just stay home for that,” Williams said.
“After Donald Trump being elected twice now, we are in a position at this time where we have to meet this moment. It's not the same as two years ago, as two years before that. This moment is going to be the most important moment, I think, in all of our history, because we don't take back the House and or the Senate? I think all is lost, and we will not have a 2028 election.”
‘Risky endeavor’
Cavanaugh’s campaign has been criticized by some Democrats for putting the state’s “blue dot” at risk if he were to be elected in November, leaving a vacancy in the state legislature for the Republican governor to fill — presumably with a Republican.
Republicans already have a super majority in the Nebraska legislature, but if Cavanaugh was replaced by a Republican, state Democrats would need to flip at least two seats to stop a continued Republican supermajority. Nebraska is only one of two states that splits its electoral college votes.
If Cavanaugh wins, “Republicans will have the super majority that they need to redistrict to put us back to winner-take-all and to pass a heartbeat abortion ban, and they have been very plain and very public, and have made numerous statements publicly that that that is what they will do, and that is their intention,” Rhoades said.
“Electing John Cavanagh is an incredibly risky endeavor.”
On his campaign website, Cavanaugh calls such concerns “MAGA lies” and said a handful of Republicans are willing to protect the “blue dot.” He told Raw Story characterizations of his candidacy as jeopardizing the blue dot are "100 percent false, inaccurate."
Democrats have the chance to pick up five to 10 seats in the state legislature, and the millions spent attacking his campaign would be better spent helping elect those Democrats, Cavanaugh said.
The role of money in this election has concerned the voters, Cavanaugh said. Democratic candidates for the district have raised more than $3.9 million, according to the latest FEC filings.
"They want to hold Donald Trump accountable. They want to focus on affordability, grocery costs, fuel costs, access to health care, cost of health insurance, all of those things are definitely issues people want to focus on at the moment," Cavanaugh said.
"Almost everybody on the doors at this point is only talking about the absolute onslaught of dollars being spent in this race that's become what every conversation is at the door at this point.
Candidates have faced criticisms for the PAC money they’ve received, particularly from pro-Israel groups.
“We cannot credibly say we need money out of politics when we have candidates who are taking big money, so those candidates are just not going to make it in November,” Williams said.
‘Stop the partisanship’
Askins has centered her campaign around affordability, health care and accountability and said she has the best chance to win independent Republican votes.
“The action we do see coming out of the White House, it's tearing people apart. It's dividing us. It is causing people to lose their health care. It is causing farmers to struggle more than they've ever struggled before, and so we need to deliver for them, and we need to stop the partisanship and start building bridges, fighting for our people and taking bold action,” Askins said.
“We need to excite them now for ’26 with bold people that are actually delivering for them, so that when ’28 comes around, we've already started this process, and so we just need to listen and deliver.
“That's all they want. They're not asking anything huge. They're just asking for affordable health care. They're asking to have a job and be able to spend time with their family, to afford their first home, to be able to maybe take a vacation, to afford their groceries and maybe, maybe save some for retirement.”
The incumbent, Bacon, held onto his seat in part due to crossover votes he got from moderate Democrats and labor unions, Cavanaugh said.
"Bringing home those core constituencies and building the coalition of everyday Nebraskans, labor groups and environmentalists, seniors, working people, very broad coalition of the core Democratic constituencies will allow me to finally flip this seat," Cavanaugh said. "I think there's a real risk that the other candidates in this race can't put together that coalition."
Rhoades said the top concerns she’s hearing from voters involve “the chaos of the Trump administration and its impact on our democracy, and they're concerned about the cost of everything.”
“The point is not for us to just stop the Republicans from doing bad things to us. The point is to actually get enough representation in our government so that we can advance the policies that align with our values, and we're not going to be able to do that if we're giving away seats to MAGA Republicans,” Rhoades said.
Williams said she has been excluded from some candidate forums and took issue with the local Democratic Party pushing for the candidates to sign a pledge backing whoever wins on Tuesday.
“I am not a party loyalist. I'm not a blue hat, and I want to convince Republicans who have fallen away from Donald Trump now that they are seeing who he really is, how their lives are getting harder, and how their friends are getting swept up in these masked raids,” Williams said.
The other Democrat running in the race is disbarred immigration attorney and former Attorney General candidate, Evangelos “Van” Argyrakis.
“I would like to be known as the one who enacted comprehensive immigration reform legislation to preserve our immigrants rights and also to set up a pathway to citizenship,” Argyrakis told Nebraska Public Media. “A quick pathway to citizenship.”
Mark Johnston, who raised just over $10,000, withdrew from the race last summer, and James Leuschen, a Congressional economic policy staffer, will still appear on the ballot but dropped out in March.
South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns spent part of his weekend defending his involvement in the dedication of a 22-foot-tall, $400,000 gold-plated statue depicting President Donald Trump with a raised fist, and on Monday, journalist Prem Thakker issued him a particularly scathing rebuke over what he called the “hypocrisy of the religious right.”
The statue was erected at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Florida, with Burns heading a dedication ceremony last Wednesday.
After facing criticism that the statue bore a striking resemblance to a biblical tale involving a golden calf and warnings against false idols, Burns felt compelled to clarify that the golden Trump statue was “not,” in fact, “a ‘golden calf.’” He went on to stress the distinction between “worship and honor,” arguing that the Trump statue was an example of the latter, and not the former.
“Of course, one reason the claim that such a display is not blasphemous rings hollow – or indeed the claim that it’s not as if Trump dedicated the statue to himself – is that Trump posted a photo depicting himself as Jesus, just weeks ago. And has got into repeated fights with the pope,” Thakker argued in an analysis published Monday in Zeteo.
“But then, why bother counting such absurdities? We should remember that the hypocrisy of the religious right has been exposed again and again. The world knows it’s less concerned with faith in a higher power dedicated to universalist ideals than with faith in whatever enables it to wield the highest power over all. And the unholy essence of religious right support for the Trump administration is the ultimate case in point.”
Beyond Trump’s ongoing feud with the head of the Catholic Church and social media posts that even some of his strongest supporters have called “blasphemous,” Thakker argued that praising Trump despite his long list of controversies – particularly coming from an evangelical minister – was unbecoming of someone carrying the title of “pastor.”
“No higher power of mine, or of any normal person, blesses a sexual abuser, a proud racist, a bloodthirsty warmonger, whose foremost accomplishments include bombing schoolchildren and covering up files related to one of the most infamous pedophiles ever to walk the earth,” Thakker wrote.
“If a ‘pastor’ can excuse all that, and more, what difference can a gold-colored statue possibly make?”
A Donald Trump admin official took the time Sunday night to chastise one of the greatest basketball legends in history.
It all started with a video posted by LA Mayor Karen Bass, who is currently in a fight to keep her position against both Democratic and Republican challengers.
In the video on Bass' social media, Magic Johnson can be seen endorsing the politician. "I go back with her probably 30 years," Johnson said before citing some of Bass' purported successes in office.
In the caption for the video, Bass wrote, "Magic Johnson has been my friend for over 30 years. His belief in how I'm changing Los Angeles means everything to me. Magic has poured his heart into this city long before anyone asked him to — through investment, through community, through showing up. I am deeply honored to have his endorsement."
But that didn't sit well with Trump official Richard Grenell, who called the move, "Beyond pathetic."
"Los Angeles is in terrible shape and you want Karen Bass to be re-elected because she’s your friend?!" Grenell asked Sunday night, tagging the athlete in the post. "What a selfish move."
Congressional Republicans are struggling to defend rising gas prices after years of using fuel costs as a political weapon against Democrats, with some lawmakers reversing previous messaging while others remain silent on the issue.
Gas prices have surged nearly 50 percent since President Donald Trump launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28, and the spike presents a sharp reversal for Republicans who spent years blaming former President Joe Biden for rising fuel costs, reported NOTUS.
“Isn’t that the only argument you can have right now?” said one Republican operative involved in midterm contests. “It affects our voters more than their voters. We live farther apart from each other ... You hope and pray it’s temporary.”
Some Republicans have attempted to minimize the current price increases by comparing them to higher prices under Biden. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) claimed on CNBC that gas prices under Biden reached "almost $6 a gallon," a figure that even conservative host Joe Kernen disputed as inaccurate.
Vulnerable Republicans facing reelection are employing various strategies. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI), who previously warned Michigan families about high gas prices, now redirects questions about current prices to Iran's nuclear program.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) shifted from 2024 campaign messaging about cost-of-living crises to claiming Washington brought prices down, later telling CNN that higher prices were "absolutely worth it" for the Iran war.
Other lawmakers have opted for silence. Reps. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and David Valadao (R-CA) have largely avoided public comments on the issue despite running 2024 campaigns emphasizing gas and grocery costs.
GOP operatives worry the issue will become ingrained in voters' minds before the Fourth of July, preventing recovery even if prices decline later. Democrats are capitalizing on the shift, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee declaring vulnerable Republicans "got caught in a lie" and promising to keep gas prices "front and center" through November's midterms.
A senior Senate GOP aide rejected the comparison to Biden-era prices as ineffective, noting high fertilizer costs compound the problem in farm states, and Republican strategists acknowledge that arguing the price hikes are temporary can only go so far with voters.
"I can't with a straight face come up with anything better," said the Republican operative working on midterm campaigns.
The House Oversight Committee is grappling with a fraught dilemma as it prepares to question Sarah Kellen, a key associate of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, about her role in his crimes — with committee members sharply divided over whether she was a victim of his abuse or an active co-conspirator who should face prosecution.
According to reporting from Politico, there is agreement among committee members, led by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), that Kellen should testify on May 21. However, the committee is deeply divided over how aggressively to question her.
Kellen was one of four women named as possible co-conspirators in the controversial 2007 agreement with Florida federal prosecutors that granted all of them immunity while allowing Epstein to serve minimal jail time instead of facing federal sex-trafficking charges.
Some hardline Republican members are taking an uncompromising stance. "There is a list of four alleged victims that took plea deals that I think are co-conspirators and got let off the hook," said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). "And I'd like to bring them in."
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) was even more forceful, stating: "If you're an adult female and you're recruiting underage girls, you're not a victim. You're a prostitute, a child predator, and a sex trafficker. Certainly the adult women that were recruiting underage girls should go to jail."
However, Kellen has proven to be a uniquely complicated subject, Politico is reporting. In the aftermath of Epstein's 2019 suicide while awaiting trial, federal prosecutors actively debated whether to prosecute her. According to documents released in the Epstein files, Manhattan prosecutors discussed potential witness tampering charges and submitted a prosecution memo to then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
But Kellen argued she was a victim of Epstein's abuse, and prosecutors ultimately decided not to bring charges against her.
Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA), a panel member who previously worked in the San Francisco District Attorney's office, cautioned against aggressive questioning without understanding trauma dynamics, the report notes.
"For folks who are not trauma-informed, and folks who don't understand this world, I think it can be an easy 'yes, we should charge this woman,'" Simon told Politico. "It's a conversation that should be taken seriously."
Simon said she has been providing committee staff with "resources [on] how we look at how we treat and support survivors while they're coming here, how to look at women who historically have been in these situations."
The committee is currently facing mounting pressure to surface new information following the Justice Department's chaotic release of Epstein files — particularly as law enforcement in the United Kingdom has arrested Epstein associates while the U.S. has lagged behind.
Comer acknowledged that disagreements about victim versus perpetrator status have complicated the investigation.
"That is honestly one of the reasons why there's been issues getting documents — [DOJ] released documents, and some of the victims say, 'oh my gosh, you didn't redact the names' … Well, they were victimizers too. Like they recruited other girls to come in. But they, I do believe, were victimized. This is a tough issue," Comer said.
Recent court rulings favoring Republican redistricting efforts have energized GOP strategists heading into the midterm elections, but Democrats remain hopeful of their prospects for flipping the House.
Senior Republican strategists outlined an optimistic midterm strategy centered on favorable redistricting in additional states, a summer campaign around "America 250" celebrating the nation's 250th birthday and a midterm convention to maintain momentum, reported NOTUS.
“We will make sure that people are aware of the fact that we are the party of patriotism and love of country, and the Democrats are just, I mean, there’s polling to support me on this,” said one Republican strategist. “They are not proud to be Americans. It’s very obvious, and they can’t help themselves.”
The U.S. Supreme Court turbocharged the state-by-state redistricting wars, and Democrats were hit with a significant blow last week when the Virginia Supreme Court struck downa new congressional map recently approved by voters – which allowed doubts to creep into the minds of some Democratic strategists.
One Democratic operative told reporters it was the first time they seriously doubted whether the party could gain House control in November, but that's not necessarily a universal belief .
Democrats note that outside of district lines, Republicans face significant headwinds. President Donald Trump's approval ratings remain historically low, and gas prices continue rising.
“It’s not just that he’s unpopular," said one senior Democrat. "It’s that he’s really unpopular and he’s starting to show cracks with Republicans – and where this can get truly ugly for them is we have a turnout differential.”
Democrats point to substantial fundraising gains following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision weakening the Voting Rights Act, and anticipate that aggressive partisan gerrymandering of majority-Black districts in the South could energize voter turnout.
Yet Democrats face emerging challenges beyond redistricting. The redrawn districts in the South will likely result in fewer Black Democratic lawmakers, complicating efforts to maintain party unity among its multi-racial coalition heading into November's elections.
