Finally some good news! Democrats won big in yesterday’s elections, as voters sent a clear message to Trump. Democrats won the four big races: Virginia governor, New Jersey governor, New York City mayor, and California redistricting question. They also won less publicized races.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger has defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears to flip control of the Virginia governorship, NBC News projects, setting her up to become the first woman to lead the state.
Abigail Spanberger acceptance speech
Spanberger, a former congresswoman, won the race in the blue-leaning state after holding polling and fundraising advantages throughout the campaign. Her victory provides Democrats with a shot of momentum as the party attempts to chart its path forward after its 2024 election defeat.
With an estimated 95% of the vote in, Spanberger had 57.4% of the vote, compared to 42.4% for Earle-Sears.
Virginia was one of two states, along with New Jersey, that held the first governor’s races of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Spanberger, 47, centered her campaign heavily on economic and affordability issues, as well public safety and her support for abortion rights. Her campaign and allied groups attacked Earle-Sears over her conservative record on social issues and her fealty to Trump.
“Tonight, we sent message,” Spanberger said in victory speech in Richmond. “We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025 Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.”
In a rebuke to President Donald Trump, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Virginia’s gubernatorial race Tuesday, part of a Democratic sweep of statewide races. Her support for constitutional amendments on redistricting and voting rights restoration could make it easier to pass both pro-democracy measures.
Spanberger, a former U.S. Representative and CIA official, will replace term-limited Glenn Youngkin (R) in Richmond, after defeating Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears (R) to become Virginia’s first female governor. Spanberger ran a staunchly anti-Trump campaign.
In another sign of Democratic strength, former delegate Jay Jones (D) unseated incumbent Jason Miyares (R) in the attorney general’s race — a contest many observers had expected Miyares to win after Jones was mired in a texting scandal. And State Sen. Ghazala F. Hashmi (D) won the Lt. Governor’s race over Republican radio host John Reid, becoming the first Muslim woman to win a statewide race in the U.S.
“Commonwealth voters made it clear what they were looking for from their next governor: lower costs, good jobs, affordable health care, and strong schools. And tonight, those same voters made it clear who they want to lead: Abigail Spanberger,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “With tonight’s victory, Virginians also delivered a resounding rejection of the self-serving and corrupt Trump establishment.”
Down ballot, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) announced that the party had maintained control of the Virginia House of Delegates. “With several key races yet to be called, Democrats have already secured enough seats to protect their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates tonight – the most competitive legislative chamber on the ballot this year,” the DLCC said in a statement.
That would mean Democrats hold a trifecta of both chambers of the General Assembly and the governor’s mansion as they push for a series of pro-democratic reforms next year.
Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill won the New Jersey governor’s race, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Jack Ciattarelli after a hard-fought contest in which President Donald Trump loomed over voters’ choice.
Governor Elect Mikie Sherrill speaks to the crowd at the Hilton East Brunswick on Election Night. November 4, 2025
Sherrill worked to make the race a referendum on the president, casting Ciattarelli as a Trump acolyte who will not stand up to the president….
Trump made gains across the country in 2024, but his second-biggest gain in any state came in New Jersey. The president lost the state by 6 points last year, a 10-point improvement over his margin in the 2020 election. Now, Sherrill’s victory sends a signal that Republicans can’t expect those improved results from Trump to represent a straight line forward into future elections. Instead, the party is facing headwinds, as voters react to the president’s handling of the economy and other issues.
Following Trump’s closer-than-expected finish in 2024, the New Jersey governor’s race drew more than $100 million in ad spending from both parties, according to AdImpact. The contest presented an early test, ahead of next year’s midterm elections, of how to appeal to swingy Latino voters and navigate rising costs, especially for electricity. Democrats also looked to energize their party’s core supporters, particularly Black voters, while Republicans confronted the persistent challenge of turning out Trump’s supporters when he is not on the ballot.
A majority of New Jersey voters (54%) disapproved of Trump’s job as president and nearly two-thirds were dissatisfied or angry about the direction of the country, according to the NBC News exit poll.
Trump was also a factor for a slim majority of New Jersey voters, with Sherrill winning virtually all of the 38% of voters who said their vote was to oppose Trump, while Ciattarelli won the 13% of voters who said their vote was to support Trump.
Democrat Zohran Mamdani has won New York’s mayoral race, NBC News projects, after the 34-year-old democratic socialist energized progressives in the city and across the country while generating intense backlash from President Donald Trump and Republicans, as well as some Democratic moderates.
Zohran Mamdami wins NYC mayoral race.
In his victory speech after vanquishing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani claimed a broad mandate and set himself up in direct opposition to Trump, who made a late endorsement against him. “In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light,” Mamdani said.
“Together, we will usher in a generation of change, and if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves,” Mamdani said later, before challenging Trump directly.
“This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one,” Mamdani said. “So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”
Trump wasn’t the only subject of Mamdani’s speech, which he started by quoting the 19th- and 20th-century American socialist Eugene Debs and continued by promising the “most ambitious agenda” to address costs in New York City since the administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia nearly 100 years ago.
Mamdani defeated Cuomo, who ran as a third-party candidate after losing the Democratic primary in June, by about 9 points, with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa trailing far behind. Mayor Eric Adams, who also mounted a third-party campaign for re-election after he won as a Democrat in 2021, dropped out of the race in September and endorsed Cuomo last month.
Voters in California on Tuesday approved a high-stakes redistricting measure, a national triumph for Democrats hoping to stop Donald Trump and Republicans from retaining full control of the federal government in next year’s midterm elections.
It was a decisive victory for Democrats in deep-blue California, who had raced to counter a gerrymander in Texas, engineered at the US president’s behest, to carve out new safe Republican districts. The Associated Press declared Proposition 50 had passed almost instantly when polls closed statewide.
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks after Prop. 50 win.
“We stood stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness, and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared with unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result,” Gavin Newsom, the California governor, who spearheaded the initiative said in a speech at the Democratic party headquarters in Sacramento….
In approving the measure, voters chose to toss out the work of California’s independent redistricting commission and temporarily adopt maps drawn by the state legislature to help Democrats pick up five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
Newsom and Democrats framed the measure as a way to safeguard US democracy from Trump’s “wrecking ball” presidency….
Democrats hold 43 of the state’s 52 House seats. The new maps are drawn to help Democrats flip as many as five of the nine Republican-held seats in the state. It could also help make several swing seats easier for Democrats to win.
Five seats could be decisive in the fight to retake control of the House, a chamber likely to be decided by razor-thin margins. The party that wins the majority will shape the final years of Trump’s second term in the White House – whether a unified Republican Congress will continue to deliver on his agenda or whether he will be met with resistance, investigations and possibly even a third impeachment attempt.
There were some notable victories for Democrats in the deep South:
After 13 years, Mississippi Democrats have broken the Republican Party’s supermajority in the Mississippi Senate. Voters elected Democrats to two seats previously held by Republicans, reducing the number of Republican senators in the upper chamber from 36 to 34—one fewer than necessary to constitute a supermajority.
When a party has supermajority status in the Mississippi Senate, it can more easily override a governor’s veto, propose constitutional amendments and execute certain procedural actions.
Johnny DuPree
The Mississippi Democratic Party called the victory “a historic rebuke of extremism.”
“Breaking the supermajority means restoring checks and balances—and ensuring that every Mississippian’s voice counts in their state government,” Mississippi Democratic Party Vice Chair Jodie Brown said in a party press release this morning.
In the Mississippi Pine Belt region, Democrat Johnny DuPree won Senate District 45, previously held by Republican Sen. Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg. In North Mississippi, Democrat Theresa Gillespie Isom won the Senate District 2 seat held by Republican Sen. David Parker of Olive Branch, who decided not to run for reelection.
Republicans had held a supermajority in the Senate since sweeping the state government in 2011.
In the House, Democrat Justin Crosby also flipped House District 22, defeating incumbent Republican House Rep. Jon Lancaster. That district includes parts of Chickasaw, Clay and Monroe counties.
Elena Schneider, Erin Doherty and Jessica Piper at Politico:
For Democrats, Tuesday night felt like 2017 all over again.
All across the country, Democrats won big, from the marquee races to the down-ballot contests. Counties that had shifted right a year ago veered back to the left, and the suburbs that powered Democrats’ massive wins in the first Trump administration came roaring back. Exit polls even showed Democrats improved their margins with non-college educated voters.
The strength of the wins hints at Democrats’ appetite to take on Trump as he ends his first year in office and voters’ concerns about cost of living.
Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.
But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them….
Democrats rode the traditional, party-out-of-power tailwinds, reenergizing their own base by pushing back on Trump’s second-term policies that have alarmed liberals. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s messaging on the stagnant economy and affordability crisis helped their party bounce back in its first political test of the second Trump era — and by margins that even surprised some Democrats.
Last November, Donald Trump won a return to the White House amid broad national dissatisfaction with the state of the country. A year later, CNN exit polling finds voters expressing similar pessimism and anti-incumbent sentiments — this time, helping to fuel a sweep of Democratic victories in some of the first major electoral tests of the second Trump presidency.
Across four closely watched contests — the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, the mayoral race in New York City and the redistricting-related Proposition 50 in California — majorities of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance. In Virginia, New Jersey and California, more than half of the electorate sees their vote as sending a message to Trump. That message, largely one of opposition, helped to propel Democratic gubernatorial wins by Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. In California, it helped seal support for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral race, meanwhile, may owe more to local concerns about issues like cost of living. But it also reflects a loss for former governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Trump endorsed at the last minute.
Tuesday’s Democratic victories come despite middling ratings for the Democratic Party, with Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani winning 16% to 33% of the vote among voters who dislike their party.
Yesterday was a very good day for Democrats and a very bad day for both MAGA and the oligarchy. If I were a properly house-trained pundit, I would immediately follow that statement by throwing some shade at Democrats. But this was a blowout, pure and simple.
Here are a few takes on what just happened:
The polls beat the pundits
Nobody should have been surprised that Democrats had a very good night. These elections were, as expected, largely a referendum on Donald Trump, and polling says that Trump is very, very unpopular. Even if you dismissed Trump’s dismal approval rating as fake news, there were plenty of other indications that Trump would drag his party down. The second No Kings Day was the largest one-day demonstration since Earth Day in 1970. Democrats have been outperforming by something like 15 points in special elections. And pollingaverages favored Democrats in key races.
So everything pointed to big Dem gains, although the scale of the victories was a surprise. There had been a steady drumbeat of warnings that Mikie Sherrill, in particular, might be in trouble. Instead she won in a 13-point landslide….
It’s still (largely) the economy, stupid
The 2024 election was mainly about economics. There was a big runup in prices in 2021-22, as the world economy, recovering from Covid, experienced a lot of supply-chain bottlenecks. This price surge, coming after decades of low inflation, upset voters. Biden administration officials could and did point out that it was a one-time price hike, that inflation — the rate of change of prices — fell rapidly from its 2022 peak, and was back to more or less normal levels by 2024. They could also point out that America’s inflation experience was very similar to the experiences of other nations, e.g. in Europe, indicating that global factors rather than Democratic policies were the main culprit.
But voters were unmoved by these arguments, if they heard about them at all. What they did hear was Donald Trump promising not just to reduce inflation but to bring prices way back down. And many of them believed him.
Of course, Trump didn’t have a plan, or even a concept of a plan, about how to accomplish this. Instead he imposed tariffs and began deporting immigrant workers, both of which raised prices….
So prices haven’t come down; instead, inflation has accelerated. And the job market has gotten worse. Thanks to the shutdown, we’re not getting official employment numbers, but I’ve been looking at private surveys. One number I find especially striking is the Conference Board’s “labor market differential,” the difference between the percentage of Americans who say jobs are “plentiful” and those who say jobs are “hard to get.” This number is way down, which says that ordinary Americans perceive a very tough job market.
In the most significant economic case to reach the Supreme Court in years, the justices are weighing whether President Donald Trump acted lawfully when he imposed sweeping emergency tariffs against most global trading partners. Those actions have been challenged by a group of small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as a dozen states.
• Early in arguments, President Donald Trump’s attorney faced deep skepticism from several key conservative justices. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh all pressed on the administration’s arguments for imposing tariffs.
• Both sides frame the appeal in existential terms, with Trump warning that a ruling against him could have “catastrophic” consequences for the nation’s economic health. The companies challenging the policy say the on-again-off-again tariff announcements have driven costs – and uncertainty – to intolerable levels.
• Plaintiff arguments are now underway.
Follow live updates and expert commentary at the CNN link.
What may be the biggest battle yet in Donald Trump’s trade war is getting under way.
The US Supreme Court is hearing arguments over the legality of the Trump administration’s tariffs, as a number of small businesses and a group of states contend most of them are illegal and should be struck down.
If the court agrees with them, Trump’s trade strategy would be upended, including the sweeping global tariffs he first announced in April. The government would also likely have to refund some of the billions of dollars it has collected through the tariffs, which are taxes on imports.
Following Wednesday’s hearing, the justices will pore over the arguments and discuss the merits of the case, which could take months. Eventually they will hold a vote.
Trump has described the fight in epic terms, warning a loss would tie his hands in trade negotiations and imperil national security….
Trump previously said that if he does not win the case the US would be “weakened” and in a “financial mess” for many years to come.
The stakes feel just as high for many businesses in the US and abroad, which have been paying the price while getting whipped about by fast-changing policies.
A jury in Washington D.C. started hearing Tuesday the case against the man who agrees he threw a footlong at a federal agent surged into Washington D.C. by Donald Trump in August. The 12 citizens have to decide if DOJ paralegal Sean Dunn is guilty of misdemeanor assault, or was simply exercising his First Amendment rights.
FBI and Border Patrol officers speak with Sean Charles Dunn, after he allegedly assaulted law enforcement with a sandwich. Getty Images
Convicting Dunn, who was fired from his job, has become a personal mission for Trump’s United States District Attorney in D.C., Fox News personality “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, who failed to get a grand jury to agree to felony charges. She then took the rare step of pursuing a misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer instead.
Dunn is accused of shouting “f—ing fascists” at a group of federal agents outside a Subway 14th St. N.W. in D.C. at 11p.m. on Sunday August 10. Prosecutors allege he said, “F— you! You f—ing fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” before “winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich” at Border Patrol Agent Gregory Lairmore.
Footage of the sandwich stand-off went viral almost instantly and Dunn was quickly identified, fired, called a member of the “deep state” by Pirro and finally arrested in a SWAT-style raid on his home filmed by the DOJ and released gleefully by the White House. If convicted, Dunn would face a maximum of six months in jail and a $1000 fine.
Dunn’s attorney, Julia Gatto, told the jury Tuesday that Dunn “did it,” saying, “He threw the sandwich,” CNN reported.
But then the defense turned the proceedings upside down by effectively putting Lairmore on trial.
“The sandwich kind of exploded all over my uniform,” Lairmore initially told the jury. “It smelled of onions and mustard.”
A second defense attorney Sabrina Shroff, however, showed a photo of an almost intact sandwich lying on the ground.“In fact that sandwich hasn’t exploded at all,” she said.
“From the photo it looks bent and out of shape,” the officer said.
“Can you tell if it’s a turkey sandwich?” Shroff asked him. “Lettuce? Tomatoes?”
More silly stuff at the link.
That’s all I have for you today. I’m feeling more optimistic after yesterday’s elections, and I hope you are too.
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Many thanks to JJ for writing the post yesterday. My internet was out for close to 24 hours. I could still access the internet from my phone, but I really missed TV. I usually have it on MSNBC with sound muted so I will know what’s happening in news and politics. That’s the longest cable outage I’ve experienced in years.
The same horrible news was happening when the TV came back on. I don’t know why I keep watching it. Lately I’ve been trying to distract myself by watching streaming shows on Netflix and HBO/MAX. I really enjoyed “Task” and “Mare of Easttown.” Right now I’m having fun watching Dept Q. My biggest problem with these shows is that I have trouble stopping myself from just binging all the episodes at once.
Anyway, here are the latest happenings that caught my attention this morning.
Here in Boston, there was an explosion at Harvard Medical School.
A view of the Harvard Medical School in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Photograph Brian SnyderReuters
A device exploded inside the Goldenson Building in Harvard’s Longwood medical campus early Saturday morning, according to a message from the Harvard University Police Department to University affiliates.
The Boston Fire Department Arson Unit responded to the incident and determined the explosion to be intentional.
The explosion took place on an area of the fourth floor of Goldenson, a Harvard Medical School building on the school’s main quad. An officer who responded shortly before 3 a.m. observed two individuals fleeing the building, according to the email sent by HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano this afternoon.
HUPD sent a subsequent email to Harvard affiliates shortly after 5 p.m. asking for assistance identifying two men, who they described as suspects. The images were captured on security footage.
Both men are shown wearing sweatshirts with hoods and ski masks.
The Boston Police Department performed a sweep of the building and determined there were no additional devices in the building. No injuries were reported in relation to the incident….
HUPD is actively investigating the incident with local, state, and federal authorities. The FBI was on scene Saturday afternoon assisting HUPD, according to FBI spokesperson Kristen M. Setera.
Police are investigating an “intentional” explosion at a Harvard University medical building early Saturday morning.
Surveillance views of suspects in Harvard Medical School explosion
A fire alarm at the Goldenson Building, part of Harvard’s medical campus in Boston, went off at 2:48 a.m. A Harvard University Police Department officer who responded to the call saw two “unidentified individuals fleeing from the building,” Harvard police said in a statement….
The university released photos on Saturday evening of two individuals captured on CCTV footage. One was depicted wearing a balaclava, and the other wearing a hoodie with the hood raised and a face covering.
The university asked for the public’s help in identifying the individuals.
U.S. forces carried out a strike on another suspected drug boat in international waters, killing all three people on board, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said late Saturday.
He said the boat was in the Caribbean Sea and was known by U.S. intelligence as a drug-smuggling vessel. The three males on board were described as “narco-terrorists” associated with a “Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth said.
“This vessel—like EVERY OTHER—was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said in a post on his X account, which did not include any evidence for the claims….
The strike is at least the 15th since early September against vessels and crews in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has claimed were involved with drug trafficking. At least 64 people have been killed in the strikes, according to official estimates.
Hegseth claimed that boats like the one struck in the Caribbean are part of an effort by narco-terrorists to “poison Americans at home” and reiterated his policy to treat the alleged smugglers “EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda,” he said.
“We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them,” Hegseth said.
I think they are lying. Until I see/hear some evidence, I’m going to assume these are just fishing boats.
A top Justice Department lawyer has told lawmakers that the Trump administration can continue its lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America — and is not bound by a decades-old law requiring Congress to give approval for ongoing hostilities.
T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel, made his remarks to a small group of lawmakers this week amid signs that the president may be planning to escalate the military campaign in the region, including potentially hitting targets within Venezuela.
One of Trump’s murderous “drug boat” strikes
The president needs lawmakers’ approval for sustained military action under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which was passed in the wake of the Vietnam War to prevent another drawn-out, undeclared conflict.
A 60-day clock started ticking after the administration informed Congress on Sept. 4 that it had conducted a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean two days earlier. It has followed that with other strikes and has killed dozens of people.
The 60-day window closes Monday, and until now it had been unclear what the administration would do.
Gaiser said the administration didnot believe the strikes met the definition of hostilities under the law and did not intend to seek an extension of the deadline nor Congress’s approval of ongoing action, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“The administration appears to be blowing through the 60-day limit,” a senior congressional aide said.
What’s their explanation?
Asked for comment, a senior administration official said the War Powers Resolution did not pertain to the current situation, because, “even at its broadest … [it] has been understood to apply to placing U.S. service-members in harm’s way.”
The official said the administration does not believe U.S. troops are in danger in the ongoing operation, so the law did not apply.“The operation comprises precise strikes conducted largely by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels in international waters at distances too far away for the crews of the targeted vessels to endanger American personnel,” the official said in an email.
US warship docks in Trinidad and Tobago as Trump steps up military pressure on Venezuela.
In essence, the official said, “the kinetic operations underway do not rise to the level of ‘hostilities.’”
National security experts challenged the administration’s interpretation.
“What they’re saying is anytime the president uses drones or any standoff weapon against someone who cannot shoot back, it’s not hostilities‚” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser to the State Department who is now a senior adviser for the U.S. program at the International Crisis Group. “It’s a wild claim of executive authority.”
If the government ignores the Monday deadline, he said, “it is usurping Congress’s authority over the use of military force.” Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war.
Trump couldn’t care less about the War Powers Act or any other law.
The large-scalebuildup of U.S. military forces and assets in the Caribbean suggests that the Trump administration may be preparing to expand operations in the region, escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas and raising the possibility of the first U.S. strikes on Venezuela.
U.S. forces in the Caribbean include eight Navy warships, a special operations vessel and a nuclear-powered attack submarine. When the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford arrives in the Caribbean next week, it will bring with it three more warships and more than 4,000 additional troops.
President Donald Trump has indicated that he is planning for increased operations against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but when asked on Friday whether he is considering military strikes inside Venezuela, he replied “no.”
Use the gift link to view graphic depictions of the U.S. military buildup in near Venezuela.
In addition to the Naval buildup, the Pentagon has flown bombers along Venezuela’s coastline in a show of force and moved assets to U.S. bases in the area, including one in Puerto Rico that is now housing F-35 fighter jets, according to Washington Post analysis of satellite images.
The Pentagon has acknowledged carrying out more than a dozen strikes on alleged drug boats, killing at least 61 people since September.
From the beginning, the Pentagon’s buildup in the Caribbean has far exceeded what was needed for a counternarcotics operation, suggesting the mission was always “set to evolve,” said Ryan Berg, the director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
But Berg said the addition of the carrier strike group could indicate that the expanded operations are imminent. “The competition for these vessels is tremendous,” he said, because only three are deployed at any one time. Once the Ford arrives in the Caribbean next week, “It’s going to start a clock ticking and Trump will have about a month or so to make a major decision on a strike before he has to move” the vessel elsewhere.
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he has instructed the Defense Department to “prepare for possible action” in Nigeria over the country’s alleged killing of Christians.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote on social media.
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!” Trump added.
“The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately,” Hegseth said on X. “The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
On Sunday morning, Nigerian presidency spokesperson Daniel Bwala said the country would welcome U.S. assistance in fighting Islamist insurgents “as long as it recognises our territorial integrity.”
He told Reuters: “I am sure by the time these two leaders meet and sit, there would be better outcomes in our joint resolve to fight terrorism.”
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commented Saturday morning after Trump identified his country as one of “particular concern,” writing on X that the “characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality.”
So now we’re going to fight new crusades? Sounds like something Hegseth would love.
Democrats have an early lead in next year’s battle for control of Congress amid an ongoing government shutdown, as more voters say President Donald Trump has not lived up to their expectations on several major issues that propelled him back to the White House in 2024, according to a new national NBC News poll.
Around two-thirds of registered voters say the Trump administration has fallen short on the economy and the cost of living, and a majority say he’s fallen short on changing business as usual in Washington. At the same time, the Democratic Party continues to suffer from low ratings from voters as it seeks to offer an alternative.
Meanwhile, the issue of protecting democracy and constitutional rights are top issues to voters, alongside costs, as Trump continues an expansive agenda of executive actions on immigration and other key policy areas. And a majority of voters believe he’s done more to undermine the Constitution than defend it.
The president’s overall approval rating in the survey sits at 43%, a 4-point decrease since March, while 55% disapprove of his job performance.
And one year before the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats lead Republicans in the fight for Congress by 8 points, 50%-42%, the largest lead for either party on the congressional ballot in the NBC News poll since the 2018 midterms. Democrats had a negligible 1-point edge, 48%-47%, in the March survey.
Americans are increasingly voicing concern about the shutdown’s impact on the U.S. economy, as a big majority feel Congress isn’t even working to try to end it.
There’s also increased worry from people over being personally affected, particularly among those with lower incomes, along with that concern about national impact.
Politically, that means no one is “winning” overall: Congressional Democrats, Republicans and President Trump are all drawing increasingly negative marks for their handling of it as it has gone on.
Democrats express more concern over the economic impact than Republicans do.
Other governmental functions, including air travel, also draw concern due to the shutdown.
Most disapprove of how all the players involved are handling it, and those views have become a bit more negative over October, the month when the shutdown began.
In a bitterly divided country, pessimism and cynicism reign supreme: Two-thirds of Americans say it is at least probably true that the government often deliberately lies to the people. That distrust cuts across partisan lines: Strong majorities of Donald Trump voters (64 percent) and Kamala Harris voters (70 percent) agree.
Is the American dream dead?
Nearly half of Americans, 49 percent, say that the best times of the country are behind them, according to The POLITICO Poll by Public First. That’s greater than the 41 percent who said the best times lie ahead, underscoring a pervasive sense of unease about both individuals’ own futures and the national direction.
The exclusive new poll, conducted nearly one year after Trump’s reelection, reveals a deep strain of pessimism across the electorate — but especially for Democrats.
People who voted for Harris last year are twice as likely as Trump voters to say the United States’ best times are in the past.
America, as a country, is like “someone who is feeling lost, confused, or beat up … or uncertain of what to do, and looking around and saying this isn’t right, this isn’t the way,” said Maury Giles, the CEO of Braver Angels, a nonprofit that works to bridge partisan divides.
Sounds about right. Read the rest at Politico.
News about Trump’s health
Trump recently admitted he had an MRI when during his second “yearly checkup” at Walter Reid. He also disappeared for 6 days around Labor Day, then appeared at the 9/11 ceremony with the right side of his face drooping. What’s going on?
President Trump’s off-the-cuff disclosure that he underwent an MRI scan is raising fresh questions about the secrecy surrounding Trump’s health and the need for presidents to be more transparent.
Trump is the oldest person to be elected president, and his aides and allies have long projected him as the picture of strength and vitality.
Outside physicians initially raised questions after Trump visited Walter Reed Military Medical Center earlier this month for what the White House described as a routine follow-up visit, though it was his second visit in six months.
A note from his physician pronounced Trump in “excellent overall health.”
Later, Trump disclosed that he underwent an MRI and a cognitive test during the secondary physical.
The Hill talked to a former White House doctor:
Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician to three presidents and wrote a book about his experience called “Transforming Presidential Healthcare,” said he wasn’t surprised a 79-year-old man needed a second checkup and that it’s typical for presidents to go to Walter Reed for advanced imaging.
Trump’s drooping face on 9/11
“Most any procedure scope, I had the capabilities there at the White House. The only thing I couldn’t, that I’d have to Walter Reed for, is advanced imaging,” Kuhlman said.
But Kuhlman questioned the timeline of the treatment that was released by Trump’s physician Sean Barbabella. Aside from the MRI, other testing and preventive health screening could have been done in the White House doctor’s office in less than 15 minutes.
“It’s about an eight-minute helicopter ride from the South Lawn to Walter Reed. So we know that he at least had four hours available to undergo medical care,” Kuhlman said.
“There’s a disconnect there.”
There certainly is. Read the rest at The Hill, including the long history of lies about various presidents’ health.
President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he had undergone an MRI scan during a recent checkup at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center but has remained tight-lipped about what prompted the examination, leading to one medical expert raising serious questions as to the president’s health.
“It’s not part of a routine screening examination,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst who’s certified in interventional cardiology and internal medicine, speaking on the network Monday.
“There’s been really a lack of candor coming from the White House about this,” Reiner added. “When they announced that the president would visit Walter Reed at the beginning of this month, they initially said it was for his annual checkup, but when they were reminded that that’s not due until April, they said ‘okay, it’s for a routine semi-annual checkup.’”
Trump revealed the surprise medical visit while aboard Air Force One on his way to Japan and called the MRI scan he received “perfect.” At 79 years old, Trump is the second-oldest president to ever hold office – behind only former President Joe Biden – with questions having been raised about his health after photographs of his hands and ankles have shown bruising and swelling, respectively….
“The big question is what prompted his MRI?” Reiner said. “What symptoms were they concerned about, what particular type of MRI was performed? Was it a brain MRI, was it a cardiac MRI, was it an MRI of the spine, of his prostate… what prompted the concern that would take him in a relatively unscheduled way to Walter Reed for this testing?”
“Why won’t they tell us exactly what was tested, why the testing was performed, and the results?” the physician added. “I think without that, there’s really no trust. Just tell the public what’s going on with the president!”
And these two doctors aren’t even dealing with the danger of Trump’s obvious cognitive issues.
I’m getting a late start today after a night of tossing and turning. The news is depressing, as usual. Crazy Grandpa Trump is making an complete ass of himself on his Asian trip, where he’s temporarily left behind all the messes he’s left us with here.
People walk along a road during the passing of Hurricane Melissa in Rocky Point, Jamaica, on Tuesday. Matias Delacroix AP
Before I get to the politics news, here’s a brief update from CNN on the devastation Hurricane Melissa is leaving in her wake.
• Severe damage: Melissa hit Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, caused major damage to public infrastructure and left most of the island without power. The full extent of the devastation there is unclear with some areas inaccessible.
• Deadly storm: Twenty five people have died in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, after a river flooded by Melissa burst its banks, the local mayor said. Three people were killed in Jamaica during storm preparations, and one person died in the Dominican Republic.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica Tuesday as the strongest storm in the island’s history. The Category 5 hurricane tore a path of destruction across the island, causing major flooding and power cuts. Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the country a “disaster area.”
The massive storm swept through Cuba early this morning as a Category 2 hurricane. Over 750,000 residents were evacuated ahead of the storm. Melissa is now carving a path towards the Bahamas.
The intense winds have diminished in Jamaica, but the National Hurricane Center warns that heavy rains and flooding might continue.
And this is a monster of a storm that meteorologists say will be in the history books. Only six other Atlantic storms have done that since record-keeping began.
Click the NPR link to see more photos.
We’re expecting stormy weather from Melissa here in Massachusetts on Thursday night and Friday. I hope it won’t interfere too much with kids’ Halloween plans.
Some lowlights from Trump’s embarrassing foreign trip:
You probably saw this video of spaced-out Trump being guided around by the new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Trump in Japan.He has no idea what's going on, just wanders off.His brain is cooked.This is insane.
President Donald Trump treated his time in Japan on Tuesday as a victory lap — befriending the new Japanese prime minister, taking her with him as he spoke to U.S. troops aboard an aircraft carrier and then unveiling several major energy and technology projects in America to be funded by Japan.
By the end of the day, Trump — by his administration’s count — came close to nailing down the goal of $550 billion in Japanese investment as part of a trade framework. At a dinner for business leaders in Tokyo, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in commitments, including $100 billion each for nuclear projects involving Westinghouse and GE Vernova….
It was not immediately clear how the investments would operate and how they compared with previous plans, but Trump declared a win as he capped off a day of bonding with Takaichi.
Because they are probably fake “investments.” There’s more at the link.
President Donald Trump rarely has anything negative to say about the men and women of the U.S. military, but he made an exception on Tuesday to offer a rare criticism of America’s fighting forces: They may be too “good-looking” for his tastes.
Trump was in the midst of an address to sailors aboard the U.S.S. George Washington, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that is semi-permanently based at the American naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, when he paused an attempt to praise the assembled service members to rant about their excessive attractiveness.
Speaking on the second day of a multi-day, multi-country trip through Asia that will conclude after a planned summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, Trump said the Navy’s “ultimate strength” comes from “the men and women of the rank and file,” calling his uniformed audience “incredible people” and “good-looking people.”
After a beat, he said there were “too many good-looking people” present.
“I don’t like good-looking people,” he continued, as the sailors laughed at their commander-in-chief’s bizarre remark.
“I never liked good-looking people, I’ll be honest with you … never admitted that before,” he said.
Trump: You take a little glass of water and you drop it on magnets. I don't know what's going to happen.
Donald Trump went on a deranged rant about the power of water to destroy magnets during a rambling address to the U.S. Navy just off the coast of Japan.
Speaking aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier during his tour of East Asia, the president appeared to suggest—in a largely incoherent speech—that he is pushing for aircraft carriers to use “steam for the catapults” and hydraulics for elevators, while wrongly claiming that water can disable magnets.
The elderly president was talking about the magnetic catapults used to launch planes from the latest Navy super carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford class, and the electromagnetic elevators used to move weaponry to the flight deck. Both systems double the speed with which planes can be armed and launched but slowed the delivery and commissioning of the $13 billion flagship of the class.
“You know, the new thing is magnets. So instead of using hydraulic that can be hit by lightning and it’s fine. You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Trump said.
“So, you know, the elevators come up in the new carriers—I think I’m going to change it, by the way—they have magnets. Every tractor has hydraulic, every excavator, every excavating machine of any kind has hydraulic. But somebody decided to use magnets.”
The 79-year-old president then stumbled over his words and failed to complete a coherent sentence before moving on and asking the watching troops whether they preferred hydraulics or magnets.
Trump then called out to a “top-ranking general” in the crowd for his opinion before continuing his tirade against the 2,000-year-old technology.
“I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults and it’s hydraulic for the elevators. We’ll never have a problem,” Trump said. “He agrees. Everybody agrees. But, ahh, these people in Washington.”
President Trump told American troops assembled in Japan on Tuesday that he was prepared to send “more than the National Guard” into cities to enforce his crackdowns on crime and immigration, further escalating how he has talked about using the military at home and abroad.
Trump “dances” for the troops in Japan.
Speaking to thousands of military service members aboard an aircraft carrier at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan on Tuesday, Mr. Trump delivered a partisan speech that resembled the raucous rallies that made him an ascendant force in U.S. politics.
But throughout his nearly hourlong speech, his usual ramblings about the physical appearances of audience members and steam-powered catapults were laced with dark warnings about how he might choose to deploy military forces.
“We have cities that are troubled, we can’t have cities that are troubled,” Mr. Trump said. “And we’re sending in our National Guard, and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard, because we’re going to have safe cities.”
Legal disputes over what troops under federal control may be used to do on domestic soil — like a bar on using them to enforce the law, except when there is an insurrection — treat National Guard troops under federal control and active-duty troops as the same.
Mr. Trump also defended the U.S. military’s strikes against what the administration has said are suspected drug smugglers. The tactics have drawn widespread rebuke from experts who have said it is illegal to use the military to target civilians — including criminal suspects — who are not directly participating in hostilities.
Mr. Trump has increasingly used speeches to the military to air his grievances and bolster his accomplishments. Still, the scene was striking: an American president defending war and military deployments on U.S. soil, and employing partisan talking points on the global stage.
It’s a lot more than “striking,” IMHO.
Next stop for Trump: South Korea.
They all know how to play him. It isn’t difficult. bsky.app/profile/acyn…
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct 29 (Reuters) – South Korea welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday with a replica gold crown and awarded him with the “Grand Order of Mugunghwa”, the country’s highest decoration, the presidential office said.
Trump landed in South Korea on the final leg of a trip through Asia that also saw stops in Malaysia and Japan, with high-profile trade talks expected with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
U.S. and South Korean warplanes escorted Air Force One on approach, and on the tarmac a South Korean military band greeted Trump with a rendition of “YMCA” and guns fired a salute.
Lee is hoping to win concessions from Trump in drawn-out negotiations aimed at lowering U.S. tariffs on South Korea, and has wooed the U.S. president by praising his outreach to North Korea.
Lee’s office said that in recognition of Trump’s role as a “peacemaker” on the Korean peninsula, he was awarded the “Grand Order of Mugunghwa”, which is named after South Korea’s national flower, a pink hibiscus also known as the Rose of Sharon in English.
They really know how to suck up to Trump.
Trump was gifted a replica of the golden Cheonmachong crown. The delicate original, which was found in a tomb in Gyeongju, features towering gold prongs and dangling leaf shapes.
“This symbolizes the history of Silla, which maintained a long-term era of peace on the Korean Peninsula, and a new era of peaceful coexistence and common growth on the Korean Peninsula that the United States and South Korea will work together for.”
The leaders had a working lunch that included Thousand Island salad dressing, in what Lee’s office said was a nod to Trump’s “success story in his hometown of New York.” The meal also included local specialties “according to President Trump’s preferences.”
On the menu were “mini beef patties with ketchup”, a “Korean Platter of Sincerity” featuring U.S. beef and local rice and soybean paste, and grilled fish with a glaze of ketchup and gochujang, a red chilli paste.
The lunch was capped by a “Peacemaker’s Dessert” consisting of a brownie adorned with gold.
A gold crown, junk food and being lauded as a “peacemaker.” What more could Trump ask for?
Donald Trump gushed over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the most cringeworthy way possible on Wednesday, describing the leader as “the nicest-looking guy” and then attempting to impersonate him.
The elderly president went there at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, during his tur of East Asia. He was bragging again that he single-handedly brought a swift end the four-day armed conflict between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan earlier this year by allegedly threatening both nations with 250 percent tariffs.
Indian officials have publicly rejected Trump’s repeated claims that he mediated the ceasefire. Sources told Bloomberg that Modi skipped the entire summit in Malaysia this week because Indian officials were worried Trump would once again repeat his self-proclaimed role in ending the conflict. They probably didn’t anticipate the accent.
“I’ll tell you what, Prime Minister Modi is the nicest looking guy,” Trump said, adding Modi looked like someone “you’d like to have as your father.”
“He’s tough as hell,” Trump said, before launching into a Modi impersonation, complete with what sounded like an attempt at an Indian accent: “No, we will fight!”
“I said, ‘Whoa, is that the same man that I know?’” Trump told the room.
Trump then took credit again for ending the escalating crisis, a claim disputed by officials in New Delhi. He said it wouldn’t have been resolved “if it wasn’t for the tariffs.”
“After a little while, and they’re good people, and after literally two days they called up, and they said we understand, and they stopped fighting—isn’t that amazing?”
The White House on Tuesday fired all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that had expected to review some of President Donald Trump’s construction projects, including his planned triumphal arch and White House ballroom.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the Commission of Fine Arts is terminated, effective immediately,” reads an email reviewed by The Washington Post that was sent to one of the commissioners by a staffer in the White House presidential personnel office.
The commission, which was established by Congress more than a century ago and traditionally includes a mix of architects and urban planners, is charged with providing advice to the president, Congress and local government officials on design matters related to construction projects in the capital region. Its focus includes government buildings, monuments and memorials. White House officials have traditionally sought the agency’s approval.
President Joe Biden appointed the six sitting commissioners to four-year terms, several of which would have extended through 2028. Their termination comes as the White House gears up for several Trump construction projects, including his planned $300 million White House ballroom, and seeks to install allies on key review boards.
A White House official confirmed that the Commission of Fine Arts members had been terminated.
“We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
I guess Trump will get approval for his tasteless ballroom and Hitler arch then.
Democrats are expanding their probes into President Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing and construction of his planned ballroom, with lawmakers pressing the White House and outside companies to explain the project’s finances and what was promised to contributors.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California), a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is opening a probe into the president’s planned White House ballroom. (Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post)
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) and colleagues on Tuesday demanded that the White House provide a “complete accounting” of how it is paying for the ballroom, including any terms for donors. Trump said Friday that he had raised more than $350 million to pay for the project, and the White House has said that at least three dozen companies and private individuals have helped fund it.
“The opaque nature of this scheme reinforces concern that President Trump is again selling presidential access to individuals or entities, including foreign nationals and corporate actors, with vested interests in federal action,” Schiff wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a letter shared with The Washington Post. Schiff, a frequent critic of the president, also sent his request to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog that conducts oversight of the executive branch.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) separately sent letters Tuesday to contractors involved in the White House construction project, including McCrery Architects, Clark Construction and engineering firm AECOM, questioning the “rapidly changing and secretive terms” of Trump’s planned ballroom. The letters were also shared with The Post.
Trump said in July that the ballroom would cost about $200 million and hold 650 guests, estimates that he increased last week to $300 million and nearly 1,000, respectively. The ballroom donors include defense and tech companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Lockheed Martin and Meta, which frequently have business before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Lawmakers said they were frustrated that the White House had neither consulted Congress nor received approval from at least two relevant federal commissions before rapidly demolishing the East Wing last week.
Five Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on Tuesday night to pass a resolution terminating President Trump’s emergency authority to impose steep tariffs on Brazil, one of the biggest exporters of coffee to the United States.
The Senate voted 52 to 48 to pass the resolution sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to terminate Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports, such as coffee, oil and orange juice.
Paul, speaking on the Senate floor, called the tariff a tax on U.S. consumers.
The Kentucky Republican argued that the Constitution requires that “taxes must originate in the House” of Representatives.
“Yet, these taxes are originating with the White House,” he said.
McConnell, in a statement, said that Trump’s tariffs are hurting Kentucky businesses and farms.
It’s symbolic, but still could be a positive sign.
I guess this post is kind of disorganized–I’m just not that with it today. But that’s all I have for you. I hope there’s something here worth reading/watching.
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
Leandro M. Velasco (b.1933), Blonde in Red with a White Cat
I’m still focused on Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing. Lately I’ve been wondering what happened to all the furniture and art work.
Was any of it saved, or was everything destroyed along with the building? Has anyone reported seeing moving vans outside the White House that could have been removing some of the valuable items and putting them in storage? If not, could all these things be stored in the White House itself? I doubt it. Why aren’t journalists asking these questions?
I don’t trust Trump to preserve anything of historical value. I would not be at all surprised if he simply demolished the building and all of its contents. After all, he destroyed the Rose Garden and replaced it with a pavement and tacky tables with attached umbrellas. And Trump has a history of carelessly destroying important art works.
With Donald Trump demolishing the White House’s East Wing to make room for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, the president is returning to the playbook from his Trump Tower days—move fast, build big and leave preservationists fuming.
Key Facts
In October 1979, New York City’s Planning Commission approved a special permit for Trump to build a 56-story mixed-use tower on the site of the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue.
Trump later wrote in “The Art of the Deal” that in December 1979, a representative of the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked him to donate two 15-foot-tall Art Deco bas-relief sculptures of semi-nude goddesses and a 15-by-25-foot nickel-plated grill from the condemned building’s facade.
“I said that if the friezes could be saved, I’d be happy to donate them to the museum,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal”; he later confirmed the deal in writing, according to Preservation News, a publication of the National Trust for Historic Preservation of the United States.
In June 1980, however, the “sculptures were smashed by jackhammers” while the grillwork, which was supposed to be shipped to a New Jersey warehouse, went missing, Preservation News reported at the time.
Trump said he had the friezes torn down after being told their weight would require “special scaffolding for safety’s sake,” delaying the project by several weeks.
“I just wasn’t prepared to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to save a few Art Deco sculptures that I believed were worth considerably less, and perhaps not very much at all,” he wrote.
“We are certainly very disappointed and quite surprised,” Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the Met’s board of trustees, told the New York Times, which ran an article about the destruction on the front page. “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?”
Read more details about Trump’s path of destruction:
The White House Family Theater, the movie theater which first came to be in 1942 when a cloakroom was converted into a screening room, was demolished this week as part of the destruction of the East Wing to make room for President Donald Trump’s planned $300 million ballroom.
By Lina Rivo
From sporting events to film screenings, the theater provided entertainment and enjoyment to presidents and their families since the latter part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.
According to The White House Historical Association, Roosevelt enjoyed watching World War II-era news reels in the former cloakroom in the East Terrace at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, “and took special interest in the battles fought in Europe and Asia.”
The 32nd US president demonstrated an understanding of the importance of pop culture, including movies.
“Entertainment is always a national asset,” Roosevelt said in 1943 as the United States was engaged in WWII. “Invaluable in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime.” [….]
Later presidents greatly enjoyed showing movies in the theater, and the George W. Bush Library detailed that film screenings would run the gamut from official events with members of the public invited as guests to “private events and intended for the enjoyment of the President, his family, and his close friends and staff.”
“The best perk out in the White House is not Air Force One or Camp David or anything else,” said former President Bill Clinton. “It’s the wonderful movie theatre I get here, because people send me these movies all the time.”
I suppose Trump could have saved the vintage chairs with footrests, lights, and decorations, but I’m sure he didn’t.
Satellite images show President Donald Trump’s project to build a $300 million grand ballroom has appeared to take down at least six trees on the White House grounds — including two historic magnolia trees commemorating Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The satellite images released on Thursday provide the fullest picture yet of the extent of the demolition work on the White House’s East Wing and its effect on the surrounding parkland — changes made without consulting the government commission established by federal law to ensure the preservation and integrity of government buildings in D.C., according to former commission officials who spoke to ABC News.
Visible construction work on the new ballroom appears to have begun more than three weeks ago, according to satellite images of the White House complex taken over the last month. An image taken on Sept. 26 shows preparations for the construction, including the removal of multiple trees in President’s Park.
The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden — established by first lady Edith Roosevelt as the Colonial Garden in 1903 adjacent to the East Wing — was also leveled during the demolition, according to satellite images. Earlier this year, Trump also paved over the Rose Garden, which was designed by the same architect who designed the Kennedy Garden.
President Donald Trump says he has no plans to name his $300 million White House ballroom after himself.
Speaking to reporters in brief remarks while departing the White House on Friday evening for a trip to Asia, Trump denied an earlier report that he was likely to add his name to the new ballroom.
“I don’t have any plan to call it after myself,” Trump said. “That was fake news. Probably going to call it the presidential ballroom or something like that. We haven’t really thought about a name yet.”
Earlier, senior administration officials told ABC News that some in the administration were already referring to it as “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” and that that name was likely to stick….
Before Friday, Trump had not publicly said what he intends to name the ballroom, but he is known for branding his construction projects after himself.
When asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Thursday if he had a name for his ballroom yet, Trump smiled and said: “I won’t get into that now.”
Manfred W. Juergens, The Girl with the Cat
Give me a break. Of course he’ll name it after himself. He’ll probably put a huge “Trump” sign on it–like the one on Trump tower. And I expect his name will also be on the Hitler arch he’s planning that will overshadow the Lincoln Memorial.
President Donald Trump is accepting anonymous donations for the grand ballroom he is currently having built at the White House, an aide told NBC News on Friday.
While the Trump administration has released a list of donors for the project that has become a fixation for the president (which includes NBCUniversal’s parent company, Comcast), the aide said that some may contribute anonymously.
“We will, and have so far, released names of donors and companies who wish to be named publicly. Donors also have the option to remain anonymous and we will honor that if that’s what they choose,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the undertaking.
The White House would not commit to publicly releasing the amount of money each donor gives to the project, with the aide saying similarly that the administration “will honor the wishes of the donors of what they want publicly shared.”
Trump claims he won’t accept foreign donations, but how would we know? He’s a fucking liar; you can’t believe anything he says.
The 123-year-old East Wing of the White House, the home of offices for every first lady for almost half a century, is now a pile of rubble. After Trump said in July that the historic building would not be touched, it was stealthily bulldozed to make way for a $300m ballroom. According to Trump, there was a teeny little change of plans “after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world”.
While the likes of the National Trust for Historic Preservation are upset about the destruction of a “National Historic Landmark, a National Park, and a globally recognized symbol of our nation’s ideals”, some large corporations appear to be looking on the bright side. Trump has said the new 90,000 sq ft ballroom is going to be “paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine”. Now the world’s CEOs have a wonderful opportunity to prove just how friendly to Trump they are….
By Jane Wood
National history aside, this sudden demolition of the first ladies’ headquarters raises a lot of questions. If I lived in a house that I didn’t own – one that I was scheduled to move out of in January 2029 – I probably wouldn’t start an enormous and extremely controversial construction project. Why is Trump doing this?
The short answer is: because he wants to. As I think we all know by now, the president does whatever the hell he feels like regardless of norms, conventions, or silly little laws. And, increasingly, there’s nobody there to stop him. The only checks that Trump cares about are the ones made out to him and the only balances he is interested in are those of his bank accounts.
Trump has given a few rationales for the project that go beyond ‘because I want to.’ He’s argued that the old East Wing was no longer fit for purpose and a much larger space was needed. There are some people out there who agree with him. Gahl Hodges Burt, for example, who was social secretary for three years under President Ronald Reagan, told the New York Times that tearing down the East Wing to make space for the ballroom was unfortunately necessary and overdue.
Beyond practical issues, there’s also ego. Trump’s big boy ballroom will be a big shiny monument to him long after he’s gone.
Still, you’ve got to wonder whether this mega-project means the president is not actually planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Particularly since Trump doesn’t seem to be the sort of person to start a large project he won’t have a chance to personally enjoy. The US Constitution’s 22nd amendment makes it very clear that a president cannot have more than two terms. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from repeatedly teasing the idea that he might serve a third term. In March he told NBC News he was “not joking” about the idea and there were methods for doing so.
Read more at the link.
According to Nancy Walecki at The Atlantic, Trump may be planning to use the rubble and dirt from the East Wing teardown to upgrade a golf course (gift link). My Quest to Find the East Wing Rubble.
I’d heardthat the dirt from the East Wing demolition was being deposited three miles away, on a tree-lined island next to the Jefferson Memorial called East Potomac Park. So yesterday I drove around until I saw trucks and men in construction gear. They were congregating at an entrance to the public East Potomac Golf Links, where rounds of golf carried on as usual, except every few minutes, dump trucks entered the green.
By Giovanni Parlatto da Massaquano
The trucks would cut across the course to a cordoned-off site in the middle, where the grass had been torn away and replaced with piles of dirt. It did not look like much, but several employees at the site confirmed: This was not just any dirt. This was White House dirt. The precursor to the East Wing was constructed during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in 1902 and updated during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in the ’40s. Maybe this was not just White House dirt but Roosevelt-era dirt. I gazed upon the golfers going about their games. Do they know, I wondered, that they are in the presence of such particularly American soil?
I asked one employee what the plan was for all this dirt. “Oh, they’re gonna turn it into another hole,” he said. Other reportershave heard the same. But when I asked a different employee about it, he demurred; his boss drove by and said, “No comment” before my colleague Grace Buono had even asked him a question. Donald Trump has reportedly been considering rebranding East Potomac Golf Links as the Washington National Golf Course and giving it a makeover. He even mocked up a new golden logo for it that’s nearly identical to those of the courses he owns. I suppose the East Wing demolition is an excellent source of soil. (The White House did not respond to my request for comment. It told CBS News that wood and plants from the site could end up being recycled for garden nurseries.)
Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested.
This might be a dumb question, but where will all those hundreds of people going to the ballroom park their fancy cars and limos? Maybe Trump is planning to knock down the entire White House and replace it with a parking lot?
Meanwhile, thanks to the government shutdown, the “big beautiful bill,” and Mike Johnson’s keeping the House from meeting, millions of Americans will soon be facing hunger and lack of health care.
While Republicans have sought to blame Democrats for the potential loss in benefits that people who make little money rely on, those who work in the food-insecurity space say that is misleading because Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act already eliminated almost $187bn in funding for Snap through 2024, according to a congressional budget office estimate.
Should funding run out at the end of the month, “we will have the greatest hunger catastrophe in America since the Great Depression, and I don’t say that as hyperbole”, said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America.
Snap supports working families with low-paying jobs, low-income people aged 60 years and older and people with disabilities living on a fixed income, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Snap participants generally must be at or below 130% of the federal poverty line. The average participant receives about $187 a month, the center reports.
The Department of Agriculture recently sent a letter to regional Snap directors warning them that funding for Snap will run out at the end of the month and directing them to hold payments “until further notice”.
More than 200 Democratic representatives have urged the USDA to use contingency funds to continue paying for Snap benefits.
“There are clear steps the administration can and must take immediately to ensure that millions of families across the country can put food on their table in November,” a letter from the lawmakers to the USDA states. “SNAP benefits reach those in need this November would be a gross dereliction of your responsibilities to the American people. We appreciate your consideration of these requests.”
The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.
USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month.
By Gurutze Ramos
The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway.
In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done.
White House and Trump administration officials warned earlier this week they were unlikely to shift funds around to avert SNAP lapsing for 40 million low-income Americans in November — instead blaming Democrats for the pending lapse.
Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and shown in documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The higher prices — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — reflect the largest annual premium increases by far in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026.
The premium spikes, mirroring the rising cost of private-employer-sponsored plans,arrive during a protracted and bitter congressional battle over health insurance costs that prompteda government shutdown Oct. 1.Democrats have urged an extension of enhanced subsidies for plans sold through the Affordable Care Act to soften the blow of rising insurance costs, while Republicans have said the additional assistance was never meant to be permanent.
The spike in premiums will become visible to more Americans on Monday, when the Trump administration is expected to open Healthcare.gov for window shopping to browse the price of plans ahead of the Nov. 1 start to open enrollment.
But Trump will get his ugly ballroom.
I’ll end there, and add some links in the comment thread. What do you think about the Trump’s destruction of the East Wing? What else is on your mind today?
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I’m heartsick about what Trump is doing to the White House. The White House belongs to the American people, not to the current president. But Trump is doing whatever he wants to our government and to “the people’s house.”
Yesterday, at his substack, Law Dork, Chris Geidner posted the clearest photos of Trump’s demolition I have seen so far. From the photos, it’s clear that either the entire East Wing or most of it will be destroyed. The first photo shows the destruction of the front of the building, and the second shows the damage from above, show how far back the damage to the roof goes. I can’t post the photos here–they are protected–but you can see them at the link.
Photos obtained exclusively by Law Dork on Tuesday show that President Donald Trump is completely demolishing the East Wing of the White House as part of his stated plan to build a ballroom befitting his standards on the White House grounds.
Although Trump earlier had said the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,“ this week it became abundantly clear that was a lie. And, this dramatic change to the governmental building, Trump says, is happening care of private money and outside of any governmental — and transparent — funding process.
After The Washington Post first reported on Monday that demolition had begun, The Wall Street Journalreported on Monday night that Treasury Department employees next door to the demolition were told to “refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs.“
On Tuesday, Law Dork obtained these photographs taken of the ongoing demolition.
Although the Post’s initial story detailed the “East Wing facade“ being demolished and that teams on Monday were “demolishing a portion ofthe East Wing,“ the Tuesday photograph obtained by Law Dork makes clear that most if not all of the entirety of the East Wing is being demolished.
A second photo obtained by Law Dork from another angle shows the extent of the demolition has already reached all but the western and northern walls of the East Wing.
Demolition crews began work Oct. 20 on the East Wing of the White House to clear space for a privately funded 90,000-sq-ft ballroom addition valued at roughly $200 million at the behest of President Donald Trump
The project, announced July 31 by the White House, will be built by Clark Construction Group with AECOM as engineer and McCrery Architects as designer.
Officials said it will create a larger venue for state and ceremonial events, financed entirely by the president and “patriot donors.”
The addition marks the most substantial change to the Executive Residence since the Truman reconstruction of 1948-52. Renderings depict a limestone-clad structure with tall arched windows, ballistic-resistant glazing and interiors described by the White House as “ornately designed.” [….]
The design calls for the addition to remain structurally distinct from the residence while echoing its neoclassical form. The press office said the ballroom “will be substantially separated from the main building… but its theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical.”
As for Trump gaining approval for the project, he took care of that by appointing a sycophant.
Regulatory filings show that as of Sept. 4 no submission had been made to the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews major federal projects in the capital region.
Commission Chairman Will Scharf, who also serves as White House staff secretary, said during a public meeting that “what we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” explaining why demolition and site-preparation work began before commission review. The interpretation leaves design oversight unresolved, even as groundwork proceeds.
Under the Presidential Residence Act, the White House is managed by the National Park Service and operated by the Executive Office of the President’s Facilities Management Division.
While Section 107 of the act exempts the executive residence from mandatory review, Executive Order 11593, issued in 1971, directs federal agencies to consult with the U.S. Interior Dept. before altering historic structures.
Past administrations have voluntarily submitted major projects for review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. These measures, while not legally binding, form the preservation framework that has guided White House alterations for decades and remains relevant even for privately funded work.
A demolition job that began Monday with the disappearance of the White House’s eastern entrance advanced Tuesday with the destruction of much of the East Wing, according to a photograph obtained by The Washington Post and two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the scene.
Photos of construction teams knocking down parts of the East Wing, first revealed by The Washington Post on Monday, shocked preservationists, raised questions about White House overreach and lack of transparency, and sparked complaints from Democrats that President Donald Trump was damaging “the People’s House” to pursue a personal priority.
“They’re wrecking it,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist and professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland. “And these are changes that can’t be undone. They’re destroying that history forever.”
A White House spokesman said that the “entirety” of the East Wing would eventually be “modernized and rebuilt.”
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 20: Workers demolish the facade of the East Wing of the White House on October 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, sent a letter Tuesday to administration officials, warning that the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which is about 55,000 square feet.
“We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” Carol Quillen, National Trust’s CEO, said in a statement, citing two federal commissions that have traditionally reviewed White House additions.
White House officials dismissed the criticism as “manufactured outrage,” arguing that past presidents had pursued their own changes to the executive campus as necessary. They said that the privately funded ballroom will be a “bold, necessary addition” to the presidential grounds.
You can read more using the gift link.
After the backlash, Trump has decided to submit his plans for review–now that the work is in progress.
The White House said on Tuesday it will submit plans for President Donald Trump’s $250 million White House ballroom project to a body that oversees federal building construction, even though demolition work began earlier this week.
Trump reveled on Tuesday in the demolition sounds by construction workers for the ballroom addition to the White House, the first major change to the historic property in decades.
But critics, aghast about images of the White House walls crumbling after Trump had pledged the project would not interfere with the existing landmark, said a review process should have taken place before the work began.
This schematic from the Washington Post article shows the planned layout of the new White House complex.
The White House still intends to submit those plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal construction in Washington and neighboring states, a White House official told Reuters
“Construction plans have not yet been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission but will be soon,” the official said, adding that the NCPC does not have jurisdiction over demolition work.
The commission is now led by Will Scharf, a White House aide.
Asked why the demolition of East Wing walls was occurring despite Trump’s promise that it would not affect the existing building, the official said modernization work was required in the East Wing and changes had always been a possibility.
“The scope and size was always subject to vary as the project developed,” he said.
Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt thinks the critics of the East Wing teardown are just jealous.
Karoline Leavitt thinks Democrats are just jealous that Donald Trump is building a swanky $250 million ballroom at the White House.
The White House press secretary says that’s the only way to explain the “fake outrage” after part of the White House’s iconic East Wing was demolished to make way for the 90,000-square-foot structure.
The Trump administration has received widespread backlash for starting work on the event space that will eventually dwarf the White House itself. “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted on X.
But Trump officials have attempted to convince the public that it’s what presidents, administrations, and White House staff have longed for, for 150 years.
“Are the Democrats jealous that Trump is building this big beautiful ballroom?” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Leavitt on Tuesday.
Leavitt replied that it “certainly appears that way.”
“I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” she added.
I’m speechless at this point.
Another Trump outrage from yesterday: Trump is demanding that he be paid $230 million for the prosecutions against him.
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general; Attorney General Pam Bondi; and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, with President Trump in the Oval Office last week.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.
The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.
Asked about the issue at the White House after this article published, the president said, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”
He added, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”
A bit more:
Lawyers said the nature of the president’s legal claims poses undeniable ethics challenges.
“What a travesty,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”
He added: “And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”
The president also seemed to acknowledge that point in the Oval Office last week, when he alluded vaguely to the situation while standing next to the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche. According to Justice Department regulations, the deputy attorney general — in this case, Mr. Blanche — is one of two people eligible to sign off on such a settlement.
Unbelievable.
Arizona’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to try to force House Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who won her late father’s seat in a special election nearly one month ago.
Johnson, R-La., has said he will seat Grijalva once Senate Democrats agree to reopen the government. But the two parties haven’t been talking for weeks, and there is no indication when the shutdown might end.
The lawsuit, which Mayes threatened in a letter to Johnson last week, argues that the speaker’s delay is depriving the 813,000 residents living in Arizona’s 7th District of congressional representation. It lists the state of Arizona and Grijalva herself as plaintiffs and the U.S. House, as well as the House clerk and sergeant at arms, as defendants.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s seventh Congressional district in the process,” Mayes said in a statement. “By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he is subjecting Arizona’s seventh Congressional district to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”
As he left the Capitol on Tuesday evening, Johnson blasted the Arizona lawsuit as “patently absurd.”
Mayes, he said, has “no jurisdiction.”
We’ll see what the judge has to say about it.
At the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth (Secretary of War) tells military officials they can’t talk to Congress without his approval.
Leaders at the Pentagon have significantly altered how military officials will speak with Congress after a pair of new memos issued last week.
In an Oct. 15 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg, ordered Pentagon officials — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — to obtain permission from the department’s main legislative affairs office before they have any communication with Capitol Hill.
The memo was issued the same day the vast majority of Pentagon reporters exited the building rather than agree to the Defense Department’s new restrictions on their work, and it appears to be part of a broader effort by Hegseth to exert tighter control over what the department communicates to the outside world.
According to the memo, a copy of which was authenticated by a Pentagon official, “unauthorized engagements with Congress by (Pentagon) personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives.”
It’s a departure from current practice; previously, Defense Department agencies were free to manage their own interactions with Capitol Hill.
But under Hegseth, the department has sought stricter control over messaging coming out of the Pentagon. Dozens of reporters turned in their badges and left the building last week, when most news agencies refused to sign unprecedented restrictions Hegseth imposed that threatened consequences for journalists who reported information he had not approved for release, even if it was unclassified.
The new directive, which would further curb information flow from the Pentagon to Congress, is designed “to achieve our legislative goals,” Hegseth and his deputy wrote in the memo.
“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by DoW personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” the memo says, using the initialism for the “Department of War,” the Defense Department’s secondary but unofficial name used by the Trump administration.
Why is Hegseth so paranoid? Is it because he’s incompetent and realizes the competent DOD people know that?
Millions of Americans are already seeing their health insurance costs soar for 2026 as Congress remains deadlocked over extending covid-era subsidies for premiums.
The bitter fight sparked a government shutdown at the start of October. Democrats refuse to vote on government-funding legislation unless it extends the subsidies, while Republicans insist on separate negotiations after reopening the government. Now lawmakers face greater pressure to act as Americans who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act are seeing, or about to see, the consequences of enhanced subsidies expiring at the end of the year.
Healthcare.gov — the federal website used by 28 states — is expected to post plan offerings early next week ahead of the start of open enrollment in November. But window shopping has already begun in most of the 22 states that run their own marketplaces, offering a preview of the sticker shock to come.
Premiums nationwide are set to rise by 18 percent on average, according to an analysis of preliminary rate filings by the nonpartisan health policy group KFF. That, combined with the loss of extra subsidies, have left Americans with the worst year-over-year price hikes in the 12 years since the marketplaces launched.
Nationally, the average marketplace consumer will pay $1,904 in annual premiums next year, up from $888 in 2025, according to KFF.
The situation is particularly acute in Georgia, which recorded the second-highest enrollment of any state-run marketplace this year and posted prices for 2026 earlier in October. About 96 percent of marketplace enrollees in Georgia received subsidies this year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank that supports extending the subsidies.
Now Georgians browsing the state website are seeing estimated monthly costs double or even triple, depending on their incomes, as lower subsidy thresholds resume.
Sen. Jeff Merkley has been speaking on the Senate floor for more than 12 hours after announcing he would protest what he called President Donald Trump’s “grave threats to democracy.”
The Oregon Democrat began his remarks at 6:24 p.m. ET Tuesday and was still speaking as of Wednesday morning.
Senator Jeff Merkley
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” he said at the start of his remarks.
The senator’s marathon speech stands as a symbolic show of Democratic resistance as his party remains in a standoff with Republicans over health care subsidies amid the government shutdown. The shutdown is expected to drag on with the impasse entering a fourth week Wednesday. Democrats have so far held their position, blocking the GOP stopgap bill to reopen the government 11 times until their demands are met.
Merkley in his speech pointed to the Trump administration’s previous halting of research grants for universities in its battle over campus oversight as well as the recent indictments of several of the president’s political opponents as well as his push to deploy National Guard troops to Portland.
“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Oregon, in my home state, is full of chaos and riots. Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation,” he said.
Read the rest at CNN.
Those are my offerings for today. Sorry there’s not more good news.
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