The danger of appointing an unqualified FOX TV host with a sordid past as defense secretary was on shocking display this week as defense secretary Hegseth testified before the House and Senate committees. He’s testifying as I record this right now before the Senate, but let’s just focus on the House yesterday. He began by declaring that the greatest adversary facing the United States. It’s not Iran, it’s not Russia, it’s not China, but it’s the, and I’m quoting him, reckless, feckless, defeatist Democrats and a few Republicans.

Just imagine George Catlin Marshall or Colin Powell or Leon Panetta saying that to a congressional committee. He was ill-prepared and he was schooled, especially by some of the younger members, many of them veterans. Congresswoman Chrissy Houlihan in exasperation after he dissembled called him immature. That was kind.

In response to sharp questions from Jason Crow, he couldn’t answer whether one of his advisors also is lobbying perhaps even for foreign interests. Hexeth told Ro Khanna that asking how much this, the Iran war was costing Americans in higher gas or food prices is a gotcha question. the voters out in Dubuque Iowa will find that interesting.

Chris D’Aluzio, Pat Ryan, Seth Moulton, and others just turned the ill-informed secretary inside out. I felt badly for General Cain, head of the Joint Chiefs, who was sitting next to Hegseth and looked like he’d rather be anywhere, anywhere else than there. Hegseth, of course, doesn’t care what congressional Democrats or even the public thinks about him. He has an audience of one, Donald Trump.

You might have noticed how nervous and evasive he became when asked about Army Secretary Driscoll, who was angling for his job. All Hegseth has to do, he figures, is just please the Donald.

James and Al sound off on voting rights and review recent polling before welcoming Ed Luce of the Financial Times. They discuss the future of Ukraine and the status of the war, the changing political landscape in the UK, and the growing US platform of King Charles and the Pope. Then, they are joined by pollster Jim Gerstein to review current voter priorities, changing attitudes towards Israel and Netanyahu, the emerging Democratic candidates, the danger of MAGA election interference, and the possibility of a Blue Wave heading into the midterm elections.

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You could have predicted that Donald Trump and lackeys like little Lindsey Graham would use the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner for political purposes. At Trump’s behest, Graham is now pushing a bill to fund the proposed White House ballroom on national security grounds, noting it would then be unnecessary to hold events like Saturday night’s dinner at a less secure hotel.

There is so much fiction to unpack here. First is the security protection he’s talking about actually is in a bunker at the White House. That can be further hardened or ⁓ other improvements can be made. It works pretty well now, but that has almost nothing to do with the big gaudy ballroom that Trump has proposed, which is really about tribute to his massive ego.

And the idea of holding a lot of events at the White House ballroom, “the coat hanger is convention will be Thursday night in the White House ballroom”, is laughable. Especially egregious is the suggestion to hold the White House correspondence dinner there. First, how would you get 2,600 guests into a ballroom designed to seat 1,000? Don’t tell Trump, he might want to increase the size of this monstrosity.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is supposed to be an event honoring the First Amendment. To be held at the White House, no matter who is president, is just stupid, as is Lindsey Graham’s idea to have the ballroom picked up by the taxpayer.

Despite Donald Trump’s unprecedented takeover of the Republican party, there are a few who have put principle above power.

They include several elected officials, former lawmakers like Liz Cheney and Jeff Flake; legal giants like former Federal Judge --and runner-up for a Supreme Court nomination -- Michael Luttig and Peter Keisler, founder of the Federalist Society, and policy and media heavyweights like Bill Kristol and the gang of GOP alums over at the Bulwark and columnists like Max Boot.

The knee-jerk loyalty of most Republican politicians is a mixture of true believers, party faithful and fear. For others it’s about money from lucrative lobbying -- there never has been an Administration more welcoming to influence peddling -- to the media limelight.

There’s also a small band of formerly respected moderate conservatives, now in full MAGA mode, who are shameful opportunists. They include:

JOE DIGENOVA

He’s back, charged with prosecuting Trump’s revenge demands from the 2016 campaign, starting with former CIA director John Brennan.

DiGenova was a top aide to Maryland’s liberal Republican U.S. Senator Charles Mathias. Then he was a successful U.S. Attorney prosecuting political corruption and convicting Jonathan Pollard, an American spying for Israel.

He became a critic of President Clinton, getting him and his wife / law partner, Victoria Toensing, lots of media attention which they lapped up. He became one of those spotlight seeking partisan lawyers.

He was made for Trump world.

He called special counsel Bob Mueller’s team investigating Russia’s effort to help Trump in the 2016 election “legal terrorists.” He represented a Putin-allied Ukrainian to get this bandit to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. He accused liberal philanthropist George Soros of controlling foreign service and FBI agents.

He said that Trump’s cybersecurity expert, Chris Krebs, who declared the 2020 election as the most secure ever, should be “shot.” Under the threat of a defamation suit, diGenova apologized.

In the effort to overturn that honest election, diGenova was an on-again, off-again Trump lawyer; stories suggested he wasn’t much respected by the president. A 162 page internal Fox News document accused diGenova of “spreading disinformation” and non-disclosure of financial motives.

An experienced prosecutor was removed by this Administration after she concluded there was insufficient evidence against Brennan. Similarly an investigation ordered by the first Trump Administration, reached the same conclusion about Brennan. That won’t phase diGenova.

DEVIN NUNES

The former California congressman started off as a conventional conservative, his mentors were two former House Speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, the antithesis of Trump. He once called the House right wingers, now the Trump core, “lemmings with suicide vests.”

Campaigning with Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, he was politically smitten. Previously, in his first two years as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he maintained the panel’s traditional bipartisanship.

After Trump was elected he became a raging partisan, determined to prove the Russian effort to help Trump in 2016 was a hoax. He struck paydirt with the illicit surveillance of Trump supporter, Carter Page.

It was downhill from there.

He saw conspiracies everywhere and was caught secretly working with the White House on intelligence issues. When revealed, he had to temporarily recuse himself as committee chair.

Nunes, taking a leaf from his new hero, went on a defamation suit orgy, filing almost a dozen actions, everything from CNN to local California outlets . He hasn’t won anything, most were just thrown out.

In 2021, a discredited Congressman Nunes quit and became CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, which was to be a social media leader. It was a total bust, with the stock price plummeting after it went public in 2024. After losing more than $700 million last year with only $3.7 million in revenues, Nunes was dumped.

He’s now chair of the Intelligence Advisory Board. The president pays no attention to his intelligence director, so it’s doubtful he’ll pay any attention to Nunes.

A dozen years ago the California congressman was seen as a possible chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, even Speaker of the House. He has made more money with his Trump association at the price of respect.

ELISE STEFANIK

Elected to the House in 2014, as the chamber’s youngest member, the upstate New Yorker had future written all over her. The head of the moderate Republican caucus, she was young, smart and politically savvy.

She opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary. Within a couple years she did, if not a 180 turn, a 179. She saw MAGA as the future, jumped on the Trump bandwagon, fiercely defended him during the first impeachment and even attended a COVID super-spreader Trump Rally in Oklahoma. (Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain caught the virus there and died.)

Stefanik became the champion Trump cheerleader. She was a 2020 election denier, said the criminals convicted of the January 6th violent assault on the Capitol were being held “hostage” and blamed Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for that Trump-inspired insurrection.

Caroline Mason, one of Stefanik’s early mentors, an officiant at her 2017 wedding, told Time magazine: “She basically abandoned her own core values for a man who had no core values.”

She stormed back into the headlines two years ago conducting a hearing on antisemitism at universities. She devastated a couple ill-prepared Ivy League presidents who had to resign. She just published a book on the issue, “Poisoned Ivies,” which reviews suggest rehashed her old attacks.

But the political future she calculated collapsed. Trump passed her over to be his running mate in 2024. She is retiring from Congress and was running for Governor. When Trump didn’t endorse her, and as she was 19 points behind the incumbent Governor, she quit the race and politics.

Like most who hitch their political star to Trump, diGenova, Nunes and Stefanik may get a temporary high. It never endures and they pay a real reputational price.

Law enforcement, the Secret Service and DC police did a great job in apprehending an armed gunman that tried to break into the White House correspondent’s dinner Saturday night. But let’s knock off this stuff that the dinner was about freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

Now there are really important organizations and dinners that honor the First Amendment and a free press like the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Take a look at them, maybe even contribute. The White House Correspondents’ by contrast today, is not one. Their guest of honor was Donald Trump, who has labeled the press the enemy of the people, filed ridiculous suits to intimidate the media, and barred reporters from events for political reasons.

Worse, Paramount’s David Ellison, who’s waiting for government approval to acquire Warner Brothers, which also includes CNN and who already owns CBS, threw a dinner two nights before Saturday honoring Trump, this is a guy who was in the news business, that may be a small part of his business, but honoring the most anti-First Amendment President in history is proving a disaster for CBS, once the gold standard of broadcast news.

After Saturday’s dinner was cut short, then the chatter began about freedom of the press and we must, as Trump insists, reschedule that dinner. No, we shouldn’t. There might be a dinner honoring those brave cops who protected everyone Saturday night. That would really be worth going to. But let’s not pretend this is a dinner about the First Amendment.

Saturday night is the annual White House Correspondents dinner, supposedly a celebration of Freedom of the Pess,

It has become more like clown show with 2600 of your most intimate friends.

First a short look back.

Years ago, when I was a young reporter for the Wall Street Journal, this dinner consisted almost exclusively of reporters and editors and their guests, usually leading politicians or government officials. It could be interesting and informative.

One year I took Larry Woodworth, director of the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation, the most important staffer on Capitol Hill. Boring you think. Actually he was a really good, smart guy. I was covering the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees; that evening enriched my reporting. Another year I took California’s Jerry Brown; never a dull moment.

Decades ago it began to change; pressure mounted to get high profile entertainers and separately advertisers. Now I don’t object to dinners featuring the glitterati; I can star gaze too. And advertisers helped send my kids through college.

But combining those with a dinner that’s supposed to be about journalism and the First Amendment is out of sorts in these challenging times for the press.

Donald Trump is the featured speaker this year. Instead of a comedian the entertainment will be a mentalist.

Fine to have invited the President, as long as at the dinner honoring the First Amendment it’s noted that the featured speaker is a sworn enemy of a Free Press. So are couple other guests, Defense Secretary Hegseth who wants to dictate what reporters can cover the Pentagon and what they can cover; and FCC chairman Brendan Carr who shows contempt for a Free Press.

They may have to watch the recipients awarded for excellent journalism. How might Trump react with recognition to my favorite honoree, Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal who has reported on Trump’s abuse of power on pardons, or revenge against his enemies, most recently on his chaotic handling of the Iranian war ? Also honored will be two other Trump targets the Associated Press and CNN.

Will Trump, as customary, be on the dais to congratulate them ?

I’m just glad I no longer have to attend this spectacle.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

**** Trump is obsessed with the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates; it’s why he so viciously attacks Chairman Jay Powell. Yet his nominee to replace Powell, Kevin Warsh, told the Senate Trump never pressured or even asked him to cut rates. Fudging the truth is a bad start, Mr. Warsh,

**** Defense Secretary Hegseth ordered, in the name of freedom, flu vaccines no longer will be mandatory for the American military. At Valley Forge, in 1777, Gen. Washington mandated that all his troops be vaccinated against smallpox. Who do you think knew more about freedom, Hegseth or George Washington ?

**** Trump has declared English our official language. Yet he’s eliminating the federal office that provides support for teaching English to Spanish speaking kids.

James and Al discuss the redrawing of Congressional districts in Virginia in the wider context of the gerrymandering battle being waged for the House and share lesser-known issues plaguing our democracy. Then they are joined by Ohio’s gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial candidates, Amy Acton and David Pepper, and they dive into healthcare, corruption, and the need for political change. They also welcome Tejano star-turned-TX-15 candidate Bobby Pulido to game out how to win in Texas, bring back conservative-minded Latino voters, and craft a strong economic message, capped off with a short musical performance.

Email your questions to James and Al at politicswarroom@gmail.com or tweet them to @politicon. Make sure to include your city– we love to hear where you’re from!

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Hasan Piker, a left-wing podcaster and influencer, has a huge following. Some Democrats say, hey, maybe he’s our Joe Rogan. No, No!

Piker defends Hamas, which he says is far preferable to Israel. Now, there’s a lot to criticize about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who imperils America’s long bipartisan support for the state of Israel.

But to declare Hamas terrorist, far preferable to a democratic state, is just unacceptable. He also once said America deserves the 9-11 attack and suggested if you care about Medicare fraud, you would kill Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott.

Now I am close to a free speech absolutist. I think he has every right to say all that and I don’t think he should be banned from any sites or any locations or any venues. But in a critical election, Democrats really don’t want to be associated with any of these views.

Donald Trump brags about so many unprecedented achievements it’s hard to follow. He boasts about all the wars he ended. I’ll bet you didn’t know until he told us he was able to finally end the Polyponnesian Wars. You know, there may be one legitimate record. The most and quickest cabinet departures. Already Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi have been given their walking papers.

On deck may be Laurie Chavez de Rimer, the Labor Secretary, under internal investigations for creating a toxic workplace for expense violations and an alleged affair with one of her security detail. And Kash Patel, the ethically and intellectually challenged FBI director, it was reported by the Atlantic is often MIA and seems to be a heavy boozer. Not exactly what you want with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Morale at the Bureau seems to be lower than ever according to reports. Army Secretary Driscoll, no doubt to beach himself, has turned his sights on Fox TV host, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s job.

Now instead of dumping National Intelligence Chief Tulsi Gabbard she simply ignored. You know, let me just put something in context. In the last three administrations, pre-Trump, Bush, Obama, and Biden, there were no cabinet departures in the first year and a half. You know, this should not be a surprise.

Trump intentionally surrounded himself with people whose only loyalty was to himself, to him, thus, he got incompetent third-raters who are failing at their jobs. Its that’s simple.

Virginians will vote Tuesday on whether to facilitate a new gerrymandering of congressional districts that is deeply partisan, a bad idea.

I’d vote for it in a minute if I lived in Virginia.

The only reasons to vote against it are to help Donald Trump or if you believe in unilateral disarmament.

This is all about Donald Trump. In a desperate attempt to avoid losing the House majority this year he set out to try to manipulate the result. It began when, following his orders, Texas enacted a gerrymandered redistricting for 2026 to give the GOP control of 30 of 38 House seats, a gain of five.

Trump pressured states where Republicans controlled the process to do likewise. He ignored the normal practice, in most instances, where redistricting occurs every ten years after the census report on population.

What he didn’t fully anticipate was Democrats would fight back just as ruthlessly. It started in California where, unlike Texas, a referendum authorizing a redistricting change was put on the ballot and passed by more than three million votes. The aim was to check Texas and add five additional Democrats seats to the already massive 43 to 9 advantage.

Republicans succeeded in picking up a likely seat in both North Carolina and Missouri.

Trump set his sights on Indiana where he met resistance from prominent Republicans like former Governor Mitch Daniels and associates of his first presidency’s Vice President, Mike Pence. Thus it failed in the Republican-led state legislature and Trump now is trying to defeat seven GOP state Senators who stood up to him.

Maryland Democrats also decided not to change.

Separately, there are a couple court-related cases that should enable Democrats to pick up three seats in Utah, Alabama and Louisiana. If the Supreme Court soon were to gut voting rights, Louisiana Republicans may be poised to reverse that.

Florida Republicans, despite some legal hurdles, probably will approve a redistricting that should give them a couple more seats. This is a virtual certainty if the Virginia Democrats’ referendum passes tomorrow.

The stakes in Virginia are considerable. The new U.S. House map, drawn by the Democratic state legislators, is intended to give the party a 10 to 1 advantage up from the current 6-5. Some Democrats worried that it was too much of a reach.

Republicans are fighting back. They even trotted out the failed former Governor Glenn Youngkin to make a pitch against stealing votes.

The thrust of the GOP campaign was captured in an inane Washington Post editorial that charged sponsors of the referendum are deceiving voters by depicting it as “restoring fairness” in the upcoming elections and returning to regular order after the next census.

This is a partisan explanation but it’s exactly what is intended. Voters aren’t deceived. That’s why Democrats overwhelmingly support the referendum and Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed.

It’s instructive to look at Virginia and neighboring state North Carolina where Republicans, with the benefit of gerrymandering, are expected to win 11 of 14 House seats.

Looking at the top recent statewide elections, Virginia has voted Democratic in every one of the last five presidential elections, in three of the past five gubernatorial contests, and all six Senate elections. With fair redistricting, it’s not hard to see Democrats holding seven of the eleven House seats.

Republicans have won four of the past five Presidential elections in North Carolina, five of the last six Senate contests, while Democrats have won four of the five gubernatorial races. So all things being equal, the GOP could hold eight of the fourteen seats in the Tar Heel state.

That would mean Democrats have 13 in the two states and Republicans 12. If Virginia approves the referendum, that’s the anticipated outcome.

In Virginia, like California, the issue is being resolved by voters. In North Carolina it was politicians cutting backroom deals.

Both these changes are unfortunate. Voters should pick their representatives rather than politicians choosing their constituents. Gerrymandering not only makes for a more partisan outcome but makes governing harder.

Overall, there’s a better than even chance that Donald Trump’s effort to fix this year’s House elections will backfire. Democrats will be the net winners in this year’s gerrymandering wars.

Whatever you think of the politics, Washington aesthetically is a beautiful city. Flying into Reagan Airport on a clear day or even better, a clear evening and seeing the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument stretching down past the beautifully manicured lawns of the mall to the United States Capitol is breathtaking, inspiring.

It won’t be if Trump gets his way and puts up a big gaudy 250 foot monumental arch on the Virginia side of the Potomac River in front of Arlington Cemetery. It’s offensive in size and design. It blocks the Lincoln Monument’s sweeping view of the majestic Arlington Cemetery, the resting place for so many courageous Americans. This is opposed by many architects, even the original proponent of an arch and veterans groups offended that it will diminish the sacred grounds of Arlington.

My wife whose television station is across the Potomac in Virginia has driven across the Memorial Bridge with that awesome setting thousands of times. I somehow don’t think she’s looking for an arch. Trump has said that the monumental arch again 250 feet is for him. Okay, fine. Build it in Mar-a-Lago where it’ll fit in.

James and Al sound the alarm over Trump’s deteriorating mental state, and explain the challenges it poses for JD Vance and the effects it will have on the upcoming election. Then, they analyze the political dynamics at play in the California gubernatorial election, and welcome Dr. Trita Parsi to examine the aftermath of the Iran war. They discuss the reasons the Iranian regime was able to repel the attack, the need to revisit sanctions to weaken the regime and empower civil society, what the future looks like for Israel and the Gulf states, and the potential for shifting alliances.

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A judge threw out Donald Trump’s $10 billion suit against the Wall Street Journal, which had reported that Trump sent ⁓ Epstein a 50th birthday message drawing of a naked woman with Trump’s signature. The federal judge in Florida found the article was not published with quote, actual malice and quote, the standard for defamation. Actually, when a copy of the birthday book was released by the House Oversight Committee, guess what? There was the Trump letter to Jeffrey Epstein with the drawing of the naked woman.

Now Trump is a bully and he believes that he can bully law firms, universities, media companies, reporters into submission. Sadly, this has worked too often. Looking at you, New York law firms, CBS, ABC. Not because there was merit to his charges, but the fear he would use the power of government aided by his ethically challenged FCC chair to punish them.

But those that stand up to a bully and stand up to this bully, like the Journal, the New York Times, the Des Moines Register, Washington law firms like Wilmer Cutler and Harvard invariably win. That’s what you do with a bully.

Three cheers from my alma mater, The Wall Street Journal.

--

Donald Trump is guilty of multiple impeachable charges: using his office to enrich himself, peddling presidential pardons, abuse of power by deploying the Justice Department and FBI as political weapons, arguably committing war crimes, among others.

It would be crazy, however, for Democrats to pursue or even threaten actions to remove him from office.

Any effort would lose even if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms. It’s worse. Talk about impeachment is seized on by Trump as one of the few things that might energize the despondent Republican base. It also plays into the canard that his Justice Department is just making amends for what the Biden Administration did.

Yet already dozens of Democrats are raising the specter of impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. That will be further fueled by the New York Times prized White House correspondent Peter Baker’s piece on how Trump’s actions and rhetoric -- threatening to end Iran’s civilization, blasting the Pope and putting out an AI generated picture of himself as Jesus tending the sick -- raise anew questions about his mental sstability.
I have no access to any of his doctors nor any medical expertise; just watching Trump am convinced he has real cognitive problems.

But the 25th Amendment requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to find the President unable to discharge his duties. JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick & co. moving to dump Trump? Dream on.

The impeachment brigade predictably includes left wing members of Congress, like Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. It also includes more mainstream Democrats like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

There’s an intense Senate primary in Massachusetts between incumbent Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton. When one came out for impeachment the other had to. That plays well in a primary with liberal Bay State Democrats. It won’t in most red or purple state general elections.

These threats are a gift to Trump. “He’s saying ‘They want to impeach me,’” notes Bill Cohen. “Send me money and get prepared,” Cohen, later Secretary of Defense, was a key player as a freshman Republican Representative from Maine in the one accomplished impeachment proceeding in 1974.

Looking at this and the other three modern presidential impeachments should be instructive. In 1973 the table was set by a special Senate committee, headed by conservative Democrat Sam Ervin with bombshell testimony from former White House counsel John Dean and top Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield, who disclosed there was a taping system at the White House.

The next year the House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, took over methodically building the case guided by a great lawyer, John Doar, working with his Republican counterpart, Albert Jenner. By the summer a half dozen Republicans with key Democrats, working around the clock, perfected bills of impeachment.

The President, realizing his fate, resigned before any House or Senate votes were cast.

None of the next three impeachments came close to those standards. President Clinton was impeached for lying about sex with Republican political leaders forcing it upon a reluctant House Judiciary chairman.

There was merit in the case against Trump in his first term, as he tried to link aid to Ukraine to that country dishing out dirt against Joe Biden. The House Intelligence Committee did a good job laying out the case; the Judiciary Committee did not.

The move against Trump for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol to try to overturn the election was, out of necessity, quick and didn’t come up until after he had left office. Conviction fell short even with some Republican support.

Most of today’s Republicans are cowardly when it comes to Trump so any bipartisan action is not in the cards. The main effect of Democrats elevating impeachment then would be to distract from Trump’s governing failures.

The Justice Department is a wholly owned subsidiary of the President and the Supreme Court has basically given Trump carte blanche.

That doesn’t mean there’s no recourse.

When Democrats take the House, they will have the power of subpoena to investigate Trump’s abuses. They would need to set priorities: the enrichment of Trump and his family, the politicalization of the Justice Department, selling pardons.

And the statutes of limitations on most of these crimes, high or not, won’t expire until after 2029.

Donald Trump is really not happy unless he’s in a fight viciously attacking someone. There’s so many targets. latest, now listen to me, you’re not gonna believe this if you don’t know it at first, his latest Pope Leo, the first American Pope. Trump says the Pope is weak on crime and nuclear weapons. He can source with losers of the left. And then he says the only reason this Pope was elected, first American Pope was in order to get along with Donald Trump.

In other words, that conclave over in Rome was all about Trump. Now I have never been to a conclave, quite clearly, but I think I can guarantee the one topic that was not a factor in the election of Pope Leo was somebody who Trump will like.

More stunning, Trump then put out this AI-generated image of him Trump as Jesus tending to the sick. I thought, who could this be? Who could this man so full of hate? Who could he be comforting? Then I got it. Viktor Orban, the right-wing corrupt pro-Putin Hungarian autocrat who got trounced yesterday. Despite the all-out support of Trump world, starting with the president, he even sent his boys Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance over there to campaign for Orban.

The result was a landslide. The autocrat lost. Now back to the Pope and the president. I just wonder if we’ll hear from the Catholics in this administration over the president’s personal attacks on the Holy Father. You know, where are you? What do you have to say Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Melania Trump? I suspect what they have to say will basically be silence.

There will be a celebration Saturday of David Keene, a longtime conservative activist, who passed away last month. Two guarantees: it’ll be an eclectic crowd and there will be lots of terrific stories.

David was one of the reasons I feel fortunate to have covered politics all these years. Politically, we didn’t agree on much. He was a conservative; I was not.

But he was wonderful company, a great story teller, insightful, candid -- he could be just as harsh on some conservatives -- mixed in with humor and appreciation of irony.

The son of midwestern labor union officials, he was turned off by the left wing 60s and turned to conservatism.

He worked for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Sen. Jim Buckley before joining the Reagan ranks. Later, he was head of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association. I’m passionately anti-gun; rather than argue we just teased each other.

A committed conservative, David was never a hater. That is in marked contrast to many of today’s conservative operatives.

He was principled, welcoming gays into he party when it wasn’t popular and opposing the post 9/11 Patriot Act on civil liberties grounds. He and the liberal Morton Halperin were honored together for their devotion to civil liberties and the constitution.

Unlike some of those other young conservatives of the 70s and 80s, David basically stuck to his principles. By contrast, others like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort made a lot of money and are convicted felons.

Keene was a great source, able to analyze with detachment. I can’t remember a conversation, no matter how serious the subject, where there wasn’t laughter. He was a happy warrior.

I got to know him well covering an exciting story. It was the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City; Ronald Reagan challenged President Ford for the GOP nomination. When the primaries ended in early June they each had virtually the same number of delegates. The promise of a contested convention was in the air.

Then using the perquisites of the White House, Ford was picking off a delegate or two almost daily, headed to a certain victory in Kansas City. The right-wing Reagan diehards wanted to hit hard on ideology. John Sears, the brilliant Reagan campaign manager, realized that would be tilting at windmills; he focused on the rules instead.

Sears got Reagan to throw a “Hail Mary” three weeks before the convention. The conservative champion chose Richard Schweiker, a liberal GOP Pennsylvania Senator, as his running mate. Republicans were shocked but, as Sears foresaw, it “froze the linebackers,” or stopped any delegate movement as politicians assessed this new element.

Sears followed this with a rules proposal -- 16-C -- that would require a presidential candidate to announce a running mate before the nomination. This would be a ferocious fight to decide the nomination. If 16-C passed, whichever way Ford went was risky.

The Wall Street Journal assigned two reporters to follow the showdown. I tracked the Reagan team, specifically a top strategist, David Keene, for five days leading up to the make or break vote.

Keene gave me amazing access as he charmed, cajoled and pleaded with delegates. To moderates he stressed the big tent approach of the Reagan-Schweiker ticket, the message it sent about the Californian’s flexibility. To conservatives the message was who do you think would be a stronger candidate in the fall and would govern more conservatively? To more than a few, it was about personal or political interests.

For all his selective persuasion, I don’t think he said anything he didn’t basically believe. He also had to keep a check on Reagan zealots. One was New Hampshire’s right wing Governor, Meldrim Thomson, code-named “The Granite State Blockhead.” A junior staffer, code-named “The Leash,” was tasked to shadow the Governor everywhere. The Sunday before the convention opened, a slightly panicked Keene told headquarters, “The Leash has lost the Blockhead.”

He soon found him.

MY trailing him constantly got Keene in trouble once. We went into the Reagan command trailer, Sears spotted me and yelled, “Get him out of here.”

In those five days we talked not just about politics and delegates, but also about growing up experiences, why he became a conservative, admirable and not-so-admirable politicians. It always was in good humor. It was part political education, part just a good time.

On Tuesday night out of more than 2,200 delegates Ford won by 100, though it actually was a little closer.

That sealed the nomination in the last political convention where the outcome wasn’t pre-ordained.

Although we didn’t see each other as much in later years, in Kansas City I made a friend for life.

James and Al game out the implications of Trump’s foreign policy following the ceasefire with Iran, analyze the growing schism in the MAGA movement, and examine the shift toward Democrats and Independents in recent off-year elections. Then they welcome former MT Governor Steve Bullock to discuss winning in the Mountain West, strategies for independents and Democrats in Red areas, how to connect with rural voters, the importance of values that resonate with everyday people, and how to address cultural issues head-on.

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March Madness has not been compelling. There have been no huge upsets and only one great game the past two weeks, Connecticut’s final second victory over Duke.
All three games in the Women’s Final Four this weekend were one-sided.
Tonight, however, the UConn-Michigan championship contest may change those dynamics, producing a memorable game.
It features a great team against a great coach.
I’m a political hack journalist who loves basketball but hardly am an expert. But it hasn’t been a terrific tournament for the experts, so why not give it a shot.
I’ve seen both Michigan and UConn numerous times on television and in person for their games against Duke. Michigan is an awesome team, big, quick, deep, talented. On Saturday the Wolverines, with their best player injured for much of the game, manhandled Arizona, who many experts thoughts was the best team in the field.
UConn is really good basketball team with a mixture of seasoned veterans and a star freshman. They are disciplined and tenacious. But they aren’t as big or as powerful as Michigan.
The equalizer is the Huskies coach, Dan Hurley. This is his third trip to the championship game in the past four season Since the John Wooden-UCLA dominance ended a half century ago, the only other coach to achieve that is Duke’s legendary Mike Krzyzewski.
A word about Michigan coach, Dusty May. He took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four three years ago. A year later he was hied by Michigan who had won only eight games that season. He then led them to a Big Ten Championship and, in his second season, to the finals.
He may turn out to be a Hall of Fame coach.
For now Dan Hurley is sui generis, as entertaining as he is brilliant.
He comes from basketball royalty. His father, Bob Hurley, sr. arguably was the greatest high school basketball coach, winning over 1,000 games and 28 New Jersey state championships at a small Catholic school. His brother, Bob Hurley jr was an All-American player at Duke though a less successful coach.
One of my favorite stories out of Indianapolis was an ESPN piece by Ryan McGree who did nothing but track Hurley in the semi-final game. The coach, who head bumped a referee after they beat Duke, dropped a F-Bomb less than a minute into the game. During one “amazing stretch,” McGree wrote, “ Hurley managed to cram a real time on the clock two minutes with 96 steps, one mini-leap, six one-finger points, a pair of two handed calm downs, and a 30 second crouch next to his stool, during which he drank from two cups of water and took seven looks at the play sheet. When he finally stood up he did it with such force that he nearly launched himself backward off the floor into the sunken bench area.”
These antics sometimes overshadow his coaching brilliance, He successfully rebuilds rosters, the intensity of his practices are off the charts, no one is better at in-game adjustments, and he retains the loyalty of his players.
If you want a good taker on tonight check out my two favorite analysts, ESPN’s Jay Bilas or TNT Sports Charles Barkley.
From the amateur seats, at the risk of angering my friend Esther Newberg, a prediction: Michigan 77-UConn 74.

If you had any doubt that yesterday was April Fool’s Day, I hope you saw Donald Trump’s speech from the White House last night. It may go down in history as one of the worst presidential addresses ever. America has been at war now for over a month and the President of the United States has never explained why. Actually, he’s offered multiple, often conflicting, rationales.

He had a chance last night to level with the American people on where we are in this war and where he expects to go. He abysmally failed. He simply wasted 19 minutes of prime time television with the same contradictions and lies. As an aside, he said inflation is over. No, it’s not, Mr. President. Iran has not had any regime change despite what he says. They’ve just promoted the taxi squad when the first team was killed.

He has not, as promised ended their missile capacity. Missiles were being fired as he was giving his speech. He distorted Obama’s deal with the Iranians some years ago. The money he talked about giving them actually was Iranian frozen assets and the nuclear deal negotiated back then by all accounts was working. On Tuesday, the Straits of Hormuz, which 20 % of the world’s oil supplies flow, he said had to be reopened by Wednesday, it’s no big deal. Let’s remember the Straits were open before Trump went to war.

He still won’t tell us why American blood or treasure should be lost in a region where Saudi Arabia and Israel have far more assets than Iran. What Trump really displayed again last night, he is a commander in chief who has no idea how or what to command.