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Donald Trump correctly predicted his self-styled Big Beautiful Bill would be a winner in this year’s midterms elections.

It is ... for Democrats.

Most Democratic candidates in competitive races are emphasizing the bill’s huge cuts in Medicaid, the steep increase in Americans without health insurance while giving the wealthy big tax cuts. Republicans , often on the defensive, stress provisions like limiting tax on tips or overtime and claim the Medicaid cuts were about eliminating waste fraud and abuse.

A Washington Post survey found that Congressional Democrats talk about the law twice as often as Republicans according to an analysis of public statements and social media posts.

On a podcast I’ve interviewed a dozen Democratic challengers from New Jersey to Arizona. Every one has been eager to talk about the problems caused by the Big Beautiful Bill.

The measure passed by a single vote so Republicans can’t easily finesse the bill. Some, like Wisconsin’s Derrick Van Orden, outrightly deny the BBB cut Medicaid spending. Iowa’s Zach Nunn, was so angered by a question from a Democratic tracker, he smashed the phone.

Others reframe the issue. California Rep. David Valadao’s Central Valley district has the highest number of Medicaid recipients of any GOP member so he changes the focus. “Obviously there was the health care component,” he acknowledged, “But obviously the tax component was the most important portion of the bill that we were mostly focused on.”

A Politico poll found most half respondents didn’t know much about the bill; more people said it hurt them than helped them.

White House and congressional leaders are urging candidates to call it “The Working Families Tax Cuts,” not the Big Beautiful bill. But starting with Trump and now the media and Democrats it’s the BBB.

There was real GOP optimism when Trump signed the legislation July 4 a year ago. It would be a huge job creator, cut taxes. boost real wages, a bonanza for farmers, lower the debt and expand heath care.

Even by Trumpian standards the claims were outsized He said the bill was “perhaps the most important and greatest of its kind in history.”

His Amen chorus was right behind him. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted an immediate boost in real wages as 2026 “can be a very good year.”

Real wages have been stagnant since the bill passed.

There were tax cuts that primarily benefitted the rich. Provisions ending the tax on tips and overtime helped some workers, not nearly as many as advertised.

Thirteen months after the bill passed it’s not a pretty picture economically though there are other factors not just BBB. Over four million American have lost health insurance, primarily because Trump let the Obamacare enhanced tax credit expire and five million more no longer have SNAP or nutritional assistance.

Farm income, adjusted for inflation is expected to fall 2.6% from a year ago with the separate Trump tariffs a factor. The deficit has grown and while predictions of a recession were wrong, job growth has been modest.

About 400,000 jobs have been added over the past year. The final year of the Biden Presidency saw 2.2 million additional jobs.

On the stump, twelve weeks before the election, these figures and the BBB is front and center for most Democratic candidates.

Rural hospitals, affected by Medicaid cuts, are in danger of closing; a few already have. Zach Nunn’s Iowa challenger seizes on this; “My congressman said it was a myth that it (the BBB) was going to close rural hospitals,” says Sarah Trone Garriott. “It is already happening.”

In Scranton, Pa., Democrat Paige Cogentti charges Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan sold Medicaid-related stocks and then voted for bill that cuts Medicaid.

As the President’s popularity sinks, more challengers are linking their opponents to Trump and the BBB, Citing Rep. Jan Kiggans vote for the bill, challenger Elaine Luria claims Virginians are paying a price for the incumbent putting “loyalty to Trump over their own community.”

Some Republicans, like New York’s Mike Lawler, are holding fast, championing the Big Beautiful Bill. He boasts about increasing the deduction for state and local taxes to $40,000 from $10,000, a real benefit to those generally making $200,000 to $500,000. He reminds constituents often of the tax exemption for some tips and overtime pay.

On defense, Lawler says the Medicaid cuts eliminated waste fraud and benefits for illegal immigrants. Actually undocumented migrants always have been ineligible for Medicaid.

Lawler faces one if the toughest Democratic challengers, decorated Army veteran, Cait Conley, who doesn’t let him off the hook. She notes before the 2017 Trump tax cut there was no cap on state and local tax deductions so just increasing it to $40,000 is inadequate.

On the health care policies she charges thousands of Hudson Valley residents have lost health care coverage because of Lawler’s vote.

She is brutally dismissive of Lawler’s claims about the bill: “The guy is a con artist.”

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Recent polls on the 2028 Presidential race find the same Democratic front runners: Kamala Harrris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I’ll give you those four and take the other possibilities and not even ask for points.
That reflects shortcomings of the Top Four, especially Harris, but more it reflects history and an understanding that politics is not a static business, the environment and conditions change.
Politicians and the press should focus predominately on this November’s critical elections, and not the next Presidential contest. (I’m violating this for the last time until after Nov. 3)
For 2028, where will the economy be ? What will be the outcome of the disastrous Iran war ? How about Ukraine ? How will the politics of A-I play out, will China have caught or surpassed the U.S. ? What will be Donald Trump’s political and cognitive state ? How about the outcome of this November’s elections which will help shape the Presidential contest ?
I learned this lesson in the first midterms I covered. It was 1974; when polls or pundits focused on the next Presidential race --President Nixon was in his second term and facing impeachment --a Georgia peanut farmer and Governor wasn’t on any radar screen. That was Jimmy Carter.
It’s also worth recalling some of the front-runners at this stage: Republicans Rudy Guiliani and Jeb Bush and Democrats Gary Hart and Mario Cuomo. None got to measure the drapes in the Oval office.
These early 2028 surveys primarily reflect name recognition. Some of those voters forget about Harris’ miserable 2019 presidential campaign or even in 2024 when she got the nomination after President Biden dropped out and ran a mediocre campaign. Supporters say she got break when the Democrats made South Carolina, with a large number of black voters, the initial primary in 2028.
South Carolina provided decisive in the nominations of Barack Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. That was when it was fourth ---the clean up hitter -- sorting out earlier splits decisions.
The left-wing mainstream debate, intensifying this year, likely will be even more inflamed in a Presidential year. There will be divisive debates over Israel, a government run health care system, immigration and other issues.
The most compelling candidate on the left is AOC a talented politician. I’d be surprised if she could win in swing districts or competitive states.
In following a unpopular President, the premium is on finding someone totally different, a counter to the incumbent.
With Trump that’s a large menu. Most of the leading Democratic Governors should do pretty well on that score.
Finally -- after spending most of a column disowning my own dictum about deemphasizing the next Presidential race -- it always depends on how a top tier candidate adapts to the major leagues of politics. Barack Obama did; Jeb Bush didn’t.
One more violation: The media loves to speculate on a possible GOP competition between J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. That may hinge on Trump’s whim of the moment. OMG.
The November elections will play a significant role. If Republicans hold on to Congress it’ll be a huge reaffirmation of Trump, despite the polls. He will be the political king.
For dispirited Democrats it would give impetus to the left -- “we’ve tried it your way and failed.”
If instead Democrats win the House, and perhaps the Senate, how they perform will be important. A party riven by ideological battles and overreaching will make it harder to suggest it’s ready to govern.
A party reasonably united and holding Trump accountable, will set a favorable predicate for the Presidential election.
Predictably the hopefuls will go all out to help Democratic candidates this fall. It’ll be interesting to see which national figures are welcomed by Senate candidates James Talarico in Texas or Josh Turek in Iowa.
Nothing is better than delivering in your own state. If Pennyslvania’s Josh Shapiro wins a big gubernatorial reelection and his coattails carry three Democratic House challengers with him, politicians will take notice.
The next Presidential race will kick in full gear by year end. For the next thirteen weeks, however, all the focus should be on the midterms.
Two years from now we’ll collect on my earlier wager.

In Donald Trump’s crazed and duplicitous speech about election security, his grievance about the 2020 election or pushing voter suppression legislation were covers for his real purpose: setting the predicate for sabotaging the midterms elections.
He will try to use the phony claims of foreign interference, illegals voting and widespread fraud -- which he bizarrely enumerated in a White House speech -- to intimidate voters, especially minorities and interfere with voting and undercut results.
With no internal checks, he seems intent to do anything to subvert the very real prospects of major Democratic gains this November.
Efforts so far to suppress the vote have not succeeded. Courts have rejected proposals to ban mail voting or using the Post Office for restrictions. The SAVE act, requiring proof of citizenship, is dead in Congress.

It’s a distraction to worry about cancelling the midterms; it won’t happen, Instead Democrats, with legal experts expect major Trump efforts to undermine Democratic votes.
He is much better prepared than he was in his futile attempts to overturn the legitimate 2020 presidential election. Unlike then he will not face any internal resistance and no doubt believes the Supreme Court is a more friendly venue.
Trump cares deeply about these midterms, desperate not to face a Democratic-run Congress that investigates the Administration’s misdeeds and holds him accountable.
He already has telegraphed likely moves, and Democrats are preparing challenges pre-election, election day, post election and possibly when the next Congress is scheduled to be sworn in.
The major threats in the offing include:
-- sending ICE agents near heavily Hispanic voting areas under the false pretense of stopping illegal migrants from voting. This is a certainty. These ICE enforcers intimidate Hispanics who’re American citizens; some could be reluctant to show up and face unjustified scrutiny.
That’s what the Trump forces would be counting on in sending agents into Texas’ Rio Grande Valley during the early voting and Election Day. This would be immediately challenged, though the Supreme Court essentially condoned this racial profiling.
-- invoking the Insurrection Act which Trump has threatened multiple times. This would enable him to send troops or the national guard into urban areas - -Democratic strongholds -- creating chaos. The last time that was done was 1992 when the Governor of California and Mayor of Los Angeles requested federal forces to help quell violent riots.
Jack Goldsmith a Harvard law professor and former top Republican Justice Department official and Bob Bauer, a leading Democratic attorney and former White House counsel, have warned that the Act is dangerously unlimited, in need of reform.
Invoking the Insurrection Act would be a provocative and purely political act --the guise would be the threat of violence -- but Goldsmith and Bauer write the President would receive “significant deference” from the Supreme Court.
-- seizing the ballots and voting machines on Election Day to expose massive fraud which doesn’t exist. Trump has said he should have done that in 2020 and he’s far more emboldened now.
Moving quickly, for instance, he might order the seizure of ballots in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. That shouldn’t be legitimate as elections are under the purview of state and local governments, and Congress, not the President.
Legalities are a mere nuisance to President Trump.
-- finally, on January 3 the old Congress will have gone out of business with the new Congress set to be sworn in. In the House, the clerk usually routinely assembles a list of winners to be seated.
But if Democrats have won only a small majority, the clerk, tapped by Mike Johnson, the current Speaker, might reject some Democrats due to charges of alleged fraud.
It’s not clear to anyone exactly how this would play out. It is clear if it means control Trump would do whatever he thinks it takes.
This may seem outrageous but Trump has strong cards. The Justice Department, Homeland Security, the Pentagon and Treasury can be counted to support him, lock step.
This was not true in 2020 when Trump’s Vice President, Attorney General, Defense Secretary and even some White House lawyers stood up to him.
Democrat are fully preparing for this with scores of law firms, public interest and citizen groups. In 2020, Dana Remus and Bob Bauer, top Biden advisers, rallied teams of legal support and designated three former Solicitors General to lead on election challenges: Seth Waxman, Don Verrilli and Walter Dellinger-- the SG 3 or as the New Yorker called them, the three amigos. They were brilliant, winning 60 of 61 cases against Trump, leaving his only recourse to encourage the violent mob that unsuccessfully tried to stop the election count in Congress.
These same prominent lawyers, except for Dellinger, who passed away, are deeply into preparing for the Trump onslaught this year.
This year it’s midterms, not the focus of a Presidential contest, and there’s no chain of command. Privately, there’s concern that someone like Marc Elias might play an outsized role. Elias is a terrific self-promotor, appears often on cable news, and is close to leading Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer.
But he lacks the legal gravitas. He takes credit for thwarting Trump in 2020, and did work on recount and other issues. But those involved with the major matters that resolved the outcome dismiss an Elias role.
He notes he has argued five Supreme Court cases, Waxman, by contrast, has argued more than 90 cases before the High Court and with significant victories on matters ranging from the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill to granting legal rights to Guantanamo prisoners to abolishing the death penalty for juveniles.
After the last election, the SG3 thwarted Trump’s final efforts at the Supreme Court.
In the weeks and months ahead, remember July 16; Trump told us what he was going to do.

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There may not have been a more ethically challenged Attorney General nominee than Todd Blanche.

As Deputy Attorney General, he has been the main force at an unscrupulous Justice Department from covering up the investigation into sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein to blatantly partisan indictments that were rejected by grand juries to cutting an unprecedented sweetheart deal enabling Donald Trump and his family to avoid sizeable tax bills.

There are two reasons this tarnished nominee. who faces the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing today, still could be confirmed. One is most Senate Republicans, who command a 53 to 47 majority, regularly vote in lockstep with Trump’s wishes.

The other is the opposition, in this case ten Democrats on the Judiciary panel, historically have lacked focus and discipline in these showdowns.

There are a handful of smart former prosecutors among these Democrats and a couple lightweights, well maybe welterweights.

The highest priority is the Epstein scandal. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi said Epstein was Blanche’s account. He even participated in a secret meeting at the White House aimed at insulating Trump from the scandal.

Justice, contrary to congressional legislation, has only selectively released Epstein files sometimes with an eye to protecting Trump.

The one person who knows the most about the late pervert’s actions is his accomplice, convicted criminal, Ghislaine Maxwell. Blanche personally went to interview her with a design to clear Trump.

A few days later she was transferred to a more comfortable minimum security prison and given special privileges. This facility was supposed to be off limits to convicted sex offenders.

Blanche claimed he met with Epstein survivors; they say he has not. A number have called for Blanche’s rejection, one is scheduled to testify before the Judiciary committee.

The other priority, after Epstein, is the deal Blanche engineered with the IRS to set up a $1.8 billion slush fund for victims of government “weaponization.: After an outcry, Blanche backed down, said the fund was dead.

But the bigger deal was Blanche getting Trump and his family immunity from any tax audits of current or past filings. This was supposed to compensate for a leak of Trump’s tax returns for which he sued the agency for $10 billion. The suit was flawed, filed too late, and probably the most he could have gotten, under normal order, would have been an apology.

Instead Blanche gave Trump and family an unprecedented immunity from any current tax audits saving them, by some estimates, hundreds of millions.

A federal judge this week denounced the deal as improper, accused Blanche of “at best misleading and at worst disingenuous” testimony and forwarded her findings to appropriate attorney disciplinary bodies.

Senators, don’t focus on the slush fund, which could have been done without the deal. Blanche will claim it’s moot, which may or may not be true.

All your questions should be about the unprecedented and sleazy, Trump tax deal, following the judge’s decision and a petition by more than 30 former federal judges, Republicans and Democrats, denouncing the Blanche deal.

Maybe just a few questions on political efforts , under Trump’s orders, to bring frivolous criminal cases against his enemies.

If this all goes as expected, confirmation probably will come down to five Republicans. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski who has been willing to stand up to Trump pressure, and Maine’s Susan Collins facing a tough reelection. Then it would be up to three GOP Senators in their final months: Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and if he returns from hospitalization, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell.

The stakes are high: the rule of law.

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For a column two thoughts emerged: I’m still on a high on the founding fathers and some outrages are so crazy they’re comical.

So naturally let’s write about Donald Trump comparing himself to George Washington. On the father of the country I turn to two great historians who have written about him, Lindsay Chervinsky, head of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon, and Ron Chernow who also authored the celebrated biography of Alexander Hamilton.

On every imaginable positive trait -- character, courage, integrity, leadership -- next to Washington, Trump is a midget.

Let’s look at some of the contrasts.

Washington saw three essential pillars for the new Republic: the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power and civilian control of the military.

Trump and his Justice Department see the rule of law as politically expedient.That criiticsm is leveled even by some high level Republicans, judges, former top Justice Department officials and the GOP’s last presidential nominee before Trump, Mitt Romney.

A survey co-directed by the UCLA law school -- including several dozen federal judges, elite lawyers, law school and political science professors, along with a national survey of 2,750 pf he general public -- found a significant erosion in the rule of law under the current Trump Administration.

Overwhelming majorities of legal experts surveyed say this Administration has used the Justice Department to go after political enemies and provided favors to the President’s allies.

On the transfer of power, before 2020 there were several bitter fights. In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular and electoral votes but fell short of a majority. It went to the House where Henry Clay orchestrated a victory for John Quincy Adams who appointed him Secretary of State.

In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency even though he lost on election day. Under a deal in return for the White House, his party agreed to pull federal troops from the South, opening the way for suppression of Blacks.

However, the losing party didn’t litigate those results -- Jackson captured the presidency four years later. Trump, going on six years after an election he demonstrably lost, still is ordering hundreds of FBI agents to try to find fraud in that election.

Trump has followed Washington’s insistence on civilian control of the military. I fervently believe in that, even though today there are scores of military officers who would be much better than Pete Hegseth.

Washington turned over control of the military after the Revolutionary War to a Congress he knew was incompetent. I doubt Trump would have done that.

I also suspect he would have been on the wrong side, in a classic test, when President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. (During the Clinton Administration I was with a group of mainly conservative Republicans who complained we were too soft and needed a MacArthur. One asked someone else there, John Glenn, what he thought of MacArthur: “I’m glad Truman fired his ass,” the retired Marine Colonel and American hero replied.)

Washington also consistently sought out different views from subordinates during the war; the two most prominent members of his presidency were Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton, with markedly different views on the new country and who despised one another. Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.

Washington appreciated the need to build institutions. Trump relishes tearing down institutions, such as the Voice of America, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the Federal Reserve.

After the Supreme Court said Trump could not arbitrarily remove Federal Reserve Governors, the White House doubled down, duplicitously going after the Fed. Top economic adviser Kevin Hassett, once a respectable and honest conservative economist, charged former Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term doesn’t expire for a year and a half, was staying on the Board just to vote against Trump.

And while five Supreme Court justices ruled birthright citizenship was constitutionally protected, Trump Republicans, encouraged by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, always a GOP operative, are mapping ways to undercut this decision.

Back to the comparisons, Trump has tried to justify his money making scams by drawing a parallel to Washington who he said had two desks together -- one for his business interests and the other for the presidency. That was a lie. No hint of impropriety was permitted anywhere near President Washington, historians have noted.

He was a man of impeccable integrity, though the story is apocryphal about chopping down his father’s cherry tree and confessing, “I can not tell a lie.”

For Trump it often is more like, “I can not tell the truth.”

Recipients

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HERE’S A JOKE: TRUMP COMPARES HIMSELF TO WASHINGTON

FATHER OF COUNTRY VS. THE CRYPTO SCAM KING

For a column two thoughts emerged: I’m still on a high on the founding fathers and some outrages are so crazy they’re comical.

So naturally let’s write about Donald Trump comparing himself to George Washington. On the father of the country I turn to two great historians who have written about him, Lindsay Chervinsky, head of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon, and Ron Chernow who also authored the celebrated biography of Alexander Hamilton.

On every imaginable positive trait -- character, courage, integrity, leadership -- next to Washington, Trump is a midget.

Let’s look at some of the contrasts.

Washington saw three essential pillars for the new Republic: the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power and civilian control of the military.

Trump and his Justice Department see the rule of law as politically expedient.That criticsm is leveled even by some high level Republicans, judges, former top Justice Department officials and the GOP’s last presidential nominee pre-Trump, Mitt Romney.

A survey co-directed by the UCLA law school -- including several dozen federal judges, elite lawyers, law school and political science professors, along with a national survey of 2,750 of the general public -- found a significant erosion in the rule of law under the current Trump Administration.

Overwhelming majorities of legal experts surveyed say this Administration has used the Justice Department to go after political enemies and provided favors to the President’s allies.

On the transfer of power, before 2020 there were several bitter fights. In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular and electoral votes but fell short of a majority. It went to the House where Henry Clay orchestrated a victory for John Quincy Adams who appointed him Secretary of State.

In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency even though he lost on election day. Under a deal in return for the White House, his party agreed to pull federal troops from the South, opening the way for suppression of Blacks.

However, the losing party didn’t litigate those results -- Jackson captured the presidency four years later. Trump, going on six years after an election he demonstrably lost, still is ordering hundreds of FBI agents to try to find fraud in that election.

Trump has followed Washington’s insistence on civilian control of the military. I fervently believe in that, even though today there are scores of military officers who would be much better than Pete Hegseth.

Washington turned over control of the military after the Revolutionary War to a Congress he knew was incompetent. I doubt Trump would have done that.

I also suspect he would have been on the wrong side, in a classic test, when President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. (During the Clinton Administration I was with a group of mainly conservative Republicans who complained we were too soft and needed a MacArthur. One asked someone else there, John Glenn, what he thought of MacArthur: “I’m glad Truman fired his ass,” the retired Marine Colonel and American hero replied.)

Washington also consistently sought out different views from subordinates during the war; the two most prominent members of his presidency were Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton, with markedly different views on the new country and who despised one another. Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.

Washington appreciated the need to build institutions. Trump relishes tearing down institutions, such as the Voice of America, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the Federal Reserve.

After the Supreme Court said Trump could not arbitrarily remove Federal Reserve Governors, the White House doubled down, duplicitously going after the Fed. Top economic adviser Kevin Hassett, once a respectable and honest conservative economist, charged former Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term doesn’t expire for a year and a half, was staying on the Board just to vote against Trump.

And while five Supreme Court justices ruled birthright citizenship was constitutionally protected, Trump Republicans, encouraged by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, always a GOP operative, are mapping ways to undercut this decision.

Back to the comparisons, Trump has tried to justify his money making scams by drawing a parallel to Washington who he said had two desks together -- one for his business interests and the other for the presidency. That was a lie. No hint of impropriety was permitted anywhere near President Washington, historians have noted.

He was a man of impeccable integrity, though the story is apocryphal about chopping down his father’s cherry tree and confessing, “I can not tell a lie.”

For Trump it often is more like, “I can not tell the truth.”

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Democrats remain in good shape for the midterm elections aided by a gift that keeps giving --- Donald Trump -- while dependent on minimizing internal problems caused by the left wing.
On the economy, which pollsters, public and private, say continues to dominate, only 33% of the public approves Trump’s handling, according to the recent Marist poll for PBS aand NPR; he does even worse in other surveys.
Even with gas prices falling and if the economy improves -- dubious --these views are pretty much baked in for the next four months. There’s a lag time between perceptions and changing economic conditions.
It’s wrong to claim Democrats can’t focus on corruption as well as the economy. Good politicians can walk and chew gum simultaneously. Trump emphasized the cost of living and immigration in 2024.
The Trump corruption issues has bubbled beneath the surface. But revelations he raked in $2.2 billion last year, while others in these investments were losing their shirts, and that he and his family are cutting lucrative deals all around he world is changing that.
It’s clear he’s using the White House as a personal money making machine. There never has been Presidential grifting anywhere like this.
The one ray of hope Republicans seized on has been the election of a handful of left wing democratic socialists in primaries. The GOP paints these radicals as harbingers of what a Democratic control of Congress would look like.
Trump has charged they’re “communists,” reflecting either his ignorance or his age, probably both.
The leftists, while a very small slice of the party and any congressional caucus, are well organized in deep blue venues and are especially successful against aging or lackluster mainstream candidates. More than ideology they win because of the deep anger at Trump and the entire political establishment.
As the New York Times Tom Edsall has reported, much of their support derives not from working class or minority voters but from more educated left wing whites.
Some of their rhetoric won’t travel well. Darializa Chevalier, who beat an incumbent in New York City last month, calls for open borders, no migrant deportations, even of violent criminals, and wants to empty the prisons. Melat Kiros, who defeated an incumbent iin Denver, says America is responsible for the 9-11 attack on the country.
Democrats need to strongly condemn those views, starting with Baarack Obama and hopefully some younger members too,
One person whose efforts to take on the radical left is counterproductive is New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who last year called on his party to work with Donald Trump. Foolishly naive, that is exactly what the successful leftists complain about.
A real model is Georgia Democratic Senator, Jon Ossoff, who connects the economy and corruption issues -- “They enrich themselves while you pay more” --and rails against a system rigged by insiders.
For most Democratic candidates this fall it’s important not to get sucked into the right wing or left wing cultural issues.
An appealing agenda for the challenging party is relatively straight forward: an aggressive economic policy, restoring the Trump Medicaid cuts, expanding Obamacare with a public option, raising the minimum wage, more incentives for affordable housing.
This can be paid for with taxes on the wealthy. Just returning to the 2017 individual tax rates would raise more than $2 billion, that’s before anything from corporate taxes or loopholes.
Any agenda should include a tough ethics package for Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President. Ban stock trading for office holders, require total transparency, put enforcement teeth in the Emoluments clause which forbids taking gifts or payments from foreign governments.
That still leaves Democrats with a problem: Israel. The left is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. Domestically, there has been a disturbing uptick in antisemitism.
Much of the blame is with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu whose hard line, brutal policies have alienated many Americans. The new Trump-Vance hard line against Netanyahu is in line with the views of most mainstream Democrats who are committed to the state of Israel and fervently hoping a better leader will be elected his fall.
Moreover, elements of the Democratic left don’t have a monopoly on antisemitism. There are antisemites in the Trump Administration like Paul Ingrassia who has acknowledged there is a “Nazi streak in me.”
For all the talk lately about the Democrats’ “crazy left,” the GOP’s “crazy right” is a bigger force. Arizona Republican Paul Gosar has closely associated with Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi, holocaust denier. Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles calls for deporting all Muslims and has written that gays and lesbians have no place in America.
This election, however, is far larger than the fringe figures on either side.
Joseph Ellis, a foremost authority on the Founding Fathers while discussing those extraordinary events in Philadelphia 250 years ago, ventured a thought about these critical midterm elections.
“Something much larger is at stake,” Ellis notes. “The Republic is on the ballot.”

I love the Fourth of July, the pride, the patriotism of celebrating that extraordinary achievement in Philadelphia 250 years ago.

This year we’ll have a nice family recognition but Donald Trump has made a mockery of any national celebration. It’s all about him, a series of narcissistic and tacky tributes.

Such a lost opportunity for a national day of unity, appreciating our rich history, flaws and all. It’s not to be.

I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs; my Dad used to take us to the Valley Forge Musical Fair on July 4 with wonderful medleys of patriotic songs.

Years later I vividly remember the celebration of America’s 200th birthday in 1976. This was after bitter political fights over the Vietnam War and Watergate which forced President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

It was a message of unity at a time the country needed it. Much of the credit goes to President Gerald Ford.

That year, on July 4 the President went to Valley Forge, spoke at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and then to New York to watch the tall ships from around the world sail into New York harbor.

The President of France and the Queen of England, at different times, joined the commemoration. There were special asides. I recall the Washington Star publishing in the old English though I can’t locate a copy.

The President struck an uplifting tone, there was jubilation.

Starting over a decade later, a family highlight was Alan Greenspan’s party at the Federal Reserve Building overlooking the fireworks on the National Mall. Honoring the Fourth of July with American heroes like John Glenn was special.

In contrast to the 200th, Donald Trump has made the 250th all about him. He vowed there would be “the most spectacular Trump rally of them all.” He established an alternative to the congressionally-approved America 250 committee.

Ford went to Valley Forge to honor those Revolutionary soldiers who spent a freezing winter there, Trump staged a UFC cage fight on the White House lawn. A planned musical event was cancelled when most of the artists said they wouldn’t participate in an ode to Trump.

The Administration also is trying to minimize historical realities, like slavery, that don’t fit the narrative. But there’s no shortage of pictures, banners and posters of Trump; it’s like Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

His narcissistic remake of the nation’s capital, in commemoration of the anniversary, is a disaster. He is ruining the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool. He’s planning a gaudy 250 foot Arc de Trump in front of Arlington Cemetery, the resting place for so many who served the country.

On July 3, the PBS Fourth will air top flight entertainers and music, the finale will be spectacular fireworks at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Around America there will be parades, bells ringing, bonfires, firecrackers, recitations of the Declaration of Independence.

That inspiring spirit will be absent in Trump’s Fourth.

A recent Pew Research survey shows almost 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Israel. More Americans are sympathetic to the Palestinians. These are dramatic changes.

Netanyahu is viewed negatively by most Americans. A decisive majority in the New York Times-Siena survey opposed any additional military assistance to Israel. This opposition is more pronounced among younger voters.

Israel’s major political support arm, AIPAC, once respected or feared by most American politicians, has become a pariah to more and more Democrats.

New York’s 11th congressional district - lower Manhattan district stretching into Brooklyn -- by some calculations has the second highest percentage of Jewish voters. Yet in the Democratic primary challenger Brad Landler is attacking incumbent Dan Goldman for getting AIPAC support. Goldman vowed not to take any AIPAC money and stepped up criticism of Netanyahu.

(As an aside, their stances on Israel and most issues will either be the same or irrelevant in the next Congress. Goldman is an experienced and tough investigator and his loss would be a setback for Democrats.)

Although many politicians still accept AIPAC support, the organization sometimes tries to disguise its involvement. It is backing the staunchly pro-Israeli congresswoman Haley Stevens in a tight Michigan Senate primary. The Detroit News revealed last month that AIPAC had been directing donors to support Stevens in a way that doesn’t link the contribution to them.

More prominent Democrats are distancing themselves from AIPAC. These include presidential aspirants Governors Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, as well as prominent lawmakers like Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and California Rep. Ro Khanna.

AIPAC spends a big chunk of money in Democratic primaries, understandable when trying to defeat an anti-Israel candidate like Cori Bush in Missouri.

But, infuriating Democrats, AIPAC spent more than $2 million to defeat Tom Malinowski in a New Jersey special congressional election. The former congressman was a supporter of Israel, but not of Netanyahu or many of his policies.

Rather than focusing on the candidate’s views on Israel, they attacked him for a vote when he was in Congress in 2019 that charged he was a supporter of ICE. In reality, that bore no resemblance to today’s ICE controversies. It was a supplemental appropriations measure supported by all but a handful of Democrats.

“That was a despicable and dishonest attack,” says Malinowski, a human rights advocate who immigrated to America as a child.

With these attacks a left wing anti-Israel candidate won by 889 votes. AIPAC privately rationalized to some critics that one vote wouldn’t matter much but Malinowski’s pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu voice would be influential.

Israel is in trouble with its most important ally, the United States. Its powerful lobby AIPAC is making it worse, Malinowski says “damaging to maintaining any consensus for a partnership with Israel.”

----

Required reading for all senators before voting on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General of the United States should be: “The Department of Revenge” by Devlin Barrett, a veteran prize winning Justice Department reporter, now with the New York Times.

This well documented account of what the Trump Administration has done to the Justice Department is tragic. It has lost many of its most experienced lawyers. Major departments, public integrity, civil rights, and national security have all been shredded. In the current Justice Department the only guiding principle, or priority, is what Donald Trump wants.

In reading the Department of Revenge, it’s clear no one is more culpable for the demise of an honest department than Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General and formerly Trump’s criminal defense lawyer.

The Barrett book, with specificity and attributable sources enumerates Blanche’s central complicity in two big Trump-centric scandals, in recklessly -- and lawlessly -- going after Trump’s perceived “enemies,” and establishing partisan litmus tests for Justice and the FBI.

“Todd Blanche has become the symbol of Donald Trump and his corruption,” charges Michael Luttig, in calling for the Senate to reject his nomination. Luttig is a former Court of Appeals judge, conservative, and now a champion of trying to protect the rule of law.

The Department of Justice is in bad shape, Luttig notes and if Blanche is confirmed “it will effectively bring an end to this Department of Justice.”

Trump was determined that Justice would be subservient to his wishes. After winning in 2024, his first choice for Attorney General was former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who was facing imminent House Ethics committee charges of sexual trafficking and campaign finance fraud. That was too much and the nod instead went to Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General and Trump loyalist.

Bondi was a lightweight, however, and made embarrassing mistakes relating to the files of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, a one time pal of Trump. Epstein procured young women for powerful men; Trump denied he was one of them but desperately wanted to bury the issue.

The Epstein account and most top department decisions were given to Blanche, the deputy Attorney General.

The New York Times last week revealed there was an unusual meeting in the White House situation room -- the security proof venue used for national security and intelligence matters -- to deal with Trump’s Epstein “crisis.” As well as the Vice President and top White House staff, Blanche was there and made two recommendations. The first was to request the Epstein grand jury testimony be released which he noted almost certainly would be rejected but then they could blame the judges.

The other was that he’d interview the imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice who procured young women. Over two days Blanche threw a series of softball questions, with little follow-ups, as she exonerated Trump from bad behavior. A week later she was moved to a minimum security facility, supposed to be off limits for convicted sexual offenders, and given special favors. (A good betting pool would be to predict which day, after the midterms, Maxwell gets a pardon or commutation.)

Blanche also crafted the deal for a $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump supporting victims of “weaponization,” and barred any tax audits of Trump or his family for current or past tax returns.

This was so sordid that 35 former federal judges, of both parties, asked a judge to investigate the dubious deal.

This should be enough to disqualify Blanche. Barrett’s book outlines a pattern of politically motivated, even lawless, actions. At Trump’s insistence he forced indictments of former FBI director James Comey over the objections of experienced prosecutors who found the evidence insufficient.

The first was thrown out by a judge and the current charge is that a picture he took of a sea shell with the numbers “86 47” showed he wanted to harm the president. This one is a loser too.

Likewise, two Justice Department charges against New York Attorney General Letita James,, who had successfully sued private citizen Trump for financial fraud, were rejected by grand juries.,

Earlier, with his associate Emil Bove, Blanche forced the Manhattan U.S. Attorney to drop an indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, that actually was dependent on his cooperation with the Trump Administration.

The acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a conservative former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, charged this was an unethical “quid pro quo” in violation of Justice Department policies.

Blanche is delivering on Trump’s obsession to get revenge against Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan. When the head of the national security team in Miami told Justice there was no case, Blanche had her sidelined. He brought in a political hack, Joe diGenova, to help find a way to indict Brennan.

It’s supposed to be so easy that any prosecutor could get an indictment of a “ham sandwich.” Blanche better Deli-shop as numerous grand juries have rejected flimsy political charges brought by this Justice Department.

Blanche also has overseen the departures of thousands of employees, many horrified by the politicalization of Justice, and he brags about firing hundreds of officials for doing their job in investigating and prosecuting the violent January 6 criminals who tried to overturn an election.

Barrett writes: “A Justice Department and an FBI without rules, without good judgment and without a moral compass represent a massive danger not just to Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms but also to the nation’s stability and safety.”

That’s what a Todd Blanche-led Justice Department represents.

It’s unwieldy and unequal.

It also is better than five years ago. The marketplace now plays a role and is bridging a bit of the huge divide between young, disproportionately Black players and older predominately white coaches and administrators.

Still, some reforms are necessary. Both President Trump and a bipartisan bill authored by Texas Republican Ted Cruz and Washington state Democrat Maria Cantwell are pushing changes.

There are promising elements in these efforts but major shortcomings.

The NCAA, the band of colleges that governs these programs, caused many of the problems. Under the old system, coaches and colleges were raking in big bucks while players, apart from scholarships, were more like indentured servants.

The underlying fiction was this was all about amateurism and student-athletes.

The NCAA also had checkered enforcement especially against blue bloods. “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they gave Cleveland State two more years of probation,” cracked Jerry Tarkanian, the late University of Nevada at Las Vegas coach.

Under the table payments and skirting of rules was common. At a forum on college athletics years ago one coach suggested, “what we need is more prayer.” To which John Thompson, the great Georgetown coach, responded, “what we need is for you M***** F******’s to quit cheating.”

A 2021 unanimous Supreme Court decision upended this NCAA monopoly declaring that restrictions on education-related compensation violated antitrust laws. There wasn’t much clarity but it opened the doors.

The proposal in the Senate calls for an antitrust exemption and an expanded compensation cap on school payments to athletes. There would be new protections for benefits like health care and the ability to sue in federal courts for legitimate grievances. It would seek to narrow the disparities between the haves and have nots by proposing a media revenue shaaring pool with participants.

The legislation still tilts heavily to colleege administramtors and coaches, says Jay Bilas. He is a former Duke basketball star, with a law degree and now the top ESPN basketball analyst; few are as knowledgeable or thoughtful about college sports.

The bill, he says, falls short for the athletes: “they want to give an antitrust exemption which protects coaches and administrators but restricts players.”

What’s needed, Bilas argues, “is a pathway for a collective bargaining unit,” like professional football, basketball and baseball have. There are complexities --should this be done by individuals, schools, conferences or overall? What are the options if there’s an impasse; there is strong opposition to unionization.

There would still be the NIL’s -- Name, Image and Likeness -- which boosters use to monetize opportunies for players.

The odds of anything happening this year are low. There are two dominant conferences - the Big Ten with teams in the populous Midwest and the West Coast with large media markets, and the almost as powerful SEC, stretching in the South from Texas through Florida and Georgia. They have most of the cards and will resist reforms like media revenue sharing.

Blacks comprise a sizable number of basketball and football players, and some civil rights groups are objecting to these reform proposals.

At some stage the colleges, NCAA, will have to figure out a more player-friendly reform, building on some of the changes suggested by the Cruz-Cantwell measure.

In the meantime, I’m not going to worry about some talented young college quarterback or power forward making $10 million. I do worry how those substitutes or those in minor sports or women’s sports are treated.

I also don’t worry about exceptional coaches - Jon Scheyer of Duke and Connecticut’s Dan Hurley in basketball or Indiana’s Curt Cignetti and Ohio State’s Ryan Day in football - having big pay days. They deliver; that’s the marketplace.

Unacceptable are coaches who are fired - presumably for not being good enough - and walking away with unconscionable sums. That includes two football coaches, LSU’s Brian Kelly, out the door with $54 million, and $48.6 million was due for Penn State’s James Franklin. In basketball, fired Kansas State coach Jerome Tang is seeking $18.7 million. While in 2020, Wake Forest’s (my alma mater) Danny Manning got $14.7 million after he was terminated.

No caps or limits on player compensation should be acceptable without looking for any way to limit these payouts.

Overall, once you accept that this is not about amateur student-athletes, the current state of play, with its inequities, looks okay. Some schools in conferences like the Atlantic Coast (ACC) and the Big East (basketball) may have to move down to a less financially competitive league.

We’re not going back. “Those who say we want it to be like it used to be,” Bilas says, are out of touch with realities. “Players have to have a voice.”

The ghosts of Credit Mobilier, Teapot Dome and Watergate must be asking: How in the hell is this guy getting away with far more than we ever dreamed.

On corruption, Washington-style, Donald Trump is in a league by himself. His net worth has almost tripled as he rakes in money from a crypto scam, peddles pardons for investor associates, and gives new meaning to insider trading.

Most of this is legal for the major reason he’s able to get away with it -- the 2024 Supreme Court decision that granted him broad immunity for any official act, which he interprets very generously.

“There is a zone of lawlessness around the Oval Office, erected by the Supreme Court when it granted current and former presidents effective immunity from prosecution if their crimes involved ‘official acts,’” Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice wrote last week. “Loot the taxpayers, misuse government power for graft and you’re off the hook.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision gave the President absolute immunity performing constitutional duties and presumptive immunity for other “official” acts.. The partisan decision, all Republican justices, wasn’t issued until July 1 of the election year, ending even any limited prosecution of Trump for inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol to try to overturn an honest election which Trump lost.

I doubt the timing was coincidental.

Michael Lutting, a former conservative federal judge, called the decision “abominable,” and in a dissent Justice Sotomayor said it makes Trump a “King, above the law.”

That’s the way an emboldened Trump sees it. With only rare exceptions, he acts like there are no guard rails to stop him.

The money grift is stunning, especially the crypto currency firm Trump established; he is shaking down investors and working to make sure the government doesn’t get in the way of the billions he’s hauling in.

Does this violate any legal restrictions? Not with his protective Supreme Court ruling.

Then there are his stock purchases, not infrequently tied to government actions. He bought Palantir stock, the big data firm and government contractor and right afterwards publicly praised the company, even giving its NASDAQ ticker number.

He bought Paramount and Netflix and Warner Brothers stock while the Justice Department was weighing a merger deal. This Justice Department has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump. He was buying Oracle stock while facilitating its purchase of Tik-Tok.

The president generally isn’t covered by insider trading restrictions. But post presidency there could have been an investigation into this shady activity. Not with John Roberts’ decision, however.

Likewise, some of the unprecedented number of pardons he has issued raise serious questions. Some have been granted to criminals directly tied to his business interests, others for political benefit. Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the possibility that a broad grant of immunity might allow bribery. She voted for the decision anyway.

Trump, of course, would say these were tied to official acts.

This is a family racket. ProPublica disclosed that a White House official urged the Pentagon to approve and expedite an unusual loan for a start-up company. Predictably, the Pentagon obliged and gave a record loan to the company where Donald Trump, Jr. is a big investor.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law has been tapped as Middle East negotiator at the same time his investment firm is doing business with some of those countries.

In normal times, these would be unacceptable conflicts of interest. These are not normal times.

The latest is the sordid IRS-Justice debacle. First, Trump supposedly gave up his $10 billion suit against the IRS for a contractor leaking his tax returns. In return, Trump’s acting Attorney General barred the IRS from looking at any of the tax returns Trump or his immediate family have filed.

First, Trump’s lawsuit was flawed and he likely wouldn’t have gotten much more than an apology. The prohibition against auditing any of the current Trump returns is unprecedented.

To provide context, Trump has promised for ten years to release his tax returns and reneged. And a 1998 law specifically prohibits the president from interfering or any involvement with IRS actions.

Thanks to John Roberts, Trump will say this is official business, so let’s deep six that statute.

Then the President and his go along acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tried to falsely connect this to launching a $1.78 billion slush fund to be doled out to anyone supposedly “weaponized” by the previous Administration. This includes criminals who beat up the police on January 6.

Defenders of the slush fund, to be answerable to Trump, have drawn parallels to other funds, including the September 11 victims fund.

The September 11 fund was approved by Congress, administered with rules and hearings across the country by an eminent expert, Ken Feinberg. The recipients were deserving and enjoyed widespread public support. None of that is the case with this slush fund.

Still, Trump almost never backs down from a lie, he doubles down, another reason he gets away with it. In the style of his mentor Roy Cohn (or the Nazi and Soviet propagandists), he revels in big lies which strangely can be harder to knock down. Millions and millions of Americans today believe the certifiable lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Another factor, of course, is a Justice Department who sees its mandate to serve Trump who calls the shots. Congressional Republicans, fearful of incurring Trump’s wrath, have abdicated much of their responsibility.

Some of it is even in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom with separation of powers and guardrails, didn’t sufficiently appreciate the possibility of a president who had no regard for the rule of law.

Politically, it’s catching up. In recent polls, half or more of Americans say the president is corrupt. As well as the cost of living and an ill-considered war, corruption will be a winning issue for Democratic candidates this fall.

Over the longer run this is not easily correctable. Michael Waldman suggests a constitutional amendment to end the ability of an unchecked president to issue corrupt pardons. The 14th Amendment, he notes, was a powerful antidote to the Supreme Court’s racist Dred Scott decision.

But it took a Civil War in between.

Occasional escapes are supposed to be good for your emotional health, which seems essential if following the Trump Presidency.

This week I’ve only paid glancing attention to Trump’s obsequious cabinet meeting, ICE pepper-spraying and tear gassing a United States Senator, as the new Homeland Security Secretary tries to find a job for his wife in the agency, or the Justice Department going after E. Jean Carroll who had the temerity of successfully taking action against Donald Trump for sexually assaulting her.

Instead, I had a rare week of escapes.

MONDAY: I focused on the New York Knicks clinching a spot in the NBA finals with an eleven game win streak. Usually I cheer against New York teams. The Yankees because they are the Yankees. Others with sleazy proprietors, the New York Mets owned by Steve Cohen, the St. John’s college basketball team coached by Rick Pitino.

The Knicks, the owner notwithstanding, are an exception. Three of the stars went to Villanova, my childhood team. Former Knick and former U.S. Senator, Bill Bradley, is one of my few political heroes.

They are fun to watch. There are a couple teams with more talent but their passion and chemistry is unsurpassed. My favorite is Josh Hart, who is not the best scorer or shooter, or anywhere near the biggest. He just makes things happen, rebounds, assists, steals, shots at crucial moments. He also went to my kids’ high school.

TUESDAY: My wife, Judy Woodruff gave the Herblock speech, honoring the great Washington Post editorial cartoonist during the annual awards ceremony at the Library of Congress. It was a fabulous speech on the importance of a free press and threats we face today. If you think I’m biased -- I am -- read it on the Herb Block Foundation website when it goes up soon.

Herb Block, more commonly known as Herblock, died 25 years ago after more than a half century as the conscience of America; he afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted. He skewered Joe McCarthy in the early stage of the Wisconsin Senator’s demagoguery and later captured where Watergate was heading only days after the break-in.

With a biting and brilliant pen he went after bullies, racists, big money special interests. And he championed civil rights, the dispossessed, the underdogs. The winner of this year’s Herblock award, Jack Ohman, editorial cartoonist of the San Francisco Chronicle, is very much in the Herblock tradition.

The only down moment was the thought of how much today the country and the Washington Post, needs a Herblock.

WEDNESDAY: Courtesy of my wife’s PBS NewsHour colleague, Ali Rogin, we went to the next to last stop on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Land of Hope and Dreams American tour, which began in ICE-ravaged Minneapolis.

At 76 the boss shows the extraordinary energy, and brilliance, that most younger athletes or entertainers would envy -- nonstop, almost three hours, paying little attention to rain. The adoring crowd was swinging and singing the lyrics the whole time.

He pulled no punches on Trump, calling him “’reckless, racist, incompetent and treasonous” to a roaring reception. He led the crowd in chants of “Get ICE out now.”

There were emotional moments. After he sang the song he wrote dedicated to the citizens of Minnesota, the jumbo screen flashed pictures of Renée Good and Alex Pretti who were killed by ICE agents. There were lots of tears.

THURSDAY: Politics WarRoom, a podcast I do with James Carville, aired today. The guest was someone you’ve probably never heard of, but should: Chaz Molder, a Democratic challenger in a heavily Republican gerrymandered middle Tennessee district.

The mayor of a small town, a Sunday school teacher, a hunter and one of the most impressive and articulate guests we’ve had on the program in seven years.

He’s running against Andy Ogles, a right wing Republican incumbent, an advocate of Christian nationalism who wants to deport all Muslims. He has been caught lying about his education and background. He faced a criminal investigation for campaign finance fraud; the Trump administration dropped the case against the Republican lawmaker.

A district Trump carried by more than 20 points should be out of reach for Democrats even with a corrupt incumbent. But Chaz Molder is a very special candidate.

Watch Tennessee’ fifth congressional district this fall.

FRIDAY: Still looking for escape, my son and I are going to the Washington Nationals game tomorrow. After winning the 2019 World Series, the team unloaded some of its best players, and since has had one of the worst records in major league baseball.

Surprisingly, with young players, they’re doing better. While I doubt Nats Park will rock like it did the other evening for Springsteen, there’s hope for the Nationals. Even with a mediocre team, it’s baseball.

SUNDAY: We’re going to the John F. Kennedy Library’s annual Profile in Courage dinner. As usual, the recipients are special.

The people of the twin cities of Minnesota will be recognized for their courage in resisting the brutality and lawlessness of ICE agents, including murder. These folks banded together and never stopped resisting.

Jay Powell, the recent chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, will be honored for his courage in standing up for the independence of the Fed in the face of the incessant bullying of the White House. Trump not only viciously attacked Powell but threatened criminal action. Powell wasn’t intimidated and publicly took on the attack.

It was a week of fun, great memories, inspiration and hope.

Monday back to the darkness.

The midterms are going to be a blue tide for Democrats -- it’s a done deal to win the House and there’s a serious shot for the Senate -- somewhere between a current and a wave.

The margins matter, the difference between a narrow 10 vote or 25 seat margin in the House, and between 49 or 52 Democratic Senators in 2027. Obviously they must win in some Republican leaning venues; pending primaries will help shape that.

With the threat of Trump’s lawlessness, in most every instance the premium should be on electability. The party’s left wing celebrated the Philadelphia congressional primary win of Chris Rabb in an overwhelmingly Democratic district.

This is the sort of seat the left can win. They rarely prevail in the more competitive seats that determine majorities.

Rather than focus on a largely irrelevant Democratic 2024 autopsy -- the main reasons they lost was Joe Biden didn’t get out a year earlier and Kamala Harris was a mediocre candidate -- Democrats should heed the counsel of Barney Frank, who passed away last week: don’t let the left wing drive policies that “go beyond what is politically acceptable to most voters.”

Here are some of the races with important primaries:

ARIZONA CD 1: The two leading candidates for an open seat are Amish Shah, a physician, and Marlene Galán-Woods, who was a longtime broadcaster and the widow of a Republican Attorney General. There are few policy differences between them in the July 21 primary.

Shah only lost to a Republican incumbent by four points last time so you’d think he’d be the preferred candidate. But the Democrats’ campaign committee, labor, Emily’s List and prominent Arizona politicians instead have rallied behind Galán-Woods.

There is an explanation: electability. She is Hispanic -- as is 16% of the district; she has strong favorability from her decades as a broadcaster, and with her family Republican ties, Democrats believe she has crossover appeal with non-MAGA Republicans.

“She is the only candidate that can flip this seat,” says Janet Napolitano, former Democratic Governor.

MICHIGAN SENATE: For the Democrats to capture the Senate, they probably have to hold their own seats. They are in trouble in Michigan.

The Republicans have a good candidate, former congressman Mike Rogers, who barely lost in 2024 to Elissa Slotkin, a first rate candidate, better than any her party is running this time on August 4.

The Democrats’ two mainstream progressive candidates, state legislator Mallory McMorrow, and congresswoman Haley Stevens are battling for many of the same voters.

That is providing an opening for Abdul El-Sayed, a physician with a left wing agenda: embracing a single payer health insurance system, abolishing ICE, and campaigning with an influencer who has made many inflammatory comments. Republicans are salivating over running against him.

There will be pressure on one of the other two to bow out before the August 4 primary. I think McMorrow would be the stronger candidate but Stevens is the choice of much of the establishment.

CALIFORNIA 22: In response to the Trump-ordered Texas gerrymandering, California’s new congressional map favors Democrats in places like this Republican-held Central Valley seat. The incumbent David Valadao is resourceful and shows the few streaks of independence that make him harder to beat.

However he may have made a big mistake in voting for the “Big Beautiful Bill” which includes huge cuts in Medicaid. This is the most Medicaid dependent district in the country.

Of the two Democratic contenders, reading clips and talking to a few people, Randy Villegas, a professor, appears more knowledgeable on issues. But he embraces a more left wing agenda including a single payer health care system. The political problems with that position would give Republicans a likely counter to Valadao’s support for the Medicaid cuts.

Jasmeet Bains, a member of the state Assembly and a physician, favors building on the Affordable Care Act and may be better positioned to capitalize on the explosive health care issue. The primary is next Tuesday.
MONTANA SENATE: In the last two Senate elections in this state, Democrats nominated heavyweights, three term incumbent Sen. Jon Tester and two term Governor Steve Bullock. Both lost decisively.

Even in a good year, a D next to a candidate’s name in Montana is toxic. That makes it impossible to take advantage of a flawed Republican candidate, former U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, who got the nomination by duplicitous default; incumbent Sen. Steve Daines surprisingly dropped out minutes before the deadline sealing the nomination for his pal, Alme.

There is one candidate who would have a chance: Seth Bodnar, running as an independent; he was President of the University of Montana, a West Point graduate, Rhodes scholar, Green Beret commander and is married to a pediatrician, a fifth generation Montanan.

The key here is whether whoever wins the June 2 Democratic primary, with no chance in November, drops out instead of taking potential votes from Bodnar. That’s what happened in Nebraska this spring. All the Democratic aspirants say they won’t drop out; Republicans are expending resources to help the Democrat most likely not to drop out.

They don’t want to go mano a mano against Bodnar.

NEW YORK 10: Incumbent Dan Goldman faces a primary challenge from New York City controller Brad Lander. The June 23 primary also is a Democratic proxy war between Governor Kathy Hochul with Goldman and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who encouraged the Lander challenge.

Lander charges Goldman is too cozy with Israel as he is supported by the increasingly conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He actually is very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and of the Iranian War.

The two would vote the same way in Congress but Godman would be a much more valuable member: He is an experienced investigator and interrogator -- an alum of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s office, southern district, and a lead counsel for a Trump impeachment in the House.
With Trump still in the White House, Democrats’ legislative initiatives will be limited. The premium will be on investigations of which there are limitless opportunities. There are few members of the House who possess the experience, discipline and rigor to do this well.
Goldman is one of them.

When Jay Powell was named chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by Donald Trump it was seen as an ok, cautious appointment, though he lacked the credentials of his four predecessors. Fifty years earlier when Richard Nixon appointed the eminent economist Arthur Burns to the Fed it was universally acclaimed.

Today, Burns’ legacy is tarnished for capitulating too much to short term political pressure, the 1972 election, at a longer term cost.

Powell, by contrast, is a hero who stood up to a bully -- Trump -- to maintain the independence and integrity of the Fed. At the end of the month he will be presented the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library.

The Powell saga tells a larger story about the importance of the central bank, the desirable relationship with the Treasury and senior lawmakers, as well as being instructive on standing up to a bully.

The central bank’s independence is intended to encourage critical monetary decisions based on what is deemed to be best for the economy and not political considerations. The Fed sometimes has failed on monetary and regulatory policies, agitating some presidents, including George H.W. Bush.

But until Trump, no president viciously attacked the institution and its chairman, seeking to illicitly force him out, even starting a phony criminal investigation.

In January when the Trump team sent out the subpoena on criminal charges, they thought this would be the intimidation that forced a frightened chairman to quit. They badly misread Powell’s integrity and courage.

Instead he, aided by his chief of staff Michelle Smith who has guided the last four Fed chairs with extraordinary skill and political instincts, went public over Trump’s extortion.

Powell then dominated the high ground, legally and politically. This ugly saga revealed a lot about the character of some prominent figures.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent showed he’s a coward.

The relationship between the Treasury secretary and the independent Federal Reserve chair is important for coordination and to try to be on similar pages, to not rattle markets. In 1999 Time magazine ran a cover story on Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, his deputy Larry Summers and Fed chair Alan Greenspan entitled, “The Committee to Save the World.”

Bessent not only didn’t come to Powell’s defense, he piled on, pandering to the White House. He accused Powell of “fear-mongering” on tariffs, charged that Powell sought to “politicize” monetary policy while Trump was “committed to the independence of the Fed.”

When you tell lies like that it raises credibility issues on most everything else.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, of South Carolina, disingenuously suggested cost overruns at the Federal Reserve building expansion raised serious questions about Powell. A fellow cheap shot politician was Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno who accused Powell of “sabotaging working Americans.”

There were heroes, most prominently North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis who blocked the nomination of Powell’s successor until the Justice Department dropped its phony investigation. A few other Banking Committee Republicans, including Louisiana’s John Kennedy -- a pleasant surprise to me -- and South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds were more quietly supportive.

On monetary policy, there was criticism that Powell was too slow to react when inflation started to take off five years ago. It came both from Republicans and Democrats like Summers and Jason Furman, a top Obama Administration economist.

Furman says the criticism was correct but doubts it would have made much difference if Powell had moved faster. The economy survived COVID and other challenges without a recession. Inflation, even with Trump’s tariffs, was moving under control before the Iran war.

Furman, who is the new Summers, the establishment Democrats’ most influential economist, says Powell’s exceptionalism, his legacy, derives from standing up for the crucial independence of the Federal Reserve.

On May 31, Powell, along with the citizens of Minneapolis, will be recognized for his courage by the Kennedy Library.

Previous recipients included John Lewis, the great civil rights leader who never backed down in the face of brutal beatings by southern segregationists; President Gerald Ford for his politically costly, but correct, pardon of Richard Nixon, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has stood up to the Russian invasion for more than four years.

This is an inspiring collection of courageous leaders. Jay Powell belongs,

This midterm, like most, will be about the incumbent, principally the economy, corruption and the Iranian war.

There also are secondary controversies which can matter on the margins. They may only move or energize a handful of voters; that might matter in close contests.

In 2026, the Democrats have a plethora of such advantageous issues, including:

THE BILLION DOLLAR BALLROOM

Senate Republicans, as part of what’s euphemistically called “the East Wing Modernization Project,” propose $1 billion of taxpayer monies. That includes funds for underground security installations, but the catalyst is Trump’s gaudy new ballroom.

The President, without authorization, tore down the historic East Wing of the White House clearing the way for a ballroom which he vowed would be paid for by rich donors. He initially put the cost at $200 million, then it got to $400,000.

That $1 billion of taxpayer money instead could restore the Medicaid cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” or build more than a dozen community hospitals in underserved rural areas.

Railing against the billion dollar ballroom, albeit exaggerated, in the context of Trump and his fellow billionaires getting richer due to government policies, will play anywhere from McAllen, TX to Maumee, OH.

THE POPE

Trump has attacked the first American Pontiff, who he says wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, “likes crime,” is “hurting the Catholic church,” and is an ingrate because he was only chosen to placate Trump.

All of that is untrue. What offends Trump is Pope Leo calling for peace.

A quick look at the politics shows Trump, in 2024, carried the Catholic vote by 53-46. Pope Leo is the most popular figure in U.S. public opinion polls. In one survey he has an 84% favorable rating with Catholics.

This fight is a loser for Trump.

SUPREME COURT

Democrats and Republicans have tried to make the High Court an election issue, usually with little success. But this patently political court might make it easier.

In opinions ranging from granting Trump, as president, extraordinary immunity from anything deemed an official act, even if illegal, to gutting voting rights, and then bending procedures to make sure it would take effect to help Republicans in this year’s elections.

Defenders of the Court point to the rejection of Trump’s tariff policy. True, but many Republicans and much of the business community agreed with the tariff decision. Rarely will you see the Republican majority on this court side against their party.

Look for candidates, with justification, calling for enlarging the Court and cracking down on ethical abuses.

ICE THUGS

Democrats can neutralize Republicans on immigration if they continue to strike distance from Biden’s permissive policies and focus on the brutal acts of ICE.

The murders in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were horrendous. The made for TV ad is the picture of little five year old Liam Ramos, returning from pre-school in his snowsuit and Spider Man backpack, detained by ICE. He and his father were sent to a Texas deportation facility. A judge ordered them returned to Minneapolis.

The case is still pending but the picture of this little boy will remain a powerful indictment of the Trump policies.

KASH PATEL

We may be accustomed to an FBI director, experienced professional, with total integrity, a William Webster or Christopher Wray.

Patel is the polar opposite.

A devastating piece in the Atlantic outlined his drinking problems, missing in action at times, emotional outbursts and paranoia. There are reports of a mini staff revolt over improper demands the director is making, ordering them to investigate the reporter who wrote about him.

With politically inspired firings and with resignations, the nation’s top law enforcement agency, 38,000 once strong, has been decimated. Voters should be reminded of that.

The news that Barney Frank is in hospice care brought a rush of rich memories. More on those later.

In a book to be released this year Frank offers sage political and policy advice to Democrats.

He says the “left of the left “ among Democrats are pushing policies that “go beyond what is politically acceptable to most voters.” It was defund the police or open borders in previous elections, he notes, while today it’s abolish ICE or pushing for transgenders to play in women’s sports.

In a phone conversation, he elaborated on how this is an ill-considered effort “to restructure the country socially and culturally.” He added even when he agrees with general goals, Democrats “need to focus on what’s popular, pushing what’s unpopular is just dumb.”

Most Democrats agree, but that isn’t sufficient, he argues: “They have to explicitly repudiate” such policies. “ Failure to do so in the past led to the party’s brand being identified with these positions.

Few posses Barney Frank’s record and credibility in making these criticisms.

The co-author of the Dodd-Frank banking bill, he was one of the most influential members of Congress for three decades before retiring in 2012. He possesses a brilliant intellect, considerable legislative and political skills and a withering wit. He sees politics as a noble calling.

At age 86 he remains an unapologetic liberal, believing in a strong federal government role to protect the rights of minorities, civil rights and civil liberties, the poor, and a more progressive tax system to help finance programs. A self-proclaimed capitalist, he advocates strong regulation when necessary to tame excesses of the marketplace.

He could be brusque, even rude. But he commanded respect across the ideological divide. Nancy Pelosi, the liberal former Speaker who relied on him during the financial crisis called him “an exceptional legislator.” Alan Greenspan, the conservative former chairman of the Federal Reserve told me of all his congressional testimonies he prepared most diligently when facing Frank. There were policy differences, but Greenspan had enormous respect for the Massachusetts lawmaker.

His book will strike a familiar Frank theme: Democrats need to be progressive pragmatists who understand compromise is central to politics. He is dismissive of left wing ideologues and politically naive idealists

Just as small vocal group magnified the defund the police and open border views, the danger today is calls for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. ICE is out of control, in desperate need of reform. But “it’s nuts” to suggest the country can function without an immigration agency.

In the campaign for gay rights, which he has supported for more than a half century, advocates were strategically incremental, addressing gay marriage only after building support for other protections first. This should be a lesson for transgenders today. “We should fight against discrimination and for giving kids medical care,” he says. “But don’t making playing in sports a litmus test.”

Unlike party critics like Democrat Mark Penn, who was Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, before he was fired, or those with vested interests, no one should question Frank’s progressive bona fides.

He wants an expansive, efficient federal government with fairer taxes.

Against open borders, he always supports legal immigration. He is down the line pro-choice on abortion, critical of conservative Republicans who “believe life begins at conception and ends at birth.”

He is Jewish, a Zionist supporter of the state of Israel, while harshly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who he feels has caused terrible damage to the country’s standing in the United States and around the world. It’s time, he says, “to give Netanyahu an ultimatum, no more arms shipments unless he changes policies.”

My Barney memories date back to 1968 as a rookie Wall Street Journal reporter in Boston while Barney, 28 years old, was running policy for the city of Boston under new Mayor Kevin White. At night walking home through an alley I’d see Barney sitting alone at a table at the famed Locke-Ober’s restaurant, with a big slab of beef working through scores of documents.

After eight years in the Massachusetts legislature, he was elected to Congress. In 1982 he was redistricted to face a Republican incumbent who started off favored, amid a whispering campaign that Frank was gay.

The weekend before the midterm I went to Massachusetts and discovered this policy guy was a damn good politician. He won 60-40.

Subsequently he said he realized he was gay in his teens but, like others, he hid it and dated women for years. In 1987 Frank came out and in 2012 married Jim Ready.

Karl Rove and the Republicans capitalized on opposing gay rights, especially gay marriage, in the 2004 presidential election. Two years later, during a long interview, Frank was optimistic as, “once people realize that gays don’t affect their livelihood, when a gay couple moves into the neighborhood property values don’t fall.” In ensuing years, America experienced a dramatic change in public opinion, accepting gay rights and gay marriage.

Going back to 1994, Republicans led by Newt Gingrich took over the House for the first time in 40 years. Democrats were despondent, lost. Not the gentleman from Massachusetts. He told me Gingrich was an asshole, would overreach and provide lots of opportunities Check, check, check.

He was a dominant figure in the financial crisis, collaborating with Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a titan of Wall Street, who considered Barney “scary smart.”

The 2010 Dodd Frank was landmark banking legislation setting higher capital and liquidity requirements and financial stress tests for large institutions, more transparency and consumer protection. In more than a decade and a half with Republicans controlling Congress most of that time and two Trump Presidencies, the major elements of that legislation remain.

Frank’s sharp, caustic wit is legendary. A political opponent once challenged him to take an AIDS test and release it; he said he would if the other guy would take an IQ test and release it. When Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told him all he wanted was “smart regulation,” Barney sarcastically shot back: “All I want is fucking dumb regulation.”

Congress, a dreary place these days, could use some of the Frank humor.

Substantively, he says Democrats are in a good place if they get their priorities right, as Trump is “imploding. His talent was to play on people’s disconent, exploit the anger. But he’s a one trick pony and it’s not working now.” (He told me in he book he cites three similar Democrats: Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and Louisiana Gov. Huey Long)

Resting at home, Barney says he’s stabilized with his congenital heart condition and seems comfortable facing the inevitable.

His fervent hope is Democrats “will take advantage” of his message.

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.

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.