Republicans argue -- hope -- that the polls are off, understating the GOP vote as they did when Trump was on the ballot. Yet in the midterms eight years ago, the actual Democratic vote exceeded the 7.3% average advantage in the final pre-election polls. Similarly the smaller Republican edge in 2022 was slightly better than the polls.

Usually in midterms the late deciding vote breaks for the opposition party.

The Republicans, especially the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, are pouring tons of money into the final weeks. That’s countered by especially impressive House and Senate challengers.

This is true across all regions. In two markedly different states politically, Pennsylvania and Iowa, Democrats could pick up a combined half dozen seats. Their candidates are competitive in deep red districts from South Carolina to Montana.

On the Senate side, a pickup of at least five seats would provide a cushion if Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman defects to the other side.

There is one sure Democratic pickup in North Carolina. In five other contests Democratic challengers are slightly ahead: Maine, Ohio, Texas, Alaska and Iowa.

Usually in these cases rather than splitting the difference, most go the same way. If so Democrats seem poised to win at least four, total net gain of five.

Democrats have to hold several of their seats. The main challenge is in Michigan where the left wing nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, is controversial. But the Republican candidate, former congressman Mike Rogers, has run a mediocre campaign, so Democrats are cautiously confident.

Moreover, there are a half dozen Republican-held seats, in places like Kansas and South Carolina, that weren’t on any radar screen until Trump’s precipitous decline in public support. It’s conceivable the Democrats win a couple of these longshots.

There are 36 gubernatorial elections on the Nov. 3 ballot. Republicans have a shot at winning control of a couple now held by Democrats. But Democrats expect to take over four or five GOP-held governorships, including major ones like Ohio.

If there is a blue tide Democrats could achieve a trifecta in Pennsylvania and Michigan, control of the executive and both houses of the legislature.

Predictably, the 2028 presidential aspirants want to show off coattails. In Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, headed for an easy re-election, is trying to use his coattails to carry in three or four Democratic House challengers.

Likewise, Georgia Sen. Jon Osoff, headed for a decisive re-election, is trying to help former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms who’s in a much tougher gubernatorial race. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, whose term expires next year, is trying to help a former aide, Zach Dembo, win a House seat in a heavily Republican district.

Illinois’ billionaire Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker already has given about $40 million to help Democrats in the midterms.

True, the polls in a number of the more competitive races are close. It may be a huge infusion of Republican and Musk money in the closing days that may make the difference in a few.

Still, start with a base of the Democrats picking up 22 House seats and five Senate seats, if you’re betting the over-under, take the over.


POSTSCRIPT: This is my last column for about a month, on a medical leave, will be back.

​ KANGAROO KEVIN: White House economist Kevin Hassett is leading a three person Trump-appointed committee to decide whether Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook should be fired.
This is a sham, a Kangaroo court, with three Trump loyalists conducting a closed door review to affirm Trump’s demand that Cook be fired. His motive: she hasn’t supported his demand that interest rates be cut. Earlier the Supreme Court ruled the President can’t fire someone from this independent board without establishing cause
This star chamber panel is investigating a charge by Trump hatchet man Bill Pulte that Cook made a misrepresentation on a mortgage years ago. Reporting by reputable news organization indicate even that specious case is erroneous.
She has a first class lawyer in Abbe Lowell who I suspect won’t let her go along with a stacked hearing and a pre-determined verdict. This is more like the infamous Moscow show trials. Can you imagine this committee concluding Trump is wrong ?
It’s another saga in the decline of Hassett, a once respected economist. He was John McCain’s top economic adviser, and consulted with earlier Republican presidents and presidential candidates. I hired him at Bloomberg to write a column and television commentary.
But like so many others he sold his soul to please Trump.
The new Fed chair Kevin Warsh should speak out. If Trump/Hassett get away with this travesty, the independence of the Federal Reserve is over.

KAITLIN was missed. Kaitlin Collins the CNN Super star, is a tough questioner who doesn’t let politicians get away with lying or ducking her inquiries She was away one evening this week when New York Republican Mike Lawler, in a tough reelection, was on “The Source” and was asked about affordability especially soaring gas prices during the Trump Presidency.
The usually reliable Trump lawmaker blamed the high gas prices on New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s energy policies. Does Lawler believe if one of his Westchester County constituents went to Connecticut or New Jersey they excitedly could fill up on $3.03 a gallon gas prices like when Biden was President ?
That would have been a problem for Lawler as he also basically blamed affordability on Biden who left office 21 months ago. The question he should have been asked: As Republicans for almost two years have controlled everything in the federal government -- the Executive, both houses of Congress and a friendly Supreme Court -- do they bear responsibility ?
When politicians misrepresent, evade or lie it’s the role of journalists to hold them accountable, even interrupting to cut off filibustering.

MLB OWNERS TAKE A HIT. As a baseball fan I had to throw this in.
A World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers vs. either Clevland or Tampa Bay will be exciting, a couple well assembled teams with exciting new stars like Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio.
But that’s not the view of MLB. It likely will draw smaller television and streaming audiences than a series with a New York or Los Angeles team.
More importantly, it undercuts MLB’s proposal for a salary cap, like other professional sports leagues. The central contention is that’s necessary for competition, impossible, they argue, with a handful of big market, huge spending franchises. But Cleveland and Tampa Bay have among the lowest payrolls in baseball. The Brewers, just swept the Los Angles Dodgers whose payroll is three times larger. This will make the players union even more steadfast in opposition to any payroll caps even if it means a shutdown.
I usually side with the players in these disputes. But one attractive feature of the MLB proposal is a minimum payroll requirement which would require most teams to increase their numbers. This would really hit my hometown team, the Washington Nationals, who though their owners are among the half dozen wealthiest, have one of the lowest payrolls.

2026 MVP: Sticking with sports jargon the leading candidate for the political MVP --most valuable player to the unwashed -- is Georgia Sen. Jon Osoff. He has turned what was expected to be a close contest into a blowout. No one has made the case better against Trump, effectively tying corruption to affordability.
If James Talarico becomes the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas in 38 years he’s a contender. There are so many good House challengers it would be hard to chose.

This has been a dismal session for the House of Representatives but these next 75 days will be the final ones for one of the most significant members ever to serve in the chamber.

Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi is retiring after 39 years, two decades as leader of the Democrats, eight as Speaker of the House. I used to cover Congress -- reporting on another great Speaker Tip O’Neill -- became a House-o-phile, read about its history and was tutored by an inside scholar, the late Congressman Richard Bolling.

Of the more than 11,000 Americans to serve in the House since 1789, she is one of the half dozen most important, one of the greatest of all times. The super six include James Madison, Henry Clay, Thomas Brackett Reed, Joe Cannon, Sam Rayburn and Pelosi.

The first woman speaker was a force, a case study in leadership and the exercise of power. The Affordable Care Act health care bill, often called Obamacare could be Pelosicare. Without her skillful tenacity it never would have become law.

She shepherded through the sweeping Biden agenda in his Administration’s first two years with almost no Republican support. Biden didn’t have anywhere near the clout over members in contrast to the total control Trump has had over congressional Republicans. The heavy lifting was up to the Speaker.

She was as proficient on defense, especially during the final two years of the first Trump presidency. She consistently stood up to him, batted down his bullying and was usually victorious. The image remembered was her tearing up his speech after the 2020 State of the Union. Overlooked is that this was after Trump refused to shake hands with her.

Pelosi is smart and charming. What made her great were other qualities: toughness and instincts. A few left wing Democrats arrived in the House in 2019 intent to take on the Speaker. She marginalized them.

Powerful men, as Trump should have learned, take her on at their own peril. At an Aspen Ideas conference last month she tore into Ken Griffin, the Hedge Fund billionaire and huge Republican donor, for the massive debt, especially a tax cut favoring the wealthy, that Trump has run up. As usual she had all the facts and figures.

Republicans paint her as an ideological left winger, the infamous San Francisco liberal. She actually is a results centered, progressive pragmatist. At the start of her leadership rise a quarter century ago, her campaign manager was Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, a working class moderate/conservative Democrat.

Her instincts are unsurpassed. She knew her caucus, what would fly and what wouldn’t. She was a vote counter extraordinaire.

Also, she’s a prolific fundraiser with a personal touch. One wealthy donor told me she never asked without inquiring about his family, what his children were up to.

The daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, she is a consummate politician versed in the politics of congressional districts. She asked me last month about a couple House challengers I was covering; she knew more about the contests than I did.

A ferocious Democrat, she was respected by prominent rivals. She and George W. Bush developed a good relationship post his presidency. Former House GOP Speaker Paul Ryan cited her “historic” Speakership. At a ceremony former GOP Speaker John Boehner not only emotionally praised her but said how much his daughters admired her.

She had little use for another Republican Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, whose word was unreliable, a political sin in Pelosi’s book. I’m pretty sure she considers Mike Johnson a lightweight.

The California Democrat has been a player in presidential politics too. In 2008 she moved the needle for Barack Obama in the primary. In 2024 she was a prime mover in getting President Biden to bow out.

My only tinge of regret is that she and Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, once rivals and then allies in the House leadership, are about the same age. Hoyer, who also is retiring, would have been a different but a good Speaker.

Expect to see her campaign in the final weeks to help close colleagues like California Rep. Doris Matsui.

One of her parting gifts was to bow out when at the peak of her game, though at 86 she is as sharp as ever.

The likely next Speaker, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, will benefit from four years first as minority leader as Pelosi did. Succeeding a legend is never easy. I suspect he’s ready.

As for Nancy Pelosi, we’ll never see her like again.

​

There were fears early this year that a top economic official, pandering to Donald Trump, might harm the economy.

Those fears have materialized. Except it’s not the Trump-appointed new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, who shows signs of maintaining the Fed’s historic independence that Trump hates.

It’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who has debased his credentials by turning into a political hitman. He bends over backwards to please Trump on matters ranging from economics to ethics to politics.

This has sacrificed some of the Treasury’s critical credibility.

It’s a posture that would be antithetical to modern Treasury Secretaries like Republicans Jim Baker (served under President Reagan) and Henry Paulson (George W. Bush) and Democrats Bob Rubin (Bill Clinton) and Tim Geithner (Barack Obama).

Appearing at the Republican’s midterm convention in Dallas last month was a shocker. He gave a heavily partisan, banal speech and took a cheap shot at former President Biden who he said “couldn’t stay awake.”

You’d have to go back more than a half century to John Connally to find a Treasury Secretary so openly partisan.

He’s thin-skinned, arrogant, likes to act like a tough guy. Last year he called Ukrainian President Zelensky a “special needs child,” and an obscenity even I won’t publish.

When Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden was questioning the Treasury Secretary about corruption, Bessent charged he was trying to cover up the one meeting the Senator’s son had about investments with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

He has come close to fisticuffs with several adversaries.

His hot tempered diatribes have offended allies too. There has been a huge turnover at the top levels of Treasury as the Wall Street Journal reported last week: “Inside Bessent’s Treasury: Tension, Turnover and Unmet Economic Goals.”

Unlike his predecessors he has shown no hesitation in personally attacking the Federal Reserve, especially former chair Jay Powell, not just on interest rates. He charged it was improper for Powell to attend a Supreme Court argument over whether another Fed member constitutionally could be removed and that the former Chairman broke with precedent by staying on the board after his term as chairman expired.

Bessent was silent when Trump attended the Supreme Court argument over birthright citizenship. Two other Fed chairs, most notably Marriner Eccles, stayed on the board after their chairmanship.

He plays to Trump in going after the press. He rejected credentials for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and the New York Times to cover the G-20 meeting this summer. He stiffed the usual Treasury press corps on a trip to Ukraine but included Jack Posobiec, an ultra right wing influencer who has been accused of consorting with white nationalists and anti-semites.

Bessent has mocked the Bloomberg financial terminal and called the Wall Street Journal’s respected chief economics reporter one of the “stenographers posing as journalists.”

The mere thought of declaring war on America’s two leading financial news organizations would have sent Jim Baker to the ICU.

Perhaps his trashy talk and actions wouldn’t matter if the record weren’t so bad. Almost all of the former Hedge Fund executive’s predictions on inflation, housing, gas prices, etc. have been off the mark.

One of his biggest initiatives, selling short term debt to reduce long term rates flopped. He made it worse at a speech when, using a casino term, he boasted, “I am the House,” dissent at your own risk.

Shortly afterwards a Fortune headline: “Bessent said ‘I am the House.’ The bond market disagreed.” His former financial firm partner, Stanley Druckenmiller, charged this had eroded the Treasury’s credibility. Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman described “the Beclowning of Scott Bessent.“

On August 21, the day after his attempt to bring down long term rates, the yield on the 30 year Treasuries was 5.25%; on Friday it closed at 5.6%.

He’s a Trump enabler. Elon Musk’s DOGE raiders sought access to the sensitive private Treasury files on Social Security payments and income tax rebates. They were turned down but this was overruled by the top.

This year an unprecedented deal was cut which gave Trump and his family immunity from IRS tax audits. Bessent, in charge of the IRS, has refused to discuss this as a federal judge is still looking at this shady deal.

The Secretary’s defenders say he has privately prevented bad or worse actions: getting Trump to tamp down his tariffs and persuading him not to fire Jay Powell. They say both Wall Street and foreign finance leaders would much prefer dealing with Bessent than Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or White House aide Peter Navarro.

True, but that’s a bit like being the brightest bear in the zoo.

The reality is the left, mainly socialists, won a handful of primaries in overwhelmingly Democratic districts. With the possible exception of a couple contests in Michigan, they don’t win in the competitive venues that shape American politics.

By contrast, there are very impressive mainstream House challengers -- call most of them Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi Democrats -- running in Republican held districts. On our podcast, “Politics War Room,” James Carville and I have interviewed nineteen of these candidates who will determine the size of the Democratic House next year and the shape of the Democratic party.

Not a radical or socialist among them, they include prominent Navy veterans, a rear Admiral, one of the first women on a combat ship; a NASA chief of staff; several prosecutors; mayors of medium size cities like Scranton, PA; a Latin Grammy Awards winner; union leaders and several successful small entrepreneurs.

Most will win Nov. 3; here’s a look at a few:

MANNY RUTINEL

The 31 year old challenger is a two term state legislator, with a masters in economics from John Hopkins and a Yale law degree. The son of a single mother, raised on Medicaid and food stamps; as a kid, he had to sell blood to make ends meet.

He’s running in a Colorado district that goes from the Denver suburbs up to Greeley. Both Trump and the incumbent Republican, Gabe Evans, narrowly carried it last time.

A big issue is artificial intelligence and data centers; Rutinel favors a regulatory system with “strong guard rails,” more transparency and community involvement. He’s against both the Republicans’ hands-off approach and a total moratorium like Denver and others have embraced.

The charge that he’s a socialist is, as he says, absurd. (He probably would be the only member of the House with an advanced degree in economics and a law degree.)

Rutinel wants to restore Medicaid cuts and the Affordable Care Act tax subsidies and advocates for a public option in health care, not a mandatory government-run program. He adamantly opposes the Trump war in Iran and his “corrupt tariffs.”

CAIT CONLEY

Challenging a strong New York incumbent in her native Hudson Valley, she is seen as a potential political super star.

A West Point graduate, Conley served sixteen years in the Army, her six tours of duty included war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq. For most of that time she was a special operations commander.

On the campaign trail, she places blame for some of the burdensome cost of living on “corruption and greed” in Washington. She’s pro-Israel, anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and favors a two-state formulation for the Palestinians. The highly decorated combat veteran opposes the “reckless and haphazard” Iran war.

She considers Defense Secretary Hegseth a disaster who by “politicizing the American military,” firing our best generals, is “making America less safe.”

The incumbent Mike Lawler shrewdly paints himself as independent although, with rare exceptions,he’s a reliable Trump supporter; he even attended the Trump clown show convention in Dallas last month. He criticizes Conley as a carpetbagger “who just parachuted into the district.” She actually was off fighting in some of the most dangerous spots so Lawler and others could flourish in the Hudson Valley.

SARAH TRONE GARRIOTT

A state senator -- she was the Democratic whip -- Garriott is running in a district that stretches from Des Moines to small rural towns in southwestern Iowa. She’s a Lutheran minister who openly and proudly talks about her faith.

Republicans have attacked her as a faux pastor and left winger, which, based on her successful state senate runs, seems a losing argument. “My ministry and leadership in the community is my strength,” she answers.

She stresses “pragmatic” solutions to restore health care cuts, and help Iowa’s struggling farmers. Garriott opposes the Iran war which she charges has been “particularly devastating for agriculture.”

Her opponent, incumbent Republican Zach Nunn voted for the Iran War on multiple occasions until seven weeks before the midterms. Sudden Road to Damascus conversions shortly before an election usually don’t work.

JOANNA MENDOZA

Republicans painting Democrats as soft better stay away from Tucson, Arizona where the challenger was a Marine drill instructor. (She still does the cadence call perfectly.) Mendoza would be the first woman Marine ever elected to Congress.

In the campaign she has opposed the Iran war but her priority is the cost of living and health care. She ridicules the GOP’s “Big Billionaire Bill” and calls opponent, Juan Ciscomani “spineless” for never standing up to Trump.

With a district on the border, she favors tough restrictions, but is very critical of out of control ICE agents, personalizing her concern: “I’m a Brown woman who lives in a rural area, drives a truck and takes my daughter to school.”

Rather than the left, she’s courting the other party: “There are two types of Republicans in Arizona, MAGA and McCain Republicans.” She’s going after the latter.

SAM FORSTAG

If successful, he’ll probably be the first smoke jumper in the House of Representatives. After graduating from the University of Montana, where he was student body president, he spent eight years as a firefighter, the last four parachuting out of a plane from 3,000 feet to dig a ditch to suppress the spread of wildfires. Asked if that wasn’t dangerous, he says “not quite as dangerous as politics.”

He was also a union leader and got into this congressional race when Trump and Elon Musk slashed 360 jobs in one day from the firefighting service in his western Montana district: “About 85% were making $19.70 an hour or less.”

He is running in an open seat in a district Trump carried by eleven points. He wants to tackle the skyrocketing increases in energy, restore the DOGE cuts and the health care cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill, noting the rise in Montanans without health insurance and that a rural health clinic in Seeley Lake is about to close.

He has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez; Republicans charge he’s a radical socialist. But he also has been endorsed by the moderate Blue Dog Democrats and by former Montana Governor and Republican National Chair Marc Racicot, who praised him for having the “right priorities,” his values and character and “belief in the constitution.”

The smokejumper is summed up by former Montana Senator, Jon Tester: “He’s the real deal.”

Democrats in the final five campaign weeks and when in the majority in the House next year should prioritize the right “I” word.

That is investigation, not impeachment.

The stunning corruption in this Administration, starting with the president and his family -- using the office for personal enrichment, taking pay to play to new levels and utilizing a Justice Department that serves as a partisan hatchet man for the president -- provides endless investigative and oversight opportunities. The test is to run serious, factual investigations, and avoid cheap headlines.

By contrast impeachment is a diversion that Republicans welcome so that they can charge that the Democrats are all about getting Trump.

Do I think Trump has committed impeachable offenses? How to count the ways?

But it won’t ultimately succeed and will involve an enormous expenditure of time, energy and attention.

Instead an emphasis on affordability -- health care, gas prices and grocery costs -- along with holding Trump world accountable should be the priorities.

House Democrats already are mapping plans for investigations next year. Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next Speaker, has enlisted Congressmen Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the Judiciary panel and Robert Garcia, senior Democrat on the Oversight panel to spearhead a “structural approach” to investigations.

If Democrats win the Senate, Sheldon Whitehouse, as chair of the Judiciary committee, effectively will take the lead.

In the House there is talk of involving multiple subcommittees as well as committees. Inclusivity helps internally but serious investigations are difficult.

There are other investigative-savvy Democrats like Jared Huffman on the Natural Resources Committee, who has zeroed in on promising targets such as the Venezuelan oil scam and the garish Trump White House ballroom. Jim Himes is a heavyweight on the Intelligence Committee.

But a number of other Democrats would not be ready for prime time.

Too often the inexperienced focus on headlines and getting on cable news. That was the Republicans during the Benghazi hearings a decade ago and the case in these past two sessions, when chairmen Jim Jordan and James Comer ran comical hearings before the bipartisan push on the Epstein files.

There are obvious targets: the President’s crypto scam where he has made billions at the expense of others; Donald Trump, Jr.’s investment funds that get favorable treatment in government contracts; glaring intelligence failures.

Raskin has a report on presidential pardons -- an issue featured in an excellent CBS 60 minutes segment -- where those convicted or just indicted pay influencers, close to Trump world, to get them a pardon.

Pardons have been issued to some really onerous crooks like former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for sending massive amounts of cocaine to the United States.

He was supported by Trump confidant Roger Stone and disgraced ex congressman Matt Gaetz. Both deny receiving any compensation as hard as that is to believe. It’s also hard to believe Trump didn’t somehow get a cut.

Hopefully Raskin, and Garcia, will investigate the entire Justice Department. Critics of the president have been criminally indicted based on politics with little evidence which is why most have been thrown out. And Trump friendly crooks are let loose on what’s been called a “clemency for cash racket.”

New York City mayor Eric Adams’ indictments for bribery and payouts from a foreign entity, was dismissed on the orders of the top Justice Department officials after a deal was cut to help Trump.

It was so sleazy that the conservative U.S. Attorney resigned in protest.

There was Gautam Adani, the Indian billionaire, indicted for bribery and deceiving investors; the charges were dropped after he met with Donald Trump, Jr. and pledged to make major investments in the U.S.

Many of these investigations will rely on outside sources or participants, as Trump will stonewall every step of the way. Most effective will be if lawmakers can tie corruption to affordability, how Trump and the insiders got rich at the expense of average folks.

With some of these investigations moving slowly and little prospect for big legislative achievements, with a Republican president, the clamor for impeachment will rise.

Already there are dozens of House and Senate Democrats who have raised the issue. Most senior Democrats, including Jeffries, discourage this. South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn cautions Democrats have to convince voters they’re working to make their lives more affordable: “Impeaching the president will not do that.”

That likely won’t resonate with the small group of radical socialists elected in deep blue urban areas in primaries this year. Philadelphia’s Chris Rabb’s website declares that defending democracy requires “Impeachment and Removal of President Trump.”

A middle ground measure some advocate is to impeach cabinet members, starting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Again, there’s a good case but ultimate success is unlikely. Do they also then try to impeach Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick?

If impeachment convictions are off the table, there is a troubling question: with the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision giving Trump immunity from any official actions how will he be held accountable?

The best answer is not a futile impeachment but serious in-depth, conclusive investigations into what resembles a criminal syndicate. Then the judgment of history will be easy.

With the Supreme Court slapping down Trump’s efforts to stymie mail voting and reports that he really doesn’t care about elections or is resigned to the outcome when he’s not on the ballot, there’s a little relief among voting rights advocates.

Get over it. The danger is greater than ever.​

Trump cares desperately about the November elections; look at his actions and threats. He engineered the unusual series of gerrymanders to give Republicans more House seats, tried to eliminate most mail voting, fabricated charges about illegal immigrants voting or foreigners trying to hurt him and even is opening up his campaign war chest.

It’s not that he cares about about any candidate other than himself. But the prospects of congressional investigations, with subpoena powers, of pervasive corruption in this administration and the Trump family is an inconvenience he urgently wants to avoid.

“He will use every trick in the book to try to continue to rig these elections,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, charged.

Think that’s partisan hyperbole? How about a top Republican urging voters to “cheat like hell like they do.” That was Donald J. Trump at the GOP’s Dallas convention this month.

Years ago a conservative pro-Trump journalist said he should be taken “seriously not literally.” We’ve learned they are almost indistinguishable.

“The greatest threat to the upcoming midterm elections is not the Democrats or the Chinese, noncitizens voting or electronic voting machines but the President of the United States and his servile Republican Congress,” wrote retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative.

There are multiple threats but in talking to knowledgeable sources, three stand out.

First the threat of sending federal agents, FBI or ICE agents, to polling locations with larger numbers of minority voters under the guise of voter fraud by “illegal immigrants.” Just consider - an undocumented worker, petrified of being apprehended, going to a public polling place or sending mail with a return address to a public place to take an illegal action?

But sending agents into the vicinity -- it’s against the law to send cops to polling places -- is to intimidate legal voters many of whom know about ICE agents assaulting and, in a few cases, murdering legal citizens under the pretense of rooting out illegals. FBI Director Kash Patel told a Senate hearing that he would not “shy away” from “protecting election integrity.” Homeland Security Secretary Mullin said he would only dispatch ICE agents to polling locations if “there is a threat” or to serve a warrant.

So in late October if the Don tells them there’s a threat down in the Rio Grande Valley, does anyone believe they’d respond, “Sorry sir we need more evidence?” They’ll put their jack boots on and charge.

The Democrats and voting rights advocates will go to court. In some venues like Texas they may struggle to get a court order, as the fear factor spreads.

Another huge threat is on election day or those leading up to it, to seize the voting machines and the ballots. That’s just Hollywood stuff, right?

Well the Cecil B. DeMille of election fraud -- Donald Trump -- told the New York Times earlier this year that he regretted “not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in 2020.” He wasn’t sure they were sufficiently up to the task. He has had time to try to solve that problem, even got in a practice run this year seizing the 2020 Atlanta ballots.

He would have the full support of his ever accommodating attorney general, Todd Blanche, as opponents rush to file court orders stopping this. What happens if they already have the possession of the ballots, the machines?

If the election gets through all of this there’s one final test: certifying the winners. Some red state officials may try to question the validity of victorious Democrats. In the House, the clerk, in what is intended to be a ministerial role, certifies the new members before the next Congress convenes.

But if the Democrats gain less than a dozen seats, the current Speaker Mike Johnson could replace the current clerk with a partisan lackey who would rule against those contested Democrats. That would be appealed to the courts, the Supreme Courts.

There’s cause and precedence for the Court stepping into this. Winning at least five votes would only be possible with the active support of Chief Justice Roberts.

The Trump led Republicans would try to drag this out warns Judge Luttig: “Judicial review of the House’s decision not to seat Democratic Representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”

The best hope to avoid this calamity is for Democrats to enlist the best advocates and lead lawyers -- the post 2020 Biden team of former Solicitor Generals Seth Waxman, Walter Dellinger and Don Verrilli is the model.

Most of all make the November 3 vote too big to steal.

There are few disquieting trends. The Connecticut Mirror and KFF Health did an exhaustive study of health care legal actions in that state. Most of these cases now are being brought by doctors or physician groups rather than hospitals, a reversal of only a few years earlier.

It’s true that of over 25,000 licensed physicians and dentists in the state only about 400 filed lawsuits over unpaid bills. The trend, however, is notable.

With investors, like private equity, buying up medical groups, it might get worse. A subsidiary of Team Health, a Tennessee physicians’ firm owned by Blackstone, brought some 4,800 lawsuits against medical patients in Shelby County, TN. After news organizations revealed this practice, the company said it was halting any suits.

To be sure, taking legal action against deadbeat patients with sizeable debts is understandable.

Too often these are relatively small bills and before suits or sending people to jail, a system for stretched out repayment or dropping it is the better option.

In the Connecticut reporting, Allie Cass-Wilson, a nurse with an OB-GYN bill from years before, was not allowed to propose a payment schedule. The medical practice then blackballed her from future care.

In Kansas, Joe Vasquez owed $4,561 for an emergency hysterectomy his wife had several years earlier. He missed a court date and Marshall’s attack dogs pounced.

Although he was on disability the cops, under the orders of the Marshall team, arrested the couple in front of their grandchildren; they spent two nights in jail before getting a loan to pay bail. Eventually he worked out a repayment schedule over eight years which should have been the first option.

Kellie Clutts, a nurse, had a $129 charge for a postpartum visit after her daughter’s birth nine months earlier. Recently divorced with little money she asked to make partial payments. The Marshall team rejected that and garnished her bank account.

It’s up to the voters of Kansas to decide whether Sen. Marshall deserves reelection. And his many patients can judge his medical competence.

But when a millionaire files over 700 legal actions, charging usurious interest and sends scores of patients to jail, most for relatively small debts, that’s a character test.

Roger Marshall flunks.

​

On October 27, a week before the U.S. elections, Israel will decide whether to replace or retain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu.

Though the ultimate survivor, serving over 18 years as Prime Minister, the expectation is he’ll lose. Despite successful strikes against Iran, wiping out much of their leadership, he remains deeply unpopular in Israel, blamed for the disastrous October 2023 Hamas surprise terrorist attack and an unwillingness to accept any accountability.

With the country’s crazy-quilt political system -- there are dozens of parties and any that gets 3.25% of the vote gets a seat in the Knesset -- it’ll be weeks after the election before the governing coalition is formed.

A clear Netanhayu defeat would be welcome news politically for many Democrats who have been caught in the crosshairs between anti-Israel activists and strong Jewish supporters. They might hail the possibility of a new start in American-Israel relations.

Yet whatever the immediate euphoria, the tension will endure as then the prospect of a Palestinian two state solution seems as distant as ever.

American views about Israel are at the lowest point since Harry Truman first recognized the Jewish state in 1948. There have been other points of difference, like the 1956 Suez crisis when President Eisenhower backed down the Israelis, but they were more specific and shorter.

Today Israel and its leader are no longer supported by most Americans. For the first time polls show the Palestinian cause is more popular.

To be sure, some of this is the always present anti-semitism. That is the case with some of the radical left wing politicians who have scored a handful of victories this year. Some of their supporters, influencers, are virulently anti-semitic.

The most visible candidate is Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive and a Muslim. Unlike some of the radicals he is working to mend relations with the state’s Jewish voters. Jews and Muslims both represent less than 2% of the electorate but matter in a close contest; the 2024 Michigan Senate race was decided by less than 20,000 votes.

Antisemitism may be more prevalent among Republicans though it receives less attention. There are antisemites in the second ranks of the Trump Administration; some young Republican confabs are full of anti-Israel rantings, and the third place finisher in the Florida gubernatorial primary last month was a white nationalist antisemite.

The schism is actually aggravated by the prime Israeli lobby in America. The American-Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is seen these days primarily as a Netanhayu cheerleader.

The dramatic decline in public support has deeper causes; the Israeli Prime Minister and his government are at the top of the list. One survey even showed New York’s anti-Israel mayor, Zohran Mamdani, more popular among Jewish voters than Netanyahu.

More than a few Republicans, almost all privately, blame Netanhayu for conning Trump into the disastrous Iran War. Even Trump may not be all that displeased if the prime minister is a gone,

The majority of Democrats intensely dislike the Israeli Prime Minister, citing his brutality, 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and arrogance, the foreign leader addressed Congress to oppose President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Thus, replacing him is a necessary condition for a reset of American attitudes toward Israel. But it won’t be sufficient.

A new government headed by the current front runner, Gadi Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, could undo some of the ill will generated by Netanyahu.

It could crack down on the settlers who daily terrorize Palestinians on the West Bank. The current national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a settler himself and supports these criminal acts. The New York Times reported that a number of former Israeli Generals and intelligence officials accuse the settlers of engaging in ethnic cleansing that ultimately poses a grave threat to the Jewish state.

That and a more measured policy on Gaza would help with U.S. relations.

Conversely, if Netanhayu pulls an upset days before the American elections, relations could get even worse. It also might crystallize the political tensions for a few candidates like El-Sayed.

After both these elections major changes may be in the offing. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both longtime supporters of Israel, will need to have -- pardon the mixed religious metaphor -- a come to Jesus confrontation with AIPAC. This once powerful lobbying group has alienated many Democrats, diminishing its influence.

More substantively there will be a serious reconsideration of the almost $4 billion in annual military aid the U.S. gives to a prosperous Israel.

Ultimately, until the Palestinian state question is settled the tensions with America as well as the Europeans will persist. Eisenkot opposes any Palestinian state.

Harry Truman’s decision to recognize Israel was over the strong objections of his top advisers, most prominently Gen. George C. Marshall, the Secretary of State, who warned it would unsettle the Middle East and lead to crises and confrontations.

Marshall was right. But so was Truman, who saw it as a moral imperative. For almost 80 years America and the Jewish state have been close allies.

Without changes in both countries that may not endure.

Disney and ABC may be learning the perils of feeding a crocodile. Winston Churchill warned those that feed the crocodile will eventually be eaten by him.

In the month before Trump took office last year, ABC, owned by Disney, paid off Trump $16 million over a baseless suit he had filed against the broadcaster. This was a business calculation, selling out journalistic principles, to curry favor with the new Administration.

Now the Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist, is threatening, in an unprecedented move, to strip ABC of its eight owned lucrative stations charging they’re too anti-Trump. In response, ABC is suing the FCC to head off this intimidation; underscoring the seriousness, one of the lawyers the company enlisted is Paul Clement, the most prominent conservative Supreme Court litigator.

You can’t buy off crocodiles or bullies, ABC, and this belated resistance won’t restore the reputational damage suffered.

The worst of the bully-capitulators may be the nine big law firms who surrendered to Trump’s objections to some of the lawyers they employed and clients they represented. There were no suggestions of impropriety. Trump just wanted revenge against adversaries.

The firms -- Paul Weiss; A&O Shearman; Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft; Kirkland & Ellis;, Latham and Watkins; Skadden Arps; Milbank; Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.--committed up to $1 billion to Trump causes to avoid any actions against them, which some claimed might endanger their survival.

More likely it was wealthy partners who didn’t want to see their compensation drop from $7 million to say $5 million or as President Obama said some “might not be able to finish that kitchen rehabilitation at their Hampton house.”

The contrast is with four Washington firms that stood up to Trump: WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey, Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie. They won decisively in court. Trump says he’s still appealing, that’s for show. These firms beat the bully and in contrast to those others, Judge Beryl Howell declared, will be ‘models” for standing up for constitutional rights when history is written.

There is a semi-similar story with higher education. Under the guise of stamping out antisemitism and ending diversity programs the Administration is slashing funding and setting new regulations if the institutions don’t accede. Some like Columbia surrendered.

Others like Brown, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley partially gave in. Harvard and UCLA are among the few who stood firm and while they still will lose federal funds they are winning in court.

The duplicity of most of these actions was underscored by a former Justice Department official turned whistle blower, Haley Van Erem, She said she and colleagues were given politically-driven orders from above. The antisemitism charge, she said, was just a pretext for a “predetermined outcome driven by an approach to enforcement rather than a fact-based investigative process.”

Shamefully, few law firms or Universities came to the defense of their wrongly accused colleagues.

With a Democratic Congress and/or Administration, much of this will come out. It will be like the aftermath of the McCarthy witch-hunt era; some grandchildren will be proud, others won’t.

In the media there are a few profiles in courage. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times refused to be bullied, stood up to outrageous Trump charges and are winning. in the courts.

So is legendary pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register. Trump sued them for a Selzer poll that showed him losing Iowa which he won comfortably. Reputable polls typically state the result is within the margin of error 95% of the time. All pollsters have a few lemons. Very few, if any, can match Selzer’s sterling record or reputation.

This is a disgraceful case. It’s still in state court though Selzer will prevail. The judge said that Trump’s charge could have a “chilling effect” on free speech.

On the other side, CBS’ reputation was stained when it settled a Trump defamation suit over the way it edited a 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

It was an absurd charge -- broadcast and print interviews often are edited, it’s a subjective process; good or bad this certainly wasn’t legally actionable. But CBS-Paramount were seeking the new Administration’s approval for a merger so they sacrificed journalistic principles for financial gain.

So did ABC when the President sued over anchor George Stephanopoulos saying that Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll. Trump was found by a jury not guilty of rape but was convicted of sexual assault. However the judge, Lewis Kaplan, explained that was due to New York state’s “narrow definition” of rape and that Trump raped her “as many people commonly understand the word.”

Stephanopoulos was careless but Trump had no chance of winning a defamation suit. ABC figured they could buy peace. With the FCC’s latest action maybe they learned a bully, like a crocodile, always comes back for more.

“Defending the First Amendment is not fighting for a free press. It’s fighting for a free nation,” declares Michael Gartner, former President of NBC News , and former editor of the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. “These guys should have learned that in junior high. But better late than never.”

For most two term U.S. Presidents the first is the more successful, opposed to the “curse of the second term.”
Yet most of these Presidents seek some legacy second term achievements. For Eisenhower it was the creation of a space agency and, unexpectedly, civil rights. For Reagan it was moderating the cold war with the Russians; for Obama it was a deal to halt Iran’s quest for at for a nuclear weapon and straightening out his poorly launched health care plan.
For Donald Trump his second terms actually seems far better as there are almost no restrictions and he lacks any substantive vision. Conservative columnist George Will called it a “frivolous and oblivious” Presidency.”
Trump is not oblivious to the two Rs; getting richer and getting retribution.
Both endeavors are corrupt.
“Most Presidents want to get something meaningful in a second term; that has eluded Trump,” says Douglas Brinkley a Presidential historian at Rice University. “He sees American Democracy as a gouge.”
A perfect example. He went to war in Iran to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, which he declared would be an existential threat; he worried about nuclear proliferation.
Absent the quick victory he now seems bored and looking for an Iran exit strategy. As for his determination on nuclear proliferation, he’s renewing his bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who already possesses nuclear weapons.
He tried that in 2018. Trump got some love letters from the little dictator; Kim Jong Un now has three times as many nuclear warheads.
Trump has achieved a new category for Presidential greed. Anything he touches, he wants a piece of.
A Reuters poll last week found a strong majority of the public believe Trump is illicitly profiting from the Presidency and that it’s inappropriate for the Trumps to earn money from cryptocurrency.
Trump doesn’t believe it and as second term President, with no guardrails, it’s the press and the public be damned as he builds massive wealth while real wages decline for the average workers.
His overall revenue has increased three fold. The biggest scam is the crypto racket where he makes billions and other influence seekers, some foreign, take the losses.
The crypto business is right down Trump’s alley: legally dubious, with lax enforcement.
He has made real estate deals around the world, accepted a $500 million airplane from Qatar, made over 25,000 stock trades, some seemingly based on inside information.
He peddles merchandise with the Trump brand, even keeping a stock room right off the oval office. His children have raked in hundreds of millions more with special government-related investments.
In a terrific story last week, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump has a personal fundraiser, Margaret O’Rourke, who he calls “the Princess of darkness,” who solicits contributions for him from business and special interests. To date, the paper calculates, they’ve hauled in more than $800 million.
What we know may be only the top of the financial shakedowns.
The other priority is revenge get all those perceived enemies. That this is pure retribution using a Justice Department eager to serve his commands.
To be specific, indictments have been sought, among others, of Democratic Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four House members --all veterans -- for declaring military personnel should not obey illegal orders; Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell for refusing to cut interest rates; former FBI director James Comey for not stopping the investigation into the Trump-Russian connection in his first term, and New York Attorney General Letitia James for suing his business interests.
These cases were so fraudulent they were rejected by a grand jury -- exceedingly rare -- -or thrown out by a judge.
They’re still after Comey on another specious charge, and have their sights on Barack Obama’s CIA director John Brennan.
Famed journalist Bob Woodward, who broke many of the stories about the Watergate scandal, says Trump is far more “reckless” and a greater “danger to democracy” than Nixon.
It’s separate from his pervasive criminality but Trump’s perverse ego is a stain on the office and the country. Since the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was created there have been ten other Presidents. None had the chutzpah or vulgarity to try to add their name to that of the martyred President. Trump did, it was rejected by a judge but he’s back trying again.
There never has been an airport named for a sitting President until last month: the Palm Beach International Airport became the Donald J Trump International Airport.
Some critics hope that when/if the Democrats take charge of Congress after the midterms, they can rein in Trump. That may be wishful thinking. More likely it will just drive him to more secretive abuses.
“With the exception of the Civil War,” notes historian Douglas Brinkley, “this is the most dangerous period in American history.”

The Friday before election day Jack Calkins, who directed the House Republican campaigns, invited reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (me) to go over the outlook.
Calkins, a good guy and a straight shooter, predicted all the competitive contests, twice as many as today, race by race. At the end the tally: a net gain of one for the Republicans.
O my God,” said a stunned Calkins. who knew that was off.
(The next week the Democrats gained 49 House seats.)
There is a little deja vu more than a half century later. Analysts looking at seat by seat or polls giving Democrats about a five or six percentage point lead in voter preference suggest Republicans, with their two vote majority, will lose seven to ten House seats and keep control of the Senate.​
If not a wave there’s at least a strong current that more likely the Democrats pick up about 20 or more House seats and four or five Senate seats to take control of both bodies. (With partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and polarization the days of a party picking up seats like it did in 1974 or the Gop gains of 54 in 1994 or 63 in 2010, or the Democrats winning 41 seats in the first Trump midterms are over.)

Still, there are compelling reasons for impressive gains this November:
-- The most important guides for midterms are the approval rating of the incumbent President --Trump averages about 39%, exceptionally low --- and the enthusiasm level or more likely to vote, where Democrats enjoy as much as a ten point advantage.
-- The economy and the war, both big negatives for the GOP, won’t get any better in the next eleven weeks.
-- Trump is a diminished political force . At a campaign speech supposedly on agriculture in Chippewa Wisconsin, local accounts said “only a small portion” was about farmer’s problems while he elaborated on his beautiful ballroom and reflecting poll in Washington. “It was a slap in the face,” charges Rebecca Cooke, the Democratic House candidate Trump was campaigning against.

-- Democrats are fielding strong candidates. In the House challengers are a carbon copy of the stellar 2018 class, honored military veterans, small business owners, farmers, popular local elected officials.
Sometimes the numbers crunchers overlook the quality of candidates.
Republicans won the gerrymandering war a projected net gain of about a half dozen though it may be a few less.
Scandals, which so far disproportionately affect Republican House candidates, may offset that.
Ohio’s seventh congressional district in the suburbs of Cleveland and Akron wasn’t on any Red (Republican) to Blue (Democrat) list. Trump and the incumbent congressman, Max Miller, carried it by double digits in 2024. Now, however, Miller’s ex-wife is suing him for physical abuse of her and their two year old daughter. Her father, Ohio Republican U.S. Senator, Bernie Moreno, and some GOP colleagues, say Miller is unfit for office. He denies the allegations though he has a history of assault charges.
There are two important caveats to this blue bull market. One if Republicans can stick Democrats in swing states and districts with the radical socialist label. Last week’s primary defeat of a Democratic socialist gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin makes that harder.
The other is if Trump successfully sabotages the election in key places. He clearly will try; Democrats say they’re prepared; I am a little worried.
The key target for the challengers are the 20 plus House seats that Republicans carried by ten points or less in 2024. They are well positioned to win many of these.
In a wave or semi-wave year there are supposedly safe seats that come into play. In 1974 Colorado’s Don Brotzman, riding a 19 point victory two years before, lost to challenger Tim Wirth by four points. In 2008 David Obey won reelection to his Wisconsin House seats by more than 21 points. He retired. In the Republican wave of 2010, Sean Duffy captured that district by eight percentage points, almost a 30 point turnaround. Abigail Spanberger, now Governor, of Virginia, won her House seat in 2018 defeating a Republican who had carried it by 15 points two years earlier.
There likely will be several supposedly out of reach Republican seats that will fall this time, especially when the incumbent is retiring.
A couple possible longshots: the northern Nevada district that the Republican caried by nineteen points in 2024. And the open seat along the South Carolina coast; the Democratic candidate there is retired Navy Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore.
In the Senate one pickup, North Carolina with Gov. Roy Cooper, is as close as you can get to a sure thing. Democratic strategists see five other seats where they are running at least even: Ohio, Maine, Iowa, Texas and Alaska. Like the House there might be one or two surprises such as Nebraska where independent Dan Osborn is running a strong race against an incumbent Republican.
Democrats have a challenge to defend a couple of their own seats, especially Michigan.
It’s very difficult to imagine anything that’ll change these prospects before November 3. If so, I’ll raise a glass that night to my old pal, the late Jack Calkins.

Inbox

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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.