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President Donald Trump is backing Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters to chair the Republican National Committee and replace Michael Whatley as he runs for Senate in North Carolina.

Trump announced his support Thursday in a Truth Social post about Whatley, who is expected to publicly announce his Senate candidacy in the coming days.

“Fortunately, I have somebody who will do a wonderful job as the Chairman of the RNC,” he wrote. “His name is, Joe Gruters, and he will have my Complete and Total Endorsement.”

The 48-year-old Florida lawmaker is the RNC treasurer and previously served as chair of the Florida Republican Party. Gruters had been expected to run to be the state’s chief financial officer against an ally backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The governor had opposed his candidacy. “Joe Gruters has taken major positions that are totally contrary from what our voter base wants to do,” DeSantis said earlier this month.

After a two-year break, “South Park” returned to TV on Wednesday night with an explosive episode aimed squarely at Donald Trump that depicted the president in bed with Satan and referenced Jeffrey Epstein.

The start of the new season of "South Park" was delayed by several weeks while the Paramount network secured a deal worth $1.5 billion with the show's creators for the streaming rights. Paramount is the owner of CBS, which has been firmly in Trump's crosshairs.

The episode features Trump arguing with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who complains about tariffs on Canada and says: “What are you, some kind of dictator from the Middle East?” After confusing Iran and Iraq, the “South Park” version of Trump tells Carney to “relax.”

Trump is also depicted lining the walls of the White House with naked pictures of himself. In another scene, Trump jumps into bed with Satan, who rejects his sexual advances and comments on the size of his penis.

Satan later confronts Trump about his name appearing on the “Epstein list” and adds: “It’s weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.”

The satirical animated show also referenced Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount (Trump reached a $16 million settlement with Paramount Global, the parent of CBS News, over what he claimed was misleading editing of a pre-election interview with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris on the show “60 Minutes”).

Days after that settlement, Paramount canceled “The Late Show” hosted by Stephen Colbert, in what it said was “purely a financial decision” and not because of performance or content. Colbert is a frequent critic of Trump.

The first six months of President Donald Trump’s term have produced a cash cow of historic magnitude for the lobbying industry, with record-breaking demand for help navigating the administration’s constant stream of policy pronouncements — or trying to avoid becoming a pay-for in the GOP’s megabill.

The result is a new set of power brokerse in Trump’s swamp. Firms with strong ties to the White House have skyrocketed to the top of the pecking order of lobbying outfits in town, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest quarterly lobbying disclosures filed this week.

No firm has benefitted more than Ballard Partners, which is led by Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard. The firm previously employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Ballard brought in $20.6 million in lobbying revenues during the second quarter of the year from clients including Palantir, American Express, TikTok, Ripple Labs and UnitedHealth. Its haul is more than four times what the firm brought in during the second quarter of 2024.

But the gusher has benefited the entire lobbying industry, new firms and old, the analysis shows. Of the top 20 firms by revenue, only two saw their lobbying revenues decline last quarter compared to the same time a year ago. The lobbying figures reported this week don't include revenue from public affairs or consulting work, or foreign agent work.

“The number of people who feel they need representation at this point is huge, and we're really just getting into sort of the day-to-day of governing,” said Rich Gold, who heads up the public policy and regulation group at law and lobbying firm Holland & Knight. Gold’s firm, which ranked fifth among the top earners on K Street last quarter with $13.8 million in revenue, signed 57 new clients during the first half of the year, a record intake for the firm.

“The largest driver of business right now is the overarching trend of uncertainty and the need for C-suites to try to minimize uncertainty and political risk as much as possible,” he said. While specific legislation like the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act has certainly drummed up lobbying business, “the number of people who needed political intelligence work and advocacy” in D.C. this year stretches far beyond that one law, Gold said.

As for Ballard, its blowout earnings were enough to dethrone Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which has topped the quarterly revenue rankings since 2021. Brownstein reported $18.5 million in lobbying revenues during Q2, setting the firm’s own quarterly record.

Ballard’s Trump-linked competitors are also cashing in. Miller Strategies, which is run by top GOP fundraiser Jeff Miller and employs several former Trump administration alumni, brought in nearly $13 million during the second quarter from clients like Zoom, OpenAI, Apple, Softbank, Crypto.com and Blackstone. That’s up almost 80 percent from the beginning of the year, and four times what it brought in during the second quarter of 2024.

Continental Strategy, whose staff includes former Trump appointee Carlos Trujillo as well as a former top aide to then Sen. Marco Rubio, reported $6.5 million in lobbying revenues last quarter, making it the 15th biggest firm by lobbying revenue in Q2. During the same time last year, Continental reported just $292,000 in lobbying fees.

Another firm that found itself knocking at the doorstep of D.C.’s most prestigious lobbying shops didn’t even exist in the nation’s capital a year ago.

North Carolina-based Checkmate Government Relations, which announced plans to open a D.C. office in December, brought in $4.5 million in lobbying fees in Q2, more than quadruple the $910,000 it reported at the beginning of 2025. Among its clients were Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, UNC Chapel Hill, General Dynamics and Juul.

Checkmate’s president, Ches McDowell, is a hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. and the brother of freshman Rep. Addison McDowell (R-N.C.). The firm also employs the son of Trump’s co-campaign manager and the nephew of Trump’s HHS secretary.

BGR Group, a bipartisan but Republican-heavy firm whose alumni include Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, posted its best quarter in its 35-year existence, said Loren Monroe, the co-head of the firm’s lobbying group.

BGR’s lobbyists include Trump adviser David Urban as well as Florida powerbroker Nick Iarossi, and the firm reported $17.7 million in lobbying fees in Q2 — which was third overall and marked a nearly 60 percent increase from the same time last year.

Mercury Public Affairs also posted a banner quarter, raking in almost $6.5 million from April through June, compared to $3.2 million in Q2 of 2024. Wiles served as a co-chair at the K Street mainstay before joining the White House this year, and the bipartisan firm also employs former Trump adviser Bryan Lanza, who’s signed dozens of new clients since the election.

Elsewhere on K Street, the all-Republican firm CGCN Group doubled its lobbying revenues compared to a year ago, and Michael Best Strategies, whose leadership includes Trump’s first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, more than tripled its Q2 lobbying earnings.

Lobbyists anticipate the good times will last, at least for the foreseeable future, even after the signing of the megabill this month — though not everyone believes the Trump-driven realignment will remain.

“We've had sort of personality-based firms in town before,” said Gold. “They kind of come and go. I expect that to be the case here.”

In addition to ongoing trade policy disruptions, multiple lobbyists pointed to the various executive orders and presidential memoranda the White House has been churning out since day one as another key driver of business this year.

“The beginning of any new administration is a very busy time,” added Karishma Page, a partner at K&L Gates. “This, I think, is a high watermark.”

K&L Gates saw its lobbying revenue last quarter surge by 25 percent from the same period a year ago thanks to the flurry of activity on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

“There seems to be an insatiable appetite” from clients for insight into the Trump administration, added Will Moschella, who co-leads the lobbying practice at Brownstein.

“A lot of those executive orders require departments and agencies to report back with policy proposals,” he said. “So they weren't one time events — those are documents and directives that are going to drive further executive branch action.”

From an advocacy perspective, the fight over Republicans’ massive reconciliation package this spring and summer “is kind of like having your dessert,” Gold said. Those negotiations touched off lobbying by everyone from universities to business groups, hospitals, the renewable energy industry and beyond.

The day-to-day regulatory work at various agencies, which Gold compared to “eating your spinach,” is “really just gearing up,” he added.

There’s also the widespread uncertainty over Trump’s tariff policies, to say nothing of must-pass legislation to fund the government and reauthorize the nation’s farm and defense policies.

Those issues — while less sexy than things like crypto or AI policy — have been the focus of increased attention from clients, lobbyists said, thanks to Trump’s large-scale slashing of government funding across the country and the recissions bill passed by Congress this month.

“There is a need in the current moment to really be able to justify the work of an organization that may be a federal contractor or grantee,” Page argued.

That’s also the case for clients that have sought to avoid the president’s ire. “I think there was a sense at the beginning of the administration that maybe you could just duck and cover and just be left alone,” said Monroe. “The experience of the last six months suggests that the best defense is a strong offense … and telling your story, otherwise you risk it being told for you.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined fellow Democrats in criticizing Zohran Mamdani, the progressive candidate for mayor of New York whose past comments on Israel have cost him support from within the party.

Mamdani has failed to condemn “blatantly antisemitic” rhetoric, Shapiro said in an interview with Jewish Insider published Wednesday.

“You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there,” Shapiro said in the interview. “You’ve got to condemn that.”

The remarks from Shapiro, who is considered a likely Democratic candidate for president in 2028, are the latest sign that Mamdani still has work to do to win over some of the prominent figures in the party as he runs to unseat New York Mayor Eric Adams.

Some Democrats have been hesitant to fully embrace the nominee, with elected officials from battleground districts distancing themselves from his campaign’s anti-Israel rhetoric. He met with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday but has still yet to secure his endorsement.

Mamdani faces opposition for his advocacy of economic plans he describes as socialist, including free buses and city-run grocery stores. He's also faced attacks for his refusal to condemn use of the phrase “gloablize the intifada” by anti-Israel protesters — a Palestinian resistance slogan regarded by some as a call to violence against Jews.

Shapiro had some faint words of praise for Mamdani: “He seemed to run a campaign that excited New Yorkers,” the governor said, before discussing his criticism of the candidate’s refusal to condemn inflammatory rhetoric about Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

“He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him to not condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things,” Shapiro said.

Republicans have sought to brand the mayoral candidate as their new Democratic boogeyman while members of his own party are still weighing what lessons to take away from the 33-year-old democratic socialist’s upset primary win. The New York race is also rippling through next year’s midterm elections and the lead-up to the presidential campaign, with figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — both seen as likely 2028 contenders — saying the party should consider Mamdani’s affordability-focused messaging.

Roy Cooper is expected to announce his campaign for the North Carolina Senate as soon as Monday, according to two people directly familiar with the former governor’s decision.

The popular, former two-term governor’s entrance into the Senate race — for a seat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is leaving open with his announcement last month that he won’t seek reelection — is expected to transform the Senate race into the most competitive of 2026. Democrats, facing a difficult path to seizing control of the Senate next year, landed their dream recruit with Cooper, who would enter the race as a favorite.

North Carolina represents one of the few offensive opportunities for Democrats, who are locked out of power at every level in Washington.

Lara Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, is considering her own bid for the seat, effectively freezing Republican recruitment. Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who served as the head of the state’s party, is also interested, but is deferring to Trump, POLITICO reported last month.

Tillis, who was first elected in 2014, denounced Trump’s tax-and-spend megabill in a fiery speech last month, warning that the drastic Medicaid cuts would “betray the promise Donald Trump made” to voters. He was one of two Republicans to vote against the legislation, drawing Trump’s threats to recruit a GOP primary challenger. The next day, Tillis announced he would not run for reelection.

Democrats are expected to use Tillis’ words — specifically that the megabill “will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid” — against the eventual Republican nominee. Tillis’ criticisms, particularly on healthcare, will be a core part of Democrats’ midterm messaging across the country, as other congressional Republicans also pledged to not make cuts to Medicaid.

But the North Carolina Senate seat has eluded Democrats since 2008, even as Cooper and his successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, held onto the governor’s mansion. Democrats hope that Cooper can crack the code with his aw-shucks demeanor, broad popularity and ability to raise big cash for his race.

Cooper was initially considered a top choice to be then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, but he pulled himself out of contention, citing concerns that North Carolina’s controversial Republican lieutenant governor would take over each time Cooper traveled out of state.

For now, Cooper still faces a potential primary. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel jumped into the race in April. He demurred earlier this month when asked if he would leave the primary should Cooper get in.

President Donald Trump promised Americans they would get tired of winning — for now, it appears they are getting tired of reading about him.

Trump’s first term saw books authored by prominent journalists sell hundreds of thousands of copies each as the public rushed to learn the inside details of Trump’s norm-shattering presidency.

But similar books aren’t exactly flying off the shelves in his second term, and the bar to getting onto the coveted New York Times bestseller list has been lowered as the overall nonfiction book market has dipped. In these tenuous times for the nonfiction political book market, industry insiders say there are fewer big advances being paid and narrower routes to success that rely on brand-name authors or a partisan perspective.

“Everyone is desperately looking for the next Michael Wolff or James Comey for next year, but it’s not clear there could ever be one again,” said one concerned publisher, referencing two of the authors with biggest book successes of Trump’s first term.

“There’s definitely a slump, and it’s across all of nonfiction,” added a book agent. “Part of it is that we were just actually tired of this, and we’re exhausted, and we don’t want to spend 30 bucks and six or eight hours of our time feeling worse.” (Publishing insiders and authors were granted anonymity for this story because they didn’t have authorization to speak from their employers or wanted to speak candidly about the state of the industry.)

The latest example is “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” by political journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf. “2024” sold roughly 6,000 hardcover copies in the first week of publication, according to data released last Wednesday from NPD BookScan. Yet even with that sales figure, it hit the New York Times bestseller list at No. 4. (The Times bestseller list does not disclose its data sources.)

It has become somewhat easier to get on to the Times bestseller list because it measures comparable sales across the board. One point of comparison: In a similar week in July 2017, the No. 4 book on the Times nonfiction list was former Sen. Al Franken’s book, which had been out for weeks and still sold almost 11,000 copies that week.

Dawsey and Pager referred a request for comment to a publicist for their publisher, who said she was "very happy" with sales, while Arnsdorf didn’t respond to a request for comment. Their agent Elyse Cheney said the numbers, including all formats, “far exceed” the BookScan figure but declined to give exact numbers. A person with direct knowledge of the sales said they were more than double 6,000 including all formats, and that e-book and audio sales were almost as high as print sales. (BookScan data is not a full account of a book’s success as it captures around 70 percent of hardcover sales and does not track e-book and audio uploads.)

“They are three great reporters, but they have a difficult time finding an audience, because at the end of the day, they play it pretty straight,” said another book agent. “A fundamental question in our divided politics, and it’s just as true for publishing — who are you marketing to? Are you selling a book to the MSNBC crowd or the Fox News crowd? There’s very little in between.”

To wit: “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland,” by conservative journalist Salena Zito, came out the same week as “2024” and sold about 23,000 hardcover copies, according to BookScan numbers, hitting No. 1 on the Times bestseller list. Zito said in a statement that she was “deeply humbled by this ranking” and “grateful to President Trump, who interviewed with me dozens of times for the book and generously encouraged people to read” it. Trump posted about the book on social media, including sharing a preorder link before its publication.

“That’s a book that’s being published to the MAGAs. So those books are always different in their numbers,” said a book agent.

This follows other second-term Trump books experiencing lackluster sales. “Trump in Exile,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Meridith McGraw, has sold roughly 2,000 copies since its release last August, according to BookScan. Axios’ Alex Isenstadt’s “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” published in March, has sold around 3,000 copies so far, according to BookScan. McGraw and Isenstadt declined to comment.

Author Michael Wolff became one of the masters of the Trump genre with 2018’s “Fire and Fury,” which sold more than 25,000 copies during its first week on sale in 2018 and went on to sell more than 900,000. But the writer sold only around 3,000 print copies during the equivalent first week publicity campaign for his latest installment “All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America,” published in March. (It has now sold around 11,000 copies, according to BookScan.)

As these books have posted middling sales figures, publishers are finding it hard to justify signing big advances for new Trump books. That’s made it more difficult for political journalists to get lucrative book deals.

“Editors are not spending anywhere near the amount of money that they did this time eight years ago,” said one of the book agents. “The days of just writing a book to write a book and checking the box for someone’s career — those days are over.”

“We are taking on fewer projects in the space because the ones that we do take on, they basically have to rise to a mid six- or seven-figure deal,” said the agent. The person said that they talk with publishers who speak of “a lot of fatigue in the market” and that there has to be “a clear path on either breaking news or a ‘wow factor’ for a book to get that kind of money today.”

The skepticism in the marketplace for political nonfiction, particularly Trump books, has led publishers and agents to try to get authors who are big brand names with built-in fan bases like Ezra Klein or Jake Tapper. Both have seen significant success this year with their books “Abundance” (co-written with Derek Thompson) and “Original Sin,” respectively. “Abundance” has sold roughly 146,000 copies since its publication in March, according to BookScan.

Tapper, one of the most prominent CNN anchors, was attached to Axios’ Alex Thompson’s Biden book project after his book deal had been cancelled. “Original Sin,” which focused more on the 46th president than the 47th, became a No. 1 Times bestseller for two weeks and was on the bestseller list for almost two months. It has sold about 97,000 copies since its publication in May, according to BookScan.

“You gotta have podcasts or TV, unfortunately, these days,” said one of the book agents.

Authors are well aware of readers’ news exhaustion after a decade of Trump dominating the political conversation. “Trump as an angry president yelling at clouds is not news anymore,” said one author of a recent political book. “News is what sells books.”

Trump’s first term saw multiple major sellers besides “Fire and Fury.” Bob Woodward’s “Fear” sold 1.1 million copies in all formats in its first week, and Simon and Schuster called it the bestselling book in company history. “The Room Where It Happened,” the explosive 2020 memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton, and “A Higher Loyalty,” by former FBI Director James Comey, each logged more than 600,000 sales within their first few years of publication.

“[Trump] is so familiar to everyone by now, and people are less shocked by new revelations because it enforces their own ideas about who he is or they just don’t care,” said an author of a recent Trump book.

There have been some other bright spots for the industry this year. NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes registered success with their 2024 election book “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which entered the Times list at No. 1 and has been optioned to become a feature film. The authors said in a statement they “are proud of our unmatched behind-the-scenes reporting on the last three presidential elections and deeply humbled by the response” to their latest work.

Dawsey, Pager, Arnsdorf, McGraw, Isenstadt, Allen, Parnes and Alex Thompson all previously worked for POLITICO.

Still, the broader shift in the market’s appetite for Trump books is clear. During the Biden presidency, books by former Trump aides similarly failed to generate much interest. (Biden books didn’t tend to sell well, either.)

The author of the recent Trump book said they didn’t even ask their publisher how many copies it sold.

“I didn’t go into it being like, ‘I’m going to make a bunch of money off of it,’” said the author. “I had a good advance, and I went into it for the experience of it, and as a reporting exercise, and a chance to put a mark on a certain moment in time that I knew really well and covered really closely.”