Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who successfully ran for Congress in 1996 as a crusader for gun control after a mass shooting on a New York commuter train left her husband dead and her son severely wounded, has died. She was 81.

News of her death was shared Thursday by several elected officials on her native Long Island and by Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Committee. Details about her death were not immediately available.

McCarthy went from political novice to one of the nation’s leading advocates for gun control legislation in the aftermath of the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. However, the suburban New York Democrat found limited success against the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment advocates.

McCarthy announced in June 2013 that she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She announced her retirement in January 2014.

“Mom dedicated her life to transforming personal tragedy into a powerful mission of public service,” her son, Kevin McCarthy, who survived the shooting, told Newsday. “As a tireless advocate, devoted mother, proud grandmother and courageous leader, she changed countless lives for the better. Her legacy of compassion, strength and purpose will never be forgotten.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul directed flags on all state government buildings to be flown at half-staff Friday in honor of the congresswoman.

“Representative Carolyn McCarthy was a strong advocate for gun control and an even more fierce leader,” Hochul said.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi said the nation has “lost a fierce champion.”

“Carolyn channeled her grief and loss into advocacy for change, becoming one of the most dedicated gun violence prevention advocates,” Suozzi said on X.

She became a go-to guest on national TV news shows after each ensuing gun massacre, whether it was at Columbine High School or Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Known as the “gun lady” on Capitol Hill, McCarthy said she couldn’t stop crying after learning that her former colleague, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had been seriously wounded in a January 2011 shooting in Arizona.

“It’s like a cancer in our society,” she said of gun violence. “And if we keep doing nothing to stop it, it’s only going to spread.”

During one particularly rancorous debate over gun show loopholes in 1999, McCarthy was brought to tears at 1 a.m. on the House floor.

“I am Irish and I am not supposed to cry in front of anyone. But I made a promise a long time ago. I made a promise to my son and to my husband. If there was anything that I could do to prevent one family from going through what I have gone through then I have done my job,” she said.

“Let me go home. Let me go home,” she pleaded.

McCarthy was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island. She became a nurse and later married Dennis McCarthy after meeting on a Long Island beach. They had one son, Kevin, during a tumultuous marriage in which they divorced but reconciled and remarried.

McCarthy was a Republican when, on Dec. 7, 1993, a gunman opened fire on a train car leaving New York City. By the time passengers tackled the shooter, six people were dead and 19 wounded.

She jumped into politics after her GOP congressman voted to repeal an assault weapons ban.

Her surprise victory inspired a made-for-television movie produced by Barbra Streisand. Since that first victory in 1996, McCarthy was never seriously challenged for reelection in a heavily Republican district just east of New York City.

Some critics described McCarthy as a one-issue lawmaker, a contention she bristled about, pointing to interests in improving health care and education. But she was realistic about her legacy on gun control, once telling an interviewer:

“I’ve come to peace with the fact that will be in my obituary.”

NEW YORK — Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Moyers’ son William said his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness.”

Moyers’ career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

But it was for public television that Moyers produced some of TV’s most cerebral and provocative series. In hundreds of hours of PBS programs, he proved at home with subjects ranging from government corruption to modern dance, from drug addiction to media consolidation, from religion to environmental abuse.

In 1988, Moyers produced “The Secret Government” about the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration and simultaneously published a book under the same name. Around that time, he galvanized viewers with “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” a series of six one-hour interviews with the prominent religious scholar. The accompanying book became a bestseller.

His televised chats with poet Robert Bly almost single-handedly launched the 1990s Men’s Movement, and his 1993 series “Healing and the Mind” had a profound impact on the medical community and on medical education.

In a medium that supposedly abhors “talking heads” — shots of subject and interviewer talking — Moyers came to specialize in just that. He once explained why: “The question is, are the talking heads thinking minds and thinking people? Are they interesting to watch? I think the most fascinating production value is the human face.”

(Softly) speaking truth to power: Demonstrating what someone called “a soft, probing style” in the native Texas accent he never lost, Moyers was a humanist who investigated the world with a calm, reasoned perspective, whatever the subject.

From some quarters, he was blasted as a liberal thanks to his links with Johnson and public television, as well as his no-holds-barred approach to investigative journalism. It was a label he didn’t necessarily deny.

“I’m an old-fashion liberal when it comes to being open and being interested in other people’s ideas,” he said during a 2004 radio interview. But Moyers preferred to term himself a “citizen journalist” operating independently, outside the establishment.

Public television (and his self-financed production company) gave him free rein to throw “the conversation of democracy open to all comers,” he said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press.

“I think my peers in commercial television are talented and devoted journalists,” he said another time, “but they’ve chosen to work in a corporate mainstream that trims their talent to fit the corporate nature of American life. And you do not get rewarded for telling the hard truths about America in a profit-seeking environment.”

Over the years, Moyers was showered with honors, including more than 30 Emmys, 11 George Foster Peabody awards, three George Polks and, twice, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Gold Baton Award for career excellence in broadcast journalism. In 1995, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

From sports to sports writing: Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, on June 5, 1934, Billy Don Moyers was the son of a dirt farmer-truck driver who soon moved his family to Marshall, Texas. High school led him into journalism.

“I wanted to play football, but I was too small. But I found that by writing sports in the school newspaper, the players were always waiting around at the newsstand to see what I wrote,” he recalled.

He worked for the Marshall News Messenger at age 16. Deciding that Bill Moyers was a more appropriate byline for a sportswriter, he dropped the “y” from his name.

He graduated from the University of Texas and earned a master’s in divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained and preached part time at two churches but later decided his call to the ministry “was a wrong number.”

His relationship with Johnson began when he was in college; he wrote the then-senator offering to work in his 1954 reelection campaign. Johnson was impressed and hired him for a summer job. He was back in Johnson’s employ as a personal assistant in the early 1960s and for two years, he worked at the Peace Corps, eventually becoming deputy director.

On the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Moyers was in Austin helping with the presidential trip. He flew back to Washington on Air Force One with newly sworn-in President Johnson, for whom he held various jobs over the ensuing years, including press secretary.

Moyers’ stint as presidential press secretary was marked by efforts to mend the deteriorating relationship between Johnson and the media. But the Vietnam war took its toll and Moyers resigned in December 1966.

Of his departure from the White House, he wrote later, “We had become a war government, not a reform government, and there was no creative role left for me under those circumstances.”

He conceded that he may have been “too zealous in my defense of our policies” and said he regretted criticizing journalists such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Peter Arnett, then a special correspondent with the AP, and CBS’ Morley Safer for their war coverage.

A long run on television: In 1967, Moyers became publisher of Long Island-based Newsday and concentrated on adding news analyses, investigative pieces and lively features. Within three years, the suburban daily had won two Pulitzers. He left the paper in 1970 after the ownership changed. That summer, he traveled 13,000 miles around the country and wrote a bestselling account of his odyssey: “Listening to America: a Traveler Rediscovers His Country.”

His next venture was in public television and he won critical acclaim for “Bill Moyers Journal,” a series in which interviews ranged from Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist, to poet Maya Angelou. He was chief correspondent of “CBS Reports” from 1976 to 1978, went back to PBS for three years, and then was senior news analyst for CBS from 1981 to 1986.

When CBS cut back on documentaries, he returned to PBS for much less money. “If you have a skill that you can fold with your tent and go wherever you feel you have to go, you can follow your heart’s desire,” he once said.

Then in 1986, he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, became their own bosses by forming Public Affairs Television, an independent shop that has not only produced programs such as the 10-hour “In Search of the Constitution,” but also paid for them through its own fundraising efforts.

His projects in the 21st century included “Now,” a weekly PBS public affairs program; a new edition of “Bill Moyers Journal” and a podcast covering racism, voting rights and the rise of Donald Trump, among other subjects.

Moyers married Judith Davidson, a college classmate, in 1954, and they raised three children, among them the author Suzanne Moyers and author-TV producer William Cope Moyers. Judith eventually became her husband’s partner, creative collaborator and president of their production company.

House GOP committees have issued new subpoenas to ActBlue, intensifying their probe of the Democratic fundraising platform.

The subpoenas are an attempt to force cooperation as ActBlue has pushed back on the congressional investigation, questioning its intentions and constitutionality after the White House launched a similar probe.

Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who lead the committees investigating ActBlue, issued the subpoenas Wednesday to compel a current and a former employee to testify about the platform’s fraud prevention policies.

The employees being subpoenaed had previously pushed back against voluntarily appearing before the committee, citing the White House’s investigation, and ActBlue sent the committee a defiant letter earlier this month criticizing the investigation as partisan. In subpoenaing the employees, the GOP lawmakers rejected ActBlue’s argument that the congressional investigation is being conducted at the behest of the White House probe.

ActBlue had slammed the congressional investigations in a letter this month as a “partisan effort directed at harming political opponents rather than gathering facts to assist in lawmaking efforts.” The platform and its Democratic defenders have argued that any probe into foreign donations and online fundraising should also include WinRed, the largest Republican fundraising platform.

Those Democratic complaints grew louder after President Donald Trump in April ordered the Justice Department to investigate foreign straw donations in online fundraising, citing in part the work done by the GOP-led congressional committees. That investigation is expected to carry into the fall — and ActBlue was the only company named in Trump’s order.

In the new subpoenas, however, the GOP lawmakers argue the committee is operating well within its rights, and that testimony from ActBlue could inform future campaign finance legislation. They say the House investigation is distinct from the Trump-ordered probe into the platform and that their committees have not provided any non-public information to the Justice Department.

The lawmakers also rejected ActBlue’s argument that the Constitution protects it from cooperation with the probe.

“Congress is free to choose how to conduct oversight, including which entities to examine and in what manner. A Congressional committee's decision to examine one entity and not another does not violate the Equal Protection Clause,” one of the subpoenas reads.

In a statement, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones assailed the subpoenas as “political theater” that would “give Shakespeare a run for his money.”

“The Republican-led committees have also not addressed ActBlue’s legitimate concerns about the partisan and parallel inquiries by separate branches of the government being waged against President Trump’s and MAGA Republicans’ political opponents,” Wallace-Jones said.

ActBlue previously provided documents to the GOP committees, some voluntarily and some under subpoena. The congressional committees asked for voluntary interviews with ActBlue employees in April, according to the latest subpoenas, but the employees balked, citing in part the Justice Department probe.

Republicans have frequently leveraged their committee gavels this Congress to go after Democratic officials, including mayors and governors. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating former President Joe Biden’s mental acuity while in the White House, amid a similar probe by the Trump administration. Comer has issued a subpoena to Biden’s physician and asked a number of former top White House aides to sit down with his panel.

Prominent MAGA-aligned commentators launched xenophobic attacks on Zohran Mamdani over the 33-year-old state lawmaker’s Muslim religion following his apparent Democratic primary win in the New York City mayoral race.

In a series of posts, conservative social media personality Laura Loomer wrote “New York City will be destroyed,” Muslims will start “committing jihad all over New York” and that “NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0.”

If elected in November, Mamdani would become the first Muslim mayor in New York City’s history. And while many conservatives have criticized Mamdani’s progressive policies, others have taken aim at Mamdani for his religion.

“24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11,” conservative activist Charlie Kirk posted on X, referencing the number of people killed in New York. “Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.”

“New York City has fallen,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote, quoting a post by Michael Malice about when New Yorkers “endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

“After 9/11 we said ‘Never Forget.’ I think we sadly have forgotten,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) posted on X Wednesday, accompanied by a photo of Mamdani.

Mamdani’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the statements.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won 43.5 percent of first-place votes in New York’s ranked-choice voting system. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the once-favorite to take the primary, conceded to Mamdani Tuesday night. However, the city board of elections is not expected to finalize results until early July, once ranked-choice votes are tabulated.

During the primary some of Mamdani's critics, including a super PAC backing Cuomo, said he either emboldens antisemitism or has himself espoused antisemitic views, in particular over his stance on Israel.

He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza, and in a June interview with The Bulwark, Mamdani said the phrase “globalize the intifada” represented “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.” Mamdani drew heavy criticism for the statement, marking a tension point in a primary election in a city with large populations of Muslim and Jewish residents.

He has repeatedly pushed back against the antisemitism label, decrying violence against Jews in the country.

“I’ve said at every opportunity that there is no room for antisemitism in this city, in this country,” he said at an emotional press conference in the closing days of the race, adding the reason he does not have a more “visceral reaction” to being labeled that is because it has “been colored by the fact that when I speak, especially when I speak with emotion, I am then characterized by those same rivals as being a monster.”

At the same press conference, he said he has faced significant attacks because of his religion.

“I get messages that say, ‘The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.’ I get threats on my life, on the people that I love. And I try not to talk about it,” he said at that press conference.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is running for Senate in New Hampshire for a second time, he announced Wednesday.

“I’m running for the United States Senate to restore common sense, keep our border secure, and fight for our New Hampshire values,” Brown, a Republican, posted on social media Wednesday. WMUR first reported Brown’s plans to enter the race.

Brown, who served as Ambassador to New Zealand during President Donald Trump’s first term, praised the president — who narrowly lost the stateto former Vice President Kamala Harris last year — in his launch video, saying that Trump “is fighting every day to right the ship. He sealed the border, he stood up to China, and he restored our standing in the world.”

His announcement Wednesday makes Brown the highest profile Republican to enter the race to replace Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who decided to forgo a reelection bid in 2026.

Brown's announcement comes after former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu decided against his own Senate bid earlier this year, even after Trump told reporters he hoped the popular moderate governor would run.

Democratic New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas launched his campaign shortly after Shaheen went public with her retirement plans. Pappas' campaign was quick to criticize Brown following his announcement, accusing him of looking “for yet another opportunity to do Wall Street’s bidding and blindly support President Trump,” in a statement.

Brown, meanwhile, took a shot at Pappas in his launch video: “Chris Pappas wants a better title,” he said. “I want a better America.”

The shadow contest between Brown and Pappas has been playing out for months already as Brown laid the groundwork for a bid. Brown attacked Pappas for “supporting wide open borders, men in women’s sports and lying to his constituents about Joe Biden’s senility” when the Democrat launched his campaign back in April. Pappas has yoked Brown to Trump — a connection Brown appears to embrace both in his launch video and his recent social media posts. Democrats’ campaign arm has attacked Brown over abortion rights, among other issues.

Brown has been ramping up to another Senate bid for months, including attending GOP senators’ weekly lunch back in March and keeping up ties with Republicans’ Senate campaign arm.

Just as President Donald Trump appears to have hit pause on a major conflict in the Middle East, he is intensifying one at home.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is the chief target of the president's powerful political operation, which is looking to oust the outspoken congressman in the GOP primary next year.

The congressman has been a thorn in the president's side in the past, but Massie’s latest threat to introduce a resolution aimed at reining in presidential war powers comes as Trump was already seething about Massie’s multiple attempts to thwart the “big, beautiful bill” ahead of Republicans’ self-imposed July 4 deadline.

Massie has easily beat back challenges before, including a raft of money from pro-Israel donors. But this time, the six-term Congressman’s strong independent political brand may not withstand the blitz that the president's allies appear ready to unleash. Not only has Trump vowed to campaign “really hard” against Massie next year, his political operation has launched a super PAC dedicated solely to defeating the Kentuckian.

“He's probably more vulnerable than he's been since he first won in a primary because of all this,’ said GOP strategist and former Kentucky state Rep. Adam Koenig. “There's money outside of Trump world ready to go after Massie.”

Trump’s political apparatus began ramping up its efforts to boot Massie after the representative voted against the party’s massive tax-and-spending package for the president’s domestic policy priorities when it first went through the House last month. It went public with its plans — a super PAC dubbed Kentucky MAGA led by two of the president’s most-trusted lieutenants, Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio, first reported by Axios — as Massie pushed to reassert congressional authority over Trump’s military actions in Iran.

“He has established himself as a contrarian for contrarian sake,” LaCivita said in a text message to POLITICO. “He should be a man and switch parties instead of posing as a Republican.”

The president and his advisers have viciously attacked Massie on social media in recent days, with Trump marshalling his MAGA base to dump “LOSER” Massie and “GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE.”

Trump and Massie have had a contentious relationship dating back to the president’s first term, when he pushed to “throw Massie out of the Republican Party” after the Kentucky Republican erected a roadblock to Trump’s Covid-19 relief package in March 2020. Trump later endorsed Massie’s 2022 reelection bid and Massie backed Trump in 2024 — but only after initially supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary.

But now that Trump is back in the Oval Office, Massie has attempted to cripple the president’s legislative agenda multiple times, including becoming the only Republican to vote against a stopgap government funding bill in March. Unlike in the past, the president appears to be making good on his threats to try getting Massie out of office by putting a super PAC on the case.

“I think there’s a real opportunity…they’re going to spend upwards of $30 million to defeat Thomas Massie,” said one Kentucky GOP political operative who, like many interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intraparty matters.

The operative, who did not vote for Trump, also heard rumblings that AIPAC, one of the most prominent pro-Israel groups, is also ready to spend big in the May 2026 Kentucky primary — suggesting Massie's anti-war efforts may be met with resistance on multiple fronts. Some Republican strategists estimate combined spending could reach as high as $45 million, an unheard of total for a primary contest in the 4th Congressional District. (The only outside spending against Massie in last year’s primary was about $320,000 from AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project.)

Even Speaker Mike Johnson hedged Tuesday on whether he would support Massie next year — despite acknowledging it’s his job as the top House Republican to protect his party’s incumbents.

“I certainly understand the president’s frustration” with Massie, Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “If you’re here and you’re wearing one team’s jersey and every single time you vote with the other team, people begin to question … why you’re so consistently opposed to the platform, the agenda of your party.”

But Massie appears unfazed by Trump and his allies’ electoral threats.

"In 2020 I got my Trump antibodies from a natural infection when he came after me, and I survived,” Massie quipped to reporters on Tuesday. “It will deplete his political capital if he doesn't succeed, and he knows that. So that's got to be part of his calculus."

In fact, Massie is embracing the fight. On Twitter, he teased an interview with podcaster Theo Von, a sign that he’s seeking to widen his exposure in a format that favors Massie’s unique brand of an isolationist budget hawk. He’s fundraising off the social-media sparring with Trump, telling Hill reporters Monday evening that he’d raised roughly $120,000 in 24 hours.

And he’s still pledging to move ahead with his war powers resolution if the ceasefire between Iran and Israel doesn’t hold, saying in television interviews and to Hill reporters it’s “not clear the war is over.”

Overhanging the primary threat is the question of exactly which candidate Trump's allies have in mind to run against the incumbent. Already, some think first-term state Rep. Aaron Reed, a retired Navy Seal and gun shop owner who is rarely seen without his cowboy hat, would be a possible challenger. Another option is state Rep. Kimberly Moser, who is not thought of as traditionally MAGA, but has over the years made inroads with the Trump wing of the party. There are some potential outsiders who might have the means to self-fund a campaign as well, like political pundit Scott Jennings or former gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft.

“I think it's too soon to know if his outright opposition to what Trump has done – and I think it’s pretty horrible what [Massie’s] done – will make a difference,” said Ellen Williams, a former chair of the Kentucky GOP. “You can't just put anybody up against him and spend a shitload of money. I just think it emboldens him.”

Members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation say Massie’s sprawling district, which runs along the northern border along Ohio and Indiana and stretches from the southern Cincinnati suburbs to the outer bands of the Louisville metro area, is a unique cross-section of the state that appears to relish Massie’s independent streak.

It’s home to some of the most prominent members of the “liberty faction” of the Kentucky Republican Party, a group that embraces Trump while also gravitating toward libertarian-leaning Republicans like Massie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The senator has weathered his own barrage of attacks from Trump for voicing opposition to the megabill and defended Massie to POLITICO on Tuesday.

Massie is “very popular in Kentucky,” Paul said. “I will continue to support him.”

“His district is different,” Rep. James Comer, a fellow Kentucky Republican, said Tuesday on Capitol Hill, though he declined to weigh in on the conflict between Massie and Trump. “That’s a unique congressional district.”

Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson believes Trump, as much as he is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, may be overplaying his hand when it comes to Massie’s district.

“As popular as Trump is in Republican politics, as popular as Trump is in Kentucky, as popular as Trump is in the 4th District, on the substance, on the policy, Thomas wins those arguments over Trump,” Grayson said. “Until you see someone step up, Thomas is still pretty formidable.”

He also warned of repercussions for Trump, who — constitutionally barred from seeking office again — is a lame duck. If the representative is able to fend off a primary challenge, it could open the floodgates for others who have private misgivings about the president's actions.

“It will make a difference if Massie were to overcome this,” Grayson added. “If he wins, if you’re a member, you’d be more likely to speak out in the future.”

Massie’s never been in serious jeopardy in the GOP primary. His closest primary contest was when he first ran for Congress in 2012 when he defeated Alecia Webb-Edgington, a state representative, to succeed the retiring Rep. Geoff Davis by roughly 7,000 votes. In subsequent primary contests, Massie cruised to victory in otherwise low-turnout primaries where he won with no less than 60 percent of the vote.

Many operatives believe Trump would need to juice primary turnout considerably to succeed in his quest to topple Massie. Some cautioned that Trump's popularity 11 months from now could shift considerably.

Massie was matter-of-fact about the challenges before him Tuesday afternoon when addressing reporters.

“I just have to spend more money if he gets in the race,” Massie said, when asked his thoughts on Trump meddling in his primary. He then laid out a pair of scenarios, one in which Trump endorses someone and then backtracks on the endorsement — as the president has done before. He floated another in which Trump's allies lay down a lot of money and groundwork, only to abandon its efforts down the line.

“They're gonna try to talk to somebody in the race...tell them that the Trump endorsement is coming, and then they'll wait to see if that person can get close. And if that person can get close, then Trump may get in,” Massie said. “If that person can't, they'll leave that person hanging on the bone.”

Democrats are scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

It’s another high-stakes move by the president that could present a major political opening — but the party has, so far, appeared fractured in its public messaging.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quickly called for Trump to be impeached, but most House Democrats on Tuesday voted down Rep. Al Green’s (D-Texas) resolution to do so. Other Democrats have supported Trump’s strike, including Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who said the president was “right” to bomb Iran. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin posted “no new wars” on X, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vented that Trump “failed to seek congressional authorization.”

It’s the kind of disjointed and, at times, contradictory message that’s become emblematic of the Democratic Party that’s been locked out of power in Washington, cut out of the loop, and left without clear party leadership during Trump’s second term. Where Democrats were once reflexively #Resistance-driven during the president’s first term, giving them clear anti-Trump positions on much of what he did, they’re now more nuanced, sometimes circumspect, on Trump’s controversial moves on trade, immigration and now, foreign policy.

Democrats often unify on arguments about process and rules, including on the Iranian strikes, when they’ve primarily attacked Trump for failing to seek congressional approval. Multiple War Powers Resolutions — which would prevent Trump from further engaging in hostilities against Iran without congressional approval — are in the works.

But that response, so far, is “a classic Democratic messaging problem,” said Morgan Jackson, a top Democratic strategist based in North Carolina, who said that Democrats “should be making two points, clearly and consistently that’s broadly adopted: Trump is dragging us into a war, which he said he’d never do, and he’s making Americans less safe.”

“When we debate the process, war powers vote, impeaching him because he didn’t ask Congress — voters don’t care about that,” Jackson added. “When we have a message about process versus a president who took action, [then] that’s a losing message.”

Or as a Democratic consultant said when granted anonymity to speak frankly about the party: “Our response is to push our glasses up our nose and complain about the illegality of it? Come on. We can’t just bitch about the process.”

Democrats’ jumbled answer to the United States’ strikes in Iran, so far, is also the product of a specific challenge, several House Democrats said: They’re operating without much information.

The Trump administration postponed a closed-door congressional briefing on the Iran strikes Tuesday afternoon, drawing the ire of Democrats who questioned whether the administration was trying to obfuscate its intelligence, and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said he first heard about the attack on social media.

“There’s no official party line” because “you need the facts,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.).

That’s left Trump and Republicans to dominate the public messaging around a rapidly changing situation.

After Trump signed off on a trio of bombings on Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday, he claimed the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but his own military leaders walked back that assessment. Trump floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, then backtracked by Tuesday, telling reporters he wants “to see everything calm down as quickly as possible.” The president helped to broker a ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel, but it’s already been tested and it’s unclear how long it may hold.

That constant uncertainty is at the core of Democrats’ defense for their constitutionality argument. Himes, who has introduced one of the War Powers Resolution measures, warned that he “would be willing to bet my next paycheck that a ceasefire is not likely to remain in effect for very long,” so “I think the Constitution to which we all theoretically subscribe should be enforced.”

House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said it was “completely unacceptable that Congress has not been briefed on this in a timely fashion,” adding that “launching an attack without congressional authorization is wrong” and “launching a potentially unsuccessful attack without congressional authorization would be an administration-defining failure.”

Potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to former Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have largely focused their responses to the Iranian strikes on public safety and concern for military personnel. Otherwise, they’ve largely stayed quiet.

“Our challenge is, yes, we have no clear leader but, just as important, everyone is still trying to figure out what’s going on,” said a Democratic operative who is advising a potential 2028 candidate and was granted anonymity to describe private conversations. “Donald Trump sows so much chaos and confusion into the process that Democrats can sometimes get distracted and respond to all of it, rather than having a coherent overall message.”

The muddled Democratic message on the Iran strikes is particularly notable because there is a clear political opening. A majority of Americans disapprove of the president’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, while six in 10 said the strikes will increase the Iranian threat to the United States, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.

The DNC has urged Democrats to capitalize on that opening, even if it’s not yet the loudest message emanating from their own party. A messaging guidance memo from the DNC, and obtained by POLITICO, described Trump’s actions as "unconstitutional, dangerous and hypocritical."

Of the six messaging points detailed as pushback to it, only the last one focused on process, arguing that Trump “must bring his case before Congress immediately.” The other five ticked through safety, broken campaign promises and lack of public support for the strikes.

Republicans have also been divided on Trump’s actions, with some explicitly urging Trump not get involved further in the conflict. Trump ally Steve Bannon cautioned against the United States pushing for regime change in Iran, warning it could lead to more American military involvement. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had initially joined Democrats in pushing for a measure to block American involvement, but he said he wouldn’t back it if the ceasefire between Israel and Iran held.

It’s frustrated some Democrats who wish the party would take better control of the moment, but Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic consultant, said Democrats might end up benefiting politically regardless of their current messaging.

“We’re a party without a head. We don’t have a Speaker, we don’t have a nominee for president yet, so we have this cacophony of voices in these moments. … But that matters less here because we just need to get out of the way because the story here is MAGA is at war with MAGA,” Giangreco said. “Donald Trump did something that only 17 percent of Americans agree with, so the Democratic response, even if it is messy, doesn’t matter this time.”

Steve Bannon expressed his disapproval on Monday with the possibility of the U.S. pushing for regime change in Iran — an outcome President Donald Trump floated over the weekend — while reiterating his desire to prioritize “America first” and stay out of foreign conflicts.

Bannon, the longtime Trump ally and leading figure in the MAGA movement, praised Trump for the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities during an episode of his podcast “Bannon’s War Room.” But he questioned the “regime change narrative,” criticized the Pentagon for its messaging in the hours after the strike and urged Israel to “finish what you started” without U.S. involvement.

Trump indicated he’d be open to seeing out regime change in Iran in a social media post Sunday evening, contradicting several senior administration officials who had insisted earlier in the day that regime change was not a goal.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

The conflict in Iran has opened a rift with the GOP between interventionists like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and isolationists like Bannon, who argue against the U.S. entering an open-ended conflict in the Middle East.

Bannon congratulated Trump on the “precision, logistics, bravery, valor, boldness” of the Iran strike, but warned a lack of clarity on whether the strike was successful could create a pretext for the U.S. to send military personnel to Iran.

“Now it's all about, ‘Hey, we don't know where the material is,’” Bannon said of the enriched uranium stockpile in Iran. “What's that going to lead us to, folks? 'Hey, do we need the 75th Ranger Battalion to go in and find it?' Oh, it's coming. It's coming.”

Trump has repeatedly called the strike “very successful,” but Pentagon officials on Sunday said it’s too soon to know if Iran still retains nuclear capabilities, and the extent to which Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was destroyed remains unclear.

Bannon voiced concern that the Iran strike was a “psy-op” and that the Trump administration’s stated goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was “cosplay” that could lead to further U.S. involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

“Is this because the ultimate goal is regime change? And if that's fine, Israelis, have at it,” he said. “If you want regime change, go for it, baby. Just no participation by the United States government."

Bannon said he was “disappointed” by Pentagon leadership for losing the opportunity to “drive the narrative” around the strikes by not presenting an initial damage assessment on Sunday after the attack.

“We needed to see some grainy photographs,” he said. “I understand DOD that you don't have the battle damage assessment. That's going to take three or four weeks, as you said, but there's enough there to kind of take and start to drive the narrative. We lost that opportunity."

California Rep. Ro Khanna is one of the Democratic Party’s key progressive voices, but he has no problem picking fights with his fellow Democrats or aligning himself with conservatives when he sees common ground.

“I'm kind of blunt-spoken. I say what's on my mind,” he tells POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.

In this week’s episode, Khanna lays out his concerns about the U.S. getting involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, why he thinks Democrats lost voters to Trump and how he thinks the party can win them back. “I actually think that at the end of Trumpism, this country is going to be exhausted by the bombast,” he tells Burns. “I think we need to offer a substantive vision for the country and to elevate the American debate.” (Note: This interview was conducted prior to Trump’s announcement on Saturday evening that the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. Here is Rep. Khanna’s response to this announcement.)

Plus, senior politics editor Sally Goldenberg joins Burns to discuss the crowded, chaotic New York City primary mayoral race and its national implications for the Democratic Party.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and conservative media personality Tucker Carlson doubled down on their feud over U.S. involvement in the escalating war between Israel and Iran, with each releasing their own podcasts on Friday following up on the fiery debate earlier this week.

The ongoing war of words between the two high-profile conservative thought leaders — both of whom have left the door open to a possible 2028 presidential run — could offer a glimpse at what the first Republican presidential primary of the post-Donald Trump era might look like.

“It was a bloodbath,” Cruz said of his appearance on Carlson’s podcast on an episode of “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the show he hosts. “The two of us, frankly, beat the living daylights out of each other for two hours straight.”

Carlson and Cruz’s contentious conversation — in which both men repeatedly shouted at each other and traded personal insults — revealed fissures on the right between pro-Israel Republicans urging the White House to launch an attack on Iran and conservative isolationists who hope the president will uphold his commitment to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts.

On Friday, both insisted on their respective podcasts that the other was leading the U.S. down the wrong path. Carlson said Cruz’s ominous warnings of Iran’s nuclear capabilities were part of an effort to “justify American involvement in regime change.”

“[Carlson] has gotten to a place of hardcore isolationism that I think is really dangerous,” Cruz said on his podcast.

Cruz and Carlson’s disagreement over the U.S.’ policy over the escalating conflict in the Middle East will play out in the coming days. Trump told reporters in New Jersey on Friday he’s taking “a period of time” to decide whether to strike Iran, and that the self-imposed two-week timeframe to launch a strike the White House announced on Thursday would be the “maximum.”

But the two men may also find themselves in competing lanes of the 2028 Republican presidential primary, where the intraparty debate between war hawks and isolationists could be a fault line for Republican primary voters.

Carlson said he would consider running for president in 2028 in an episode of his podcast last year, while conceding in the same breath, “I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

“I would do whatever I could to help,” he told fellow conservative podcast host Patrick Bet-David. “I want to be helpful.”

Cruz, who ran for president against Trump in a bitterly-contested 2016 primary that was punctuated with personal attacks, has not closed the door on a 2028 presidential run.

When asked about the possibility of running in 2028 by POLITICO in April, Cruz said he’s focused on delivering legislative victories for Republicans — even as he uses his new post heading the Senate Commerce Committee to put his stamp on the direction of the party.

Perhaps further forecasting another dynamic of the 2028 primary, Trump refused to show a preference for Carlson or Cruz’s position, instead offering praise to both men when asked about the interview.

“Tucker is a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day, because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “And Ted Cruz is a nice guy. He’s been with me for a long time.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a combat veteran who led troops in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, accused President Donald Trump of displaying “a lack of seriousness” in dealing with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.

“As someone who has worn this uniform, and you know, along with my fellow service members risked my life in defense of this country, to see such a free-wheeling conversation about issues of life and death is disappointing," Moore said in an interview Thursday.

Moore’s comments come a day after Trump said at the White House that he delivered an “ultimate ultimatum” to leaders in Tehran about disarming their nuclear program while also telling reporters “I may do it, I may not do it” with regard to the U.S. striking Iran’s nuclear sites.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump will make a decision on whether to strike Iran within two weeks.

Moore, seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party and a potential 2028 presidential contender, emphasized the huge stakes at play in the ongoing and escalating Mideast conflict.

“These are serious issues and these are very serious times,” Moore said. “The lack of seriousness that is surrounding these conversations, the whole ‘will I-won’t I’ playing games is not helpful to this larger conversation. … These are people’s lives on the line.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The first-term governor has been sharpening his critiques of the Trump administration after previously saying he was “not the leader of the resistance.”

Moore had previously railed against the Trump administration's issuing pink slips to federal workers and said those moves posed a threat to the nation’s national security and global competitiveness.

Moore’s comments come as the nation is observing Juneteenth, a federal holiday that marks the official end of slavery in the nation and a day where the governor unveiled a series of actions, including one that makes some 7,000 people convicted for simple cannabis possession eligible for pardon.

The nation’s only Black governor, who is up for reelection in 2026, has been criticized by some in his party over a decision to veto a reparation’s bill passed by Maryland’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature. The measure called for a yearslong study of race-based inequality in the state.

Recently, Moore has been raising his national profile ahead of a potential bid for the White House — even as he continues to publicly deny he’s running.

He was in early primary state South Carolina last month delivering a brief speech at Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual fish fry, and also served as the keynote speaker at a South Carolina Democratic Party dinner and fundraiser — both must-attend events for Democratic White House hopefuls.

In early May, Moore traveled to Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most important swing states, to deliver a commencement address at Lincoln University, a historically Black college, while also appearing on “The View.” In March, he served as the headliner at the annual Gridiron Club dinner.

When asked Thursday whether his time in South Carolina changed his mind about launching a presidential run, he responded: “The reception was very good. And I'm still not running.”

Black church leaders are ramping up the pressure on corporate America as companies continue to roll back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, trying to serve as a counterbalance to President Donald Trump’s aggressive push to end DEI initiatives across the country.

The pressure comes as liberals are still trying to figure out how to respond to Trump’s culture war — and as the Democratic Party grapples with Trump’s improvement among Black and Latino voters in the 2024 election.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion is not charity. It's not a handout and the African American community is a valuable partner,” said Jamal Bryant, a Georgia-based pastor who masterminded a boycott of Target after the retailer curtailed its DEI initiatives in January. “So we want to know: If you can take our dollars, how come you won’t stand with us?”

Shortly after Trump’s election, major companies like Meta and Google rolled back their DEI commitments made in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Within his first week of returning to office, Trump signed an executive order eliminating DEI practices in the federal workplace. He called such programs “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.”

“President Trump is bringing back common sense by eliminating DEI policies and making merit the standard once again,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in a statement. “Performance-driven companies see the value in President Trump’s policies and are following his lead.”

But Black church leaders see these boycotts — Bryant announced in May that Dollar General would be the next target — as a way to push back against the Trump-fueled wave and hold companies accountable.

Bryant says his movement has garnered the support of 2,000 other churches and over 200,000 people signed his pledge to boycott Target.

Frederick Haynes, the pastor of the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, said joining the movement reflected how he was raised, influenced by the values of the Civil Rights Movement. Companies, he said, must recognize that they have “a moral responsibility” to profiting.

“They have a responsibility to morally go inward and check themselves and recognize that you don’t have a United States without diversity, without equity, without being inclusive,” Haynes said.

In a statement to POLITICO, Dollar General said “our mission is not ‘Serving Some Others’ — it is simply ‘Serving Others.’” The company added that it serves millions of Americans “from all backgrounds and walks of life” in more than 20,500 stores. “As we have since our founding, we continuously evolve our programs in support of the long-term interests of all stakeholders.”

Rev. Al Sharpton — the civil rights leader who supported Bryant’s Target boycott — said the company boycotts are one of the most effective ways to push back against the rollback.

“The success of the Montgomery boycott is that it changed the law,” said Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, referencing the famous mid-1950s bus boycott to protest segregation. “We can't just do things as a grievance, we must go for their bottom line.”

It is hard to tell exactly how much boycotts are hurting companies’ bottom lines. But Target’s CEO Brian Cornell in May acknowledged that at least some of its sales drop, including a quarterly sales decrease by 2.8 percent, was due to “headwinds” including “the reaction to the updates we shared on Belonging in January,” referring to the company’s announcement to end their DEI programs, along with consumer confidence and concerns around tariffs.

A spokesperson for Target told POLITICO that the company is “absolutely dedicated to fostering inclusivity for everyone — our team members, our guests and our supply partners.”

“Today, we are proud of the progress we’ve made since 2020 and believe it has allowed us to better serve the needs of our customers,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

But Sharpton said the boycott is still a powerful tool.

“The power the Black church has is that the people that attend church are your major consumers,” said Sharpton. “You go to a Black church that has 2,000 people and 1,900 of them are the ones that shop.”

Sharpton has his own demonstration planned for this summer — a rally on Wall Street on Aug. 28, the 62nd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his renowned “I Have a Dream” speech. Sharpton said he chose the date for the rally on Wall Street intentionally.

“I wanted this year to show the pressure that we're putting on these companies with DEI, to go right to the bastion of industry and right where the stock exchange is and say to them that if you do not want to have diversity — in your boardroom, with your contracts and your employment — then you will not have diversity in your consumer base,” said Sharpton.

But the boycotts do present challenges for church leaders. In some cases, Sharpton said, congregants have forgotten the boycotts are still on — and he says Trump is in part to blame for this.

“One of the things that I learned during the Civil Rights Movement from [Rev. Jesse Jackson] and others is, you have to keep people's attention,” said Sharpton. “But there's so much going on now, Trump and them are so good at flooding the zone. You’ve got to make sure people don't forget, ‘I'm not supposed to be shopping at that store.’ Keeping public attention is a challenge."

But even with congregants who are engaged in the battle to retain diversity commitments across the country, Adam Clark, associate professor of theology at Xavier University, said the church cannot carry the burden alone, especially when the president has taken a stance.

“The attack on DEI is so much broader than the specific companies,” said Clark. “Trump is the culmination of all this type of white aggression against DEI. He has the authority to implement what's been going on in certain parts of the country and he makes it federal law, and I don't think the church by itself has the capacity to just overturn everything that's happening.”

As Republicans battle over direct military engagement with Iran, prominent conservatives and allies of the president have emerged as forceful voices against intervening, lashing out at a host of political players — except for President Donald Trump.

Warring factions within the Republican Party have sought to pull Trump in opposing directions on how to deal with Iran. Isolationists are seeking to hold Trump to his repeated campaign promises to not involve the U.S. in another major Middle East war, while interventionists like Sen. Lindsey Graham have urged the president to go tougher on Iran — an approach that appears to be winning Trump's favor.

Even as Republicans have spoken up against engaging in a conflict with Iran, criticizing everyone from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Graham for their role in the unfolding conflict, few dared to directly attack the president over his approach.

“Take screenshots of every single right winger who is shit talking Trump right now,” conservative social media personality Laura Loomer wrote on X on Monday, encouraging her followers to post the evidence in the replies. “I have most of them. But I don’t want to miss any.”

Loomer specifically slammed “grifters” for “turning on President Trump” in speaking out against possible military intervention in Iran.

Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon cautioned against U.S. military involvement in Iran, warning at a Christian Science Monitor event on Wednesday that “we can’t have another Iraq.”

“The Israelis have to finish what they started. They started this. They should finish it,” he continued, criticizing Netanyahu for expecting the Trump administration to rush to his aid after launching an attack on Iran last week.

Still, many of Trump’s backers have been vocal in their support of his approach to Iran.

“President Trump is a President of peace, not of war,” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said on Tuesday. “I trust him and his Cabinet to put America First, and I’m with him all the way.”

The split within the party appeared to also motivate Vice President JD Vance — a veteran who historically sided with isolationists — to weigh in. In a 375-word post on X Tuesday, Vance acknowledged the concerns over a long- drawn-out war but staunchly defended the president and potential actions against Iran.

“Of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy,” Vance said. “But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.”

Trump himself seems to be trying to balance the two sides. After initially shying away from directly supporting Israel’s campaign against Iran, he indicated the U.S. is poised to assist with direct attacks, and is considering using American “bunker buster” bombs to target Iran’s Fordow enrichment facility, which the Israeli military is not equipped to destroy alone.

The administration has stood firm on its position amid criticism from within the party.

“President Trump has never wavered in his stance that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and repeated that promise to the American people since his victorious campaign. Americans trust President Trump to make the right decisions to keep them safe,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

One of the few conservative figures willing to directly attack Trump is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who last week accused the president of being “complicit in the act of war” after Israel launched missiles at Iran.

Carlson continued his broadsides against more hawkish GOP figures and tangled with Sen. Ted Cruz in an episode of Carlson’s podcast that aired Wednesday, attacking the senator for his seeming obliviousness to the nuances of the Iranian nation that he was encouraging action against.

Carlson’s salvo against Trump elicited the president’s ire, with Trump on Monday criticizing him as “kooky” on Truth Social.

But Trump Wednesday seemed to suggest he and Carlson had smoothed things over.

“Tucker is a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day, because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch supporter of the president, also came close to direct criticism of the president when she came out in support of the former Fox News host.

“He unapologetically believes the same things I do,” Greene wrote in a post on X. “Foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for.”

In a separate post, Greene slammed the “neocon warmongers” she said were seeking a “proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, fighting Iran for Israel, and protecting Taiwan for China.”

But some Republican leaders seemed unfazed by the swell of protest from within MAGA circles.

"We have people as you know in our party who have different views about America's role in the world,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “But I think the president is well within his authority, understands what's at stake in ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon and will do everything he can to protect America and American interest."

Jordain Carney and Jake Traylor contributed to this report.

American Federation of Teachers union President Randi Weingarten, a longtime influential member of the Democratic National Committee, is leaving the DNC, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.

Weingarten, who has been a member of the DNC for 23 years, wrote DNC Chair Ken Martin that she had fundamental disagreements with leadership.

"I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging," she said in the letter dated June 5, "and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more of our communities."

Weingarten has defended former DNC vice chair David Hogg, who was ousted last week from the committee, as he has come under fire over his decision to fund primary challenges against Democrats that he sees as ineffective in safe-blue districts.

"Randi has gotten applause from the members when she told them, much to her dismay as a proud Dem," said a spokesperson for Weingarten.

Martin told DNC officers and staff in a recent private conversation that Hogg had "essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to" and "I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore," as POLITICO first reported.

Weingarten sat on the DNC's powerful rules and bylaws committee since 2009, and has been a delegate to Democratic conventions since 1992.

A spokesperson for the DNC did not immediately provide comment for this story.

Within the Trump administration, Richard Grenell is a jack of all trades. When he’s not acting in a diplomatic capacity as special presidential envoy, he’s also running one of Washington's most esteemed arts institutions, the Kennedy Center. “Everyone should be welcome. No one should be booed. No one should be banned,” Grenell tells Politico’s Dasha Burns in a wide-ranging interview in the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer. Grenell explains why he thinks “the intolerance is coming from the left,” and why “the gay community has to police itself” at Pride parades. Grenell also sheds light on the Trump administration’s talks with Russia, immigration enforcement, his potential run for California Governor, and his friendship with First Lady Melania Trump.

Grenell also responds to reports that ticket sales and subscriptions have dropped at the Kennedy Center. Grenell calls those reports “wrong.” Read the statements from the Kennedy Center’s CFO here and its SVP of Marketing here.

Plus, senior political reporter Melanie Mason joins Burns to talk about the immigration protests in Los Angeles and how California Governor Gavin Newsom is leading the fight against President Trump’s military intervention.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Richard Grenell on cancel culture, ‘normal gays’ and his friend Melania | The Conversation

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Political leaders from across the spectrum and around the country called for calm after one Minnesota lawmaker was killed and another was seriously injured in apparent politically motivated shootings on Saturday.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state law enforcement officials said Saturday that former state Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were seriously injured in a pair of shootings that the governor labeled as “politically motivated assassinations.”

The violence in Minnesota is only the latest incident of apparent politically fueled attacks in America in recent weeks, which include a pair of Israeli embassy staffers being gunned down in Washington earlier this month.

In response to Saturday’s shootings, state lawmakers from both parties have issued a call for calm and an end to further violence.

California’s Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Republican Minority Leader James Gallagher issued a rare joint statement Saturday afternoon, saying “we stand together in condemning it in the strongest possible terms.”

“As leaders on both sides of the aisle, we call on everyone to take down the temperature, respect differences of opinion and work toward peace in our society,” their statement read.

They were followed by the leaders of the California state Senate, Democratic Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, who said there is “no cause, no grievance, no election justifies the use of fear or force against our fellow human beings.”

Minnesota’s entire congressional delegation, including Democratic Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar as well as Republican Rep. Tom Emmer, the House GOP whip, put out a joint statement condemning the attack.

“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence,” they said.

Saturday’s shooting deeply rattled politicians from both parties, who have seen an increase in threats and violence directed toward them over the last several years — particularly since the pandemic and the riot at Capitol Hill in Washington in 2021.

It is particularly acute for state elected officials. Members of Congress have long said they do not have adequate security resources as they face an increasingly threatening environment, and Capitol police have regularly warned about elevated risks for lawmakers. But that’s especially true for state lawmakers, many of whom only do the job part time with little to no official security provided by their jobs.

“None of us who run for public office sign up for this,” Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat, said in a statement following the shooting. “We sign up to serve our communities, to debate policy, and to work on behalf of our constituents – not to have our lives and our families threatened by political extremists.”

Following the shooting, Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, urged Minnesotans to not attend protests planned in the state for Saturday — meant to serve as a countermeasure to President Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington— “out of an abundance of caution.”

In a separate statement, he said political violence must end. “We are not a country that settles our differences at gunpoint,” he said. “We have demonstrated again and again in our state that it is possible to peacefully disagree, that our state is strengthened by civil public debate.”

That call was swiftly echoed by many of Walz’s gubernatorial colleagues across the country.

“These attacks are not just assaults on individuals, they are attacks on our communities, and the very foundation of our democracy,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Democrat and Republican and the chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association. “Now more than ever, we must come together as one nation to ensure that our public square remains a place of debate, not danger."

Before Los Angeles, there was Portland, Oregon.

For more than 170 days in 2020, thousands of Portlanders gathered to protest police violence. They lay peacefully in the middle of the city’s most iconic bridge and marched with a local NBA star — but also tore down statues and looted shops. Police launched tear gas canisters into crowds, while the 750 Department of Homeland Security agents President Donald Trump dispatched to the city without the approval of local or state officials grabbed protesters at night and loaded them into unmarked vehicles.

As anti-Trump protests ramp up — with major rallies taking place across the country on Saturday — Portland officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of 2020.

“The Portland Police and then the feds overreacting in the way that they did, I think it brought even more people out because it was such injustice,” said Ali King, a veteran social organizer in Portland who worked for now-retired Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) at the time. “When I saw the LA thing, I just had flashbacks. I did feel some PTSD.”

The impact of those protests and riots on Portland was massive. Voters completely overhauled the city’s government structure, the county elected a more tough-on-crime district attorney, and the police department reformed the way it deals with protesters.

Five years later and 1000 miles away, President Trump again deployed federal officers into a city beset by protests against the will of state and local officials. Those recent events in Los Angeles have put Portland back on edge. Protests this week in the Rose City have been largely peaceful, but as tensions grow, officials hope policy changes will be enough to avoid a repeat of 2020’s violence and prevent federal involvement.

“We've changed so much since 2020,” Mayor Keith Wilson, a trucking company owner and political outsider who was elected in 2024 on a progressive platform of fixing the city’s homeless problem and improving public safety, told POLITICO earlier this week. “But federal overreach is something we're concerned about, and we're prepared to sue.”

A review conducted by an independent monitor after the 2020 protests found failings by the city and the police department ranging from poor communication with the public to inadequate training in deescalation tactics and insufficient guidance about when and how to use force. These problems, the review found, led to mistrust between the public and the police and escalated — rather than deescalated — the situation.

In the wake of that review and a handful of lawsuits brought against the police department for actions taken during the 2020 protests, significant changes were made to the city’s policing policies. Wilson and Portland Police Chief Bob Day told POLITICO those changes include reducing use of tear gas and militarized gear, overhauling the department’s rapid response team and establishing liaison officers to build relationships with community organizers. Members of the department also attended training in Cincinnati and London to learn from experts in deescalation and crowd control, Day added.

“We're looking at large-scale events much differently than we've done in the past,” said Day, a former deputy chief who was called out of retirement in 2023 to be interim chief by then-mayor Ted Wheeler. “What you want to bring, from a public safety standpoint, is you're not adding to the chaos.”

Most protests in Portland since these changes were instituted have been peaceful, but Sergeant Aaron Schmautz, president of Portland’s police union, says the city hasn’t faced a situation like 2020 that would put the new tactics to the test.

“There's just a lot of nervousness right now,” he said.

Portland is not alone in the Northwest. Tensions are also growing in Seattle and Spokane, neighboring Washington’s two largest cities, in light of anti-ICE protests and the federal government’s response in Los Angeles. Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes said Tuesday he will do anything in his power to protect Seattleites “from anyone who comes to the city with the intention to hurt them or inhibit their First Amendment rights,” and was willing to risk arrest to do so. Then on Wednesday, at least eight demonstrators were arrested by Seattle police after a dumpster was set on fire. In Spokane, meanwhile, Democratic Mayor Lisa Brown instituted a curfew after more than 30 people, including a former city council president, were arrested during protests.

King said protesters in Portland are willing to put their bodies in the way to stop ICE actions, like physically blocking agents’ path or distracting them. And she says trust between protesters and the Portland Police Bureau is still really low. But she added that the community has been having its own conversations about remaining peaceful and deescalating within the ranks at protests.

Terrence Hayes, a formerly incarcerated local community organizer who is on the city’s criminal justice commission and supports giving the police more resources, said the city’s mood has changed since 2020. The months of violence, tear gas, looting and arrests by federal officers are something residents are not excited to revisit.

“I just don't think we're looking for that fight,” Hayes said. “If ICE start pushing certain lanes, of course people are going to stand up and protest — but I don't think they're going to be inner-city destructive.”

King added that “if somebody is kidnapping an innocent person off the streets … [we] might have to physically get involved.”

Over the last week, there have been protests across the city, including outside the local ICE office. The vast majority have been peaceful, Schmautz said, with minor instances of violence or destructive behavior like arson. The department has arrested about 13 people over the last week. For a city so renowned for its protests that it was once called “Little Beirut” by a staffer for George H.W. Bush (a moniker a local band proudly took as their own), the last week has been notably quiet.

Day said this week shows the new policies are already helping deescalate. But 2025 is very different from 2020 in a key way: Then, Portlanders were protesting their own police department. Now, the target is the federal immigration apparatus. The police department will not assist ICE, Day explained, but needs to prevent violence or lawbreaking all the same. He calls the gray area for local police “a very complex, nuanced challenge.”

The chief gave two examples: Earlier this week, Portland Police removed debris piled by protesters that was preventing ICE contractors from entering a parking lot — receiving criticism from city residents for doing so. At the time, the department contends, the contractors were not engaged in enforcement actions and officers believed that moving the debris would reduce tensions. But on another day, police watched passively nearby and did not help federal officers clear a path through a similar group of protesters for a van carrying detained immigrants to pass.

Day said in a normal situation, they would clear a blocked street. But with ICE, they “are not going to actively enforce some of these laws” that are hindering ICE’s operation, Day said. But, he added, “we can't say that the ICE facility, in itself, as it stands, is free game, that anybody can do whatever they want to that building or to that area.”

The wild card, according to everyone involved, is the small portion of people who show up and try to escalate conflict and encourage illegal behavior. Nearly everyone who spoke to POLITICO for this article mentioned groups on the right and left who are suspected of coming to peaceful protests in order to incite violence.

“Law enforcement may be called to navigate criminal activity on the fringes of a free speech event, which creates a lot of challenges,” Schmautz said.

And at the core of the conversation is Portland’s collective identity as a city that is always willing to fight back. Chief Day noted Portland’s longstanding protest culture. Free speech demonstrations are one of the city’s core values, Schmautz added. King said she and her fellow protesters expect to become a target of the Trump administration in the coming days or weeks.

But perhaps Hayes put it best: “If you push, Portland pushes back,” he said. “If they come to Portland acting up, Portland's gonna return that LA energy.”

Democrats see turning to a new type of candidate to give them an edge in the 2026 midterms: mothers of young children.

JoAnna Mendoza, a single mother of a 9-year-old son, launched a bid to run in Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District in February. Christina Hines, a mother of three, threw her hat in the ring for an open seat in Michigan's 10th Congressional District in April. And in Iowa, state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a mom of two, is vying for the state’s 3rd Congressional District in May.

Motherhood — once seen as a political liability — is becoming a key plank of campaign messaging for a new crop of Democratic candidates. Candidates are not just listing their credentials as former Marines or special victims prosecutors, but are also leaning into their experience raising a family in their pitch to voters.

"Women candidates work so much harder than anyone else, and especially mothers, because they know how to really juggle and manage a lot of things, but they also know what's at stake,” said Trone Garriott, who said she raised $230,000 within the first 24 hours of launching her congressional campaign that leans into her “public school mom” persona.

And they have support from Vote Mama, a PAC dedicated to helping mothers of minor children get elected to public office. The group currently has 70 endorsed candidates and expects that number to grow.

“Moms have had enough,” said Liuba Grechen Shirley, who founded Vote Mama after her own unsuccessful run in 2018. “Our policies fail moms.”

The recent rush of political involvement from mothers follows past waves. Most famously, the sexual harassment allegations that dominated Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination in the 1990s inspired a fresh crop of women running in 1992. But more recently, President Donald Trump’s first presidential win inspired candidates in the 2018 midterms, and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 pushed new grassroots groups to organize.

Despite some high-profile examples — former Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously raised five children before running for Congress — mothers of young children remain rare in elected office. Only 6.8 percent of the members of the 118th Congress were mothers of children under 18, compared to 24.2 percent being fathers of minor children, according to data released by Vote Mama. At the state level, only 7.9 percent of all legislators are women with minor children.

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, groups like Vote Mama say they are seeing renewed energy from mothers frustrated by Republican-led efforts to slash funding to programs that support families, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid.

But as more women enter public office, tensions arise with business as usual. Earlier this year, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and a bipartisan group of lawmakers thrust motherhood into the spotlight with a push to allow proxy voting in the House — a move that drew aggressive criticism from conservatives and ultimately failed. “Show up for work, or don’t run for Congress,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a post on X. But Luna’s campaign shows that there are signs of growing support for mothers serving in Congress.

“What is noticeable is that it started as a bipartisan effort, and because of that, I think that just helps show that this is not tied to your political party,” said Gayle Goldin, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. “This is something that needs to be in effect for women, regardless of their political party.”

Internal grapples with parental responsibilities has been one thing moms said they considered carefully. Hines, whose campaign was motivated by Trump’s push to dismantle the Education Department, said she weighed the potential toll her candidacy could have on her family before making the decision to run.

“My biggest hesitation is the fact that I do have three kids — they’re nine, seven and four — and they are my biggest passion and love of my life," Hines said. "The idea, not just of the campaign, but of winning and then being away from them, was something that was holding me back.”

And motherhood is front and center for many candidates’ messaging strategy. Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who recently announced a long-shot bid against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in May, said in her candidate announcement video: "I'm literally a busy mom," highlighting taking her kids to tae kwon do, dance and football.

But Andrews' pitch to voters also aims to emphasize her blend of experience, highlighting her concerns as a doctor over Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s contested agenda. “Like so many of you, I am worried about what the future holds for our kids,” she said.

And some of these moms are already seeing early enthusiasm for their candidacies. Mendoza, who is running in Arizona, raised over $816,000 for her first-quarter FEC filing, an impressive figure for a candidate seeking federal office for the first time. She's also locked down endorsements from BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political arm, and VoteVets, a progressive group that backs veterans running for office.

"We're already in the political arena ready to go," Mendoza said. "Some of these other candidates are outside the stadium trying to figure out how to get in.”

Democrats’ newest approach to win back voters is a fresh embrace of the nation's oldest symbol.

Two days ahead of Flag Day, when President Donald Trump’s military parade will run through the streets of Washington, Democratic Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) fanned out Thursday afternoon to give a gift to their colleagues to unite them.

It was a 4-inch-by-6-inch American flag, which they passed out at almost the exact moment, unbeknownst to them, that Sen. Alex Padilla was getting forcibly removed and handcuffed at a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles — an act House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries would later call “unpatriotic.”

The flags, made in Deluzio’s Pennsylvania, came with a message in an accompanying dear colleague letter written by Ryan, a West Point grad who served two tours in Iraq, and Deluzio, a U.S. Navy officer who did three deployments there. They have joined forces to become co-chairs of the first-ever, 18-member Democratic Veterans Caucus, formed just three days ago.

“Patriotism does not belong to one party,” the letter read. “The flag, and the values it stands for, belong to every single American.”

As Democrats look for a message to rebut the MAGA right, they are looking within their own ranks for a credible message against the overreach of those holding power.

“The timing is very apt, because we've now had a senator handcuffed; we've had one of my House colleagues charged and now indicted; we've had not just the National Guard federalized, but active duty troops deployed against U.S. citizens, and increasingly, Trump, who really is the Republican Party now, their definition of patriotism, is, do you support Trump and MAGA?” Ryan told POLITICO. “And if you don't, then you're not patriotic."

Democrats see the military display taking place in Washington on the Army’s 250th birthday — which also happens to coincide with President Donald Trump's 78th birthday — as emblematic of a president who puts himself above the country. In his speech this week, even California Gov. Gavin Newsom framed his criticism of Trump in patriotic terms, saying he’s “ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.”

It's a message that a beleaguered party hopes resonates in the 90 percent of counties that shifted to Republicans last November. Or, as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) put it earlier this year, it's time for Democrats to “fucking retake the flag.”

Ahead of Trump’s parade, outside groups like VoteVets are rallying former servicemembers to make a not-so-subtle contrast. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy officer, is organizing fellow veterans online to “call out how Trump is putting his ego first while he fires veterans from federal jobs and guts the VA.” Others who also served in the armed forces, like JoAnna Mendoza who is running to challenge Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, plan to be involved in the pushback.

“Patriotism is not something the Democratic Party should concede, because patriotism is not something the Republican Party created,” Moore said in an interview.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Instagram Thursday said “any salute to the flag or patriotism or talk of American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents.”

In Iowa last month at a town hall hosted by the Democratic political action committee VoteVets, Buttigieg closed his opening remarks with an extended meditation on the flag to his three-year-old daughter. The former Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan for seven months extolled “the values that flag represents, the story, the incredibly rich and inspiring — and yes, very, complicated story, of everything that has happened under that flag and in the name of that flag.”

And it comes at a time when the party’s brightest stars include a number of veterans — including some poised to enter governor's mansions and help Democrats retake the House.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, her party's gubernatorial nominee in New Jersey, is a former Navy helicopter pilot.

Her candidacy has inspired a group of female veterans running for Congress in 2026, who hope to replicate the success of the 2018 wave by running moderates with national security experience.

And like Buttigieg, other possible 2028 presidential contenders are leaning into powerful national symbols: Kelly is also a former astronaut. And there is Reuben Gallego, a Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq.

In attempting to reclaim the flag from its right-coded fixture at the moment, Democrats face no easy task: One study found that a single exposure to the American flag shifts voter sentiment to the right for up to eight months after.

Major General (Ret.) Paul Eaton, a senior adviser to VoteVets, the PAC that sponsored Buttigieg's town hall last month, said messaging that has been so successful on the right to pigeonhole the other party [as] less than patriotic.”

Mendoza, a retired US Marine, says she finds it "extremely frustrating" when Republicans claim to be the true party of patriots. Medoza said she deliberately chose her campaign colors to be red, white and blue to make a point that "they don't own it, and we have to take it back."

"The Republican Party does not own this country, they don't own the American flag," she said. "It belongs to the people."

Democrats have spent years battling perceptions that they are less patriotic — and reversing that image could take just as long.

But “a key part of the way out of the moment we're in will be military veterans who can help bridge the divide," Ryan said. "That's why I think this reassertion of a constructive, unifying patriotism is absolutely just essential right now.”

A survey of likely voters seeks to offer Democrats a blueprint for how to punch back on an issue that’s vexed them in recent elections: immigration.

The poll, conducted in key 2026 battleground districts by Democratic-leaning groups Way to Win and Impact Research and shared first with POLITICO, argues that Democrats — with the right messaging — can drive down President Donald Trump’s strength on immigration by a net 10 percentage points.

The poll does not shy away from Democrats’ overall poor standing on the issue. Republicans overall have an 11-percentage-point net negative job rating on immigration (43 percent approve versus 54 percent disapprove), but Democrats have a 58-percentage-point net negative rating on the issue (19 percent approve versus 77 disapprove).

Democrats can turn the tide, the message testing found, by playing up Trump's overreach and disregard for the rule of law that they say threatens citizens and noncitizens alike as he carries out his mass deportations. But many Democrats would rather avoid the topic.

“Coming into and out of the 2024 cycle, Democrats were silent — completely — on immigration,” said Tory Gavito, president of Way to Win. “There was just no response at all. This poll is to show Democrats that when they point out how enforcement has failed, they can attack Trump on one of his most favorable policies.”

The survey, conducted in more than 70 key congressional districts, including the 26 “frontline” member list of top House Democratic-held seats the party hopes to defend next cycle, found a weakness for Trump. His initial job rating, which started with 50 percent positive versus 49 percent negative on immigration, dropped to 45 percent positive and 54 percent negative after emphasizing overreach messaging.

The survey used specific examples, like the deportation of a person in the country legally “but deported and sent to a prison in El Salvador because of their autism awareness tattoowas wrongly identified as a gang tattoo” — or a 10-year-old U.S. citizen deported because her parents were undocumented.

Researchers say Democrats have plenty ammunition on the issue. They found policies that separate families and impact children among the most salient issues among respondents. A large majority, 74 percent, of respondents who oppose revoking visa and green cards from people without proof of committing a crime. And nearly eight in 10 respondents do not support sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons.

“Voters view Trump’s policies on immigration and his enforcement of immigration differently — there’s a gap,” said Molly Murphy, president of Impact Research. “They are more supportive of what Trump wants to do on immigration … from a policy standpoint, than how he’s actually going about it.”

Of course, getting voters engaged on the specifics of Trump's immigration policies can be a challenge. Public polling shows voters who haven't heard much about the high-profile cases are more likely to approve of the president.

The poll, conducted May 6-11 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, does not capture reactions to the widespread protests in Los Angeles.

The showdown between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Trump administration's deployment of the state’s National Guard has also centered on the president's overreach.

“Democrats shouldn’t be focused on protesters right now,” Murphy said. "We should be talking about the people he’s deporting: people here legally, people here with no criminal records, people who have proof of citizenship and not make this a fight about protesters, because that’s what he wants.”

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said the party needs to " keep those stories in the news.” and plans to hold a briefing on the survey findings for members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus early next week on Capitol Hill.

“Trump wants to highlight the chaos that he is helping stoke in LA," Cesar added. "Democrats should be making sure that more of the focus is on the immigration overreach that has everyday people … deeply upset and deeply troubled.”

When Rep. Mikie Sherrill won the New Jersey gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, the “Hellcats” group chat of aspiring female congresswomen lit up in celebration.

All four women in the "Hellcats" chat — named after the first female Marines who served in World War I — have military experience and are running for Congress in 2026. Sherrill, as a former Navy helicopter pilot, offers some much-needed inspiration for the party’s next generation of candidates.

Democrats, looking to turn around their struggling brand and retake the House in 2026, point to Sherrill and presumptive Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, a former congresswoman and CIA officer, as reasons the party will do well.

Sherril and Spanberger are held up as the model for how the party might turn the tables — running moderate, former veterans and national security officials in tough districts who can say they “have put their country ahead of their party,” said Dan Sena, who served as the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018.

“Candidates with records of service showed in 2018 their ability to win in the most challenging districts and states in the country,” Sena added. “This cycle, the same dynamics are playing out with those kinds of candidates.”

Democrats say these House candidates can point to their political aspirations as an extension of their public service that began in the military or national security realm, and bristle at Republicans claiming MAGA is equivalent to patriotism.

“Right now, especially as this administration continues to create more chaos and dismantle our democracy, you're seeing veterans continuing to answer the call to serve their country,” said JoAnna Mendoza, a retired US Marine who served in combat, now running to challenge Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.).

Mendoza is a member of the “Hellcats” group chat, along with Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy officer who is taking on Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.), Maura Sullivan, a former Marine looking to replace Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and Cait Conley, an Army veteran and former National Security Council official, who is up against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).

Democrats say these candidates bring in necessary enthusiasm that translates to fundraising. In Pennsylvania, Ryan Croswell, a Marine and federal prosecutor who resigned when President Donald Trump pressured him to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, raised more than $215,000 in the first 48 hours after announcing his campaign on Monday, one of the biggest launch hauls that the party has seen this cycle.

Spanberger posted a selfie on X just minutes after her one-time Washington roommate Sherrill won her primary race in New Jersey on Tuesday. The pair is using their profiles as a springboard to higher office, after many of them helped Democrats flip the House in 2018.

In Michigan, former CIA analyst Sen. Elissa Slotkin fought off GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, himself an Army veteran, in a state that Kamala Harris lost in 2024. New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, a former Department of State adviser on Afghanistan, easily won his election for the seat once held by former Sen. Bob Menendez, who was convicted of federal corruption charges.

“Patriotism is a value that the Democrats shouldn't be afraid to talk about,” said Jared Leopold, a former communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. “It is a productive conversation for Democrats to lead on as an entry point to the kitchen table issues of the day.”

Democratic candidates with national security backgrounds mitigate one of the party’s biggest liabilities — a perception that Democrats are weak. Democratic-run focus groups held after the 2024 election found voters across the spectrum saw the party as overly focused on the elite and too cautious. Voters regularly cite Republicans as the party they trust with national security issues in public polling, and the GOP bench of veterans elected to office runs deep.

But serving in the military or for the administration in a national security capacity “inoculates them from attacks that they're not tough,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, a group that recruits young people to run for office.

“It helps them ward off that opposition without having to say it out loud,” Litman continued. “Former Navy helicopter pilot, prosecutor — those are inherently tough, so that means women candidates don't have to posture, they can just be, because it's baked into their resumes.”

Of course, Republicans have, at times, effectively turned it against them. Former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, for instance, highlighted his military experience but also faced "swift boat" attacks. More recently, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's military record came under scrutiny when he was elevated to the vice presidential nomination.

Bennett, who is also a current member of the Air National Guard, believes her dual identity as a veteran and mother gives her a unique appeal to voters, and a natural way to discuss financial strains like high daycare costs.

“I truly led in some of the most challenging environments that exist in this world,” she said. “And, I'm a mom too, and I fundamentally understand the issues and challenges that families are facing.”

Democratic National Committee members removed David Hogg his vice chair position — discharging the 25-year-old activist and another vice chair from national party posts amid his threats to take on “ineffective” Democratic incumbents in primaries.

The virtual vote, which concluded on Wednesday and the results were obtained by POLITICO, vacated its two vice chair positions, stemming from a procedural complaint unrelated to Hogg’s primary activities, and put forth a plan to hold a new election. Hogg and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta must now run again for their positions next week.

The election offers a potential reset for a party that’s dealt with a series of Hogg-related controversies in recent weeks.

In April, Hogg announced the group that he co-founded, Leaders We Deserve, planned to drop $20 million on safe-seat Democratic primaries, hoping to oust “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats. The move triggered a wave of anger from elected officials and DNC members alike, who vented that Hogg’s role as a party leader conflicted with the decision to take on incumbents.

The internal drama exploded again over the weekend, when POLITICO reported on leaked audio from a DNC meeting in which Chair Ken Martin told Hogg and other DNC leaders that his leadership has suffered due to the clash. The vice chair, Martin said, had “essentially destroyed any chance I have” to show national leadership.

Several of the DNC leaders who participated in the call expressed support for Martin and accused Hogg or his supporters of leaking it. Hogg, for his part, denied he shared it.

Now, the DNC will hold a new elections for the two vice chair roles — the vote for the new male vice chair will take place from June 12 to June 14 and then vote for a second vice chair of any gender from June 15 to June 17.

Joe Walsh, the former Tea Party congressman, right-wing radio host and current Never Trumper, is eyeing a possible move to South Carolina. He says he’s considering a run as a Democratic Senate candidate against Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Walsh, who became a registered Democrat last week, told POLITICO that Democrats have to take a new, asymmetrical approach to their Republican opponents and have to “fucking wake up and begin to do different things.”

“I am seriously considering moving to South Carolina and challenging Lindsey Graham next year, because he's a piece of shit," said Walsh, who describes himself as a “conservative” Democrat. "He’s everything that is wrong about our politics, and he's the worst, most pathetic Trump enabler."

Walsh would not be the only Democrat in the race if he runs: Dr. Annie Andrews, a progressive, has already announced a campaign for the seat that has been held by Republicans for over half a century.

Walsh represented the northwest suburbs of Chicago from 2011 to 2013.

Graham’s last race, when he faced Jaime Harrison, was among the most expensive of its cycle, totaling nearly $200 million. Harrison lost to Graham by 10 percentage points.

Democratic governors facing potential big budget problems exacerbated by the GOP megabill being fast-tracked in Washington are considering emergency measures to try to soften the blow.

Blue state policymakers from Connecticut to California to New York are raising the specter that they will call lawmakers back for special sessions to tackle what could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs as a result of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” And even some deep red states — like Florida — are taking steps to address the financial fallout.

The preparations signal the depths of concerns about how the Republican package might reverberate in state capitals, even as passage is far from assured, especially given the recent vitriolic attacks on the spending bill from Elon Musk. State officials are scrambling to navigate the likely fiscal challenges in what’s already the toughest budget year since before the pandemic in many states.

“The bill is destructive and risks destabilizing the entire network of supporting programs,” said New Mexico Treasurer Laura Montoya, a Democrat whose governor has all but guaranteed a special session will be necessary.

The bill, which cleared the House last month and now awaits Senate action, would cut some $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, largely by forcing states to pay into the program for the first time. It would also kick 7.6 million people off Medicaid and save $800 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The special session threat could be a way for Democratic governors, some of whom enjoy large legislative majorities, to respond to pressure from constituents angry about cuts to health care and food benefits — even if there's little they can do to combat Trump’s agenda.

The details of what the governors would even ask the lawmakers to do are scant given the high degree of uncertainty around the final bill. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, referencing potential cuts to education, school meals and Medicaid, warned earlier this year that “nothing prohibits us from coming back in a special session to deal with anything that comes our way from the federal government.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said last month “we will definitely be back in a special session to deal with” the reconciliation package if the House-passed version is adopted.

There could be immediate substantive reasons for a special session in response to the GOP bill, even though provisions like sharing the costs of the nation’s largest food aid program with states wouldn’t take effect until 2028. The vast majority of states start their fiscal years on July 1 — meaning that their budgets have been crafted based on current conditions even as officials leave the door open to make changes later and minimize the pain in response to the final federal legislation.

“Bottom line is states will not be able to absorb all the costs, and decisions will have to be made,” said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the nonpartisan National Association of State Budget Officers. “All states will be impacted.”

Some Republicans have also expressed concern at the downstream impacts of the GOP megabill. Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries Rick Pate, a Republican who recently announced a bid for lieutenant governor, previously told POLITICO that in his state “there would be very little interest in us generating the dollars it would take to fund something huge as SNAP.”

Others are using the special session chatter as a cudgel to hammer Democrats in blue states for being in a precarious fiscal situation to begin with.

“I would say that our priorities have been on the goofy side,” California Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican on the budget committee, said in an interview regarding his state’s poor fiscal outlook, pointing specifically to massive spending to attack homelessness that’s failed to dent the problem. “We're trying to offer too much to too many people when we can't even offer basic services.”

Still, states would be impacted across the board even if it’s only Democrats that have the political incentive to publicly oppose the reconciliation bill. That means states will need to turn to unpopular choices like cutting benefits or raising taxes to fill as much of the gap left by the federal cuts as possible, in addition to other maneuvers like drawing from their rainy day funds, said Sigritz.

Some legislators are accepting that they will likely return to their statehouses for special sessions.

Connecticut Treasurer Erick Russell, a Democrat, said in an interview that a special session will likely be necessary if the federal budget significantly shifts costs to states to ensure that lawmakers are “building in some flexibility to try to make whatever adjustments we may need to safeguard residents of our state.”

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s office told POLITICO that he and legislative leaders are considering declaring a fiscal emergency in order to raise the spending cap, a move that it argues would be necessary to pay for the costs shifted to states under Republicans’ megabill.

New York state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat who chairs the chamber’s health committee, said he fully expects to return to Albany in a special session if the reconciliation bill clears Congress — and that he will push to “raise taxes on the wealthy” to cover some of the Medicaid spending the federal government plans to cut.

In California, a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said there is “a scenario where lawmakers come back later this year” to deal with new budget realities brought by federal cuts.

“I'll come back any day,” said California Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens, a Silicon Valley Democrat. “This is our job. And if we have to come back in the fall, I will gladly come. In fact, if it means protecting some of these programs, then I think we should come back in the morning, noon, weekend, holidays.”

And in deep-red West Virginia, Mike Woelfel, minority leader in the state Senate and one of the 11 Democrats in the entire Legislature, said he wants his Republican governor Patrick Morrisey to call a special session if the federal cuts are adopted.

“This is the kind of thing that should trigger special sessions if we get into this hellhole that this legislation would put our most vulnerable citizens in,” Woelfel said. “But there’s political risk in (the governor) doing that.”

Eric He and Katelyn Cordero contributed to this report.

ActBlue is fighting back against a House Republican investigation into its workings, saying the probe appears to have become an unconstitutional abuse of power to help the White House.

The Democratic online fundraising platform said Monday in a letter obtained by POLITICO that it was reevaluating whether to cooperate with the ongoing congressional investigation into fraud on its platform in light of President Donald Trump’s executive action to investigate potential foreign contributions on ActBlue and House Republicans’ public statements supporting the White House.

“If the Committees are now working to gather information on behalf of Department of Justice prosecutors, rather than for legitimate legislative purposes, that would fundamentally transform the nature of your investigation — and violate ActBlue’s constitutional rights,” ActBlue’s lawyers wrote in the letter Monday to GOP Reps. Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil.

The allegations are an escalation in the conflict between House Republicans and ActBlue, the behemoth Democratic fundraising platform that has long been in GOP crosshairs as it has helped the left build a massive fundraising advantage. ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones told POLITICO last month that ActBlue believes the platform has “nothing to hide” but needs to better communicate its role in light of the attacks.

In the letter, lawyers representing ActBlue ask the congressional committees investigating the platform to clarify the purpose of their work. They argue public statements from Jordan, Comer and Steil indicate they are seeking to help the Trump Justice Department’s separate investigation into ActBlue, rather than carry out congressional oversight.

And they note that the "selective focus" of the investigation does not appear to include WinRed, the GOP’s primary online fundraising counterpart — and thus may be intended to hurt Democrats, not provide legitimate oversight of American elections.

“The Committees’ selective focus on ActBlue also suggests that the investigation may be a partisan effort directed at harming political opponents rather than gathering facts to assist in lawmaking efforts,” the letter reads. “Such an action would raise substantial First Amendment concerns.”

Spokespeople for the GOP committees investigating ActBlue did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon. A spokesperson for ActBlue also did not immediately comment.

The letter comes as the Trump administration is also going after ActBlue. Trump signed a memorandum in April ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the potential use of foreign “straw” donations in online fundraising, citing concerns about foreign influence in elections based in part on the work of the GOP-led congressional committees. ActBlue was the only platform named in the order. The memorandum calls for Bondi to report back in 90 days, which would be late July.

Under federal law, only U.S. citizens and green card holders can give to campaigns and political action committees. Republicans have long argued that ActBlue, which processed billions of dollars in donations for Democrats last year, is not strict enough in weeding out potential foreign contributions. ActBlue has countered that it has processes to catch illegal donation attempts and that similar challenges exist on other platforms, including WinRed.

The platform’s lawyers also suggested that ActBlue’s further cooperation with the congressional probes could depend on the extent of the committees’ work with the Justice Department.

“In light of your public statements, it is essential that we receive more information about your agreement to coordinate the Committees’ activities with the Executive Branch, so that ActBlue may properly evaluate its ongoing efforts to cooperate with the Committees,” the platform’s lawyers wrote.

ActBlue previously turned over thousands of pages of internal documents to the committees, some voluntarily, and then later under subpoena. The committees released an interim report in April that cited cases of fraud identified in the ActBlue documents as a means to argue that the platform had an “unserious” approach to fraud prevention.

Rahm Emanuel has had just about every job in politics under the sun: congressman, White House chief of staff, U.S. ambassador, Chicago mayor, and more. “I’m pretty pragmatic about politics and almost cold to a point in my analysis,” he tells White House bureau chief Dasha Burns. Emanuel, who is widely believed to be considering a run for president in 2028, tells Burns that Democrats should “stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom.” As the first Jewish mayor of Chicago, he also talks about the recent anti-Semitic attacks and whether America is ready for a Jewish president.

Plus, Burns is joined by Politico Magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph to talk about the magazine’s recent Q&A with Miles Taylor in the wake of Trump’s executive order targeting him, and the rise of jawline surgery among DC’s male population.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Rahm Emanuel wants to save the 'weak’ and ‘woke’ Democratic Party brand | The Conversation

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https://www.politico.com/video/2025/06/07/rahm-emanuel-wants-to-save-the-weak-and-woke-democratic-party-brand-the-conversation-1641207

Ambitious Democrats with an eye on a presidential run are in the middle of a slow-motion Sister Souljah moment.

Searching for a path out of the political wilderness, potential 2028 candidates, especially those hailing from blue states, are attempting to ratchet back a leftward lurch on social issues some in the party say cost them the November election.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who is Black, vetoed a bill that took steps toward reparations passed by his state legislature. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “unfair” to allow transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports. And Rahm Emmanuel has urged his party to veer back to the center.

“Stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom," said former Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel, the two-term Chicago mayor who said he is open to a 2028 presidential campaign. "If one child is trying to figure out their pronoun, I accept that, but the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is and can't even define it,”

Each of these candidates are, either deliberately or tacitly, countering a perceived weakness in their own political record or party writ large—Emmanuel, for example, has called the Democratic Party “weak and woke”; Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) has said the party needs more “alpha energy”; others like Newsom are perhaps acknowledging a more socially liberal bent in the past.

On diversity, equity, and inclusion, some in the party are also sending a signal they're no longer kowtowing to their left flank. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg removed his pronouns from his social media bio months ago, and questioned how the party has communicated about it.

"Is it caring for people’s different experiences and making sure no one is mistreated because of them, which I will always fight for?” he said in a forum at the University of Chicago earlier this year. “Or is it making people sit through a training that looks like something out of ‘Portlandia,’ which I have also experienced," Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg added, "And it is how Trump Republicans are made.”

Moderate Democrats are having a moment and there is a cadre of consultants and strategists ready to support them.

Ground zero for the party’s great un-awokening was this week’s WelcomeFest, the moderate Democrats’ Coachella. There, hundreds of centrist elected officials, candidates and operatives gathered to commiserate over their 2024 losses and their party’s penchant for purity tests. Panels on Wednesday featured Slotkin, Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), described as “legends of the moderate community,” and included a presentation by center-left data guru David Shor, who has urged Democrats to shed toxic positions like "defund the police."

Adam Frisch, the former congressional candidate and director of electoral programs at Welcome PAC, said his party is “out of touch culturally with a lot of people.”

"I think a lot of people are realizing, whether you're running for the House, the Senate, or the presidential, we better start getting on track with what I call the pro-normal party coalition,” Frisch said. “You need to focus on normal stuff, and normal stuff is economic opportunity and prosperity, not necessarily micro-social issues."

Then there is Newsom, the liberal former mayor of San Francisco, who has also distanced himself from so-called woke terminology and stances. The governor claimed earlier this year that he had never used the word “Latinx,” despite having repeatedly employed it just years earlier and once decrying Republicans who’ve sought to ban the gender-neutral term for Latinos.

Newsom made the claim on his podcast episode with conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk — one of several MAGA personalities the governor has hosted on the platform in recent months. “I just didn’t even know where it came from. What are we talking about?” Newsom told Kirk.

The governor, who gained national notoriety in 2004 for defying state law and issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in San Francisco, has also pivoted on some LGBTQ+ issues. Newsom broke with Democrats this spring when he said, in the same podcast episode with Kirk, that he opposes allowing transgender women and girls to participate in female college and youth sports.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said, a comment that was panned by many of his longtime LGBTQ+ supporters and progressive allies.

Newsom for months has also muted his tone on immigration issues, avoiding using the word “sanctuary” to describe a state law that limits police cooperation with federal immigration authorities even as he defends the legality of the policy. The governor is proposing steep cuts to a free health care program for undocumented immigrants, which comes as California faces a $12 billion budget deficit. In recent days, however, he joined a chorus of California Democrats criticizing Trump administration immigration efforts in his state.

Moore, who recently trekked to South Carolina, vetoed legislation that would launch a study of reparations for the descendants of slaves from the Democratic-controlled legislature. Moore urged Democrats not get bogged down by bureaucratic malaise and pointed to the Republican Party as the reason why.

“Donald Trump doesn't need a study to dismantle democracy. Donald Trump doesn't need a study to use the Constitution like it's a suggestion box," he told a packed dinner of party power players. "Donald Trump doesn't need a white paper to start arbitrary trade wars that will raise the cost of virtually everything in our lives,” Moore said.

There are some notable exceptions to the party’s border pivot to the center. Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Tim Walz of Minnesota haven't shied away from social issues.

Beshear, who has vetoed several anti-LGBTQ+ bills, including during his own reelection year, attacked Newsom for inviting conservative provocateurs Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk onto his podcast. He also drew a distinction with Newsom on transgender athletes playing in youth sports, arguing that “our different leagues have more than the ability to make” sports “fair,” he told reporters in March.

“Surely, we can see some humanity and some different perspectives in this overall debate’s that going on right now,” Beshear added. The Kentucky governor said his stance is rooted in faith — “all children are children of God,” he often says.

Walz called it “a mistake” to abandon transgender people. “We need to tell people your cost of eggs, your health care being denied, your homeowner’s insurance, your lack of getting warning on tornadoes coming has nothing to do with someone's gender,” he told The Independent last month. Pritzker, too, recently said that it’s “vile and inhumane to go after the smallest minority and attack them.” This spring, Pritzker declared March 31 as Illinois’ Transgender Day of Visibility.

“Walz, [Sen. Chris] Murphy, Pritzker, Beshear — they’re not going around talking about it all the time, but they're also not running away from their values,” said one adviser to a potential 2028 candidate granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “They’re in the both-and lane.”

The party’s reckoning with social issues is far from over. In 2021, then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro vocally opposed a GOP bill that aimed to ban trans athletes from participating in women's school sports, calling it "cruel" and “designed to discriminate against transgender youth who just want to play sports like their peers.”

This year, as the state’s Republican-controlled Senate has passed a similar bill with the support of a handful of Democrats, Shapiro has remained mum on the legislation.

It's not likely to come up for a vote in the state's Democratic-held House, so he may be able to punt — at least a while.

As Emmanuel sees it, his party has a long way to go to over-correct for what he paints as the excesses of the last few years.

“The core crux over the years of President [Joe] Biden's tenure is the party on a whole set of cultural issues looked like they were off on a set of tangential issues,” Emmanuel said.

Dasha Burns, Dustin Gardner, Holly Otterbein, and Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.