Democrats believe President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spend megabill gives them a heavy cudgel ahead of the 2026 midterms. Now they have to effectively wield it as they try to reclaim the House.

Ad-makers have quickly prepped attack ads to air as soon as the holiday weekend is over, including in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. House Democrats are plotting to turn the August recess into the opening salvo of the midterms, including through town halls and organizing programs.

And Democrats see an opportunity to expand the battleground, going on offense into red areas across the country. The bill that passed Thursday has already triggered a spike in candidate interest deep into Trump territory, House Majority PAC said. Separately, Democrats are digging into a round of candidate recruitment targeting a half-dozen House districts Trump won by high single or double digits, according to a person directly familiar with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s plan and granted anonymity to describe private conversations. They’re recruiting Democrats to challenge Reps. Ann Wagner of Missouri, Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Kevin Kiley of California, Nick LaLota of New York and Jeff Crank of Colorado

“There's almost nothing about this bill that I'm going [to] have a hard time explaining to the district,” said Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who represents a district Trump won by 9 points. “This is a giant tax giveaway to wealthy people. Everyone fucking knows it.”

Democrats’ renewed bravado comes after months in the political wilderness, following sweeping losses across the country last year. And it’s not just the megabill’s consequences that give them electoral hope.

Leading to Thursday’s vote was a series of moves they believe portend success: North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who criticized the bill for its steep Medicaid cuts before voting against it, announced his plans to not seek reelection last weekend. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents one of the three GOP-held districts that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, also announced his plans to not run for reelection. That opened up two top midterm battleground races in one weekend.

Democrats have also been far more in sync with their pushback in recent days after months of struggling to unify around a coherent message during Trump’s second term. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ record-setting speech on the House floor Thursday morning mirrored those of several Democratic candidates who mentioned Medicaid cuts in their campaign launches this week.

Next they have to spread the message farther, as polling shows many Americans aren’t yet aware of the megabill and its $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs. And Democrats privately acknowledge that as voters learn more, the party needs to stretch its House battlefield to chart a path back to power.

“No Democrat is going to nationally define this bill in six weeks, so we have to build a drumbeat. You do that by having 70 to 75 campaigns, because then you’re localizing the attack across the country,” the person directly familiar with the DCCC’s plans said. “We don’t have that yet. In reality, there are maybe 24 to 30 districts with good campaigns going right now.”

Tina Shah, a doctor who launched her bid against Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) this week, attacked Republicans for “gut[ting] Medicaid,” and Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL who is challenging Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), said “the price of healthcare is gonna go up … all to line the pocketbooks of billionaires.”

Some Democratic strategists are urging the party to capitalize on this momentum even more aggressively.

“We need to be doing early, paid communications on this — not just the same old cable buys, token digital buys in swing districts and press conferences,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant who served as the DCCC’s political director in 2014 and 2016. “Democrats need to take some risks here, mobilize early, spend money they may not have because voters' views harden over time, and this is when we can shape it.”

In 2024, Democrats failed to break through with their message after President Joe Biden dug the party into a hole with voters on the economy. Trump successfully cast himself as focused on bringing down costs while painting Kamala Harris as overly obsessed with social issues like protecting transgender people. Harris, for her part, ran a scatter-shot, three-month messaging blitz that jumped from cost-of-living to abortion rights to Trump’s threats to democracy, which ultimately didn’t move voters.

Republicans, for their part, plan to emphasize the megabill’s tax cuts, especially those on tips and overtime, and increased funding for border security. On Medicaid cuts, they hope to neutralize Democrats’ attacks by casting them as reforms: tightened work requirements and efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, a pair of Medicaid-related changes that generally polls well among voters.

“This vote cemented House Democrats’ image as elitist, disconnected, snobby, unconcerned with the problems Americans face in their daily lives, and most of all — out of touch,” said NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella in a statement. “House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026, and we will use every tool to show voters that Republicans stood with them while House Democrats sold them out.”

But as Republicans look to sell their bill, public polling on it is bleak. Most Americans disapprove of it, in some polls by a two-to-one margin, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Washington Post, Pew Research and Fox News.

Meanwhile a pair of Democratic groups, Priorities USA and Navigator Research, released surveys this week showing majorities of voters aren’t fully aware of the megabill. Nearly half of Americans said they hadn’t heard anything about the bill, according to Priorities USA, a major Democratic super PAC. Of those who had heard about it, only 8 percent said they knew Medicaid cuts were included in the legislation.

Two-thirds of survey respondents who self-identified as passive or avoidant news consumers, the kinds of tuned out and low-information voters Democrats failed to win in 2024, said they knew nothing about the bill.

“We have a lot more work to do as a party to communicate the impacts of this bill to voters who are tuning out politics,” said Danielle Butterfield, Priorities USA executive director.

Butterfield urged Democrats to “get beyond the stats” and “start collecting storytellers.” Then, start putting ads online, particularly on YouTube, not just traditional TV ads.

“We need to put a face on this as soon as possible,” she said.

Among those potential faces is Nathan Sage, a first-time candidate and Iraq War veteran who is challenging Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Sage grew up occasionally relying on food assistance, another program that will be cut in the GOP bill, and has said he’s already hearing from Iowans who “feel that they were duped into believing the Republican agenda when it first came out, because they were talking about no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime. That's things that working class people want.”

“Until they start hearing [how it] is actually going to affect them, when they do hear that, that's when the outrage happens,” Sage said in an interview.

Iowa, once a perennial battleground, is now solidly red, as Democrats have consistently lost white, working class voters there. Sage and Democratic pollster Brian Stryker argued the megabill opens a path to winning them back

The Medicaid cuts “enable us to have an issue that’s salient, substantive that’s on the side of working class people,” Stryker said. In 2024, 49 percent of Medicaid recipients voted for Trump, while 47 percent backed Harris, according to polling from Morning Consult.

“I hope that this does wake up the working class, does wake up people to understand — listen, they don't care about us,” Sage said, “and the only way that we are ever going to get out of the situation is to elect working class candidates to represent us, to fight for us, because they are us.”

Andrew Howard contributed reporting.

Brian Fitzpatrick’s survival mechanism as a battleground House Republican entails occasionally distancing himself from his own MAGA-controlled party.

On Thursday he took that to the next level by voting against President Donald Trump’s megabill amid an unrelenting pressure campaign from the White House.

The head-turning move made Fitzpatrick one of just two House Republicans to buck the party on the president’s signature domestic policy legislation that some in the GOP fear is worsening their political outlook ahead of the 2026 midterms. Over the past few days, two congressional Republicans in swing seats announced they were not running for reelection. Fitzpatrick belongs to a GOP trio representing districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris captured, and Democrats are once again eyeing him as a top target next year when they try to reclaim the House.

Fitzpatrick’s break with Trump over his key legislation also carries major risks of intra-party backlash. On Thursday, some MAGA influencers were already threatening a primary challenge.

“He has now gained the ability to say, ‘I am not a rubber stamp to Trump. I will vote against his agenda when I believe it’s the right thing to do,” said Mike Conallen, Fitzpatrick’s former chief of staff. “But given the inclination of the president and his supporters to basically go after anybody who doesn’t support them, you’ve now become potentially the lighting rod for all those MAGA individuals and the president himself.”

Fitzpatrick attributed his vote to changes made by the Senate, which deepened the cuts included in initial bill language he had backed.

“I voted to strengthen Medicaid protections, to permanently extend middle-class tax cuts, for enhanced small business tax relief, and for historic investments in our border security and our military,” he said in a statement. “However, it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis.”

It was a shocking move even for Fitzpatrick.

First elected in 2016, he has cultivated a brand as a moderate Republican who supported former President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package, won the endorsement of a major gun-control group, and regularly visited mosques in his district. He has at times even downplayed his affiliation with the Republican Party, calling himself “a fiercely independent voice.” His X header reads, “Defend Democracy. Vote Bipartisan.”

Still, many Republicans were shocked Wednesday night when he broke with the party on a procedural vote to move the legislation to a final vote, particularly because he had backed the earlier version of it weeks prior. They said he had not explained his opposition to them, even as other initially resistant Republicans went public with their concerns.

“I was surprised,” Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) said. “And I do not know what his objection was.”

Some speculated his stance might be related to a letter he wrote to Trump this week opposing the administration’s halt of some weapons to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Fitzpatrick’s curveball briefly set off a scramble to find him, with the congressman reportedly bolting from the chamber and House Speaker Mike Johnson appearing to tell Fox News he was looking for him. Even some of Fitzpatrick’s fellow members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation were taken aback by his decision.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who is eyeing a gubernatorial run, said in response to a question about the vote.

A Democrat hasn’t held Fitzpatrick’s prized Bucks County-based seat since his late brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, reclaimed it from then-Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2010. In the past, Democrats have fielded candidates who lacked electoral experience or were an otherwise imperfect fit to take on this durable incumbent. But they believe they have finally recruited a top contender to run against Fitzpatrick in a county commissioner named Bob Harvie, who has shown the ability to win the battleground county, which comprises most of the district.

“They’re scared. They know this bill is unpopular,” Harvie said of Republicans, arguing Fitzpatrick’s vote was “too little, too late” and “the only reason it got to the Senate is because he voted for it.”

A pro-Fitzpatrick super PAC, Defending America PAC, quickly released a statement Thursday casting the vote as proof of his bipartisan leanings and touting his record of “winning a seat for Republicans in a district carried by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton,” and slamming Harvie for "bitching and moaning with no solutions of his own."

Even for Fitzpatrick, though, his vote was particularly a lonely one.

Only he and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a longtime gadfly for Trump, voted against the megabill on Thursday. And Fitzpatrick was the sole Republican who did not support clearing Wednesday night’s procedural hurdle to advance the bill and didn’t back down under pressure. A handful of other Republicans initially cast votes against it, but switched them at the last minute.

Fitzpatrick’s allies said he’s proven adept at navigating the complicated political cross-currents in his swing district. And sometimes, they said, that means upsetting his party.

“Working with Brian over the years, he’s very aware of his district,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.). “And he’s very aware of where he should be when he’s representing them.”

Kelly said Thursday he has not spoken with Fitzpatrick about his vote but has “no problem” with it.

Some MAGA activists weren’t as forgiving.

Conservative influencer Nick Sortor posted on the social media platform X on Wednesday, “ATTENTION PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA’S 1ST DISTRICT: Your Congressman @RepBrianFitz SOLD YOU OUT.”

Pro-Trump activist Scott Presler likewise wrote on X, “Yes, I am aware that Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA01) voted NO to the Big Beautiful Bill. Message received. CC: Bucks County.”

Democrats would be delighted if Fitzpatrick faced a messy, expensive primary.

Fitzpatrick has easily fended off challenges from Republicans running to his right. But they have lacked institutional support — namely Trump’s endorsement. Trump and his operation backing a primary opponent would present a new challenge for Fitzpatrick.

For weeks Trump has attacked Massie and promised to try to oust him, while his team launched a super PAC to unseat him.

The criticism from the White House was relatively tame in the hours after Fitzpatrick’s dissent. Trump told reporters that he was “disappointed” by the lawmaker's vote, but declined to immediately call for a primary challenge. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

And Republican House leaders appear to be sticking by Fitzpatrick. After eventually finding him, Johnson told reporters he had spoken with him “at length” and “he just has convictions about certain provisions of the bill — he’s entitled to that.”

But Fitzpatrick’s opposition extends beyond his usual maneuvers, thus presenting a test for the modern-day GOP: Can a party that demands total loyalty to Trump stomach someone who occasionally defies the president in order to keep their congressional majority?

More often than not in recent years, the answer to that question has been no.

Rep. Don Bacon, a frequent Trump critic who represents another Harris district in Nebraska, announced this week that he would not run for reelection. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also said Sunday he'd step down after Trump vowed to back a primary challenger against him because he opposed the megabill.

An ally of President Donald Trump and former Department of Government Efficiency adviser James Fishback on Tuesday is launching a super PAC called FSD PAC designed to blunt Elon Musk’s political ambitions.

FSD PAC, a play on Tesla’s “full self-driving,” stands for Full Support for Donald.

Its strategy is to be a bulwark against Musk’s threats — real or perceived, and comes as multiple Republicans shrug off the latest social media spat as little to worry about in a world where Trump so thoroughly commands the loyalty of the GOP base.

The PAC will spend money in any race where Musk follows through on his plan to bankroll a third-party hopeful, or where he backs a Democrat or a Republican primary challenge against a Trump-endorsed incumbent. The goal: ensure that Musk’s deep pockets don’t undermine Trump’s grip on the GOP.“There's real frustration in our movement with Elon and his antics,” said Fishback, who stepped away from DOGE last month after Musk lashed out at Trump. “I'm a big believer in what he's doing in the private sector. But when it comes to politics, he's dead wrong on this.”

Fishback, who is represented by Lex Politica, the same firm that represents Musk and his SuperPAC AmericaPAC, is putting $1 million of his own money into his PAC.

FSD PAC’s formation comes amid an intensifying standoff between the world’s wealthiest man and the Republican party. Musk, the GOP’s largest individual donor, has publicly threatened to start his own party, the “America Party,” if Congress passes Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package, known as the Big Beautiful Bill.

The Senate passed that bill on Tuesday and it could land on the president’s desk this week.Trump on Tuesday, said he wasn’t concerned Republicans would be swayed by Musk or his money. “I don't think he should be playing that game with me,” the president said.A Trump ally added that he was not too concerned about Musk’s threats, noting his lackluster track record of political endorsements.

“A guy named Elon Musk tried to play Kingmaker in the 2024 Republican primary by backing Ron DeSanctimonious,” said the person who was granted anonymity to speak freely. Musk also spent millions to sway a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, including handing out million-dollar checks to two Wisconsin voters, but the Democrat won handily anyway.“For it to have any impact, you’d have to have Republicans leaving the Republican Party of President Trump and joining a new party just so they can take a check from Elon,” said a Republican strategist granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking. “I just don’t see that happening.”

And FSD is just one of several pro-Trump organizations ready to attack Republicans deemed disloyal. Just last week, another pro-Trump group, MAGA Kentucky, aired a TV ad against Rep. Thomas Massie, one of only two House Republicans who voted against the president’s marquee legislation. The 30-second spot targets Massie for voting against legislation that cuts taxes and funds border security, and puts him alongside Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)

Musk has been criticizing the legislation for weeks but his attacks have ramped up over the past few days as the legislation gets closer to the finish line. The owner of Tesla and X said that conservative lawmakers who support the bill “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth” and said he “will” support Massie.

Trump escalated the rhetoric on Tuesday morning, telling reporters that his administration “will have to take a look” at deporting Musk, a South African native and naturalized U.S. citizen. “We might have to put DOGE on Elon,” Trump said, referring to the agency at the center of his government-shrinking agenda.

Musk, for his part, responded on X: “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.”

Irie Sentner contributed to this report.

Former Rep. Colin Allred is jumping back into the Texas Senate race, after losing to Ted Cruz eight months ago.

In a video released Tuesday, Allred, who flipped a red-leaning district in 2018, pledged to take on “politicians like [Texas Sen.] John Cornyn and [Attorney General] Ken Paxton,” who “are too corrupt to care about us and too weak to fight for us,” while pledging to run on an “anti-corruption plan.”

Democrats are hopeful that a messy Republican primary — pitting Cornyn against Paxton, who has weathered multiple scandals in office and leads in current polling — could yield an opening for a party in search of offensive opportunities. But unlike in 2024, when Allred ran largely unopposed in the Senate Democratic primary, Democrats are poised to have a more serious and crowded primary field, which could complicate their shot at flipping the reliably red state.

Former astronaut Terry Virts announced his bid last week, when he took a swing at both parties in his announcement video. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) has voiced interest, while former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and 2022, has been headlining packed town halls. State Rep. James Talarico told POLITICO he’s “having conversations about how I can best serve Texas.”

Allred, a former NFL player turned congressman, leaned heavily into his biography for his launch video. He retold the story of buying his mom a house once he turned pro, but said, “you shouldn’t have to have a son in the NFL to own a home.”

“Folks who play by the rules and keep the faith just can’t seem to get ahead. But the folks who cut corners and cut deals — well, they’re doing just fine,” Allred continued. “I know Washington is broken. The system is rigged. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In six years in Congress, I never took a dime of corporate PAC money, never traded a single stock.”

Turning Texas blue has long been a dream for Democrats, who argued the state’s increasing diversity will help them eventually flip it. But Trump’s significant inroads with Latino voters in Texas, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, may impede those hopes. Of the 10 counties that shifted the farthest right from the 2012 to 2024 presidential elections, seven are in Texas, according to a New York Times analysis, including double-digit improvements in seven heavily Latino districts.

Early polling has found Allred leading Paxton by one percentage point in a head-to-head contest — though he trailed Cornyn by six points. The polling, commissioned by Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP leadership-aligned super PAC that supports Cornyn, underscored Paxton’s general election weakness while showing Cornyn losing to Paxton in the GOP primary.

SAN FRANCISCO — A former longtime friend of Elon Musk has a word of caution for President Donald Trump about the tech mogul: He doesn’t really move on.

Philip Low, an award-winning neuroscientist who partnered with the late, legendary cosmologist Stephen Hawking as a test subject, learned that the hard way in 2021 when he fired Musk, one of his early investors, from the advisory board of the Silicon Valley startup he founded.

Over an hour-long interview, Low weaved something of a psychological portrait of his former adviser, casting him as obsessive, prone to seeking revenge, power hungry and in constant search of dominance. He suggested Musk aims to explore every available avenue to establish competition with and ultimately overshadow bitter rivals. Low has known him for 14 years but doesn’t believe Musk has matured over time, and he’s convinced he never will.

Though the two continued to speak for years after Low fired him, Low felt that Musk carried a grudge and their bond was permanently altered. It finally snapped in January when Low joined other critics in accusing the billionaire on social media of performing Nazi salutes at Trump’s inaugural rally. Musk brushed off the public backlash as “sooo” tired.

“I’ve had my share of blowouts with Elon over the years,” Low told POLITICO in a rare interview since Musk’s ugly spat with Trump. “Knowing Elon the way I know him, I do think he's going to do everything to damage the president.”

Musk did not respond to multiple requests for comment directed to him and his businesses X, Tesla and SpaceX. A spokesperson for his super PAC, America PAC, declined to comment.

Musk and Trump’s made-for-TV breakup erupted earlier this month over the president’s megabill that is still moving through Congress. Complete with threats, nonstop X posts and conspiracy-laced insults, their feud hit a peak after Trump mused about canceling the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s government contracts.

In response, Musk unloaded on the social media platform he owns by trashing the president’s megabill, floating support of a third party, chiding him for “ingratitude,” taking credit for his election win and even insinuating in a now-deleted post that records of the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "have not been made public" because Trump is in them.

(While it has long been public that Trump and other prominent figures are referenced in documents released in cases surrounding Epstein, Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein.)

Both sides now say tensions have cooled. The White House is eager to move on, with Trump telling reporters he’ll keep Starlink internet and wishing Musk well. Musk, for his part, admitted some of his posts got out of hand and offered an apology a week later.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement, “Politico’s fixation on another palace intrigue non-story is laughable and fundamentally unserious. The President is focused on Making America Great Again by securing our border, turning the economy around, and pursuing peace around the globe.”

But Low, who considers himself a political independent, said that Trump and the American public shouldn’t be fooled. Simply put: Any reconciliation with Musk will be “purely cosmetic” and transactional.

“He has been humiliated,” Low, 45, said of his old friend. “The whole idea that Elon is going to be on his side and help woo Congress and invest in election campaigns for right-wing judges — Elon might do all of that, but deep down, it's over.”

Low has observed that Trump, on the other hand, “tends to make up with his former sparring partners like [Steve] Bannon a bit more easily than Elon does,” though the president is known for returning to his grievances as well.

As he tells it, Musk and Low became fast friends after first meeting in 2011 at a social occasion in Paris. Their relationship deepened over late nights in Los Angeles — where Musk lived at the time — spent hanging out, attending each other’s parties, texting frequently and trading stories about personal struggles.

Musk asked to invest in the company Low built around a non-invasive brain monitoring device used to detect conditions like sleep apnea and neurological disorders. He participated in NeuroVigil’s 2015 funding round and joined its advisory board. Low had already gained attention as a young innovator, launched a NASA satellite lab and demoed how his technology could translate Hawking's brain waves into speech.

Musk gave Low some pointers as the neuroscientist was preparing to visit the White House for the first time, as a guest of former President Barack Obama. “He said ‘he’s a human being like anybody else,’” Low recounted. “He views Trump sort of the same way, just a human being.”

During Trump’s first term, as Musk was also grappling with how to balance Tesla’s business interests against policy disagreements with the administration, Low returned the advice and recommended he step away from White House advisory councils he served on to protect the automaker’s brand. Musk ultimately did in 2017 after Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

A few years later, in 2021, Musk was looking to pull out of another business arrangement. He wanted off NeuroVigil’s advisory board. Instead of letting him resign, Low said he fired Musk, which prevented him from exercising his stock options to hurt NeuroVigil.

“Let’s cut ties here,” Low wrote in an email message to Musk at the time, viewed by POLITICO. Musk by then had launched his brain implant company Neuralink and had long been dreaming of colonizing Mars. “Good luck with your implants, all of them, and with building Pottersville on Mars. Seriously, don’t fuck with me,” Low wrote.

Musk, of course, went on to donate $288 million during the 2024 election, which cemented his place in MAGA politics and status as the largest and most prominent individual political donor in the country. His America PAC once vowed to “keep grinding” at an even more audacious political playbook ahead of the midterms. But Musk scaled back his 2026 ambitions, promising to do “a lot less” campaign spending in the future, shortly before his public clash with Trump.

With Musk’s allegiance to MAGA called into question, Low predicted he could seek revenge behind the scenes — “it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when” — a possibility Trump has openly pondered.

The president warned of “serious consequences” if Musk funds Democratic challengers against Republicans who back his “big, beautiful bill”— the legislation that would enact Trump’s domestic policy agenda, but that Musk has scorned as wasteful pork-barrel spending.

However, if there was any lingering notion that Musk would completely retreat from politics, he dispelled it on Saturday by renewing his attacks on the bill ahead of a critical vote.

The takedown

Unlike his old pal, Low prefers to keep a lower profile. The Canadian neuroscientist wore aviator sunglasses indoors throughout the interview. When POLITICO first reached out, an automated reply from Low’s email robot came back, noting that he was “completely off the grid” and providing a math puzzle to solve to get on his calendar. POLITICO didn’t solve the problem, perhaps because it's not solvable, but he replied anyway.

Low spoke to the press infrequently between the early 2010s, when his company partnered with Hawking, and when he posted the takedown that ended any remaining friendship with Musk earlier this year. One of the rare exceptions was a 2013 fireside chat where Low, in an “Occupy Mars” shirt, spoke next to Musk at the Canadian Consul General’s Residence in Los Angeles.

Low sees little daylight between the Elon he knew before and the one who fractured his relationship with the president.

“A lot of people close to him will say that he changed. I don't believe that to be true,” he said. “I've seen this side of Elon over the years, but I just think that over time, he got cozy with the idea of showing more of that, and now it seems to have affected him.”

When Musk came under fire for his salutes at Trump’s post-inauguration rally, Low, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he first confronted his former friend with a private message. He said in the email viewed by POLITICO: “I am so glad I fired your dumb ass” and warned him to learn from the fate of Rodion Raskolnikov, the central character in “Crime and Punishment,” who convinces himself that extraordinary men are justified in committing crimes if they serve a higher goal.

Four days passed without a reply, and Low proceeded to cut contact before letting it rip in a nearly 2,000-word open letter that went viral on Facebook and LinkedIn.

“I made my displeasure known to him as one of his closest former friends at that point, and I blocked him,” he said.

That’s a diplomatic description. Low in his letter delivered a blistering portrait of Musk as a narcissist whose “lust for power” keeps driving him to undermine the very organizations that challenge his hold on it. Musk didn’t respond publicly.

According to Low, those tendencies put Musk “in a league of his own” in Silicon Valley — where he locked into power struggles with many a co-founder, from PayPal’s Peter Thiel to Tesla’s Martin Eberhard to OpenAI’s Sam Altman. And the predictable playbook followed him to Trump’s side as first buddy, a role Low dubbed his former friend’s greatest investment.

“Elon has his own pattern of trying to destabilize companies. He wants to take over, and if he can't take them over, then he tries to create a rival entity to compete,” Low said. “They were absolutely on a collision course, and I think that Trump tried to gloss over it by making it look as if he wanted Elon to be as aggressive as he was.”

‘Playing defense’

Musk is back in industry mode, for now. Earlier this month, he addressed an artificial intelligence boot camp hosted by the startup accelerator Y Combinator in San Francisco, downplaying the importance of the Department of Government Efficiency by comparing his work on the commission to cleaning up beaches.

“Imagine you’re cleaning a beach, which has a few needles, trash and is dirty. And there’s a 1,000-foot tsunami, which is AI, that’s about to hit. You’re not going to focus on cleaning the beach,” Musk told the crowd of students and recent graduates of why he ultimately left.

His attention has since shifted to Austin, Texas, where Tesla heavily promoted and launched its long-hyped robotaxi service last weekend. Of companies within Musk’s business empire, the automaker took the hardest hit from his political entanglements, battered by consumer protests, tariffs, declining sales and dips in its stock price that allowed SpaceX to overtake it as his most valuable asset.

Low looks back at the Tesla Takedown protests that sprung up in the months following his letter with satisfaction. It was proof, in his mind, that the message struck a chord: “The audience was the world, and it worked.”

While few peers in Silicon Valley have called out Musk to the same degree, Low added that several reacted positively to him in private for taking those criticisms public.

“Many of these people happen to have investors on their boards, who made money with Elon, so they felt that they were putting themselves at risk if they spoke out,” he said. “A number of people did reach out and thank me, and they were in violent agreement.”

Low said he had “an armada” of lawyers at the ready in case Musk went after him. That possibility hasn’t yet panned out.

Although they no longer speak, Low still follows Musk’s activities. He said he was busy during the Trump feud and had to catch up later. But during the interview with POLITICO, he would reference the occasional X post from Musk, including a recent one where he shared negative drug test results to dispute reports of his alleged ketamine use.

To Low, the post was a sign the rift hasn’t been fully smoothed over and that Musk is “playing defense.” Bannon has called for a federal investigation into New York Times reporting that claimed Musk took large amounts of ketamine and other drugs while campaigning for Trump. POLITICO has not independently verified the allegations.

“The way I read that is that he is concerned that some government contracts could be canceled and that the drug use could be used against him, so he's trying to already build a moat,” Low said.

As for Trump, Low has some advice for handling a potentially resentful Musk: “Abide by the constitution,” and perhaps, listen to some of the tech titan’s policy preferences.

Low was especially outspoken against the administration’s ICE raids and efforts to limit immigration, arguing they will cost America its advantage in technologies like AI by sapping Silicon Valley of the global talent that allows it to compete. Many in tech circles had hoped Musk’s seat at the table would help the industry loosen barriers for high-skilled workers, a cause he once vowed to “go to war” with MAGA Republicans over.

That's something that Low, given his experience with Musk, thinks Trump should take seriously.

“Elon has wooed enough of Trump's supporters to be an actual threat politically,” Low said, arguing that Trump would better insulate himself by moderating his agenda. “He doesn't realize the battle that he has on his hands, and one way to cut the support away from Elon is to actually adopt some of the things he is for.”

Marco Rubio joins POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for an exclusive interview to discuss his dual roles as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor as he navigates the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.

Burns is later joined by Alex Bruesewitz to discuss his rise from very online Trump supporter to close adviser to the president, and why vigorous online debate has helped, not hurt, the MAGA coalition.

Plus, POLITICO diplomatic correspondent Felicia Schwartz at The Hague during the NATO Summit discusses the diplomatic efforts underway amid ceasefire talks between Israel and Iran.

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

Marco Rubio on his many roles, plus a chat with Trump’s ‘chief Twitter troll’ | The Conversation

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ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Former President Joe Biden joined thousands of mourners Friday as former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman lay in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda while the man charged with killing her and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, made a brief court appearance in a suicide prevention suit.

Hortman, a Democrat, is the first woman and one of fewer than 20 Minnesotans accorded the honor. She lay in state with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert. Her husband was also killed in the June 14 attack, and Gilbert was seriously wounded and had to be euthanized. It was the first time a couple has lain in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog.

The Hortmans’ caskets and the dog’s urn were arranged in the center of the rotunda, under the Capitol dome, with law enforcement officers keeping watch on either side as thousands of people who lined up filed by. Many fought back tears as they left.

Among the first to pay their respects were Gov. Tim Walz, who has called Hortman his closest political ally, and his wife, Gwen. Biden, a Catholic, visited later in the afternoon, walking up to the velvet rope in front of the caskets, making the sign of the cross, and spending a few moments by himself in silence. He then took a knee briefly, got up, made the sign of the cross again, and walked off to greet people waiting in the wings of the rotunda.

The Capitol was open for the public from noon to 5 p.m. Friday, but officials said anyone waiting in line at 5 would be let in. House TV livestreamed the viewing. A private funeral is set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday and will be livestreamed on the Department of Public Safety’s YouTube channel.

Biden will attend the funeral, a spokesperson said. So will former Vice President Kamala Harris, though neither is expected to speak. Harris expressed her condolences earlier this week to Hortman’s adult children, and spoke with Walz, her running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, who extended an invitation on behalf of the Hortman family, her office said.

Lisa Greene, who lives in Brooklyn Park like Hortman did, but in a different House district, said she came to the Capitol because she had so much respect for the former speaker.

“She was just amazing. Amazing woman. “And I was just so proud that she represented the city that I lived in,” Greene said in a voice choked with emotion. “She was such a leader. She could bring people together. She was so accessible. I mean, she was friendly, you could talk to her.” But, she went on to say admiringly, Hortman was also “a boss. She just knew what she was doing and she could just make things happen.”

A hearing takes a twist: The man accused of killing the Hortmans and wounding another Democratic lawmaker and his wife made a short court appearance Friday to face charges for what the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called “a political assassination.” Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, surrendered near his home the night of June 15 after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history.

An unshaven Boelter was brought in wearing just a green padded suicide prevention suit and orange slippers. Federal defender Manny Atwal asked Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko to continue the hearing until Thursday. She said Boelter has been sleep deprived while on suicide watch in the Sherburne County Jail, and that it has been difficult to communicate with him as a result.

“Your honor, I haven’t really slept in about 12 to 14 days,” Boelter told the judge. And he denied being suicidal. “I’ve never been suicidal and I am not suicidal now.”

Atwal told the court that Boelter had been in what’s known as a “Gumby suit,” without undergarments, ever since his transfer to the jail after his first court appearance on June 16. She said the lights are on in his area 24 hours a day, doors slam frequently, the inmate in the next cell spreads feces on the walls, and the smell drifts to Boelter’s cell.

The attorney said transferring him to segregation instead, and giving him a normal jail uniform, would let him get some sleep, restore some dignity, and let him communicate better. The judge agreed.

Prosecutors did not object to the delay and said they also had concerns about the jail conditions.

The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson, told reporters afterward that he did not think Boelter had attempted to kill himself.

The case continues: Boelter did not enter a plea. Prosecutors need to secure a grand jury indictment first, before his arraignment, which is when a plea is normally entered.

According to the federal complaint, police video shows Boelter outside the Hortmans’ home and captures the sound of gunfire. And it says security video shows Boelter approaching the front doors of two other lawmakers’ homes dressed as a police officer.

His lawyers have declined to comment on the charges, which could carry the federal death penalty. Thompson said last week that no decision has been made. Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911. The Death Penalty Information Center says a federal death penalty case hasn’t been prosecuted in Minnesota in the modern era, as best as it can tell.

Boelter also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in state court that could carry life without parole, assuming that county prosecutors get their own indictment for first-degree murder. But federal authorities intend to use their power to try Boelter first.

Other victims and alleged targets: Authorities say Boelter shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin before shooting and killing the Hortmans in their home in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, a few miles away.

Federal prosecutors allege Boelter also stopped at the homes of two other Democratic lawmakers. Prosecutors also say he listed dozens of other Democrats as potential targets, including officials in other states. Friends described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views. But prosecutors have declined so far to speculate on a motive.

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.

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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.”