FDA Commissioner has ‘no preconceived plans’ for abortion pill policies | The Conversation
President Donald Trump is backing Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters to chair the Republican National Committee and replace Michael Whatley as he runs for Senate in North Carolina.
Trump announced his support Thursday in a Truth Social post about Whatley, who is expected to publicly announce his Senate candidacy in the coming days.
“Fortunately, I have somebody who will do a wonderful job as the Chairman of the RNC,” he wrote. “His name is, Joe Gruters, and he will have my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
The 48-year-old Florida lawmaker is the RNC treasurer and previously served as chair of the Florida Republican Party. Gruters had been expected to run to be the state’s chief financial officer against an ally backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The governor had opposed his candidacy. “Joe Gruters has taken major positions that are totally contrary from what our voter base wants to do,” DeSantis said earlier this month.
After a two-year break, “South Park” returned to TV on Wednesday night with an explosive episode aimed squarely at Donald Trump that depicted the president in bed with Satan and referenced Jeffrey Epstein.
The start of the new season of "South Park" was delayed by several weeks while the Paramount network secured a deal worth $1.5 billion with the show's creators for the streaming rights. Paramount is the owner of CBS, which has been firmly in Trump's crosshairs.
The episode features Trump arguing with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who complains about tariffs on Canada and says: “What are you, some kind of dictator from the Middle East?” After confusing Iran and Iraq, the “South Park” version of Trump tells Carney to “relax.”
Trump is also depicted lining the walls of the White House with naked pictures of himself. In another scene, Trump jumps into bed with Satan, who rejects his sexual advances and comments on the size of his penis.
Satan later confronts Trump about his name appearing on the “Epstein list” and adds: “It’s weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.”
The satirical animated show also referenced Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount (Trump reached a $16 million settlement with Paramount Global, the parent of CBS News, over what he claimed was misleading editing of a pre-election interview with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris on the show “60 Minutes”).
Days after that settlement, Paramount canceled “The Late Show” hosted by Stephen Colbert, in what it said was “purely a financial decision” and not because of performance or content. Colbert is a frequent critic of Trump.
The first six months of President Donald Trump’s term have produced a cash cow of historic magnitude for the lobbying industry, with record-breaking demand for help navigating the administration’s constant stream of policy pronouncements — or trying to avoid becoming a pay-for in the GOP’s megabill.
The result is a new set of power brokerse in Trump’s swamp. Firms with strong ties to the White House have skyrocketed to the top of the pecking order of lobbying outfits in town, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest quarterly lobbying disclosures filed this week.
No firm has benefitted more than Ballard Partners, which is led by Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard. The firm previously employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Ballard brought in $20.6 million in lobbying revenues during the second quarter of the year from clients including Palantir, American Express, TikTok, Ripple Labs and UnitedHealth. Its haul is more than four times what the firm brought in during the second quarter of 2024.
But the gusher has benefited the entire lobbying industry, new firms and old, the analysis shows. Of the top 20 firms by revenue, only two saw their lobbying revenues decline last quarter compared to the same time a year ago. The lobbying figures reported this week don't include revenue from public affairs or consulting work, or foreign agent work.
“The number of people who feel they need representation at this point is huge, and we're really just getting into sort of the day-to-day of governing,” said Rich Gold, who heads up the public policy and regulation group at law and lobbying firm Holland & Knight. Gold’s firm, which ranked fifth among the top earners on K Street last quarter with $13.8 million in revenue, signed 57 new clients during the first half of the year, a record intake for the firm.
“The largest driver of business right now is the overarching trend of uncertainty and the need for C-suites to try to minimize uncertainty and political risk as much as possible,” he said. While specific legislation like the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act has certainly drummed up lobbying business, “the number of people who needed political intelligence work and advocacy” in D.C. this year stretches far beyond that one law, Gold said.
As for Ballard, its blowout earnings were enough to dethrone Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which has topped the quarterly revenue rankings since 2021. Brownstein reported $18.5 million in lobbying revenues during Q2, setting the firm’s own quarterly record.
Ballard’s Trump-linked competitors are also cashing in. Miller Strategies, which is run by top GOP fundraiser Jeff Miller and employs several former Trump administration alumni, brought in nearly $13 million during the second quarter from clients like Zoom, OpenAI, Apple, Softbank, Crypto.com and Blackstone. That’s up almost 80 percent from the beginning of the year, and four times what it brought in during the second quarter of 2024.
Continental Strategy, whose staff includes former Trump appointee Carlos Trujillo as well as a former top aide to then Sen. Marco Rubio, reported $6.5 million in lobbying revenues last quarter, making it the 15th biggest firm by lobbying revenue in Q2. During the same time last year, Continental reported just $292,000 in lobbying fees.
Another firm that found itself knocking at the doorstep of D.C.’s most prestigious lobbying shops didn’t even exist in the nation’s capital a year ago.
North Carolina-based Checkmate Government Relations, which announced plans to open a D.C. office in December, brought in $4.5 million in lobbying fees in Q2, more than quadruple the $910,000 it reported at the beginning of 2025. Among its clients were Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, UNC Chapel Hill, General Dynamics and Juul.
Checkmate’s president, Ches McDowell, is a hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. and the brother of freshman Rep. Addison McDowell (R-N.C.). The firm also employs the son of Trump’s co-campaign manager and the nephew of Trump’s HHS secretary.
BGR Group, a bipartisan but Republican-heavy firm whose alumni include Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, posted its best quarter in its 35-year existence, said Loren Monroe, the co-head of the firm’s lobbying group.
BGR’s lobbyists include Trump adviser David Urban as well as Florida powerbroker Nick Iarossi, and the firm reported $17.7 million in lobbying fees in Q2 — which was third overall and marked a nearly 60 percent increase from the same time last year.
Mercury Public Affairs also posted a banner quarter, raking in almost $6.5 million from April through June, compared to $3.2 million in Q2 of 2024. Wiles served as a co-chair at the K Street mainstay before joining the White House this year, and the bipartisan firm also employs former Trump adviser Bryan Lanza, who’s signed dozens of new clients since the election.
Elsewhere on K Street, the all-Republican firm CGCN Group doubled its lobbying revenues compared to a year ago, and Michael Best Strategies, whose leadership includes Trump’s first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, more than tripled its Q2 lobbying earnings.
Lobbyists anticipate the good times will last, at least for the foreseeable future, even after the signing of the megabill this month — though not everyone believes the Trump-driven realignment will remain.
“We've had sort of personality-based firms in town before,” said Gold. “They kind of come and go. I expect that to be the case here.”
In addition to ongoing trade policy disruptions, multiple lobbyists pointed to the various executive orders and presidential memoranda the White House has been churning out since day one as another key driver of business this year.
“The beginning of any new administration is a very busy time,” added Karishma Page, a partner at K&L Gates. “This, I think, is a high watermark.”
K&L Gates saw its lobbying revenue last quarter surge by 25 percent from the same period a year ago thanks to the flurry of activity on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
“There seems to be an insatiable appetite” from clients for insight into the Trump administration, added Will Moschella, who co-leads the lobbying practice at Brownstein.
“A lot of those executive orders require departments and agencies to report back with policy proposals,” he said. “So they weren't one time events — those are documents and directives that are going to drive further executive branch action.”
From an advocacy perspective, the fight over Republicans’ massive reconciliation package this spring and summer “is kind of like having your dessert,” Gold said. Those negotiations touched off lobbying by everyone from universities to business groups, hospitals, the renewable energy industry and beyond.
The day-to-day regulatory work at various agencies, which Gold compared to “eating your spinach,” is “really just gearing up,” he added.
There’s also the widespread uncertainty over Trump’s tariff policies, to say nothing of must-pass legislation to fund the government and reauthorize the nation’s farm and defense policies.
Those issues — while less sexy than things like crypto or AI policy — have been the focus of increased attention from clients, lobbyists said, thanks to Trump’s large-scale slashing of government funding across the country and the recissions bill passed by Congress this month.
“There is a need in the current moment to really be able to justify the work of an organization that may be a federal contractor or grantee,” Page argued.
That’s also the case for clients that have sought to avoid the president’s ire. “I think there was a sense at the beginning of the administration that maybe you could just duck and cover and just be left alone,” said Monroe. “The experience of the last six months suggests that the best defense is a strong offense … and telling your story, otherwise you risk it being told for you.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined fellow Democrats in criticizing Zohran Mamdani, the progressive candidate for mayor of New York whose past comments on Israel have cost him support from within the party.
Mamdani has failed to condemn “blatantly antisemitic” rhetoric, Shapiro said in an interview with Jewish Insider published Wednesday.
“You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there,” Shapiro said in the interview. “You’ve got to condemn that.”
The remarks from Shapiro, who is considered a likely Democratic candidate for president in 2028, are the latest sign that Mamdani still has work to do to win over some of the prominent figures in the party as he runs to unseat New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Some Democrats have been hesitant to fully embrace the nominee, with elected officials from battleground districts distancing themselves from his campaign’s anti-Israel rhetoric. He met with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday but has still yet to secure his endorsement.
Mamdani faces opposition for his advocacy of economic plans he describes as socialist, including free buses and city-run grocery stores. He's also faced attacks for his refusal to condemn use of the phrase “gloablize the intifada” by anti-Israel protesters — a Palestinian resistance slogan regarded by some as a call to violence against Jews.
Shapiro had some faint words of praise for Mamdani: “He seemed to run a campaign that excited New Yorkers,” the governor said, before discussing his criticism of the candidate’s refusal to condemn inflammatory rhetoric about Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.
“He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him to not condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things,” Shapiro said.
Republicans have sought to brand the mayoral candidate as their new Democratic boogeyman while members of his own party are still weighing what lessons to take away from the 33-year-old democratic socialist’s upset primary win. The New York race is also rippling through next year’s midterm elections and the lead-up to the presidential campaign, with figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — both seen as likely 2028 contenders — saying the party should consider Mamdani’s affordability-focused messaging.
Roy Cooper is expected to announce his campaign for the North Carolina Senate as soon as Monday, according to two people directly familiar with the former governor’s decision.
The popular, former two-term governor’s entrance into the Senate race — for a seat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is leaving open with his announcement last month that he won’t seek reelection — is expected to transform the Senate race into the most competitive of 2026. Democrats, facing a difficult path to seizing control of the Senate next year, landed their dream recruit with Cooper, who would enter the race as a favorite.
North Carolina represents one of the few offensive opportunities for Democrats, who are locked out of power at every level in Washington.
Lara Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, is considering her own bid for the seat, effectively freezing Republican recruitment. Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who served as the head of the state’s party, is also interested, but is deferring to Trump, POLITICO reported last month.
Tillis, who was first elected in 2014, denounced Trump’s tax-and-spend megabill in a fiery speech last month, warning that the drastic Medicaid cuts would “betray the promise Donald Trump made” to voters. He was one of two Republicans to vote against the legislation, drawing Trump’s threats to recruit a GOP primary challenger. The next day, Tillis announced he would not run for reelection.
Democrats are expected to use Tillis’ words — specifically that the megabill “will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid” — against the eventual Republican nominee. Tillis’ criticisms, particularly on healthcare, will be a core part of Democrats’ midterm messaging across the country, as other congressional Republicans also pledged to not make cuts to Medicaid.
But the North Carolina Senate seat has eluded Democrats since 2008, even as Cooper and his successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, held onto the governor’s mansion. Democrats hope that Cooper can crack the code with his aw-shucks demeanor, broad popularity and ability to raise big cash for his race.
Cooper was initially considered a top choice to be then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, but he pulled himself out of contention, citing concerns that North Carolina’s controversial Republican lieutenant governor would take over each time Cooper traveled out of state.
For now, Cooper still faces a potential primary. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel jumped into the race in April. He demurred earlier this month when asked if he would leave the primary should Cooper get in.
President Donald Trump promised Americans they would get tired of winning — for now, it appears they are getting tired of reading about him.
Trump’s first term saw books authored by prominent journalists sell hundreds of thousands of copies each as the public rushed to learn the inside details of Trump’s norm-shattering presidency.
But similar books aren’t exactly flying off the shelves in his second term, and the bar to getting onto the coveted New York Times bestseller list has been lowered as the overall nonfiction book market has dipped. In these tenuous times for the nonfiction political book market, industry insiders say there are fewer big advances being paid and narrower routes to success that rely on brand-name authors or a partisan perspective.
“Everyone is desperately looking for the next Michael Wolff or James Comey for next year, but it’s not clear there could ever be one again,” said one concerned publisher, referencing two of the authors with biggest book successes of Trump’s first term.
“There’s definitely a slump, and it’s across all of nonfiction,” added a book agent. “Part of it is that we were just actually tired of this, and we’re exhausted, and we don’t want to spend 30 bucks and six or eight hours of our time feeling worse.” (Publishing insiders and authors were granted anonymity for this story because they didn’t have authorization to speak from their employers or wanted to speak candidly about the state of the industry.)
The latest example is “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” by political journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf. “2024” sold roughly 6,000 hardcover copies in the first week of publication, according to data released last Wednesday from NPD BookScan. Yet even with that sales figure, it hit the New York Times bestseller list at No. 4. (The Times bestseller list does not disclose its data sources.)
It has become somewhat easier to get on to the Times bestseller list because it measures comparable sales across the board. One point of comparison: In a similar week in July 2017, the No. 4 book on the Times nonfiction list was former Sen. Al Franken’s book, which had been out for weeks and still sold almost 11,000 copies that week.
Dawsey and Pager referred a request for comment to a publicist for their publisher, who said she was "very happy" with sales, while Arnsdorf didn’t respond to a request for comment. Their agent Elyse Cheney said the numbers, including all formats, “far exceed” the BookScan figure but declined to give exact numbers. A person with direct knowledge of the sales said they were more than double 6,000 including all formats, and that e-book and audio sales were almost as high as print sales. (BookScan data is not a full account of a book’s success as it captures around 70 percent of hardcover sales and does not track e-book and audio uploads.)
“They are three great reporters, but they have a difficult time finding an audience, because at the end of the day, they play it pretty straight,” said another book agent. “A fundamental question in our divided politics, and it’s just as true for publishing — who are you marketing to? Are you selling a book to the MSNBC crowd or the Fox News crowd? There’s very little in between.”
To wit: “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland,” by conservative journalist Salena Zito, came out the same week as “2024” and sold about 23,000 hardcover copies, according to BookScan numbers, hitting No. 1 on the Times bestseller list. Zito said in a statement that she was “deeply humbled by this ranking” and “grateful to President Trump, who interviewed with me dozens of times for the book and generously encouraged people to read” it. Trump posted about the book on social media, including sharing a preorder link before its publication.
“That’s a book that’s being published to the MAGAs. So those books are always different in their numbers,” said a book agent.
This follows other second-term Trump books experiencing lackluster sales. “Trump in Exile,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Meridith McGraw, has sold roughly 2,000 copies since its release last August, according to BookScan. Axios’ Alex Isenstadt’s “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” published in March, has sold around 3,000 copies so far, according to BookScan. McGraw and Isenstadt declined to comment.
Author Michael Wolff became one of the masters of the Trump genre with 2018’s “Fire and Fury,” which sold more than 25,000 copies during its first week on sale in 2018 and went on to sell more than 900,000. But the writer sold only around 3,000 print copies during the equivalent first week publicity campaign for his latest installment “All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America,” published in March. (It has now sold around 11,000 copies, according to BookScan.)
As these books have posted middling sales figures, publishers are finding it hard to justify signing big advances for new Trump books. That’s made it more difficult for political journalists to get lucrative book deals.
“Editors are not spending anywhere near the amount of money that they did this time eight years ago,” said one of the book agents. “The days of just writing a book to write a book and checking the box for someone’s career — those days are over.”
“We are taking on fewer projects in the space because the ones that we do take on, they basically have to rise to a mid six- or seven-figure deal,” said the agent. The person said that they talk with publishers who speak of “a lot of fatigue in the market” and that there has to be “a clear path on either breaking news or a ‘wow factor’ for a book to get that kind of money today.”
The skepticism in the marketplace for political nonfiction, particularly Trump books, has led publishers and agents to try to get authors who are big brand names with built-in fan bases like Ezra Klein or Jake Tapper. Both have seen significant success this year with their books “Abundance” (co-written with Derek Thompson) and “Original Sin,” respectively. “Abundance” has sold roughly 146,000 copies since its publication in March, according to BookScan.
Tapper, one of the most prominent CNN anchors, was attached to Axios’ Alex Thompson’s Biden book project after his book deal had been cancelled. “Original Sin,” which focused more on the 46th president than the 47th, became a No. 1 Times bestseller for two weeks and was on the bestseller list for almost two months. It has sold about 97,000 copies since its publication in May, according to BookScan.
“You gotta have podcasts or TV, unfortunately, these days,” said one of the book agents.
Authors are well aware of readers’ news exhaustion after a decade of Trump dominating the political conversation. “Trump as an angry president yelling at clouds is not news anymore,” said one author of a recent political book. “News is what sells books.”
Trump’s first term saw multiple major sellers besides “Fire and Fury.” Bob Woodward’s “Fear” sold 1.1 million copies in all formats in its first week, and Simon and Schuster called it the bestselling book in company history. “The Room Where It Happened,” the explosive 2020 memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton, and “A Higher Loyalty,” by former FBI Director James Comey, each logged more than 600,000 sales within their first few years of publication.
“[Trump] is so familiar to everyone by now, and people are less shocked by new revelations because it enforces their own ideas about who he is or they just don’t care,” said an author of a recent Trump book.
There have been some other bright spots for the industry this year. NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes registered success with their 2024 election book “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which entered the Times list at No. 1 and has been optioned to become a feature film. The authors said in a statement they “are proud of our unmatched behind-the-scenes reporting on the last three presidential elections and deeply humbled by the response” to their latest work.
Dawsey, Pager, Arnsdorf, McGraw, Isenstadt, Allen, Parnes and Alex Thompson all previously worked for POLITICO.
Still, the broader shift in the market’s appetite for Trump books is clear. During the Biden presidency, books by former Trump aides similarly failed to generate much interest. (Biden books didn’t tend to sell well, either.)
The author of the recent Trump book said they didn’t even ask their publisher how many copies it sold.
“I didn’t go into it being like, ‘I’m going to make a bunch of money off of it,’” said the author. “I had a good advance, and I went into it for the experience of it, and as a reporting exercise, and a chance to put a mark on a certain moment in time that I knew really well and covered really closely.”
Ben Jacobs on what Deja Foxx's loss means for Democrats | The Conversation
Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt is a lawyer, former state attorney general and a skilled navigator of the old — and new — wings of the Republican Party. He also has another title: White House whisperer.
Schmitt joins POLITICO’s Dasha Burns to talk about his closeness with the Trump administration, driving the Senate’s $9.4 billion rescissions bill, his involvement with passing Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” his belief in Medicaid reform, the controversy over the release of the Epstein files and what he describes as his “America First” — but not isolationist — foreign policy approach.
“I think a slur that's often uttered is that it's an isolationist point of view,” Schmitt told Burns. “That's not true at all.”
(Note: This interview was conducted before the Senate and House passage of the rescissions bill.)
Plus, POLITICO reporter Ben Jacobs digs into his reporting on social media influencers running for office and how the phenomenon is reshaping electoral politics.
Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Sen. Eric Schmitt on being a White House whisperer and Senate budget reformer | The Conversation
PAWLEYS ISLAND, South Carolina — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear drew a standing ovation from Georgetown County Democrats Thursday night, after he shook hands and grinned for photos. California Gov. Gavin Newsom packed standing-room-only crowds into a two-day rural county tour of the state last week. California Rep. Ro Khanna kicked off his multi-day swing Friday to promote his populist message to Black voters.
The 2028 Democratic primary calendar isn’t set yet, but presidential hopefuls are already making bets that South Carolina will hold a powerful role in the nomination process — even if it doesn't keep its number-one spot. While Iowa and New Hampshire are drawing some big names, no other state has seen as much action as this small Southern state.
And while these top Democrats credited their appearances to local invitations — and in the case of Beshear, his son’s baseball tournament in Charleston — the 2028 implications are clear. Democratic hopefuls road-tested stump speeches and previewed their lines of attack against Republicans and President Donald Trump, all with an eye toward introducing themselves to a set of influential voters.
“I'm out there trying to be a common ground, common sense, get-things-done type of messenger for this Democratic Party,” Beshear told elected officials and party officials in Charleston Thursday morning. “Because I believe that with what we're seeing coming out of Washington, D.C., the cruelty and the incompetence, that the path forward is right there in front of us.”
Christy Waddil, a 67-year-old Democratic voter who waited to shake Beshear’s hand Thursday night, said she was “excited” to meet all these potential contenders. But it’s a lot of responsibility to be the first state in the presidential primary calendar, she said: “We have our work cut out for us now.”
In June, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly spoke at an anti-gun event in Charleston to mark the grim anniversary of the Emanuel AME shooting. In May, Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Tim Walz of Minnesota headlined a pair of state party events to rub elbows with Rep. Jim Clyburn, the longtime South Carolina kingmaker whose nod helped anoint Joe Biden as the party’s nominee in 2020.
“It’s not a surprise,” said Clyburn when asked about the state’s revolving door of 2028 hopefuls nearly three years before the actual presidential primary. “Why argue with success? If it ain't broke, why fix it?”
South Carolina Democrats know their grip on the top spot is tenuous, with traditional early states like Iowa and New Hampshire eager to reclaim their lead-off position, and others —like North Carolina and Georgia — seeking to emerge as new states to consider. And it comes as there's been a major reshuffling on a powerful panel at the Democratic National Committee that has huge sway over the presidential nominating process.
“None of what those supposed candidates are doing right now is going to have any bearing on what the Rules and Bylaws Committee ultimately does for the calendar,” said Maria Cardona, a longtime member of the powerful panel. “That may or may not include all of the states that are in the early calendar now.”
Democrats haven't won the state in a general election since 1976, and President Donald Trump won it by 18 points last year.
It's led more competitive neighbors to wonder whether they should get top billing instead.
“[National Democrats] have a lot of mobility to get power back at the federal level by investing early in North Carolina. And I think a lot of people will hear that message loud and clear, especially after we just got our asses kicked,”said state party chair Anderson Clayton, who is interested in usurping its neighbor to the south and angling for one of the open at-large slots on the RBC. “The future of the state of the Democratic Party also runs right through North Carolina too.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will deliver the keynote address at North Carolina's state party unity dinner on July 26, and state party leaders are in talks with Sens. Kelly of Arizona and Cory Booker of New Jersey about visits to the state later this year.
But moving the order of primary states is easier said than done. North Carolina is hamstrung by state law from moving its date, and Democrats would need the GOP-controlled legislature to agree to any changes. DNC members have also emphasized smaller states to allow lesser-known candidates to build followings.
“The most powerful force in the universe is inertia, so South Carolina is probably the favorite to stay just because of that,” said an incoming member of the committee granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. “Every state has a chance to be first, but I do think we have to come into this with a degree of realism.”
The DNC is attempting to remain neutral.
“The DNC is committed to running a fair, transparent, and rigorous process for the 2028 primary calendar. All states will have an opportunity to participate,” Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman said in a statement.
Iowa Democrats are also gearing up on a bid to restore their caucuses to their traditional spot as the nation's first presidential contest. Michigan replaced Iowa as the Midwestern early state in 2024.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said she planned to have "tough and direct conversations" with the party in a statement, even as the DNC removed Iowa's only representative, Scott Brennan, from the Rules and Bylaws Committee this year.
Already, potential 2028 candidates have traveled there, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who held a town hall in Cedar Rapids in May. Walz stopped by the Hawkeye State in March, and former Japan Ambassador Rahm Emanuel and freshman Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego are both slated to visit the state in the coming months.
New Hampshire Democrats also openly clashed with top DNC officials last cycle — and plan to stick with their state law making it first primary in the nation. Pritzker went to an influential state party dinner there in April.
“The potential candidates on the Democratic side and, to some extent, the Republican side are coming through New Hampshire,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said in a brief interview.
The positioning at the national party over early states is already underway.
Party insiders are voting for the remaining open seats on the panel after DNC Chair Ken Martin named members to the governing body in recent weeks. Cardona said the goal of the committee is to ensure the strongest and most electable candidate emerges from what is expected to be a crowded field. Talks will begin on the next presidential primary calendar later this year, but will ramp up after the midterms.
South Carolina’s ascension was aimed at recognizing South Carolina’s significant Black electorate, long considered the backbone of the Democratic Party.
That’s partly why Khanna is there, he said in an interview on why he is focusing on reaching out to Black voters.
“I believe that’s critical for all the people who want to lead the Democratic Party, in whatever form, and to me it’s encouraging that people are going down to South Carolina” to reach them.
Beshear, too, expressed support for South Carolina’s representation, telling reporters that Democrats “need to make sure that the South is represented in the primary calendar” because “for too long, the investments haven't been made in places like Kentucky and in places like South Carolina.”
In defense of remaining in the early window, South Carolina Democrats are playing up the state’s diverse electorate and inexpensive media markets that could allow for the best presidential candidates — not just the best fundraisers — to emerge in a wide open presidential cycle in 2028.
“The Democratic primary for president is not based on the state's competitiveness in a general election,” said Parmley. “This is the same bullshit that loses us presidential elections, and we only play in eight competitive states.”
Lisa Kashinsky and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.
The unlikely alliance of the populist left and right has strengthened over the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
Leading the charge for Congress to vote on publicizing Epstein-related records are Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). The odd couple — a libertarian from rural Kentucky and a progressive from Silicon Valley — is piecing together Republican and Democratic support for the House to take an up-or-down vote on releasing the so-called Epstein files. If successful, their efforts would further complicate President Donald Trump’s ability to move on from the spiraling scandal that has angered his political base.
“I do believe that there are issues that populists on the right and left can collaborate on,” Khanna said in an interview. "In this case, it's about going after the corruption in our government. Rich and powerful men shouldn’t have impunity from accountability. And that's something that both people on the left and right are sick of.”
Discharge petitions, which allow any member of the House to force legislation to the floor if a majority of members agree, are usually a long shot. As of Friday afternoon, Massie, a frequent White House foil, and Khanna had convinced 10 Republicans and five Democrats to get on board as cosponsors. It’s not the first time they’ve teamed up: Massie and Khanna collaborated on legislation aiming to limit U.S. involvement in the wars in Yemen and Iran.
Their newest gambit would pay off if the entire Democratic caucus signs on — which Khanna guaranteed in a recent video clip. Democrats have been hungry to capitalize on Trump’s Epstein problem, given the president’s longstanding ties to the accused sex trafficker that were illuminated in a Wall Street Journal story this week. The paper focused on a letter Trump reportedly wrote to Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump denies he wrote the note, and POLITICO has not independently verified it. The president has never been accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein.
Nevertheless, the political fallout has been widespread as it weds the divergent factions of Congress.
From conservative firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to famed progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the cosponsors on Massie’s measure represent an eclectic mix of lawmakers who rarely agree on anything — or even speak to each other cordially. The list yokes one of the furthest left members of Congress, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, with Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And one Republican in a battleground district, Rep. Tom Barrett from Michigan, has also signed onto the push.
It’s not the first time that the populist left and right have converged: A handful of leaders on both sides have found agreement recently on wars in the Middle East, U.S. involvement in Israel, antitrust policies, artificial intelligence and the unaffordability of housing.
To that end, Khanna said he’s “exchanged a few texts” with MAGA godfather Steve Bannon, who has expressed support for a special counsel to examine the Epstein case. Their correspondence was “in the context of trying to stop the regime-change war in Iran,” Khanna said.
Asked for comment, Bannon listed Khanna as one of a group of figures on the populist left and right who have found common ground on “neo-Brandeisian antitrust.”
On X, Massie is keeping a live whip count of cosponsors for his proposal to release the Epstein files and encouraging his 1.3 million followers to ask their representatives if they support the idea. When Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Thursday the Justice Department will move to release grand jury transcripts — a decision seen as an attempt to appease the MAGA base — Massie declared: “Folks, Keep the pressure on, it’s working. But we want all the files.”
Should it come to pass, the resolution would be symbolic — Congress doesn’t have the power to force the Justice Department to release any information. But under procedural rules, action on the floor can’t take place until September, meaning that Trump's Epstein problem could linger in Congress for several more weeks.
Khanna said he has a “very friendly” relationship with Massie. The idea for the discharge petition came about after Khanna introduced an amendment to release the Epstein files, and Massie texted him to propose they draft a bill on the topic.
“We text back and forth all the time. I will often see him on the House floor, pick up the phone and call him,” he said. “Obviously, we come from different ideological perspectives, but there are areas where we have agreement in making sure that we’re preventing wars of choice overseas and transparency.”
A spokesperson for Massie declined to comment. Earlier this week, Massie said in an interview that the pressure will intensify on House Republicans over the upcoming recess.
“They probably want to let the steam out, but this will build momentum over August,” Massie said. “They can’t sweep it under the rug.”
It’s not the first time Massie, often an iconoclast in his party, has found strange bedfellows in Democrats. He and other conservatives joined forces with libertarian-minded and anti-interventionist lawmakers on digital privacy and war powers measures. And just last month, he teamed up with Khanna on a measure to reign in Trump’s ability to use military force in the Iran-Israel conflict.
“It is very on brand for Thomas Massie to stick with his position, even under pressure,” said Marisa McNee, a Democratic strategist from Massie’s northern Kentucky district. “The thing that bugs his party about him is that he’s sort of unwavering once he has a position on something.”
Massie, who is up for re-election next year, has easily survived primary challenges. But he’s become a top target for Trump’s allies angered by his choice to break party lines and vote against the megabill.
Meanwhile, Democrats are angling to exploit their opposing party's wedge over Epstein. As Democratic lawmakers filtered into a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday, one chanted “Epstein, Epstein, Epstein,” and Democrats frequently heckled their GOP counterparts as the House debated clawbacks of public media and foreign aid overnight.
House Democrats reveled this week in the pressure they and Massie applied to the GOP, underscored by a group of Rules Committee Republicans huddling with Speaker Mike Johnson for hours Thursday in search of political cover.
Republicans advanced their own non-binding resolution calling for the release of a limited scope of Epstein-related documents, while voting down a Democratic amendment to advance Massie’s bipartisan legislation.
“We'll determine what happens with all that. There's a lot developing,” Johnson told reporters, after declining to commit to put the GOP resolution to a full House vote.
The Epstein controversy is the latest example of Massie creating a major headache for his fellow Republicans, following his opposition to the megabill. Just a few weeks ago, Trump and Massie actually appeared headed to a sort of political truce. But it was short-lived.
House Republicans said Trump appeared to blow up the detente he and Massie struck during a late-night call to advance the struggling megabill on the House floor last month.
Shortly after, in a move that shocked some Republicans on Capitol HIll, Trump allies poured millions into a PAC attacking Massie, three House Republicans said this week as the Epstein chaos swirled. Trump allies say they wanted Massie to vote for the megabill final passage itself, not just the procedural move to advance it.
Massie going after Trump on Epstein “probably has the virtue of being able to poke Trump in the eye and appeal to important aspects of the base," said former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican. "It makes sense he's engaging."
Nicholas Wu, Meredith Lee Hill and Mia McCarthy contributed reporting.
Sen. Eric Schmitt says isolationist label 'is a slur'
https://www.politico.com/video/2025/07/19/sen-eric-schmitt-says-isolationist-label-is-a-slur-1686299
President Donald Trump would like to see a “better option” than Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins to represent the state. He probably can’t get one.
The moderate GOP senator causes frequent headaches for the White House when it comes to securing her crucial vote, which is needed to pass key elements of Trump’s agenda.
That’s led White House officials to discuss a potential Collins replacement in the state if she opts not to run for reelection, though there are no thoughts of actually launching a primary challenge.
But in a state that continues to trend blue, local Republicans warned, Collins is effectively the lone Republican who can fend off high-level Democratic challengers in the state. Republicans point to her seniority in the upper chamber and appropriations role as unique advantages no other candidate would match. And while Collins may frustrate the MAGA wing, a different Republican more in line with Trump’s agenda would also be much more likely to lose the seat.
For Collins to drop out “may be for very conservative people a wish list item,” said Andre Cushing, a Penobscot County commissioner and former Republican state senator.
“But, candidly, I think she’s made her announcement and she is the kind of person that doesn’t do those things lightly,” Cushing said. “She certainly has my support even when I disagree with her.”
Collins’ unique position in Maine shows the limits of Trump's political power. The president has been fiddling with all levers of the midterms equation — ordering Texas Republicans to redraw a map, pressuring battleground House Republicans to seek reelection rather than run for higher office and now exploring primary challenges against the handful of incumbents who have bucked him. Collins, the Senate Appropriations Chair, has been frustrated by White House attempts to clawback spending that she supports, and has been vocal about her disagreements.
There appears to be little appetite — in either party — for challenging Collins, who won reelection by 9 points in 2020, despite Joe Biden easily winning the state.
That victory, which followed record Democratic spending and a wave of public polls suggesting Collins would lose, has left Democrats facing their own struggles to find a formidable challenger this year, even as they point to her dipping approval rating.
Top Maine Democrats including former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who ran against Collins in 2014, have opted to run for the state’s open governorship instead. Rep. Jared Golden of the 2nd District is running for reelection.
That has left national Democrats without a top recruit in what should be one of their most competitive offensive targets. Gov. Janet Mills, who is term-limited, would be their top recruit. But Mills, 77, is older than Collins, 72, and the two women have generally had a good working relationship. The Democratic governor doesn't seem eager for what would likely be a bruising Senate battle.
Even as some Republicans in Washington grow frustrated with Collins, there is no appetite to primary her back home.
“I don't think any reasonable person that might be interested in that position would think about challenging her,” said Maine GOP strategist Alex Titcomb.
Collins has already publicly indicated plans to run for reelection. Her fundraising surged in the second quarter of the year, according to campaign finance reports filed this week. And a super PAC planning to back her said it raised $5.6 million so far this year. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is already cutting digital ads for Collins.
Democrats' best hope to flip the seat would be if Collins did not seek reelection. Republicans would have to scramble in their attempts to find a replacement — she is the only GOP candidate to win statewide in Maine since 2014.
“Everybody knows that Susan Collins is a gift to the Republican Party in Maine,” said Garrett Mason, the former Maine Senate majority leader and GOP gubernatorial candidate.
Collins has ruffled some GOP feathers in the first six months of Trump’s term with high-profile votes to oppose his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the sprawling “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
A similar dynamic played out during Trump’s first term in office, when conservatives slammed her vote against the Affordable Care Act repeal. But Collins largely rallied the Republican base in her favor for her 2020 reelection campaign, even earning an endorsement from former Gov. Paul LePage, who had previously been critical of her.
But Republicans in the state know that when it comes to Maine’s Senate seat, there is no “better option.” A Collins retirement — or primary loss — likely means the GOP loses the seat. And many in the state still pride themselves on her senior status in the Senate, something even another Republican could not immediately replicate.
“If someone were able to run against her and by chance beat her, that would be a really bad thing for Maine,” said Mason, the former majority leader. “But I just don’t see that happening. That’s not what’s on the ground here.”
Arizona Democrats voted late Wednesday to boot their embattled party chair, Robert E. Branscomb II, ending a brief tenure that was defined by infighting. Statewide officials had already redirected their campaign efforts through a county party amid the squabbling.
The party voted 476-56 after hours of delays, clearing the required two-thirds threshold by eight votes.
Branscomb defended himself until the very end, telling attendees on the call that the effort to remove him was “rooted in misrepresentation, divisive tactics and does not reflect our democratic values.”
The controversy surrounding Branscomb dates back to April, when he sent a letter to members of the state committee that attacked Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego and aired private disagreements among them.
In response, all of the state’s top elected Democrats said in a letter that Branscomb “lost their trust.”
Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Kris Mayes — who are all up for reelection in 2026 — went on to create a statewide coordinated campaign to circumvent the state party, a prospect POLITICO first reported in April.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, maintains a double-digit lead over her Republican opponent, according to a new poll from Virginia Commonwealth University.
The survey, conducted between June 19 and July 3, found that 49 percent of registered voters support Spanberger, with 37 percent saying they would vote for GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears if the election were held today. That’s an even bigger lead than Spanberger enjoyed in Commonwealth’s December poll, which had Earle-Sears trailing her by 10 percentage points.
The poll also found that the cost of living continues to dominate as voters’ top concern, with reproductive rights and immigration also ranking high among Virginians’ priorities. Spanberger, who represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District from 2019 to 2025 after serving in the CIA, is leaning into the issue by touting an “Affordable Virginia Plan” that lays out her vision for lowering housing, energy and health care costs.
The centrist Democrat enjoys an even wider lead among young voters, with respondents aged 18-24 years old siding with the Democrat by a margin of 31 percentage points. Her campaign also outraised Earle-Sears’ by more than $4 million in the last three months, raking in over $10 million between April and June, according to a report filed Tuesday with the Virginia State Board of Elections.
The Commonwealth survey polled 764 registered voters via landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Sen. Eric Schmitt praises Pam Bondi, declines to opine on Epstein case | The Conversation
President Donald Trump wants lawmakers in Texas to redraw the state’s congressional district map to give Republicans five more House seats, he told reporters Tuesday.
“There could be some other states we’re going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one.” he said. “Just a simple redrawing we pick up five seats.”
The White House and Department of Justice pushed for the redistricting, POLITICO reported Friday, and Gov. Greg Abbott asked state leaders to do it during a summer special session. The move is seen as an opportunity for Republicans to prevent Democrats from flipping the house back in 2026, but some see it as a dangerous risk.
Democrats currently control 12 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts. A 13th district anchored by downtown Houston is currently vacant but was controlled by Democrats until the death of Rep. Sylvester Turner last March.
Putting more Republican voters in Democratic districts would make those races more competitive, but it also removes those voters from their current Republican districts, diluting the GOP advantage. Those shifts could create the potential for Democrats to win more seats in Texas than they otherwise might.
“They are playing a little bit of roulette with these maps,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas). “In a wave election like what we have a potential opportunity for in ‘26, I think it makes these Republicans very vulnerable.”
Trump’s allusion to “other states” likely includes Ohio, which is required by law to draw new congressional maps this year and could give Republicans up to three more seats. It is unclear which other states he sees as opportunities for midterm pickups.
A messy fight between the current and former leadership of Vote.org is escalating.
Debra Cleaver, the nonprofit’s founder, said she has filed complaints with four states’ attorneys general alleging that the high-profile voter registration group has defrauded donors, including by vastly inflating the number of voters it could register in 2024, financial mismanagement and using charitable funds for the personal benefit of its current CEO.
The allegations follow a wrongful termination suit from Cleaver over her firing in 2019 and have prompted a new threat of litigation from the group over what it called a “sustained and vindictive campaign rooted in misinformation.”
Vote.org counsel Vanessa Avery, a partner at McCarter and English, vigorously denied the claims by Cleaver, saying they were “categorically false.”
In the 28-page complaint, shared first with POLITICO, Cleaver alleged there was no serious plan for the group to deliver on its pledge to register 8 million voters for the 2024 cycle, which would have been more than the total number of voters it had registered during its entire 14-year history. Vote.org ended up registering 2.2 million voters in the 2024 cycle.
Cleaver, who now runs a similar group called VoteAmerica, filed the complaint with the attorneys generals of New York, California, Pennsylvania and Georgia. POLITICO independently verified all filings except the one in Georgia. Among her claims: that the group originally set an internal goal to register 6 million voters, but that was increased to 8 million to avoid the “symbolism of 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
“The fact that Vote.org ultimately failed to register 8 million voters is inconsequential to the organization, because that was never the true goal,” Cleaver said in the complaint. “The goal was staying afloat, attracting donor attention, and retaining relevance through the illusion of scale.”
The organization is one of the biggest nonpartisan voter registration vehicles in the country, but it has come under scrutiny in recent years over its internal management. The complaint points to the example of Taylor Swift, who previously worked with the group. But last year, when Swift endorsed Kamala Harris, she directed fans to go to Vote.gov to register instead of plugging Vote.org. The complaint alleges a Daily Mail story on internal turmoil at the group helped cause Swift to avoid touting the organization again. (A Swift spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.) Vote.org’s spending and alleged internal dysfunction was also the subject of a Chronicle of Philanthropy investigation last year.
The complaint also alleges that donor money was inappropriately used to pay for Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey’s personal travel and notes a jump in expenses on Vote.org’s “travel conferences and meetings” totaling more than $275,000 in 2023. It also notes that IRS documents show that Vote.org spent almost $600,000 on legal fees in 2023 versus $89,000 in 2019 as the organization fought wrongful termination lawsuits from Cleaver and another employee.
In the Cleaver case, she sued Vote.org and one of its human resources vendors. The suit between Cleaver and Vote.org was dismissed with prejudice with both parties dropping their claims and no money was exchanged between Vote.org and Cleaver, according to the settlement agreement. The agreement shows the HR vendor paid her $50,000 in a separate deal which said Vote.org would not reimburse the vendor.
The attorneys general complaints also made claims, which POLITICO has not independently verified, that Vote.org has paid for private security for Hailey even though Cleaver says staff haven’t received any threats against Hailey. Vote.org told the Daily Mail that Hailey did receive threats.
“For the past six years, she has organized a sustained and vindictive campaign rooted in misinformation, aimed at discrediting this organization and its leadership,” Avery, the Vote.org counsel, said in a statement.
“Her wrongful termination lawsuit was withdrawn with prejudice, and she is now resorting to even more desperate and baseless tactics. We will be filing a defamation claim in the near future and will vigorously defend against these lies.” She also said that they have emailed the state attorneys generals to rebut her claims.
Avery defended the high voter registration target for 2024, which Vote.org did not meet. “Successful organizations set ambitious goals -- no one aims for underperformance,” she said. “We set bold targets because the stakes are high.” She said the group has registered more voters than any other organization in American history; Score could not independently verify this.
When asked why she filed the complaints, Cleaver told Score in a statement: “As the founder, I would like nothing more than Vote.org to succeed. Unfortunately, for five years now Vote.org has been racked by a series of financial, governance, and ethical lapses.”
A spokesperson for the New York attorney general’s office said they’ve “received the complaint and are reviewing.” Spokespeople for the other states’ attorneys generals didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Like this reporting? Subscribe to Morning Score.
Salena Zito recounts Trump's assassination attempt one year later | The Conversation
Homan: 'If you're here illegally and have a kid, that's on you' | The Conversation
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, is a longtime immigration law enforcement official now tasked with helping implement the administration’s massive deportation campaign.
In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Homan explains what will be done with the $170 billion recently passed by Congress to help the effort, defends the tactics of ICE agents, and has a message for those who say undocumented farmworkers should be spared.
“People who say ‘don't arrest workers,’ they don't understand the whole ugly underbelly of illegal immigration the way I do,” he tells Burns.
Plus, on the one year anniversary of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, PA, journalist Salena Zito shares her first-hand account as described in her new book, “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland.”
Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Trump Border Czar Tom Homan: ‘There Will Be No Amnesty’ | The Conversation
Border czar Tom Homan defends ICE agents wearing masks | The Conversation
Homan unsure of status of the eight men deported to South Sudan | The Conversation
Border czar Tom Homan says 'no amnesty' for undocumented farmworkers | The Conversation
Democrat Josh Cowen is launching a bid by highlighting education and affordability issues in what is already becoming a crowded primary in a tossup Michigan district.
Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, singled out the school choice and voucher programs pushed by Michigan Republicans like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as part of what inspired him to run for Michigan's 7th Congressional District in the central part of the state.
“I'm a teacher, and I have been fighting Betsy DeVos across the country on a specific issue, and that's privatizing public schools,” Cowen said in an interview. “She's been trying to disinvest, defund commitments to kids and families all over the place, and that's actually the same fight as everything that's going on right now — trying to protect investing in health care through Medicaid and other systems — protect jobs.”
Several Democrats have already announced bids against Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who flipped the seat last cycle after Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) vacated it to run for Senate. He could be a tough incumbent for Democrats to dislodge and reported raising over $1 million last quarter.
Still, Democrats see the narrowly divided seat as a top pickup opportunity next year, with former Ukraine Ambassador Bridget Brink and retired Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam among the field of candidates running. Cowen brushed off concerns about a contested primary, saying, “They're going to run their campaigns. I'm going to run mine.”
“I am going to be running really hard on the fact that I am in this community. I've been here for 12 years. My kids went to public schools here. My youngest is still there,” he added.
