The Friday jobs report just came in and it recorded a major downward miss. The U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February and unemployment ticked up. It’s always important to remember that these reports are fairly noisy on a monthly basis and, especially recently, they’ve been subject to major revisions. Having said that, a lot of politics and economics commentary for the last month or two has been based on other single-month reports which are ripe for narratives but don’t necessarily tell us a lot. The political calculus is perhaps clearer than the economics one. The White House needs a good macro-economic trend to come into focus pretty quickly. Because from an electoral standpoint you need several months of favorable or at least “moving in the right” direction numbers in order for those shifts to show up in public attitudes.
Continue reading “Iran Wars and Affordability Don’t Really Go Together”Gonzales Drops Reelection Bid After Admitting to Sexual Relationship with Former Aide
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) dropped his reelection bid Thursday night, just a day after publicly acknowledging he had an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide.
“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election while serving out the rest of this Congress with the same commitment I’ve always had to my district,” Gonzales said in a late-night social media post.
Continue reading “Gonzales Drops Reelection Bid After Admitting to Sexual Relationship with Former Aide”Very Interesting Speech
Here’s another video I recommend to you, following up on the shipping one from last night — but on a different topic. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) office sent out the video this afternoon. It’s a speech the senator gave on the Senate floor today. It’s about Trump, Russia and Jeff Epstein. Among other things, it reminds us of how Bill Barr bamboozled most of the U.S. press into thinking the Mueller investigation came up empty on Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia. But this is a broader story. The speech runs almost an hour long. But it’s worth it. There’s so many details in the speech it defies easy summary. The best overview is to think of all the ways Donald Trump was and is connecting to the Russian government and the oligarch para-government. Whitehouse then shows that Jeff Epstein is right there at almost every point of contact. It’s a mix of old information, new investigating and a pretty close analysis of emails in the Epstein Files that wouldn’t really jump out at you on their own but become quite interesting when lined up with other outside information which places them in context. Whatever that “thing” is, Epstein is just as tied up in it as Trump —mand at a lot of points he seems to be a connecting tie. You can watch the speech after the jump.
Continue reading “Very Interesting Speech”Noem Performs On Stage Minutes After Being Fired
Maybe the Horseback Rides Across Mount Rushmore Were Worth It
While social media was lighting up with reactions to President Trump’s Truth Social firing of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, she was on stage speaking to local law enforcement.
She did not mention her firing, and some wondered if she was even aware of it; Fox News later reported that Trump had called her shortly before making his post announcing she was being replaced.
Standing before a wall of flags at the Sergeant Benevolent Association Major Cities Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Noem fielded questions and/or obsequious flattery from assembled officials.
At one point, she mentioned an upcoming event appearance she has with Trump; it’s unclear whether she will attend as DHS secretary or in her new, fantastical sounding role: Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. Trump said he’d swap in Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) “effective March 31, 2026.” It’s unclear how that’ll work, too, since DHS secretary is subject to Senate confirmation.
“We’ll have a big agreement that I’ll be there with him on Saturday with the Department of War and the Department of State on how we’re going to go at the drug cartels and drug trafficking in the entire Western Hemisphere,” she said on stage.
She posed for a photo after a standing ovation, cheerily waving at the crowd as she exited stage right — on her way to her new job demotion.
Trump has been facing pressure to fire Noem for months, but it was her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that reportedly sealed Noem’s fate. Not because she dodged questions about sending ICE to polling places in the fall nor because she didn’t say anything as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) compared her DHS leadership to the time she killed her own dog with a gun. Trump was reportedly incensed that she threw him under the bus when Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked her if Trump had signed off on “spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently.”
So upset, in fact, that he spoke to Reuters on the phone to set the record straight:
“I never knew anything about it,” the Republican president told Reuters in a phone interview.
This all comes against the backdrop of new reporting from NBC News today, revealing that Noem handpicked the contractors for a $100 million ad campaign to recruit more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, a process that usually involves multiple bidders and is typically handled by other officials, not department heads.
But in return, Noem successfully fashioned herself as the face of the most unpopular and dystopian moments of Trump’s second term. Maybe the horseback rides across Mount Rushmore were worth it.
— Kate Riga and Nicole LaFond
Noem Firing Doesn’t Move Dems
Noem’s firing won’t have any impact on congressional Democrats’ protest of a DHS funding bill. Republican efforts to try to bully Democrats into funding the department now that Trump has launched a war in Iran — or at least make them look bad about it — failed this week, when measures to fund DHS failed in the House and the Senate. Democratic leadership confirmed as much, as well.
“A change in personnel is not sufficient, we need a change in policy,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said at a press conference Thursday.
“The problems at this agency transcend any one person. The rot is deep. The president has to end the violence and rein in ICE,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said.
— Nicole LaFond
Trump Is Not Happy With Paxton
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hinted in a Twitter post on Thursday that he might not drop out, even if Trump endorsed Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a clear rebuke of President Trump who just announced that he would endorse someone in the primary race soon and warned whoever he doesn’t pick that they better drop out.
“Well, that’s bad for him to say,” Trump told Politico this morning when they informed him that Paxton wouldn’t commit to dropping out. “That is bad for him. So maybe, maybe that leads me to go the other direction.”
In a post around noon on X, Paxton then said he would only “consider” dropping out if Republican leadership in the Senate changed the filibuster rules so that it can pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping voter suppression bill that cleared the House last month. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has repeatedly said that there’s no appetite for such a maneuver in the Senate even though Trump really wants them to go nuclear and force Democrats to engage in a talking filibuster to block it. Thune has also been lobbying Trump to endorse Cornyn, so Paxton has some loaded beef with the guy.
“I would consider dropping out of this race if Senate Leadership agrees to lift the filibuster and passes the SAVE America Act,” Paxton wrote.
“The truth is clear: No one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me — fighting the stolen 2020 election, being in Mar-a-Lago when he announced his 2024 campaign, and standing with him in NY in the face of lawfare,” he continued. “For the good of our country and for the good of passing President Trump’s agenda, I am determined to help him get this done.”
The social media post was obviously designed to remind Trump of Paxton’s fealty but also to remind Trump that he is mad at Thune about the filibuster. It may backfire.
— Nicole LaFond
In Case You Missed It
About that 11th hour retirement from Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT): Five Points on the Montana Senator Trying to Deceive Voters and Gift His Seat to Chosen Heir
Catch up on Emine Yücel’s coverage of the war powers resolutions that went before Congress this week: Republicans Expected to Use Their Majority to Block House War Powers Resolution Today
Morning Memo: Trump Flails to Take Down Biden Over Autopen Pardons
New edition of The Franchise from Khaya Himmelman, out today: Of Course the Notoriously MAGA Georgia Election Board Was Involved in the Fulton County Raid
Kate Riga: JD Vance Is Caught Between a War and a Hard Place
Is anyone surprised? Gonzales Admits to Sexual Relationship With Former Staffer After Weeks of Denial
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
A Humiliating Reversal for the Sad-Sack Trump DOJ
What We Are Reading
Why a Democratic Congressman Is Supporting Trump’s War with Iran
Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester
Warren Davidson is a rare hard-line Republican questioning the Middle East war
Republicans Expected to Use Their Majority to Block House War Powers Resolution Today
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has been stridently against efforts by House Democrats and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to place any constraints on President Trump and his ongoing military assault in Iran since the president first declared his war intentions over the weekend. Johnson claims that the U.S.’s actions thus far have been defensive, despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken out Iran’s regime leadership and provided no clear evidence of an imminent threat to the continental United States.
Reps. Massie and Ro Khanna (D-CA) will force a vote on a war powers resolution on Thursday, in an attempt to rein in Trump. Like a similar resolution in the Senate on Wednesday, most Republicans are expected to vote against it, except Massie and potentially one other Republican. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only Republican to support a resolution in the Senate.
House Republicans are also using Trump’s war in Iran to try to spin the narrative and pressure Democrats to help end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Democrats have been demanding reforms to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the wake of two recent killings of U.S. citizens by ICE agents.
As Republicans try to bully the Dems into funding the agencies under the DHS umbrella without any reforms — claiming it is dangerous and irresponsible to leave them unfunded during a time of elevated threats at home — the House voted on the largely unchanged DHS funding bill Wednesday afternoon. A final vote will take place Thursday afternoon.
Follow along below:
Noem’s Fall
Humiliation is Donald Trump’s calling card. It’s the other side of domination. It’s an expression of domination. When I heard the news today of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s ouster, which has certainly been telegraphed for weeks, it seems exquisitely Trump that he allowed her to go to Capitol Hill and get pressed on the entirely predictable question of whether she is having sex with her notional top aide — Corey Lewandowski — when she had only one day left on the job.
JD Vance Is Caught Between a War and a Hard Place
Vice President JD Vance already had a perilously thin tightrope to walk.
As the 2028 frontrunner, he has three years to figure out how to stay in complete lockstep with President Trump (anything less is heresy) while also somehow carving out his own lane — particularly if the administration continues its popularity nosedive.
Continue reading “JD Vance Is Caught Between a War and a Hard Place”We Need You To Become A Member
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Listen to This: Senator Talarico?
Kate and Josh talk election returns and Trump’s new war with Iran.
Continue reading “Listen to This: Senator Talarico?”Of Course the Notoriously MAGA Georgia Election Board Was Involved in the Fulton County Raid
Hello, happy Thursday!
This week, we’ll be revisiting the very bizarre and sinister revelation from a few months ago involving members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working with an advocacy group to find “evidence of voter fraud,” the role of Georgia’s MAGA-aligned state election board in the Fulton County FBI raid, and, of course, the latest developments in the nationwide redistricting battle as we barrel towards the midterms.
Let’s dig in.
Dems Demand Investigation Into DOGE Voter Data Agreement
Democratic lawmakers are demanding an investigation into DOGE’s voter data pact.
Let’s back up a little first.
In January, the DOJ conceded in a very weird court filing that in March 2025, two members of Musk’s DOGE team who were working at the Social Security Administration, signed an agreement with an advocacy group that wanted to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States.”
If this sounds bad and odd, it’s because it is.
In its filing, the DOJ said that one of these DOGE staffers signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with the advocacy group, and may have tried to use Social Security data to search for evidence of voter fraud.
The DOJ never named the “advocacy group” in the court filing, which is why Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT), Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) announced in a recent letter that they are launching an investigation into this whole episode.
(They want answers, and, frankly, so do I!)
These lawmakers are sending letters to 15 known election denial groups (including organizations like True the Vote and the America First Policy Institute), asking for any records to help them identify which group was involved in this scheme.
“When Americans share their sensitive information with the federal government, they are entrusting that it is in good hands and protected from unwanted eyes,” Garcia said in last week’s letter. “Legally, this should always be the case. Unfortunately, what we are hearing from whistleblowers and seeing in court documents suggests that Trump’s ‘DOGE’ is violating Americans’ privacy for its own political gain.”
“Sensitive personal information provided to the government should never be used for political reasons,” Morelle said. “Yet DOGE signed an agreement to share such information with an advocacy group whose stated goal was to overturn election results.”
A Reminder That Election Deniers Are Running Elections in Georgia
The Georgia state election board —a five-person board made up of three MAGA-aligned members, Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffares — may have been involved in the Fulton County FBI raid.
Trump once referred to these three members of the board as “pitbulls, fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.” (Spoiler alert — this is very much the opposite of what these board members have been doing.)
According to recent reporting from AJC, Johnston played a significant role in the FBI raid of an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia this past January.
As AJC details, for years now, Johnston has claimed there was voter fraud in Fulton County in 2020. (It goes without saying that she has never once provided a shred of evidence to back up these claims). Johnson was actually cited as a key witness in the FBI’s affidavit for the January raid.
Since 2022, Johnston has been repeating lies about the 2020 election and has called for the firing of the Fulton County elections director.
After the MAGA allies were installed in 2024, the board approved a rule to give itself new authority over election certification.
The rule is problematic because it gives the board the power to delay certification until after a “reasonable inquiry” has been made into any discrepancies in the voting process, as TPM has reported. The problem is that the rule is intentionally vague, leaving things like “discrepancies” open to its own interpretation.
And the board is really only meant to hold a mostly ministerial role in the certification process, according to state law.
As experts have explained to TPM, it is (unsurprisingly) all designed to give these election deniers more power.
Around the States: Redistricting
Florida
In a win for Republicans, the Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to Gov. Ron Desantis’ redistricting push.
The challenge was brought forth by two Florida voters and the National Redistricting Foundation, asking the court to block Desantis’ special legislative session on redistricting next month.
New York
Siding with New York Republicans, the Supreme Court ruled this week that the only GOP-dominated district in New York City does not need to be redrawn.
Virginia
On Wednesday, for a second time, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a referendum on a democratic-led redistricting push can move forward. Early voting is set to start on Friday.
The court has still not ruled on whether the redistricting proposal and the referendum is legal, but it has allowed the referendum to move forward while the legal challenge continues to play out.
In Other Election News
ProPublica: Trump Officials Attended a Summit of Election Deniers Who Want the President to Take Over the Midterms
Washington Post: Confusion at Dallas polls causes Democratic voters to be turned away
Democracy Docket: Exclusive: Trump DOJ targeting overseas voters over registration info