Rascal and Aja, photo courtesy of Juneau Animal Rescue
Two dogs once adored by longtime Southeast Alaska journalist and former news director of News of the North Pete Carran, are now waiting for a new home at Juneau Animal Rescue, where staff say the bonded pair has drawn community attention but no adoption applications.
Rascal and Aja were brought to the shelter shortly after Carran’s passing, Executive Director Rick Driscoll said in an interview.
“They’re great dogs.” Said Driscoll, “Usually, dogs come to the shelter, and they all have their quirks and their personalities, but these two are great. They love to go on walks, they seem to get along pretty well with all the other dogs that are here at the shelter, it’s really clear that they’re a bonded pair.”
The pair, well known around Juneau, has received steady foot traffic from residents eager to check on them. But the challenge of adopting two dogs together has left them without a permanent home.
“They’ve been getting a lot of exercise while they’ve been here, lots of people come in to take them for walks.” Driscoll said, “For example, someone wants to take Rascal for a walk, but maybe they don’t feel comfortable taking two dogs for a walk, Aja will kind of lose her mind a little bit because she wants to go along for the walk as well. And vice versa, someone takes Aja for a walk, and Rascal doesn’t get to go. There’s some separation anxiety that is pretty obvious, because I think they’ve spent a lot of time together.”
While interest in seeing the dogs has been high, Driscoll said no one has yet started the adoption process, something he says is likely about the commitment required to take home two medium-sized dogs at once.
If the wait stretches much longer, staff may face a difficult decision.
“We don’t want to split them up, because they’re certainly a bonded pair, but at some point we will have to have a discussion as a team, about whether it’s better for them to go to different homes and get out of the Shelter.” Said Driscoll, “The shelter, while our staff here are awesome and loving and care for them exceedingly well, animal shelters, by nature, are not places where dogs thrive. is it better for their mental health to keep them here and try and keep them together, or is it better for them and their mental health to get out of here and go to loving homes rather than stay here?”
Still, he remains optimistic.
“My gut says they’re going to get adopted soon,” he said. “it’s hard if anybody comes down and visits with these dogs and sees them interact together and takes them for a walk, it’s hard not to fall in love with them.”
Fresh produce is seen at the Alaska Commercial Company grocery store in Bethel on Oct 15, 2025. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ call for a close reexamination of the 42 million people who receive federal food aid has befuddled advocates and lawmakers, coming mere days after recipients began to see benefits that had been stalled during the government shutdown.
Details remain scant a week after Rollins during an interview on the right-wing Newsmax network first publicly broached the startling idea that every beneficiary would have to reapply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, often called food stamps.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, asked for an explanation, referenced existing requirements and suggested more changes in SNAP rules could be in store.
“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends,” a USDA spokesperson wrote Wednesday. “Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of state data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with states.”
The 2008 law governing SNAP leaves states responsible for administration. Part of that role includes periodically making sure that the low-income people in the program meet the qualifications for inclusion, but the law allows states to determine how often that occurs.
“It’s not clear what she would be proposing that is different from what is already happening,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst for food assistance at the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
One interpretation of Rollins’ comments is that she would remove all 42 million individuals from SNAP’s rolls and ask them to resubmit applications. Bergh said that would lead to people losing money they need for groceries. About 40% of those enrolled in SNAP are children.
“If she’s suggesting that they’re going to somehow redo that process for more than 40 million people who already demonstrated their eligibility and who already have to periodically recertify their eligibility, that would be pretty duplicative and would likely create pretty significant paperwork backlogs that would cause people who are eligible to lose the food assistance that they need,” Bergh said.
Administration critics have suggested that, while the comments are unlikely to lead to policy changes, they introduce even more confusion for a program that was used as a political token during the record government shutdown that ended this month.
Making people reapply would underscore the Trump administration’s opposition to the nearly $100 billion program, which accounts for 70% of federal nutrition assistance. USDA says the average SNAP household in fiscal 2023 received a monthly benefit of $332, or $177 a person based on the average SNAP household size of 1.9 people.
“Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration have cut food assistance for 42 million Americans multiple times this year,” U.S. House Agriculture ranking member Angie Craig said in a Wednesday statement to States Newsroom. “Now, they’ve once again shown that they do not understand the program.”
What did Rollins say?
In the Nov. 13 interview on Newsmax, Rollins said SNAP was beset by widespread fraud, citing data that 29 mostly Republican-run states submitted to the department. Acquiring data from the 21 other states would give the department a way to wholly remake the program, she said.
“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data, what we’re going to find?” she said. “It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it. And that’s the next step here.”
In an interview Monday on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromo asked Rollins about the move to have recipients “reapply.”
“Business as usual is over,” Rollins answered in part. “The status quo is no more. We know that the SNAP program is rife with fraud.”
She added that guarding against fraud would help those the program is meant to serve.
The comments touched off widespread confusion about what specifically Rollins meant.
Asked about the initiative during a Thursday press conference, Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, said she was unclear about how it would work and predicted that Rollins would take credit in the future for the existing low rate of fraud.
“We’re hearing off the record that, you know, maybe people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” she said. “In fact, I think they’re trying to take credit for the already very strict standards and the actual low fraud rate in the SNAP program … So we can find no real plan there. Not even sure there’s concepts of a plan there.”
In response to a States Newsroom request this week for details about the initiative, USDA provided the statement that did not answer how the department would proceed or under what authority, but said Rollins was seeking to reduce fraud in the program.
Spokespeople did not respond to follow-up questions, or a request to respond to Craig’s remarks Thursday.
Low fraud rate
Program experts say fraud is not a widespread problem for SNAP.
An April report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that retailers illegally trafficked about 1.6% of SNAP benefits from fiscal 2015 to 2017.
Fraud by households applying for SNAP, which appear to be the main target of Rollins’ proposal, is even lower.
According to a USDA report, about 26,000 applications were referred for an administrative review or prosecution on suspicion of fraud. That number accounts for about 0.1% of the 22.7 million households enrolled in the program, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Long-standing data sources indicate that intentional fraud by participants is rare,” Bergh said.
At Thursday’s press conference, Craig called Rollins’ comments “bullsh*t” and “propaganda.”
“Secretary Rollins goes on TV and talks about all the fraud,” she said. “This most effective anti-hunger program in our history has a fraud rate of 1.6%. It’s actually one of the most effective, well-run programs in the country … The bullsh*t this administration is peddling is egregious.”
More targeted reforms
Even experts who advocate for reforms to SNAP say eligibility fraud is not a major issue.
Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said high-net-worth individuals can receive SNAP benefits, but aren’t committing fraud by doing so.
“Some of the issues with SNAP … aren’t because of fraud or abuse, but they are because of bad program rules,” said Boccia.
Boccia also cited an “incentive misalignment” inherent in the state-federal program. States have little incentive to control payments because the federal government funds the program, she said.
Forcing all beneficiaries to reapply would likely reduce the cost of the program by reducing the number of its beneficiaries, including by forcing out higher earners who may not consider the benefits they don’t actually need to be worth the onerous reapplication process, Boccia said.
But it would also result in a percentage of low earners dropping off the program, as well as many who would be affected by the administrative backlog that would come with processing tens of millions of new applications, she said.
Shutdown, the big beautiful bill, and confusion
Bergh said Rollins’ comments “add insult to injury” because they come after congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump signed a major tax cuts and spending law that is expected to shrink federal SNAP spending by $187 billion over 10 years. The law added work requirements for many SNAP recipients and shifted some costs to states.
That was followed by the six-week shutdown that saw a dizzying back-and-forth over whether November SNAP benefits would be paid.
“There has been huge amounts of chaos and confusion and disruption for both states and participants in recent weeks, largely due to the shutdown, but also because simultaneously, the administration has required states to implement many of the reconciliation bill’s SNAP cuts,” Bergh said.
Craig, in her statement, also said Rollins’ comments would hurt the people who need the program.
“I am astounded by the secretary’s careless disregard for the hungry seniors and children who can afford to eat because of this program,” she said.
Sara Naomi Bleich, a public health policy professor at Harvard University, said in a phone interview the confusion from Rollins’ comments compounded hardships produced by the Republican reconciliation law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Big picture with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is that there’s basically this tidal wave coming to families that have low income,” Bleich, who worked at USDA during the Obama and Biden administrations, said. “They’re going to lose Medicaid. They’re going to lose SNAP. There could be collateral impacts on the school meals. This is going to be a really hard time for families to navigate.”
Homes are surrounded by debris in Kwigillingok, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, after being damaged earlier in the month by Typhoon Halong. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
AP- Storms that battered Alaska’s western coast this fall have brought renewed attention to low-lying Indigenous villages left increasingly vulnerable by climate change — and revived questions about their sustainability in a region being reshaped by frequent flooding, thawing permafrost and landscape-devouring erosion.
The onset of winter has slowed emergency repair and cleanup work after two October storms, including the remnants of Typhoon Halong, slammed dozens of communities. Some residents from the hardest-hit villages, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, could be displaced for months and worry what their futures hold.
Kwigillingok already was pursuing relocation before the latest storm, but that can take decades, with no centralized coordination and little funding. Moves by the Trump administration to cut grants aimed at better protecting communities against climate threats have added another layer of uncertainty.
Still, the hope is to try to buy villages time to evaluate next steps by reinforcing rebuilt infrastructure or putting in place pilings so homes can be elevated, said Bryan Fisher, the state’s emergency management director.
“Where we can support that increased resilience to buy that time, we’re going to do that,” he said.
Many Alaska Native villages are threatened by climate change
Alaska is warming faster than the global average. A report released last year by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium found 144 Native communities face threats from erosion, flooding, thawing permafrost or a combination.
Coastal populations are particularly vulnerable, climate scientist John Walsh said. Less Arctic sea ice means more open water, allowing storm-driven waves to do damage. Thawing permafrost invites more rapid coastal erosion. Waves hitting permafrost bounce like water off a concrete wall, he said, but when permafrost thaws, the loose soil washes away more easily.
Wind and storm surge from the remnants of Halong consumed dozens of feet of shoreline in Quinhagak, disturbing a culturally significant archaeological site. Quinhagak, like Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, is near the Bering Sea.
Just four times since 1970 has an ex-typhoon hit the Bering Sea coast north of the Pribilof Islands, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness. Three of those have been since 2022, starting with the remnants of Merbok that year.
The damage caused by ex-typhoon Halong was the worst Fisher said he has seen in his roughly 30 years in emergency management. About 700 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, estimates suggest. Some washed away with people inside and were carried for miles. Kipnuk and Kwigillingok — no strangers to flooding and home to around 1,100 people — were devastated. One person died, and two remain missing.
Some homes and buildings that were torn off their foundations and floated away are seen near the village of Kwigillingok, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, after Typhoon Halong hit the region earlier in the month. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Options are limited and expensive
At-risk communities can reinforce existing infrastructure or fortify shoreline; move infrastructure to higher ground in what is known as managed retreat; or relocate entirely. The needs are enormous — $4.3 billion over 50 years to protect infrastructure in Native communities from climate threats, according to the health consortium report, though that estimate dates to 2020. A lack of resources and coordination has impeded progress, the report found.
Simply announcing plans to relocate can leave a community ineligible for funding for new infrastructure at their existing site, and government policies can limit investments at a new site if people aren’t living there yet, the report said.
It took decades and an estimated $160 million for the roughly 300 residents of Newtok in western Alaska to move 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) to their new village of Mertarvik. Newtok was one of the first Alaska Native communities to fully relocate, but others are considering or pursuing it. In Washington and Louisiana, climate change has been a driving force behind relocation efforts by some tribes.
But many villages, including Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, “don’t have that kind of time,” said Sheryl Musgrove, director of the Alaska Climate Justice Program at the Alaska Institute for Justice. The two are among 10 tribal communities her group has been working with as they navigate climate-adaptation decisions.
Kipnuk before the last storm had been planning a protect-in-place strategy but hasn’t decided what to do now, she said.
Musgrove hopes that in the aftermath, there will be changes at the federal level to help communities in peril. There is no federal agency, for example, tasked with coordinating relocation. That leaves small communities trying to navigate myriad agencies and programs, Musgrove said.
“I guess I’m just really hopeful that this might be the beginning of a change because I think that there is a lot of attention to what happened here,” she said.
Federal support is in question
With money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2022 created the Voluntary Community-Driven Relocation Program and committed $115 million for 11 tribes’ relocation efforts, including $25 million each for Newtok and Napakiak. In Napakiak, most of the infrastructure is expected to be destroyed by 2030, and the community is moving away from the banks of the Kuskokwim River.
That is not enough to move a village, and additional funding opportunities are scattered across other agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Sustained federal support is uncertain as the Trump administration cuts programs related to climate change and disaster resilience. Trump in May proposed cutting $617 million from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ tribal self-governance and communities programs but did not specify which programs.
The Department of Interior said in an email that new grant funding is “under review as part of a broader effort to improve federal spending accountability,” but that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was “helping tribes lay the groundwork for future implementation when funding pathways are clarified.”
Other federal money that could help Alaska villages has already been cut. Federal Emergency Management Agency awards to Newtok and Kwigillingok for projects related to relocation didn’t arrive before the administration in April halted billions of dollars in unpaid grants.
Trump has also stopped approving state and tribal requests for hazard mitigation funding, a typical add-on that accompanies federal support after major disasters.
Halle Berry has been married and divorced more than once.
And not all of the A-list bombshell’s significant entanglements have involved marriage.
From her most recent relationship to those before she rose to fame, her love life has seen dramatic highs and lows.
Here’s a rundown of her romantic history, heartbreaks, and where things stand today.
Jury Member Halle Berry attends the 2025 Chopard Universe Dinner at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2025. (Photo Credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
Before Halle Berry married (or divorced)
From March 1989 until October 1991, Halle Berry dated John Ronan, a dentist in Chicago.
Though the two neither married nor divorced, this was a significant relationship — in part because of the fallout.
Ronan would later sue Berry for $80,000, alleging that these “unpaid loans” had helped to launch her career. The court didn’t buy that.
In the early ’90s, an unidentified abusive boyfriend inflicted such violence on her that she lost 80% of the hearing in her left ear.
Berry has only acknowledged that the assailant was also famous and in the entertainment industry. Ex-boyfriend Christopher Williams has accused Wesley Snipes of being the culprit.
Atlanta Braves baseball player David Justice reacts to the popularity of his wife, actress Halle Berry, and child actor four-year-old Marc John Jefferies at the premiere of the film “Losing Isaiah” 15 March. (Photo Credit: JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images)
David Justice (1993 – 1997)
In February 1992, Berry saw David Justice — a baseball player — engaging in a sports game on MTV.
When she learned that he, too, was a fan, Berry gave her phone number to a reporter to pass on to Justice.
Just after midnight on January 1, 1993, Berry and Justice married.
Unfortunately, the marriage did not last. The two separated in February 1996, and divorced on June 20, 1997.
Berry stated publicly that she felt deeply depressed. Justice would later claimed that Berry lacked “mothering” energy. This was her first divorce — but not her last.
Actress Halle Berry, wearing Harry Winston jewelry, and husband Eric Benet attends the 75th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater on March 23, 2003. (Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Halle Berry and Eric Benét (2001 – 2005)
Eric Benét is a singer-songwriter. He and Halle Berry began dating in the late ’90s.
After two years together, they married on January 24, 2001.
Unfortunately, in 2002, Benét began going to counseling for “sex addiction.” Though the condition does not exist, this phony diagnosis is sometimes applied when someone cheats but then claims to not be responsible.
Whatever this alleged “treatment” involved, it either didn’t work or came too late.
By October 2003, Berry and Benét had separated. On January 3, 2005, they finalized their divorce.
Actress Halle Berry (R) and model Gabriel Aubry pose at the afterparty for the premiere of DreamWorks’ “Things We Lost in the Fire” at the Egyptian Theater on October 15, 2007. (Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
She did not marry Gabriel Aubry
Though Berry and French-Canadian model Gabriel Aubry never married, their relationship remains a fixture in many people’s minds.
They began dating in November 2005. In March of 2008, Berry gave birth to their daughter, Nahla Ariela Aubry.
In April of 2010, Berry and Aubry revealed that they had broken up months earlier. That was not the end of it, however.
In early 2011, the two locked horns in a bitter and highly publicized custody battle — not necessarily over fitness as parents, but over where they wanted to live and co-parent their daughter.
By late 2012, they had reached an amicable custody agreement. Berry had to pay $16,000 per month in child support to Aubry. All of this came after a physical fight between Aubry and Berry’s new man.
Actors Olivier Martinez and Halle Berry attend the 2011 Jenesse Silver Rose Auction and Gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel on April 17, 2011. (Photo Credit: David Livingston/Getty Images)
Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez (2013 – 2015)
In March of 2012, Halle Berry confirmed her engagement to French actor Olivier Martinez.
Over a year later, they married in France in July 2013. Three months later, in October, Berry gave birth to their son, Maceo-Robert Martinez.
(It was during their engagement that Martinez and Aubry got into a physical altercation that led to mutual restraining orders and also landed both men in the hospital)
In 2015, after two years of marriage, Berry and Martinez revealed that they were getting divorced.
In December 2016, they finalized their split. It was only in August of 2023, however, that they settled issues regarding child support and custody of their son.
Singer-songwriter Van Hunt walks out onto the ‘Today’ stage in June 2025. (Image Credit: NBC)
As for where things stand today …
Though Halle Berry has been married and divorced more than once, the relationship in most people’s minds involves neither — thus far.
In 2020, she began dating Van Hunt, an American musician.
This romance has played out largely on social media, with memorable (and steamy) Instagram posts.
Though Hunt has proposed, Berry explained that they’re not quite at the right place for an engagement just yet.
She’s not looking to be married or divorced again too hastily. For now, it looks like they’re enjoying life — and each other.
We have sad news to report from the world of music today:
Jellybean Johnson, the drummer for the beloved soul and R&B band Morris Day and The Time, has passed away at the age of 69.
News of Johnson’s passing comes courtesy of fellow musician and collaborator Sheila E.
Morris Day, Jellybean Johnson and Jerome Benton of The Original 7 performs during the 2011 Soul Train Awards at The Fox Theatre on November 17, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
Pop icon pays tribute to fellow Prince protege
“With a heavy heart, my dear friend Jellybean passed away a couple of hours ago,” the singer wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
“We are devastated by this news. I’m praying for his family and all the kids. He was a kind human being, extremely talented and funny,” she continued, adding:
“He had a great sense of humor and [was] an awesome guitar player. Yesterday was your birthday, I forgot to call you and I’m so sorry. I love u Bean. Rest in peace and power.”
Jellybean — whose real name was Garry George Johnson — reportedly died unexpectedly. His cause of death is unknown at this time.
An iconic career behind the kit
Born November 19, 1956 in Chicago, Johnson made the acquaintance of Prince early in his career.
In 1981, the music legend recruited Johnson to be part of the funk rock band The Time as part of his deal with Warner Bros. to produce other artists.
In 1985, he and The Time delivered a memorable performance in Prince’s wildly popular film Purple Rain.
In addition to his work with The Time, Johnson played the drums for such major acts as Patti LaBelle, Human League, New Edition, Cherrelle, and Alexander O’Neal.
He also worked as a producer, helping to engineer such hits as Janet Jackson’s 1990 number one single “Black Cat.”
In 2008, Johnson performed with Rihanna at the Grammy Awards.
He dedicated his later years to projects such music-related humanitarian projects as the Minneapolis Sound Museum and the Jellybean Johnson Experience, in which he performed with gifted up-and-comers.
Our thoughts go out to Jellybean Johnson’s loved ones during this difficult time.
Tatiana Schlossberg has penned a deeply personal and incredibly painful essay.
The 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg — and the cousin of Robert K. Kennedy — shared on Saturday that she has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare blood cancer — with doctors giving her a terminal prognosis.
Tatiana Schlossberg attends her book signing at the In goop Health Summit San Francisco 2019 at Craneway Pavilion on November 16, 2019 in Richmond, California. (Photo by Amber De Vos/Getty Images for goop)
Writing for The New Yorker on November 22, Schlossberg explained that she learned of her disease hours after giving birth to her second baby with husband George Moran in May 2024, when her physician discovered that her white blood cell count was unusually high.
After being told of her diagnosis, the environmental journalist — who also shares 3-year-old Edwin Jr. with Moran — was told she would need months of chemotherapy as well as a bone-marrow transplant, confessing in her essay she had trouble processing the news.
“I did not—could not—believe that they were talking about me,” she wrote, adding:]“I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.”
She continued:
“I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of. This could not possibly be my life.”
Tatiana Schlossberg attends Intelligencer Live: Our Warmer Future presented by New York Magazine and Brookfield Place on September 05, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for New York Magazine)
Elsewhere in this piece, Schlossberg says her cousin of a health secretary has become an “embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family,” largely due to his dangerous opinion on vaccines.
In January, Schlossberg embarked on a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy, an immunotherapy meant to fight certain blood cancers. After numerous rounds of the trial, her doctor informed her that she likely has one year to live.
She said her husband has done everything anyone could possibly ask, going on about her loved ones and her situation:
“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half.
“They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it. This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day.”
Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former US President John F Kennedy speaks during a memorial service in Runnymede, Surrey on November 22, 2013, to mark the 50th anniversary of his assassination. (AFP PHOTO / BEN STANSALL)
At another point, Schlossberg detailed her own feelings about her prognosis.
“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she said.
“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Donald Trump has long claimed that he — and he alone — dictates the future of the MAGA movement. And a topsy-turvey Friday will put that to the test.
A weekend wellness check on the MAGA coalition: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Friday announced her resignation, is spurned by its leader. And incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, held up as a midterm Republican bogeyman, is now welcomed by him.
In the space of a whipsaw few hours from Friday and into Saturday morning, Trump — who has said he knows what “MAGA wants better than anybody else,” — celebrated the impending departure of “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” on Truth Social (“Marjorie went BAD,” he said) and fangirled over Mamdani (“a Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani”).
“A world turned upside down,” Steve Bannon, the onetime White House aide and MAGA media booster, said in a text.
MAGA’s Friday trip to The Upside Down all unfolded in a week during which Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another frequent intraparty Trump target, effectively cracked Trump’s hold on his congressional coalition with their Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Taken together, this week is the freshest reminder that the MAGA movement has always been defined more by id than ideology, the political shaped by the personal — presenting quite the challenge for whomever must hold the coalition together after Trump.
Trump and Mamdani’s Friday meeting ended worlds away from where most expected it to go. The get-together, which Fox News previewed as a “showdown with socialism,” ended as a friendly back-and-forth between the democratic socialist and president.
“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me,” Trump told reporters during the public portion of the get together.
For some of the president’s most ardent supporters, Trump’s praise of Mamdani — a man he previously warned would lead to ruin in New York City, and who some of Trump’s closest allies (like Elise Stefanik) spent months setting up as their personal campaign trail foil — was agonizing.
“What’s the purpose of people voting in 2026 if the Democrat policies are ‘rational?’” Trump whisperer Laura Loomer said in a interview, referencing Trump’s answer to an Oval question in which he said of Mamdani, “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.”
“I’m a little confused,” she continued, “because, like, I need to know for the sake of my own edification what the administration’s stance is on Mamdani.”
The White House dismissed any handwringing about the direction of the president’s movement.
“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America First. He’s secured the border; tackled Biden’s inflation crisis; lowered drug prices; ended taxes on tips, overtime, and social security; deported criminal illegal aliens; implemented important reforms to put American workers first; and more,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.
“The fact that President Trump met with the newly elected mayor of New York City shows he is willing to talk to anyone to Make America Great Again,” she continued. “Only Politico would try to spin bipartisanship as a bad thing.”
Political horseshoe moments in Trump’s Washington rarely last. But even some of Trump’s closest allies tried to separate themselves from Friday’s meeting. Stefanik — his onetime pick for United Nations ambassador who is now running for New York governor — has repeatedly called Mamdani a “jihadist,” a label Trump explicitly rejected on Friday.
“We all want NYC to succeed. But we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one,” Stefanik posted on social media on Friday, repeatedly invoking the pejorative despite Trump’s about-face.
Still, Democrats — particularly those close to the incoming mayor — were thrilled with how Friday went down. “Trump respects strength and winners,” said Rebecca Katz, founding partner at Fight Agency, whose firm made ads for Mamdani.
And some Democratic strategists focused on 2026 celebrated Trump undermining Republicans’ attempts to paint Mamdani as the midterm bogeyman he entered the day as. Did Speaker Mike Johnson’s entire 2026 strategy just crumble?
“Pour one out for the NRCC/NRSC staffers who saw their 2026 ads go up in smoke. Sad!” said the veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson.
Still, many are convinced that it is only a matter of when — not if — Trump’s embrace of the New Yorker will evaporate.
“Plenty of time for that to come if it does,” said GOP strategist Doug Heye. “Either of them coming out of that meeting on the attack would have been a mistake, especially given they’ve both tapped into voters who feel systems are broken and things cost too much.”
And some Democrats — particularly Mamdani’s intraparty critics — are convinced it all fades, and GOP messaging continues apace. Alex Hoffman, the Democratic strategist and donor adviser, said: “He will become the bogeyman as soon as he starts implementing policy and saying ‘socialist’ as the sitting mayor.”
But for Democrats, Friday’s friendly confab presented a possible path forward for handling the president.
In a year when Democrats have struggled with how to engage Trump, in which at least one of them hid behind a folder in a White House meeting and left the base wondering about her 2028 sauce, Mamdani just put on a masterclass, Katz and other Democratic strategists said.
Their theory of the case: In his meeting, he offered a template for handling Trump and Trumpism. Trump thinks Democrats are weak; Mamdani projected strength. His body language was neither embarrassed nor defensive. He did not moderate any of his positions. He didn’t grandstand, nor was he pugilistic.
“Some Democrats made the decision that they had to reject Zohran completely if they didn’t agree with all of his policies,” Katz said. “That was a mistake. Zohran doesn’t have all the answers, but he does have a way at looking at situations that is different from typical Democrats in Washington. We need a lot of wins in 2026. Let’s work together to figure out how to get them.”
Andrew Howard, Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta contributed to this report.
