Category: Politics

How Trump is Remaking America’s Nuclear Regulator

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​Politics

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s national political ambitions could be stymied by Democrats in his own backyard.

The governor’s power play to redraw the state’s congressional lines and snare Democrats a single House seat has earned him accolades from progressive activists and party leaders in Washington, raising his profile as he weighs a 2028 presidential run. But Moore also has been outmaneuvered at times by members of own party, particularly those in the Maryland Senate where his gerrymander blitz is facing an unceremonious death.

The redistricting gambit is one of the first big political tests Moore has faced that has national implications and could elevate him further within the party — or expose weaknesses as he positions himself as a counterweight to President Donald Trump.

Critics say Moore hasn’t been aggressive enough in using bare-knuckle tactics to push through his agenda. Supporters say the first-term governor is focused on redistricting because he sees it as vital to his future national ambitions. Some national Democrats question whether Moore can lead the nation if he fails to bend lawmakers in a solidly blue state with a Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact his policy priorities. POLITICO spoke to almost two dozen state and federal lawmakers and Democratic strategists for this story.

David Turner, Moore’s senior adviser and communications director, said the governor spearheading Maryland’s redistricting effort is not about furthering his political career.

“Anyone who thinks this is about national ambitions isn’t paying enough attention to the damage being done in 2026,” he said. “The Governor has been clear: at a time when other states are discussing mid-decade redistricting, Maryland needs to as well.”

Moore’s inability to convince enough Maryland Democratic senators to go along with redrawing maps has drawn unfavorable comparisons to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another likely 2028 White House contender who successfully pushed through a major redistricting effort in his state. After California voters approved the state’s redistricting proposal, Newsom urged other states, including Maryland, to “contribute a verse” in the party’s gerrymandering push.

“If he did kind of match Gavin in terms of that effectiveness, being able to take this issue, win on it and kind of help build his image, I think that would [have been] a great opportunity for him,” said Paul Mitchell of Moore. Mitchell is a redistricting expert and architect of the newly adopted California congressional maps.

While Moore championed bills to raise the state’s minimum wage, worked to reduce Baltimore’s homicide rate to near 50-year lows and helped Marylanders cover soaring energy costs, in December, Maryland Democrats overrode at least 16 of the governor’s vetoes — tying his predecessor, GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, for the most he had in a single year during his two terms. That included one override veto over an issue that peeved many Black lawmakers months earlier: Moore’s blockage of the formation of a commission to study reparations in the state.

Weeks after his reparations veto, Moore traveled to an early presidential primary state to deliver the keynote remarks at the South Carolina Democrats Blue Palmetto Dinner, where he said: “Gone are the days when we are the party of bureaucracy, multi-year studies, panels and college debate club rules.”

It is a stark illustration of the criticism that’s followed Moore since he cruised to victory in his first-ever election four years ago: that he’s using the governor’s mansion as a springboard to Washington instead of doing the work of building relationships in Annapolis to get his bills across the finish line.

“Truly, Wes Moore is a great candidate…He has the pizzazz and the swagger that some folks wish they could have,” a Democratic strategist who has worked on state, local and presidential campaigns said and granted anonymity to offer an unvarnished assessment of Moore. “But the operations of his political tentacles are weak. His inside political network is weak.”

Moore addressed some of this criticism head on last week, where the tension was palpable during a joint address of the General Assembly.

“I will not stand here and tell you that I have gotten it all right,” Moore said in his State of the State address Wednesday. “It’s taken time to build relationships. It’s taken time to learn Annapolis. I am an outsider at heart, and I don’t see that changing,” he said before ramping up to a central theme of his remarks – and pressuring Senate Democrats to take up a congressional redistricting bill.

He characterized his months-long public tussle with Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson as “a very principled disagreement.”

Though the Maryland House of Delegates approved legislation Moore backed to redraw the seat of the state’s lone Republican, House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s gerrymandering effort is still being blocked in the state Senate.

Ferguson has maintained he will not bring the bill up for a vote, saying there is not enough support for it in his chamber, it’s legally risky and adopting the new maps would jeopardize Maryland’s current 7-1 advantage.

Many national Democrats have pressured Ferguson and other holdouts, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who in an interview with CNN on Sunday suggested he would travel to Annapolis to meet with Ferguson.

Two Moore aides, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, also point out that top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who previously served in the Maryland Senate, penned a letter to state lawmakers this week calling it a “clear and present danger” not to act. Raskin also sought to undercut Ferguson’s legal justification for not acting, pointing to recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing both Texas and California to use their redrawn maps ahead of the midterms. But the Senate leader appears unswayed.

“I think the miscalculation is that a lot of people are being led to believe that it’s only Bill who doesn’t want the map,” said one Maryland Legislative Black Caucus member granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics.

Maryland’s Feb. 24 candidate filing deadline is quickly approaching — the date Ferguson and supporters say any changes beyond that date will be too late and overly disruptive to the state elections calendar.

The two Moore aides argued that it is an arbitrary deadline and pointed to legislation working its way through the Maryland House pushing the filing deadline to late March.

A December poll by University of Maryland, Baltimore County found just 27 percent of Maryland residents said redrawing maps was a top issue, signaling affordability and quality education were top of mind.

Maryland-based Democratic strategist Len Foxwell said Moore’s attempts so far to win over voters in the state have been too focused on cable television and podcast appearances, adding the governor’s redistricting push never gained steam because he and his team “botched the rollout so badly.”

Instead of engaging in the kind of aggressive public relations campaign that Newsom launched to sell voters on the need to gerrymander, Moore created an advisory commission to solicit public input. Its meetings were held virtually and typically at odd hours, with most proceedings taking place late on Friday afternoons. The outcome of whether the commission was going to recommend new maps was never in doubt.

“The work of the commission was a rather dreary exercise in muscle-flexing,” Foxwell said. “The clear message was that we are doing this because we can do it. And I don’t think that was a message that was satisfying.”

Moore hasn’t deployed scorched-earth tactics against Ferguson, unlike the kind Trump encouraged where he threatened to primary Indiana Republicanswho wouldn’t support his attempt to gerrymander in the Hoosier state. Indiana Senate Republicans ultimately blocked Trump’s push.

Jeffries, who could become the nation’s first Black speaker should Democrats take back the U.S. House this fall, said during a hastily arranged press conference in the U.S. Capitol in late January that Marylanders “deserve an up or down vote.” Moore, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeffries, looked on as the Democratic congressional leader directed his disdain toward Ferguson, though he never named him.

Behind the scenes, Jeffries and other top Democrats backing Moore are working around Ferguson by leaning on the Black Caucus to force a rarely-used state Senate procedure to discharge the redistricting bill out of the chamber’s Rules Committee. If it’s successful it will force a floor vote on the House-passed bill. But just one member of the Black Caucus is openly supporting that tactic and the prevailing thought is the legislation will sit in purgatory until the General Assembly session ends in April.

The Maryland Legislative Black Caucus member added that while Moore is seen as a rising Democratic star on the national stage, there is work to be done by the governor in Annapolis.

“I think it’s that his folks are trying to insulate him from some things,” the lawmaker continued. “Because if he starts to have those relationships, then he’s going to start to hear that some of these ideas that he has are not necessarily the best, and that becomes a problem for some of his national aspirations.”

​Politics

The partial government shutdown that went into effect Saturday is throwing the fate of oversight at the Department of Homeland Security into peril, with the department’s independent watchdog warning a lapse in funding could jeopardize several ongoing investigations.

DHS’s inspector general currently has eight active probes into the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown, including reviews of the use of facial recognition and allegations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents using excessive force.

But with a lapse in funding for DHS, the Office of the Inspector General has been forced to suspend approximately 85 percent of its audits, evaluations and inspections, according to the OIG.

Congressional Democrats are demanding sweeping reforms to ICE and Customs and Border Patrol before they’ll vote to fund DHS, including requirements that immigration enforcement agents wear body cameras and display their ID numbers and last names. With Senate Republicans and the White House refusing to budge on several key demands — including a proposed prohibition on federal agents wearing masks — the department is likely to remain unfunded for at least 10 days.

Democrats in Congress first asked Joseph Cuffari, the DHS inspector general President Donald Trump appointed during his first term, to investigate the use of force by ICE agents last June. The lawmakers, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, wrote to Cuffari earlier this month asking him to expedite the probe, citing the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis as underscoring the “urgent need” for moving quickly.

Republicans have raised concern about the shutdown’s effect on DHS agencies like TSA and FEMA, although it will likely take weeks for the public to start feeling the effects of the funding lapse.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that “OIG investigations provide transparency and accountability, and any delay in funding will only disrupt these important efforts,” adding that the DHS appropriations bill passed in the House provided “critical funding” for the office.

“As we experience yet another DHS shutdown because Senate Democrats refused to pass this legislation, I urge them to negotiate in good faith so we can ensure these resources and the resources for numerous other components, like FEMA and TSA, are not held hostage because of Washington’s dysfunction,” he said.

ICE, on the other hand, is largely insulated from the effects of the shutdown, with GOP lawmakers having appropriated billions of dollars for the agency in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.

But the lapse in funding raises several potential obstacles to the ability of members of Congress and investigators to conduct oversight of the agency. During the last government shutdown, ICE quietly furloughed most of its congressional relations team and blocked lawmakers from visiting immigration detention facilities. (Prior to the shutdown, Democratic lawmakers on several occasions clashed with DHS over their attempts to inspect detention facilities.)

And with approximately 60 percent of the OIG’s workforce furloughed — including auditors, data scientists and inspectors — only special agents like criminal investigators and personnel whose work is supported by secondary funding sources, like the Disaster Relief Fund, can continue working through the shutdown, per the office.

The effect of the funding lapse for the inspector general’s work is also slated to affect the office’s reviews of the Secret Service’s handling of the July 2024 assassination attempt against Trump, in addition to probes of DHS’s cybersecurity and counterintelligence operations.

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency — an independent government entity that lays out annual legislative priorities focused on government oversight and accountability — has for years called on Congress to establish authority for IGs to continue oversight during government shutdowns.

Mark Greenblatt, who served as the Department of the Interior’s inspector general from 2019 until 2025, said while criminal investigations can sometimes continue despite a lapse in funding, IG offices are forced to pause oversight reviews, ceding valuable time on sensitive audits during shutdowns.

“These situations are raw. They need an independent voice providing facts on what’s happening on the ground with respect to these sensitive issues,” said Greenblatt, who was one of several IGs dismissed by Trump last year. “When they push the pause button on these things, they’re not delivering for the American people, and that, to me, is the problem.”

Democrats have accused DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of deliberately attempting to stymie the OIG’s ongoing probes. In a letter sent to Noem earlier this month, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) cautioned that “repeated tacit threats from your Office of the Secretary to DHS OIG may have already succeeded in weakening DHS OIG’s operational independence.”

That warning came after Duckworth met with Cuffari to discuss why her request for an independent investigation into use of force by federal agents during ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago was denied. During the meeting, she wrote in the letter, Duckworth learned that DHS’s general counsel advised the OIG on several occasions that Noem has the power to halt its investigations.

Cabinet secretaries are empowered by a 1978 law to prevent the OIG from carrying out audits or investigations if they determine the reviews could put national security at risk.

“This broad authority effectively empowers you to select from a broad range of pretextual options to unilaterally prevent or halt any ‘independent’ DHS OIG investigation, regardless of your true intent,” Duckworth wrote.

No DHS secretary has ever invoked the provision, Duckworth wrote in the letter.

​Politics

Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats.

It’s a delicate pivot for Republicans in South Texas, who spent years taking a hardline approach on immigration and flipped historically blue districts in the process.

Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, representing a majority-Hispanic district, has gone from calling for mass deportations to focusing on the “worst of the worst.” In lieu of expediting removals, she wants to create new visa categories for undocumented workers to fill jobs in construction and agriculture. And instead of slamming the Biden White House for its “border failure,” she’s setting up private meetings at the Trump White House to plead for temperance in immigration enforcement.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district shares hundreds of miles with Mexico, wants his party to talk more about the border, and said he plans to “continue to advocate that the Republican Party needs to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens” amid broad outrage over deportations of undocumented people with no proven risk to public safety.

Like other Republicans, they are trying to slowly distance themselves from the massive immigration crackdown that has quickly become political kryptonite for the GOP — but without being seen as disloyal to the president or undercutting their previous positions.

“President Trump made a promise, and he’s kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” De La Cruz said in an interview. “Now we’re at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”

Republicans’ efforts to change the conversation will test their ability to maintain, or even extend, Trump’s 2024 gains with Hispanic voters — and play a pivotal role in the fight for control of Congress in November. A slew of polls in recent weeks has shown many Hispanic voters across the country, repulsed by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, are souring on the Republican president they supported to a historic degree in 2024.

It’s a warning the White House appears to be taking seriously. In recent weeks, after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by an immigration enforcement officer in Minneapolis, the White House has signaled openness to paring back its deportation operation. On Thursday, border czar Tom Homan announced the administration’s massive immigration surge in Minneapolis would come to a close.

Latino voters’ embrace of Trump was a political earthquake, and South Texas was the epicenter.

De La Cruz’s district — which sprawls from the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border up to the San Antonio suburbs — was represented by a Democrat in Congress for 120 years before De La Cruz won her seat in 2022. In 2024, Trump romped to an 18-point victory.

The 15th Congressional District was among those redrawn by the Texas legislature’s redistricting gambit last year, offering De La Cruz an even more favorable electorate. But that bet relies heavily on Hispanic voters sticking with the GOP: Nearly 80 percent of the district identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and if those voters flip back to the Democratic Party or stay home, it could erase much of the new map’s intended friendliness to Republicans.

“With the border secure and Latinos responding to ICE raids and government overreach, the districts that Republicans thought were their future a year ago are likely to be their undoing,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who is a frequent critic of Trump. “Hard to find another situation in the past 50 years where a political party has squandered a generational opportunity like this.”

Flipping De La Cruz’s district is a top objective for House Democrats this cycle, who are salivating at the prospect of winning back Latino voters. She’ll face either Bobby Pulido, a Tejano music star with widespread name ID recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or Ana Cuellar, an ER doctor who has an impressive penchant for fundraising.

Local Republicans have begun sounding the alarm.

Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said “Biden’s border chaos” was directly responsible for Texas Republicans’ victories in recent election cycles, including De La Cruz’s, but that moving toward the other extreme — a harsh crackdown — could again dissuade Hispanic voters who might otherwise support the GOP.

“We don’t have to be a nation that has to decide between an ‘everybody-in’ or an ‘everybody-out’ approach,” Garza said. “I honestly feel that the counties across the entire Texan border shifted to the right because of the border chaos. … But this sort of everybody-out approach, I think, is also causing some reflection.”

The immigration crackdown has wreaked havoc for the area’s business community. Greg LaMantia, who runs a major beer wholesaler in the region, said his company’s sales are down as a result of the raids. “You have people that are legal that are scared to death to get caught up in this fiasco and deported,” said LaMantia, who voted for Trump and has donated recently to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. “It’s caused sales to go down, no doubt about it. It’s chaos.”

Daniel Guerrero, CEO of the McAllen-based South Texas Builders Association, said rampant ICE activity has sent a shiver through the construction industry, leading to massive delays. He said ICE is notorious for following concrete trucks to job sites, then apprehending workers as they begin pouring a foundation, leaving half-poured concrete slabs.

“The sentiment is pretty clear across the table, that nobody really expected this magnitude of enforcement,” said Guerrero, who voted for Trump and De La Cruz in 2024.

He said the Hispanic Trump supporters he knows are souring on this administration, an observation supported by recent polling. In the latest warning sign, Latino voters helped a Democrat flip a reliably red seat in Fort Worth last month. Taylor Rehmet, who picked up a state Senate seat in a special election, won about 4 out of 5 Hispanic votes across the district, a massive 26-point improvement over Kamala Harris in 2024.

Many Republicans are trying to steer the discussion around immigration to focus on how border crossings have dropped to historic lows under Trump — which they hope will remind Hispanic voters why they should stick with the GOP.

“The Hispanic population gives President Trump and Republicans a lot of leeway with just how bad things were before and where they’re at now,” said Gonzales, whose sprawling border district is majority Hispanic. “They have a lot of leeway to get a lot of runway, if you will.”

De La Cruz successfully ran in 2024 on deportations and the “worst border security crisis in our nation’s history.” Now she’s proposing a new visa category, H-2C, allowing employers like those in construction and hospitality to hire foreign workers. She also introduced legislation which would expand the H-2A visa category for seasonal agricultural workers.

In recent weeks, De La Cruz said she has taken constituents to meet with the Labor Department, the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson, pitching them on her bills and encouraging the administration to change its tact on immigration enforcement.

“There’s limited resources, period. And we want those limited resources to be focused on the worst of the worst, the criminal immigrants that have come in,” De La Cruz said. “We have legal immigrants in our district who have work visas that they don’t want to go out to work because some may have fear about the process that is currently being administered.”

But De La Cruz’s shift in messaging has simultaneously earned skepticism from some industry leaders and frustration with the base, underscoring the political tightrope she must walk until November.

Guerrero, the construction nonprofit leader, said he sensed political opportunism in De La Cruz’s newfound interest in helping his industry.

“People feel abandoned because you never showed face, and now that there’s an actual crisis, you want to show face?” Guerrero said. “It’s like, dude, it’s a little too late, man.”

The MAGA base, meanwhile, doesn’t love the shift, either. Patricio County GOP Chair Rex Warner thinks De La Cruz has become too soft on deportations. “I align with some of it, but very little,” he said.

​Politics

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is using his book tour and 2026 reelection campaign to further build out a national fundraising network that could prove quite useful in a potential 2028 run.

The governor held a fundraising event over lunch while visiting Massachusetts for his book tour last month, two people familiar with the planning for it confirmed — making it at least the third fundraiser he attended in the last year in the deep-blue state with deep-pocketed donors who have long bankrolled presidential contenders. One of the others was held at the home of Jewish philanthropist and New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft in April, details of which have not previously been reported. Shapiro attended another on Nantucket, a summer fundraising mecca, in July, according to an attendee and invitations obtained by POLITICO.

They add to an extensive list of networking events for the possible White House aspirant who’s long been a prolific fundraiser within and beyond Pennsylvania.

He amassed $23 million in 2025 with the help of $2.5 million from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; $1 million from a Soros family PAC, $500,000 from James and Kathryn Murdoch, the left-leaning son and daughter in law of Rupert Murdoch; and over $120,000 from Kraft and his father, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. That’s helped him build a $30 million war chest to unleash this year against his likely GOP opponent, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who raised nearly $1.5 million last year and had $1 million in the bank to start 2026.

His book tour side-hustle comes as several of Shapiro’s would-be rivals for the Democratic nomination in 2028 take donor meetings across the country as they navigate their own reelection bids and start laying the groundwork for White House runs.

Shapiro routinely dismisses talk of 2028 in public, keeping a laser focus on his reelection bid and on his efforts to help Democrats down the ballot.

“No one should be looking past these midterms,” the governor recently told reporters in Washington, D.C., who were peppering him with hypotheticals.

Sources say he is just as disciplined behind closed doors: Shapiro has kept his pitch focused on his leadership in purple Pennsylvania and how Democrats should be centering pocketbook issues in the midterms, while declining to engage with questions about his future beyond 2026, according to two people who attended donor events with Shapiro last year.

“The smartest thing Shapiro and other folks on the ballot in 2026 can do right now is say ‘I’m running for reelection right now and I’m in the middle of the fight.’ [It] makes ‘26 a nice little audition for their eventual 2028 runs,” said Alex Hoffman, a Democratic strategist and donor adviser.

His out-of-state networking is already paying off. Shapiro raked in over $700,000 from prominent donors in Massachusetts alone in 2025, including $260,000 from construction magnate John Fish and $50,000 from telecommunications tycoon Robert Hale. He also hauled in cash from Hollywood bigwigs and tech titans, including $100,000 from Sony film executive Tom Rothman and $200,000 from Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

But the governor’s expansive donor pool is also drawing scrutiny. Garrity has called on Shapiro to return over $2 million his campaign has taken over the years from billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who is referenced repeatedly in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Hoffman gave $500,000 to Shapiro last year. Shapiro also received $50,000 from New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who is also mentioned in the Epstein files, as is Robert Kraft. Both Hoffman and Tisch have issued statements distancing themselves from the late convict.

“Stacy Garrity should stop playing politics with the Epstein files. Donald Trump is mentioned in the files over 5,000 times. Is she going to ask him to rescind his endorsement?” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement. Bonder declined comment on the governor’s fundraisers.

He’ll need to keep building out that network. Shapiro has benefited from what longtime Pennsylvania Democratic strategist Neil Oxman described as “institutional donors” in the state who’ve given to successive Democratic governors. But of “the thousands of people who raise money nationally, he probably knows a fraction of them. He has some [national] recognition, but he’s not Gavin Newsom. He’s not the Clintons.”

Shapiro also won’t be able to use the gobs of money he’s raised for his state campaign account to fund a run for federal office, leaving him at an initial disadvantage against other potential 2028ers who are already squirreling away millions of dollars into federal leadership committees, super PACs and congressional campaign accounts that can be converted when the time comes.

“That’s why sometimes it’s hard to run for office when you have to run for another office,” Oxman said.

A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.

​Politics

Fetterman on ICE, Israel and identifying as a Democrat | The Conversation

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​Politics

Rahm Emanuel is embarking on a three-day swing through the crucial swing-state of Michigan this weekend. But he’s not just dropping in to help boost down-ballot Democratic candidates — he’s also visiting some trade schools to unveil yet another policy proposal.

The moves raise the question: Is he presenting the planks of a larger platform that he can run on for president? Or is he headfaking a run to build buzz and draw interest to his ideas, redirecting the field to where he thinks the party’s intellectual center of gravity should be?

“I’m going to continue to lay out changes — reforms — that I think address the challenges Americans are facing today. And that is how to get an education that affords and ensures access to the American dream,” Emanuel said in an interview when asked about his motivations.

His latest plan is aimed at helping military service members transition back to civilian life through the skilled trades.

The proposal would give 20,000 departing service members a $10,000 tax-free sign-on bonus to enroll in a registered apprenticeship to become electricians, carpenters, plumbers and construction workers over a five-year period. The $200 million plan would be paid for by eliminating a tax “giveaway” from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act for private colleges, Emanuel said.

“We do a signing bonus of $50,000 to go into ICE and become a lawless mob, yet we have people that have the potential to be a carpenter, electrician, a pipe fitter, an operating engineer, a laborer, and we don’t do anything,” said Emanuel.

His plan is his fourth policy rollout in almost as many months, and months before the midterm election that most Democrats are focused on, as well as years ahead of what could be a crowded 2028 presidential primary. His other proposals include banning children under 16 from social media; forcing public officials to retire at 75; and boosting literacy. And he has said he is ramping up his 2026travel outside of the coasts to the middle of the country.

Emanuel’s blizzard of white papers stands in contrast to his potential 2028 foes.

Many of Emanuel’s would-be rivals are still in office and can point to concrete governing or legislating proposals. Others eyeing a run who are back in private life have sought different paths, like former Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who has been traveling and promoting her book, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig, who recently held a Wisconsin town hall and has been making the rounds on the podcast circuit.

But Emanuel, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, Chicago mayor, White House chief of staff and congressman, doesn’t currently have an official day job to leverage to execute policy changes or get himself noticed. He’s instead spent more time on cable TV and podcasts while developing what amounts to an education policy vision.

“There are some people that want to emphasize the resistance to Donald Trump, and there’s a lot to resist. I am about fighting for America as much as about fighting Donald Trump,” Emanuel said.

He cited several recent moments that have shaped his thinking, including a warning from Michigan-based Ford CEO Jim Farley, who has issued a warning that the U.S. faces a one-million jobs shortage of skilled workers. He also mentioned a private dinner with Dario Amodei, the CEO of the fast-growing AI startup Anthropic. “No AI can destroy these jobs,” Emanuel told POLITICO.

At one point in explaining his belief in the “power of ideas” to shape politics, Emanuel seemed to suggest the idea of running before catching himself.

“If you’re going to r— think about public life,” he said, redirecting his sentence midstream, “you got to answer these challenges.”

​Politics

President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to personally attack Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt over a debacle regarding the upcoming annual governors’ weekend in Washington.

“We will soon have a Governor in Oklahoma who knows how to accurately write a Press Release to the Public, in this case, to state that I invited, not happily, almost all Democrat Governors to the Governor’s Dinner at the White House,” Trump wrote in a Thursday Truth Social post. “Stitt, a wiseguy, knew this, but tried to get some cheap publicity by stating otherwise.”

Trump’s latest criticism against the Republican comes after Stitt, who serves as chair of the National Governors Association, became embroiled in a back-and-forth over whether Democrats would be invited to the routinely bipartisan governors event. Stitt at one point announced that a bipartisan business meeting with the president would be removed from the NGA’s agenda for the weekend because the White House said Democrats would be excluded from the event.

After a conversation with Trump, Stitt informed governors on Wednesday that all governors would be invited to the meeting, attributing the dispute to a “misunderstanding in scheduling,” according to a letter viewed by POLITICO.

But that wasn’t enough to salve the president’s displeasure: In a Wednesday afternoon social media post — after Democrats had begun receiving invitations to the meeting — Trump took to Truth Social to lament that “as usual with him, Stitt got it WRONG!”

All governors were welcome at the event, Trump wrote, except two Democrats: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — the latter of whom had already received a formal invitation to the meeting at the time of the post, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In the Thursday morning post, Trump took credit for Stitt’s victory in his last race for governor, writing that the Republican “was massively behind his Opponent in his previous Election for Governor” and “called me to ask for help.”

Trump added: “I Endorsed him (Barely!), and he won his Race,” but the president eagerly anticipated the arrival of the governor’s successor. Stitt is term-limited and cannot seek another term when his current one expires in 2027.

A spokesperson for Stitt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for the NGA declined to comment on the post.

Stitt’s position atop the NGA has put him at odds with the president on at least one other occasion, when the Oklahoma Republican broke with his party to criticize the administration’s cross-state National Guard deployments last year.

The dispute regarding the upcoming NGA weekend has reignited tensions within the association, with 18 Democratic governors vowing to boycott a bipartisan dinner over the White House’s handling of the invitations.

With regard to the event, Trump wrote Thursday: “I’ll see whoever shows up at the White House, the fewer the better!”

​Politics

Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.

After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.

That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.

Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.

“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.

Virginia is one of only two states where the legislature elects Supreme Court justices. Because the state has had divided control for much of the past quarter century, the balance of the court’s justices were appointed by bipartisan compromise. The court’s current seven members include one justice who was elected when Democrats had sole control of the General Assembly, three when Republicans controlled both chambers and three when control of the legislature was split.

“I voted for all these people – every one of them — and I don’t think any of them are overly political. And they shouldn’t be,” said Virginia House of Delegates Minority Leader Del. Terry Kilgore (R), who said he thinks the court will rule in his side’s favor. “They just should follow the law. If they do, we win.”

The question before the Virginia Supreme Court is not if, but when, new maps are allowed to go into effect — and whether they’ll be in place for this year’s midterms.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed legislation scheduling a statewide referendum for April 21 last week, asking voters to grant state lawmakers the power to redraw federal Congressional lines immediately. It came a day after Democratic state lawmakers unveiled proposed maps that aim to tilt the congressional map 10-1, potentially handing Democrats four more House seats and leaving just one Republican in the federal delegation.

But a wrench was thrown in their plans when a circuit court judge in conservative Tazewell County ruled late last month that Virginia Democrats did not follow proper procedure when initiating the constitutional amendment.

To change the Virginia Constitution is a multi-step process, requiring approval by two separate sessions of the General Assembly with a statewide general election for the House of Delegates taking place in between those sessions.

Judge Jack Hurley ruled that because early voting was already underway when the General Assembly first passed the amendment last October, it should not count as the first step. If the Virginia Supreme Court agrees, the earliest the state could enact new maps is after the next legislative election in 2027 — a blow to Democrats’ hopes of winning back the House this fall.

It’s a question both sides hope the top court weighs in on – and quickly.

“If they answer the question that there was not an intervening election, which, that’s the big one … then the redistricting is dead,” said former Del. Tim Anderson (R), and who is a practicing attorney. “If they say that there was an intervening election, then the redistricting amendment will go forward.”

The next opening on the court’s docket for a new case is March 2, a tight timeline since that’s the same week early voting is scheduled to begin.

Jay O’Keeffe is a left-leaning appellate attorney based in Roanoke who has argued before the top court. He said it is not uncommon for the justices’ opinions to reference Sir William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” the 18th century treatise often cited by those who interpret the law through an originalist, conservative-leaning reading of the law.

“The justices I’ve dealt with don’t seem to see themselves as political actors,”O’Keeffe said. “But you could imagine a more progressive court … approaching the whole job of judging in a different way.”

The question both Democrats and Republicans hope the Virginia Supreme Court will answer is whether the April referendum vote can proceed.

“In matters like this, the Supreme Court is going to try to call it right down the middle, and not on a political basis,” said Steve Emmert, a retired appellate lawyer. “What the parties need now is certainty, and they need it soon.”

​Politics