Category: Politics

President Donald Trump is bringing back 2020. Many Republicans wish he wouldn’t.

Conversations with nearly a dozen GOP state and county chairs and strategists reveal a party largely eager to move on from relitigating Trump’s election grievances, which they’re worried may detract from an economic message that actually motivates voters. But the president won’t let it go, subpoenaing 2020 election records and putting pressure on lawmakers to pass legislation to overhaul voter registration laws.

As Republicans stare down a treacherous midterm landscape, there’s a growing view inside the party that focusing on “stolen election” claims and voter fraud will kneecap them in the general election: That messaging might play well with the MAGA base in the primary, but it could alienate moderates tired of rehashing an election from nearly six years ago.

“I’m always one to believe you should look forward, not backward,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist and Trump convention delegate who hosted a meeting of fake electors in 2020 at his Harrisburg-based public affairs firm. “It would be better if the midterms focused on the recovery of the economy and all the good things the Republican administration and Congress are doing to move the economy forward.”

In recent weeks, Trump has turned his sights on Maricopa County — Arizona’s largest county — subpoenaing records just weeks after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta. He has revisited grievances that the 2020 election was “rigged,” suggested Republicans should nationalize elections and is demanding that lawmakers make passing the SAVE America Act, which would put in place stricter voting requirements, their “No. 1 priority.”

“Part of me understands it, and part of me just wants to move forward,” said Todd Gillman, chair of the Monroe County Republican Party in Michigan.

“Focus on the things that matter to everybody throughout the whole country,” he said, “or we’re going to have a problem in a few months.”

Trump does have backing from a number of Republicans, including some battleground-state GOP chairs who are not only embracing the president’s election probe, but openly encouraging his administration to audit their states’ records as they continue to push allegations of fraud from 2020.

Bruce Parks, the chair of the Washoe County, Nevada, GOP, said he would “absolutely” welcome a probe into his county and Clark County, the two largest in the state. And Jim Runestad, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, suggested a review of records in Detroit, long a focal point of Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies.

“There’s no problem at taking a look at this and making sure everybody’s comfortable,” Runestad said.

Still, others say the risk is that voters simply don’t care — or have moved on. Republicans, including Trump’s own advisers, increasingly want him to focus on the economy ahead of the midterms.

That comes as polling repeatedly shows that economic issues — not election issues — top voters’ list of concerns. In a February POLITICO Poll, more than half of all Americans — 52 percent — said the cost of living was a top issue facing the U.S. By comparison, less than a quarter — 23 percent — said a top issue was the U.S.’ democracy being under threat, a view held predominately by Democrats.

Those cost of living worries are now being exacerbated by Trump’s war in Iran, which is driving up gas prices and wreaking global economic havoc as it enters its third week.

The White House said Trump’s efforts are aimed at restoring confidence in elections and reiterated the importance of passing the SAVE Act.

“[Trump] is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Buzz Brockway, a GOP strategist and former state representative in Georgia, called election issues a “huge distraction,” adding: “Nobody outside of a small dedicated group are talking about this, they’re talking about the economy, they’re talking about, now, the price of oil.”

In Georgia, long an epicenter of Trump’s repeated efforts to litigate the 2020 election, some Republicans say voters are now largely “immune” to the issue that’s been rehashed endlessly for the past five years.

Some state-level GOP officials are hoping Congress passes the SAVE Act — despite the reluctance of many Republican lawmakers — so it will give them enough cover with MAGA voters but allow them to avoid talking about election issues themselves.

While Trump’s “stolen election” claims may still be a driving force for some primary voters, the general electorate is focused elsewhere. And if Republicans make those grievances central to their midterm message, they risk falling into a similar trap Democrats confronted during the 2024 presidential election — when former Vice President Kamala Harris’ warnings about democracy won over already loyal Democrats but failed to sway enough of the swing voters she needed to clinch the presidency.

“You’ve got to at least touch that base,” said one Georgia-based GOP strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But “once you’ve got the nomination, then I think it really collapses down into economic issues.”

That dynamic can create a political conundrum for Republican candidates.

“A savvy Democrat will put a candidate on the spot and say, ‘You agree with [Trump], don’t you?’ and make a mess,” Brockway said. Republicans have “got to figure out a way to deflect that question somehow, in a plausible way that doesn’t alienate this loud minority.”

​Politics

In the 15 days since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Iran, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is approaching nearly a dozen media appearances, offering his often visceral reaction to the conflict.

Gallego, a 46-year-old combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, has emerged as a blunt, clear voice for the Democratic Party on foreign policy, speaking as someone whose own generation experienced the forever wars.

There he was on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlin Collins” saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio was doing “CYA” and noting that the “MAGA base is pissed.” There he was sitting down with the AP speaking “as someone who lives with PTSD,” adding “it’s not been an easy week.” And there he was on Derek Thompson’s podcast, speaking about “going town to town searching for insurgents” 21 years ago, “but there was no clear direction of what victory looked like, what the end goal was, what was going to be the after-action report on Iraq.”

Gallego isn’t alone. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy captain who flew combat missions during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, has also racked up a run of high-profile media appearances, as has former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who served in Afghanistan in the Army’s 82nd Airborne, went on local radio this week to link Americans’ affordability woes to the war.

In a year after many Democrats pined for a metaphorical fighter, the party is now having a conversation with itself about whether it needs a literal fighter — a veteran who can speak with credibility on issues of war and national security.

In an interview with POLITICO, Gallego spoke of “dodging bullets, IEDs, RPGs, clearing towns and then coming back to the same towns with insurgents” and of “losing friends and still not understanding what the end goal was the whole time.”

“It leaves a mark on you, and you start seeing it happening again, you know, you don’t really think about the politics,” Gallego said. “You think about the people who are going to be potentially dying. And that’s why I think I was not hesitant to speak my mind on that.”

Later this month in San Antonio, Texas, Gallego will join VoteVets Action for its third town hall featuring potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, promising “fresh voices to the national conversation — those who have worn the uniform and served alongside us, who connect with everyday Americans others can’t,” according to a promotional video. (They’ve also done town halls with Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.)

“On foreign policy, the Dems need a candidate who is seen as strong/tough — not in rhetoric or bravado political platitudes but who conveys a sense of judgement and resolve with which voters connect instinctively,” said Doug Wilson, the former assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Obama administration and co-lead of Buttigieg’s 2020 foreign policy team.

The “Iran war underscores the need” for such a candidate, Wilson added.

Whomever the Democrats select as their nominee could potentially face a Situation Room-steeped ticket deep with national security credentials, including a Marine Iraq war veteran in Vice President JD Vance or Rubio, with his secretary of State experience.

Depending on how the many conflicts the U.S. is engaged in at the moment resolve, that experience could cut against them.

But right now, Democrats who can match those bona fides have some currency others without them can’t.

“That’s obviously going to be helpful to them,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “It’s gonna be a big part of what they’re talking about for the next little while. But you know, how long does it last? We just don’t know, right? In my professional lifetime, foreign policy stuff and national security has mattered in a presidential race once — in 2004. That’s it. Otherwise, it comes up, but it’s not driving the conversation.”

Some potential Democratic candidates without such credentials have still managed to break through amid the Iran news cycle. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has said the White House has treated aspects of the war “as a video game,” in a clip gaining traction on X. “When American service members killed in action are returning to the United States in flagged-draped coffins, and even more Americans have lost limbs or suffered terrible brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this White House treats war like a game, and it’s a disgrace,” Ossoff said.

When asked whether military service is an essential for the party’s eventual nominee, Gallego acknowledged there is a benefit for someone who can “speak with that type of credibility.”

“I’m not the type of person that’s like, ‘you have to be a veteran — Iraq War veteran,’” Gallego said. “This is a democracy. We’re still one, and there’s a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But you know, someone that actually has a nuanced understanding of foreign policy; that doesn’t go to the total knee-jerk reactionism that sometimes we see where we go to the point of, you know, isolationism; or the other way, where we go to full neocon. There needs to be a very balanced way to how we approach the world.”

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​Politics

Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) has locked down his House district for over a decade. Democrats think his Senate bid presents them an opening in a seat that has raced away from the party.

Kentucky’s 6th District — anchored by Lexington in the heart of the Bluegrass State — hasn’t elected a Democrat to Congress since Ben Chandler in 2010. Barr has held the seat since 2013 and has proven difficult to dislodge. The last time a Democrat came close was in 2018, when fundraising juggernaut Amy McGrath came within about 3 points of defeating him.

But Barr won his last reelection in 2024 by 26 points, outperforming President Donald Trump, who carried the district by 15 points according to calculations from The Downballot.

If Barr had sought another term, Democrats privately concede they stood little chance.

But with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) retiring and Barr opting to run for his seat, a rare open seat is now in play — and firmly on Democrats’ target list.

In the Democratic primary, two candidates have emerged as frontrunners, according to national Democrats watching the race: Zach Dembo, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor, and Cherlynn Stevenson, a former Kentucky state representative. Each is offering a different theory for how to flip the deep-red district.

The question of how a Democrat could win the seat dominated a Democratic primary debate earlier this month, where candidates leaned on sharp criticisms of the Trump administration, ranging from its decision to strike Iran to affordability issues as a result of the president’s tariffs.

Stevenson has branded herself a “Mountain Democrat,” leaning into her Appalachian roots and pitching herself as someone who could mend the disconnect between the party and rural voters by focusing on cost-of-living pressures and access to affordable health care. She said her upbringing in a small mining town in eastern Kentucky and years living in Lexington allow her to bridge the district’s urban-rural divide.

“Winning right here in Kentucky requires cultural fluency and trust,” Stevenson said in an interview. “I know how to talk to working families, rural communities and independents because I am one of those people.”

She’s also got experience flipping seats. She was the first woman and first Democrat elected to represent Kentucky’s 88th state House district, where she also served as state House minority caucus chair.

Dembo, meanwhile, is pitching himself as a “Beshear Democrat” — a nod to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who performed well in the 6th District during his 2023 reelection campaign.

“This is 100 percent a flippable district,” Dembo said in an interview, pointing to headwinds from “all of the terrible decisions of this Republican Congress.”

He has emphasized his experience as a Navy JAG officer and former federal prosecutor, arguing his resume gives him crossover appeal in a Republican-leaning district. Dembo resigned from his position at the Justice Department during Trump’s second term, saying he could no longer remain in his role amid what he described as corruption and the Trump administration’s “abuse of the criminal justice system.”

Both Dembo and Stevenson have posted solid fundraising numbers. And Republicans have a contested primary as well, in a race that includes state Rep. Ryan Dotson and former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado.

“We’re giving Republicans a run for their money in places that they never thought they would have to compete before, and now they do,” said DCCC spokesperson Madison Andrus.

But the race will still be incredibly challenging for Democrats, even though the DCCC has had the seat on its “Red to Blue” battleground list. Kentucky’s federal delegation remains overwhelmingly GOP. The seat also got nominally redder during the post-2022 redistricting process, making it even tougher terrain than during McGrath’s close call in the last Trump administration midterms eight years ago.

Most election watchers believe the seat is well outside the core House battleground as well, and it has not attracted notable outside spending, underscoring how steep the climb would be for Democrats to win even without an incumbent on the ballot.

Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ optimism outright.

“Democrats have been enjoying too much bourbon because their Kentucky 6 wishes are delusional,” said NRCC spokesperson Zach Bannon. “Republicans are poised to keep KY-06 red to retain and expand our majority.”

​Politics

Democrats in competitive primaries keep fighting about corporate PAC money. It has opened up a muddy and sometimes performative debate.

The issue has played out in contested Senate primaries, where Democrats have pledged not to accept corporate PAC money to signal their support for campaign finance reform and show voters that they are not beholden to special interests. Among the Democrats seeking to distinguish themselves: Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in Illinois, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, and both state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Corporate PACs, which raise money from their employees and distribute it to candidates, usually give in similar amounts to Republicans and Democrats. For several cycles, a growing number of Democratic candidates have sworn off the money, citing the outsized influence of business interests on politics.

But for many, the pledges not to take the money are mostly symbolic. Candidates who aren’t currently in office receive almost no corporate PAC donations anyway, as more than 99 percent of those funds have gone to sitting senators or representatives this cycle, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. And rejecting one specific type of donation doesn’t actually mean candidates can’t receive support from outside interests — often in much larger amounts than corporate PACs are allowed to send.

Corporate PAC money can also still end up indirectly supporting new candidates: A majority of Democratic senators receive the funding, as do official party groups, both of which donate to and otherwise help Senate hopefuls.

As a result, the escalating debate over corporate PAC money has comparatively little impact on Democratic candidates’ ability to raise money — but it has created an opening for heated attacks from all sides.

Stratton rejected donations from corporate PACs, but millions of dollars in support she has received from a super PAC has been the focus of a flurry of attack ads from Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), one of her top rivals who himself has received millions in super PAC support. Flanagan and McMorrow have both faced criticism for accepting corporate money in past roles, despite their pledges not to do so in their respective Senate races now.

While the push by some Democrats to reject corporate money goes back several cycles, even emerging as a point of contention in the party’s 2020 presidential primary, the focus in Senate primaries is newer.

For Democrats looking for any advantage in crowded races, rejecting the money carries potential electoral benefits. Polling shows the issue resonates not only with a Democratic base interested in money-in-politics reform but also with independent and Republican voters.

“Pledging to forego corporate PAC money is one way that candidates signal to voters that they reject business as usual in Washington and want to work to fix our broken campaign finance system,” said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Still, “even when a candidate rejects a PAC check, there are still ways for corporate interests to curry favor,” Beckel said.

The debate among Democrats comes at a time when corporate PACs account for a smaller share of funds influencing races. Corporate PACs face strict limits for their political giving, $5,000 per cycle, a number that has not changed in decades, even as individual giving limits are indexed to inflation. Far more funds now flow through super PACs — which candidates are free to criticize but don’t have to reject.

And the questions are unlikely to fade: The Democratic National Committee has sought to explore how it could limit corporate money, along with harder-to-trace “dark money” that flows through nonprofit groups, in the party’s 2028 presidential primary.

“I think it just shows this fundamental shift even inside the Democratic Party, that running on anti-corruption is no longer a niche position,” said Tiffany Mueller, president of End Citizens United, which backs Democrats supportive of campaign finance reform and has, since 2018, had candidates sign pledges that include a promise to reject corporate PAC money.

The group’s pledge this cycle, which includes several money-in-politics reforms, has gotten signers quicker than past pledges, Mueller said.

In Illinois, where early voting is already underway ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Stratton has made rejecting corporate PAC money a key component of her campaign in a three-way primary against Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Robin Kelly. The lieutenant governor, who was endorsed by End Citizens United, accused both opponents of benefiting from a “broken” campaign finance system.

“I’m the only candidate rejecting corporate PAC money, because my campaign is about the people of Illinois, not special interests,” she said in a statement.

Kelly, in an interview, defended her own record of accepting some donations from corporate PACs, saying that the funds over the years supported Democrats and never influenced her voting record. She noted the much greater flow of super PAC money supporting both of her opponents.

“When I came to Congress, I didn’t know my dues were going to be the level that they were. I didn’t know that I was expected to give money to my other colleagues, or people that wanted to be my colleagues,” Kelly said. “And frankly, the money I collect, that’s where a lot of it has gone through the years, paying dues to the DCCC.”

While Stratton has sought to carve out a lane as the reformer, Krishnamoorthi’s campaign has gone after her finances, with ads running on both television and digital accusing her of taking “corporate and MAGA money” and calling attention to a super PAC backing her. Krishnamoorthi’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Stratton has benefited from $11.8 million from a super PAC linked to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, with additional support from the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s Association. Meanwhile Fairshake, backed by major cryptocurrency interests, has spent nearly $10 million attacking her to help Krishnamoorthi.

The scrutiny on corporate PAC money in primaries comes as a majority of sitting Democratic senators continue to take those donations for their campaigns and leadership PACs. That includes several senators who have actively been endorsing in the primaries, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Ct.), who has endorsed Flanagan in Minnesota, and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who has endorsed both Flanagan and McMorrow.

Corporate PACs can — and do — give larger donations to party committees. That has been a point of conflict in Minnesota, where opponent Rep. Angie Craig has hit Flanagan for corporate PAC donations accepted by the DLGA while she was its chair. The group is now backing her campaign along with Stratton’s.

Flanagan’s campaign has said she did not have sole decision-making power over the DLGA’s donors. In a statement to POLITICO, a spokesperson for Flanagan accused Craig of “trying to distract from the fact that she’s taken millions of dollars from corporations and special interests.”

“Peggy is the only candidate in this race to reject corporate PAC money,” the spokesperson said. Craig’s campaign declined to comment.

The divide extends from safe-seat races to the most competitive. In the Michigan Senate primary, which sets up a must-win open seat for Democrats looking to take back control of the upper chamber, the issue has already arisen in candidate forums. El-Sayed, who previously ran for governor, has sought to distinguish himself on the basis that he has never taken corporate PAC money.

“There’s only one candidate in this race who’s understood corporate money to be the central disease of our politics from day one when they ran in 2018,” said Sophie Pollock, a spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign, in a statement.

Rep. Haley Stevens, meanwhile, received donations from corporate PACs as a representative and has continued to for her Senate campaign. Her campaign spokesperson, Arik Wolk, noted she repeatedly voted for campaign finance reform and recently received an “A” grade from End Citizens United on its anti-corruption scorecard.

And although McMorrow previously accepted corporate PAC money for her state legislative campaign and leadership PAC, she has rejected it for her Senate campaign.

“As a first-time candidate, there were people who said, ‘We need to fight like the Republicans fight. If we don’t, we will lose,’” McMorrow said in an interview. “And I’ve learned through my time in the legislature that, you can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth, that people won’t trust you. And also, not only can we fund campaigns without corporate PAC dollars, but frankly, we need to.”

​Politics

Leading Washington strategist Juleanna Glover publicly argued for a third-party presidential candidate halfway through Donald Trump’s first term, calling for a “morally lucid” leader akin to abolitionist Abraham Lincoln.

At the same time, she was privately trading emails with Jeffrey Epstein — a decade after he went to jail on child prostitution charges — to share possible presidential tickets “outside the partisan lanes.”

Glover even offered some “radical combinations” in an August 2018 email to a group of “third party thinkers” she then forwarded to Epstein via his now infamous address jeevacation@gmail.com. Her list of dream tickets mixed and matched figures like former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, former Republican Govs. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, coincidentally an Epstein associate himself.

Glover proposed: “Biden/Romney? Bill Gates/Hogan? Bloomberg/Haley? Howard Schultz/Bob Corker? Sandberg/Kasich?”

Their correspondence about centrist fantasy politics was only a small piece of a professional and political relationship that stretched across more than a year. Their workaday messages about third party campaigns, conversations that could have easily been with a well-regarded opinion columnist, underline the degree to which a large number of influential people treated Epstein as if he was just another rich guy to be courted rather than a convicted sex criminal with a troublesome reputation.

Glover, who has long been a leading Never Trump figure, told POLITICO in an interview that her motivation for engaging with Epstein was solely focused on unearthing any potential information that could sink Trump’s reelection.

Despite that claim, there are no emails between Glover and Epstein that show her soliciting information from him about Trump. While she referred POLITICO to a fellow Never Trumper to corroborate that motivation, a second person involved in some of her interactions with Epstein at the time, said they were not aware of her approach.

And in an interview, Glover acknowledged she had also asked Epstein for help in a business matter in 2017 involving her then-most prominent client, Elon Musk, and Saudi Arabia. In one Tesla-related email, Glover said that if Epstein was advising any sovereign wealth funds wanting to help “a prominent company go private,” she could help. In the second email to Glover, Epstein criticized Musk for not being “fluent” in how to deal with Middle Easterners’ “bluster” and “bloviating bragging” after Saudi funding did not come through.

Glover took a stab at helping reintroduce Epstein to parts of mainstream society and made a brief attempt to fashion him into a champion of democracy, arranging a meeting with the head of the nonprofit group Freedom House in 2017. And it wasn’t just Glover advising Epstein — he also offered suggestions on how to talk to New York Times reporters writing about Musk’s rumored drug use.

Glover’s and Epstein’s relationship encompassed several dozen emails, two in-person meetings and a number of calls, according to a POLITICO review of the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice. Her name returns 191 results in the files, although many mentions are duplicates.

Glover characterized the relationship as a limited series of interactions comprised of 31 emails that she sent him, of which 12 dealt with logistics and 15 regarded Tesla. (The Tesla emails showed that Glover was leveraging the relationship with Epstein to help her client.) She said they had two meetings and three calls. She said the remaining were two emails on third party politics, one on MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon and the last connecting Epstein to a pro-democracy nonprofit. Glover said that he was never a client and she “never took anything of value from him.”

Their dynamic, catalogued here in full for the first time, further demonstrates the expansive reach of the late sex offender’s connections across the political spectrum. His Rolodex ranged from moderate former Republicans like Glover to Bannon and giants of the American left like Noam Chomsky.

Glover, a former aide in the George W. Bush White House and an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, had by 2017 largely moved on from professional electoral politics and built a thriving practice as an adviser to executives and corporations seeking to navigate the media landscape.

Her townhouse in Kalorama is a gathering place for a wide array of D.C. operators, think tankers, campaign funders and journalists. She has built goodwill across the town and a thriving personal network in part with her willingness to host book parties, new job celebrations and more: Indeed — she was a co-host of an engagement party in 2023 for the author of this article, and has thrown book parties for multiple past and present POLITICO reporters.

Glover consulted for Axel Springer, POLITICO’s owner, several years ago, according to a company spokesperson.

‘Captive’ to Elon Musk

Glover came to know Epstein through another type of fixer who was also advising him on PR strategies. The journalist Michael Wolff, a shared acquaintance of the two, first mentioned Glover to Epstein in March 2017 as she was consulting for Musk.

“I rolled the dice when Michael Wolff asked me to meet with Epstein against the backdrop of Epstein talking publicly about Trump,” she said in a statement. “My interactions with Epstein were in service to that objective; not to help him in any way or improve his image. Wolff was seemingly positioning me as someone smart enough for him to take advice from.

“To wit, I repeatedly steered Epstein to talk to top investigative journalists including Jim Stewart of the NY Times and Epstein eventually did so, ultimately talking to Stewart about writing his book. I never knew what Epstein was planning to say, but a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist almost found out,” she said, referring to Stewart.

At the time of her interactions with Epstein about Stewart, Musk’s move to try to take Tesla private led to a Securities and Exchange Commission probe and rumors of drug use. He needed all the communications help he could get.

“[T]here’s a Washington PR type named Juleanna Glover with whom you might want to chat,” Wolff wrote to Epstein that spring. “Elon Musk basically owns her now and I’m not sure she can take on other clients, but she will have a valuable perspective on how you get to where you want to be.”

Two months later with the subject line “More PR,” Wolff reminded Epstein that they had spoken about Glover, reupping the Musk connection.

“She’s captive to him, so not hireable. But she’s exceedingly smart and well connected and has interesting things to say,” he wrote. “She can offer an extremely informed overview on how to think about larger steps. Not so much about the trial per se, but going forward. Anyway she is in NYC on Thursday with some time if you wanted me to arrange a meeting.”

Within an hour, Epstein wrote back, “Yes please.”

Three days later, Epstein, Glover and Wolff had lunch together on a day that Epstein was set to have breakfast with private equity investor Leon Black and dinner with director Woody Allen and his wife Soon Yi Previn, according to his schedule. (Black has been accused of sexual assault by two women but has denied all allegations.)

Wolff has written books critical of the president and in 2016 even told Epstein “you’re the Trump bullet” to stop his rise given their former relationship. Last November, Wolff posted an Instagram video in which he said, “These two men, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, had the closest of relationships for more than a decade.”

Trump has said he wasn’t involved in any of Epstein’s criminal activity and that they had a falling out years ago. Epstein was once a frequent visitor at Mar-a-Lago and court records indicate that Trump flew at least once on one of Epstein’s planes and his phone numbers were in Epstein’s directory. There’s no evidence to suggest Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.

Wolff said in a statement that he worked on an effort with Glover to get Trump to publicly respond to questions about his relationship with Epstein during the 2016 presidential campaign. Glover said that Wolff had called her in the fall of 2015 to try to have reporters ask Trump about Epstein. That’s why Wolff emailed Epstein that year regarding how Trump might handle questions about their shared history.

“In 2017, I encouraged Juleanna to see Epstein in the hope that she might help convince him to go public about what he knew about Trump,” he said. “I believe she suggested to Epstein that Jim Stewart at the Times would be receptive.”

Glover referred POLITICO to an anti-Trump political consultant, Rick Wilson, with whom she had been in touch about Epstein in 2015, years before her correspondence with Epstein began.

Wilson told POLITICO that he and Glover had a phone call in the fall of 2015 to try to figure out if Epstein had any dirt on Trump.

“She’s a great communicator, and that’s why people seek her out, and that’s why she was so valuable in this anti-Trump fight at the time,” he said. “She was definitely in the pursuit of trying to stop Trump.”

In the summer of 2018 she asked Epstein about Stewart, who was writing a piece on Musk.

“Do you like Jim Stewart?” she wrote to Epstein in August 2018. “Will send him to you for deep backgound [sic] convo if you like? But only if you like.”

“[N]o thanks,” Epstein replied. “I live in dark background.”

During several days in August, the two exchanged emails and calls about Musk, who was looking for wealthy investors to buy out shareholders.

“If you are advising re: sovereign wealth funds looking to help a prominent company go private, let me know if I can help w any approp additional information,” she wrote Epstein on Aug. 12.

“Clever,” he replied. She also offered a primer on how Tesla’s Autopilot worked.

Epstein passed along names of potential candidates to join Tesla’s board, suggesting former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler and Margaret Thatcher, not realizing she had been dead for five years. (Summers and Ruemmler have apologized for their connections to Epstein and left their jobs after their ties to him were highlighted in the files.)

Epstein also offered to “help shape your story” and gave Glover advice on how Musk should talk on the record to Stewart or then-Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr. about the situation.

“Will try,” Glover replied.

Two days after Epstein’s death, Stewart wrote a column recounting a meeting he had with Epstein in which he claimed to know information about wealthy and famous people that was “potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.”

Thomas Jr. left the Times in 2019 after he solicited a major charitable gift from Epstein, who’d been a source, according to an investigation by NPR and a statement the publication made to the New York Post. Thomas Jr. declined to comment to NPR and didn’t respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.

Stewart said in a statement that he wasn’t aware at the time of any relationship between Glover and Epstein and didn’t know about anything Epstein might have told her.

“As I would with any potential source, I reached out to Epstein because I’d heard he was recruiting board members for Tesla at the behest of Musk,” he said. “Epstein wanted to meet in person, so I went to his townhouse. (I subsequently wrote about that encounter.) I don’t recall using anything Epstein had to say in any story about Musk. He certainly didn’t ‘shape’ any story I was involved in.”

Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades-Ha said in a statement that Thomas Jr. hadn’t worked at the Times since 2019 “after editors discovered his failure to abide by our ethical standards. Times editors were not aware at the time of Thomas’s now-public emails with Epstein.”

Referring to Musk, Epstein told her that he only said “great things about your boy” while sharing that “some of the papers are looking into whether you [sic] boy was on drugs.” He then asked Glover if there are “different colors of cocaine. ? ! ectasy [sic]. (I know zero about drugs).”

“Nothing to it,” she replied. “He barely even drinks.” She acknowledged three days later, “Oh and re burning man, he hasn’t gone in years but may go w his musician girlfriend the last weekend in aug – that is the best the rumor mongers can do.”

After the Times published the interview, Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil, Epstein emailed Glover, saying “good work – interview apart from the one short seller comment. :)”

Glover responded: “Glad you think it improves situation.”

The exchanges about Musk show how their relationship was a give-and-take compared to a more formal adviser-client set up with Epstein giving positive feedback to one of the nation’s leading communications strategists on her own media approach. At the same time, Glover also steadfastly defended her client, insisting he didn’t do drugs less than a month before he smoked marijuana live on The Joe Rogan Experience.

Glover said that her interactions with Epstein about Musk came during a tense time as Tesla’s leadership was pushing hard to take the company private, which Musk had announced the Saudis and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were key to getting done.

“Epstein had bragged that he was close to MBS, so I reached out,” she told POLITICO. “Musk was unaware that I’d done so. I shared publicly available information about the company, with the intent that Epstein would advise the Saudis to hold steady on their commitment to Musk to take the company private. I was trying to encourage him to weigh in with the Saudis to keep their word to Musk. I do not believe he was in any way useful to this effort as there are no known communications with MBS in the DOJ files.”

Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.

An attempt at a pro-democracy rehabilitation

Glover’s firm Ridgely Walsh emphasizes “bespoke public affairs services” and the DOJ files reveal the kind of strategic matchmaking services she might offer clients. For Epstein, who needed to burnish his image, she found an advocacy group in need of funding.

After their first lunch meeting in May 2017, Epstein thanked Glover for her time and said he was happy to meet the leadership of the democracy nonprofit Freedom House as he tried to overhaul his public reputation after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. (He served 13 months on a work release program that allowed him to go to his office during most days.)

“The pro- deomcracy [sic] funding is a good idea, no matter what positive fallout it may have on me personally,” he wrote.

He also invited Glover and a guest to see the Tony-award winning play Oslo, in which he bragged that he had bought out the entire Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center so that many U.N. diplomats could attend. “[Y]ou would be part of the private gatherings. Many interesting people will attend,” he noted.

Glover doesn’t appear to have replied to Epstein’s invitation but seven weeks later she told Epstein she had secured a date for Michael Abramowitz, the then-head of Freedom House, to come see him. They were all supposed to meet in person on July 24, but Epstein ended up being out of town so the three joined a call. Glover, who has long worked for international dissidents of various stripes, connected the two via email after the call with Abramowitz responding, “nice to meet you. Talk soon I hope.”

A month later, Abramowitz emailed Epstein, saying he hoped he had a good summer and had enjoyed talking to him. While he sent four attachments about the organization, Epstein had the brusque reply “thx” with a link to an article on HuffPost promoting his work funding scientists. (The articleno longer appears on HuffPost.)

The pair ups didn’t always work, although for Freedom House the mismatch turned out to be a positive. Numerous politicians have had to give away Epstein donations to charitable causes and other figures associated with the late sex offender have lost their jobs or resigned from posts.

Freedom House referred a request for comment to Abramowitz.

“I was asked to have a conversation with him about philanthropy,” Abramowitz said in a statement. “It was a brief phone call, and Freedom House never accepted money from him.”

Glover said she connected Epstein to Abramowitz because Epstein was interested in funding nonprofits. Glover and her firm have experience working with pro-democracy efforts including work on the Magnitsky Act, much of which she does pro-bono. (The Magnitsky Act allows the U.S. government to punish foreign officials for human rights abuses.)

“We do much work in the pro-democracy space, so I asked Freedom House to talk to Epstein about what overseas nonprofits might prove to be the most effective in supporting democracy efforts in Russia and Eastern Europe (at that time Russians were in the streets in large numbers protesting Putin),” she said.

“There was also growing awareness about Putin directing interference in the U.S. 2016 election and the U.S. was certainly not going to step up to support free elections given Trump’s growing closeness to Putin so I suggested Epstein do it,” Glover said.

“I suspected these foreign groups would welcome his money in their vital, but cash-strapped work,” she added. “I have apologized to the good leaders of Freedom House for connecting this storied institution to this monster. Nothing came of that conversation. Epstein of course lied about his intent and/or ability to marshal money.”

A warning about Steve Bannon

There were tensions embedded in Epstein’s relationship with Glover, a classic establishment GOP operator, and his similarly newfound friendship with Bannon, the conservative firebrand who was separately giving him strategic advice. It’s an illustration of Epstein’s success at cracking the political world that he was able to maintain relations with both of them.

In their 2018 correspondence about unconventional presidential tickets, Epstein took care to write “(not bannon)” when telling Glover that his other “friends with great knowledge of the system” thought the third party idea was “brilliant.”

Glover replied back with a link to a New York Times op-ed she authored about third parties “that says something of the same.”

In December 2018, Epstein replied back to a blast from Glover sharing a POLITICO Magazine op-ed she had written about how Joe Biden should run on a unity ticket with Mitt Romney.

“[Y]ou are right of course,” Epstein wrote.

Months earlier, Glover passed along a request by the BBC to put the outlet in touch with Wolff about Epstein. Wolff forwarded it to Epstein, who told him to get more information on the matter.

“On the job,” Wolff replied.

Glover emailed him to say she was going to be in New York City the next day and wanted to check in. Epstein wrote back that he “would have loved to however i am in the caribean [sic] please try again next time.”

“Will do,” Glover replied. “Take care.”

In April, Glover checked in again to ask if Epstein would be free in a few days in New York City, adding “Hope all is well.” He told her he was not in town that day. But the two met up in July after Glover emailed him again asking if he was in Manhattan, adding “Hope all is great.”

On her way to the meeting at his Upper East Side mansion, she apologized for being a few minutes late, saying “I am so sorry!”

Among the topics of discussion at their meeting was Epstein’s dealings with Bannon.

“On reflection, I don’t think any good can come from Steve being in your sphere,” Glover wrote to Epstein the next day. “I have only met him once but there is a malice and manipulative vengeful nature there that can only cause you harm. He will use his access to you to leverage something unwelcome – not sure what, but he’s conjuring dark forces and access to you is only energizing him.”

Epstein thanked her, and added, “I will take advice.” (Despite telling her that, hecontinued to talk to Bannon up until his arrest the next year on new sex trafficking charges and sat down for interviews with Bannon for a documentary he was making.)

Asked why she had warned Epstein about Bannon, Glover told POLITICO that Epstein had mentioned to her he was seeing Bannon later in the day during their July 2018 meeting. “I warned Epstein away from Bannon, as I thought Bannon would block Epstein from saying what he knew about Trump,” she said.

A spokesperson for Bannon declined to comment.

The last instance of Glover in the files is in March 2019 when Epstein emailed hera link to a letter to the editor of the Times that his four lawyers had written defending Epstein and saying “the number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated.” It continued that the earlier “case lacked the credible and compelling proof that is required by federal criminal statutes.”

She did not reply.

He died by suicide in his New York jail cell five months later on Aug. 10, 2019.

​Politics

A blue wave may already be cresting.

Democrats have flipped 28 Republican-held seats in state legislatures across the country over the past 14 months, a sign that the GOP is indeed at risk of losing control of the House, and maybe even the Senate, in the midterms.

Democratic wins have come even in deep red states, including Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, and often by margins that make Republican leaders uneasy.

“I’m ringing the alarm bell,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas GOP consultant who has run campaigns for Republicans in the state, including Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

The results of these state-level elections reflect the immediate concerns of the electorate, provide a launching pad for the next generation of national leaders and could influence the future makeup of Congress through redistricting. They may also give both Republicans and Democrats a preview of the midterm battles to come.

For Republicans, the results are a sign that they must do more to motivate low-propensity voters who helped carry President Donald Trump back to the White House, said a senior GOP campaign operative, who was granted anonymity because he didn’t have permission from the party to speak freely about the losses.

“We’re the party of low propensity voters now,” said the operative. “How do we turn out these Republican voters in a midterm election?”

One of the first signs that Democrats were building momentum came in August, when an Iowa Senate district swung more than 20 points to elect Democrat Catelin Drey. It was the second seat Democrats flipped in the state last year, and the moment that broke the Republican Senate supermajority in the General Assembly.

Then in November, Democrats did it again: They flipped three of the six Republican-held districts in a Mississippi special election, again breaking a GOP Senate supermajority.

“You are seeing people just vote for change,” said Brian Robinson, a GOP consultant in Georgia, where Republicans lost a seat in December.

Robinson, an outside adviser for the state House GOP caucus, says Republicans are blamed for high prices because they’re in charge.

“If it’s any one thing, it is [the] cost of living.” Robinson said, arguing that Trump will do something to reduce prices before the midterms. In recent weeks, the president has indeed taken steps, including by touting a pledge from tech companies to reduce energy costs associated with data centers and releasing 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Iran war, which has sent global oil prices skyrocketing, complicates that effort.

After Democrats flipped 13 Virginia seats and five New Jersey seats in November, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee went back to reassess state races around the country. They expanded their 2026 target map to 42 chambers and invested $50 million in changing the makeup of state legislatures — the widest map and largest single-year budget DLCC has ever approved.

Legislatures in Arizona and New Hampshire are now on the “flip” list, and the DLCC hopes to break or prevent GOP supermajorities in red states across the South and Midwest. Their success could give Democrats more state power over judicial nominees, protect the veto power of Democratic governors in states with GOP-led legislatures and hand Democrats greater influence over redistricting.

Republicans, meanwhile, are waiting for the funding to hit. As of January, the RNC has just over $100 million and Trump’s MAGA Inc. PAC has $300 million. State Republicans say when that cash flows into midterm races, it will enable them to get low-propensity voters to vote.

Turnout was a major point of discussion at an RNC conference call that Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming attended Tuesday, and he says Republicans will dedicate a lot of resources to motivate voters in November.

“We’ve met with the White House more than once, and they keep track of the target states pretty closely,” said Schimming, adding he also expects Trump and Vice President JD Vance to stump in key Wisconsin congressional districts closer to the election. “They are big base motivators.”

In the meantime, Democrats keep flipping state seats. The latest came Tuesday night, when Bobbi Boudman beat Republican Rep. Dale Fincher in a New Hampshire Senate seat that Trump won by 9 points.

On March 24, voters will decide in a special election who represents the Florida state House seat that includes Mar-a-Lago. Democrat Emily Gregory, a small business owner who is running against Republican Jon Maples, a businessman, saw her total campaign earnings jump by nearly 75 percent between Jan. 9 and Feb. 12.

In November, a national PAC connected Gregory with Drey, who flipped the Iowa seat in August. Drey advised Gregory to find the affordability issue that matters most to her district — the way energy costs resonate in New Jersey and property insurance does in Florida.

“In this moment, we have all of the issues on our side. We have all of the momentum on our side,” Gregory recalled Drey telling her. “It’s just up to you as a candidate to get in front of every single voter you can and communicate that message.”

​Politics

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going against retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer in the race to replace him in Maryland, teeing up what could be the last clash between the two Democratic powerhouses in their decadeslong and sometimes-frosty relationship.

Pelosi on Wednesday will endorse Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who rose to prominence testifying about the horrors of the Jan. 6 riot, in the crowded primary to succeed Hoyer, according to details shared first with POLITICO.

The California lawmaker and daughter of a powerful Baltimore family hailed Dunn’s courage and leadership during and after the Capitol attack.

“My friend Harry Dunn is a true American hero and exactly the right person to represent Maryland in Congress,” Pelosi said. He “bravely defended our democracy from Donald Trump’s violent MAGA mob. Since then, Harry’s been called to do everything he can to protect Marylanders and all Americans from extremists like Donald Trump.”

Pelosi’s loyalty to Dunn — she also backed his unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2024 — is again pitting her against Hoyer in their shared home state after the two backed different candidates for governor in 2022. Hoyer, Pelosi’s longtime No. 2 and erstwhile opponent, is backing his one-time political aide, state Del. Adrian Boafo, for the seat he’s vacating after more than four decades.

Dunn entered the race after Hoyer made his endorsement. A Hoyer spokesperson declined comment.

The dueling endorsements serve as a capstone of sorts to the decadeslong relationship and rivalry between Pelosi and Hoyer that dates back to their time as Hill interns and spans multiple leadership races as they each prepare to retire next year. The two top Democrats have battled each other politically for years — Pelosi defeated Hoyer to become House Democratic whip in 2001, while Hoyer bested her pick for majority leader in 2006 — though they eventually formed an effective partnership leading their caucus.

Dunn, in an interview, praised Pelosi as a pillar for defending democracy and taking on Trump — saying her efforts remind him of his own crusade for accountability after Jan. 6.

“Anytime that somebody with the stature and political history [of] Nancy Pelosi puts their support behind me, it’s just like ‘wow,’” Dunn said. “It just means a lot to me and that should also resonate with the people that have seen how effective she has been for decades as a fighter.”

Dunn launched a failed bid for Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District in 2024, in which he was unable to overcome millions of dollars in spending by pro-Israel group AIPAC’s super PAC to boost now-Rep. Sarah Elfreth.

He entered the race for Hoyer’s seat last month and raised $1 million over the opening eight days of his new campaign, his team said. Dunn does not currently live in the 5th District, which stretches from the suburbs east of Washington into southern Maryland and includes Prince George’s County, where he was born. But he said he plans to move back from the 8th District if he wins. Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary that’s drawn at least a dozen candidates for Hoyer’s safely blue seat will be the heavy favorite to win in November.

Pelosi and Dunn have developed a close personal relationship since Jan. 6, when Dunn faced off with Oath Keepers outside her office and endured a barrage of racial attacks — both of which he has recounted in highly publicized hearings.

Dunn, who has become outspoken about the lingering trauma he and other officers are dealing with from the riot, described the pair on Tuesday as “good friends” bonded by the attack and its aftermath. He is also among the officers who Pelosi gathers with for lunch on each Jan. 6 anniversary, according to a person familiar with the event and granted anonymity to share details of it.

​Politics