Category: Politics

Republican Clayton Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris are advancing to a runoff in the special election to serve out the remainder of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s term in Congress.

Fuller, a local prosecutor and Air National Guard member, is heavily favored in the April 7 runoff in the deep-red northwest Georgia district. He overcame a crowded field of Republican competitors with the help of an endorsement from President Donald Trump in early February.

But his inability to win 50 percent of the vote means the seat will remain open for another month, hampering House Republicans’ already-slim majority.

The election was widely expected to head into a runoff given the high volume of interest in the seat. The crowded special election drew interest from more than 20 candidates after Greene’s abrupt departure from Congress amid her high-profile falling-out with Trump. Greene declined to throw her support behind any candidates in the race, but her legacy and public spat with the president loomed large over the race to replace her in the House.

Harris, the Democrat, unsuccessfully challenged Greene in 2024. Despite advancing into the runoff, the retired brigadier general and cattle farmer faces a steep uphill climb to overcome the district’s conservative lean.

Georgia’s 14th Congressional District stretches from Atlanta’s northwest exurbs along the state’s border with Alabama and up to its northern border with Tennessee. Greene has carried the seat by massive margins since she was first elected in 2020 — a reflection of the area’s strong conservative tilt. The seat is expected to remain out of reach for Democrats regardless of the political headwinds Republicans face nationally this year as prices rise and voters sour on Trump’s agenda, though with more than half the vote counted Harris actually led the field of candidates, the latest Democratic over-performance in a special election over the past year.

The runoff extends the seat’s vacancy in Washington, where House Republican leadership is eager to grow their razor-thin majority as quickly as possible.

But election season in Georgia, even for this seat, is hardly over. Several of the candidates who mounted special election bids have already qualified to run in the mid-May primary for a full term representing the district.

That includes former state Sen. Colton Moore, a hardline conservative and longtime Trump supporter who declined to step back from the race even without the president’s backing and finished a distant third in the race. Fuller is set for a rematch with many of the same figures he triumphed over in this special election, though he now enters that primary with the advantage of a nascent incumbency as well as Trump’s support.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misspelled Marjorie Taylor Greene’s name.

​Politics

A political commentator who argued that white people are the victims of racism and need help protecting their “identity” withdrew his candidacy Tuesday for a senior diplomatic role in the State Department as Republican opposition placed his nomination in jeopardy.

Jeremy Carl was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs in June, but his confirmation appeared precarious in recent weeks after Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) vowed to vote against his confirmation.

Lawmakers grilled Carl on his views on race and religion during his confirmation hearing in February, with Republicans and Democrats pushing him to explain past remarks about the importance of protecting “white identity” in American culture. Carl later derided the hearing as “theatrical” and “brutal” in a piece published last week in The Spectator, a conservative British magazine.

In announcing his withdrawal in a social media post, Carl thanked the administration for nominating him and praised the White House for being willing not “to simply pick nominees from the same stable of ‘business as usual’ possibilities” for the role.

“Unfortunately, for senior positions such as this one, the support of the President and Secretary of State is very important but not sufficient,” said Carl, who served as deputy assistant secretary of the Interior during Trump’s first administration. “We also needed the unanimous support of every GOP Senator on the Committee on Foreign Relations, given the unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats to my candidacy, and unfortunately, at this time this unanimous support was not forthcoming.”

Civil rights and labor groups opposed Carl’s nomination, pointing to his history of inflammatory remarks about immigration and race.

Carl wrote in his 2024 book, “The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart,” that white people have faced persistent discrimination and that their identity has been “erased” from American history.

Asked by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to define “white identity,” Carl described the concept as “certain types of Anglo-derived culture that comes from our history.”

Carl wrote in a social media post responding to Murphy after the hearing that he was “of course, not a White nationalist” adding that “The ‘White culture’ then that I was referring to was simply the culture of the overwhelming majority of Americans who lived here” prior to 1965.

“I firmly believe that Americans of *every* race or cultural background can ultimately share in and contribute to that culture,” he wrote on X.

He also faced tough questions for agreeing with a podcast host who assailed Jews for claiming “special victim status” after the Holocaust and saying that “Hitler is always the convenient kind of bad example.”

Curtis cited those views in justifying his opposition to Carl’s nomination, writing in a statement: “I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated.”

Carl is not the only Trump nominee to face backlash on Capitol Hill for divisive rhetoric.

White House official Paul Ingrassia withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel last year after POLITICO reported a slate of inflammatory texts he sent to Republicans in a group chat, and Australian American MAGA commentator Nick Adams’ nomination to be ambassador to Australia has failed to gain support in the Senate.

Carl is a fellow at the Claremont Institute and a prominent voice on the New Right. He has frequently aligned himself with the national conservatism movement — which holds that national sovereignty hinges on the promotion of traditional Christian values — and defended the Great Replacement Theory, a far-right belief that there is an active effort to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants.

​Politics

A new poll is offering a state-of-play of the race that was shaken up last week with the abrupt announcement by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa that he would leave office at the end of his term.​Politics

Sen. Ted Cruz and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson are again trading barbs over Israel and antisemitism, as they renew their feud over the war in Iran.

“I believe Tucker Carlson is the single most dangerous demagogue in this country,” the Texas Republican senator said Tuesday during an antisemitism symposium in Washington hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition and National Review, before promising to directly take on the popular conservative podcast host.

“I have seen more antisemitism in the last 18 months on the right than at any point in my lifetime,” Cruz continued. “It is being spread by loud voices, the most consequential of whom is Tucker Carlson.”

Cruz’s remarks come after Carlson belittled Cruz and other Americans who trust Israeli military intelligence during his podcast last week.

“No offense to Ted Cruz or all the other dumbos who are always saying, ‘we get all this actionable intelligence, it’s so important, we need [Israel] so desperately,’” Carlson said in the March 2 episode. “Really? Let’s evaluate the quality of that intelligence.”

The ongoing feud between the two leading conservative figures — both podcast hosts and potential 2028 presidential candidates — represents the latest flare-up in a major schism within the party and a likely proxy battle ahead of the next Republican presidential primary, when discussions over the U.S.’ alliance with Israel and combating antisemitism domestically could be defining issues.

Carlson, arguably the most influential pundit on the conservative right, remains close to the White House and buzzed about as a potential presidential contender, even as many Republicans — including Cruz — denounce him. And Cruz, who finished second in the 2016 GOP presidential primary to Trump, is positioning himself ahead of a possible run in 2028.

When asked Tuesday about Cruz’s latest comments, Carlson offered a curt response. “Pretty funny,” he said via text. “He’s running for president against me, which I find amusing since I’m not in the race.”

Cruz has repeatedly criticized Carlson for hosting avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast and not challenging Fuentes’ claim that the “big challenge” to unifying the country is “organized Jewry.”

Cruz has signaled that fighting antisemitism and standing with Israel could be a central part of a potential 2028 bid. “I don’t want to wake up in five years and find myself in a country where both major political parties are unambiguously antisemitic,” Cruz said Tuesday. “I think that is a real possibility, if Tucker and his minions prevail.”

The two have long held differing views on the Middle East — and have been directly sparring for months.

In June 2025, Carlson hosted Cruz on an episode of the “Tucker Carlson Show,” which consistently ranks as one of the most-streamed podcasts on Spotify. The two sparred over Iran, and Carlson said Cruz didn’t “know anything” about “the country you seek to topple.” Cruz, in return, implied Carlson’s criticism of Israel was antisemitic.

“You’re not talking about the Chinese, you’re not talking about the Japanese, you’re not talking about the British, you’re not talking about the French,” Cruz told Carlson. “You’re asking, ‘why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?’ That’s what you just asked.”

In a subsequent episode of his own podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz” — which was the most-streamed podcast of any sitting elected official in the U.S. last year — Cruz launched a defense of his interview with Carlson, saying Carlson was “off the rails.” Later, in November, during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas, Cruz denounced Carlson as a “coward”; at a Federalist Society event in Washington days later, Cruz said many of his Republican allies are “frightened” to call out Carlson because “he has one hell of a big megaphone.”

On Tuesday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who spoke before Cruz at the symposium, seemed to downplay that concern. Though he didn’t say Carlson by name, he downplayed what he called “so-called influencers” who traffic in antisemitism. “They are not influential,” Cotton said. “They are at least not influential with Donald Trump, who continues to reject their kooky advice.”

Carlson’s anti-Israel ideas — which are the main subject of Cruz’s ire — have garnered increasing support, particularly among young Republicans. The latestYale Youth Poll found that Americans under the age of 35 are far more likely than older Americans to think that U.S. Jews “have too much power.” In the last three years, the share of Republicans under the age of 50 with a negative view of Israel jumped from 35 percent to 50 percent, pera Pew poll conducted last year.

His reply when asked if he might run for president in 2028: “Only if it’s against Cruz.”

​Politics

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), who’s faced a firestorm over hundreds of stock trades after campaigning in 2024 on a promise to ban congressional stock trading, has insisted he doesn’t talk to his financial adviser about the activity and that he has no input on them.

But a little-noticed local radio interview from last April contradicts a significant part of Bresnahan’s line on the market moves.

When asked last spring about the trades after a New York Times story highlighted how he flip-flopped on the campaign pledge, he told the host, Bob Cordaro, “I mean, I meet with my financial adviser. We talk about, you know, what different positions are coming up.”

The interview — which is no longer available on the website for Cordaro’s show — is starkly different from Bresnahan’s previous statements about the trading he and his spokespeople have made on multiple occasions in the last year.

Bresnahan campaign spokesman Chris Pack said Bresnahan’s comments were “referring to 30,000 foot investment strategy and not about stock trades, and that is clear in the surrounding context of the interview.”

One Democratic operative aware of the audio, granted anonymity to speak candidly about campaign strategy, predicted that Bresnahan’s own words in the interview could be used in ads against him ahead of the November midterms when he’ll take on Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in a highly competitive district. Cognetti lists banning congressional trading as her first issue on her campaign website.

In June, when pressed about the topic by a constituent during a tele-town hall, Bresnahan said, “I think you need to know that the trades are being executed on my behalf. I do not have any dialogues with my financial advisers.” In July, he said he provided “absolutely no investment advice or input to my financial advisers.”

A month later, he inserted a line in his Periodic Transaction Reports in which he asserted: “All investment decisions related to my personal financial portfolio are delegated to professional financial advisors. I have no role in, nor am informed of, specific investment decisions prior to their execution.” Members of Congress are required to file the reports to disclose Wall Street transactions.

During a time of public distrust of Congress, the issue of congressional stock trading has become a symbol of members appearing to enrich themselves based on inside information that they learn in office. Even President Donald Trump called for a ban on this type of trading during his State of the Union address. Both parties have competing proposals to reform the practice but action is currently stalled.

Bresnahan’s congressional spokesperson, Hannah Pope, told the New York Times in August that the trades are done by a financial adviser without his input. He learns about them when the public does through reports that members of Congress have to file on their trading, she said.

In the April interview with Cordaro, he was asked by the friendly conservative host: “Sum and substance, you’re saying, ‘Look, I did not buy and sell on information I’ve gleaned here in Congress. My adviser’s doing my trading for me, and I am duly reporting it.’ Is that fair?”

Bresnahan responded by saying, “Absolutely. Absolutely. Right hand to God on my mother’s life. Without a question.” He then said he sometimes learns about the trades on X accounts that track congressional stock trading reports. “I’m not on a day by day, minute by minute. I mean, I meet with my financial adviser. We talk about, you know, what different positions are coming up.”

Bresnahan then says he “actually even took it a step further” and is exiting his real estate holdings in Pittston, a city in his district, to avoid conflicts of interests in his congressional work.

Pack, the Bresnahan campaign spokesperson, called questions about his investing “a ridiculous stretch.”

“To imply that Rob having the equivalent of a routine annual 401(k) meeting with his financial advisers to discuss risk tolerance amounts to insider trading would mean that every member of Congress or congressional staffer who discusses risk tolerance as part of their retirement planning is also engaged in insider trading,” he said.

“Does this same standard apply to Goldman Sachs banker Paige Cognetti, whose financial disclosure reports list millions of dollars in investment holdings, and whether she has routine conversations with her financial adviser about long-term strategy?” (Cognetti worked for Goldman Sachs between 2014 and 2016.)

When asked about POLITICO’s reporting on Bresnahan, Ted Rossman, a principal analyst at Bankrate.com, said that different financial advisers have different ways of working with clients to maximize portfolio growth, with some talking to clients about individual stock positions and others being more general.

“But even if it’s not a direct order to buy or sell a certain amount of an individual company, just sharing thoughts on themes in the market and the economy could be problematic politically since members of Congress have information that the average public is not privy to,” said Rossman.

Bresnahan, who comes from a wealthy Pennsylvania construction family, has bemoaned the controversy, raising the question in July that if he stopped trading, he could lose money. “And then do what with it? Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”

When running for Congress in 2024, Bresnahan campaigned on a pledge to ban congressional stock trading, writing in a letter to a local newspaper that “the idea that we can buy and sell stocks while voting on legislation that will have a direct impact on these companies is wrong and needs to come to an end immediately.” But last year he was one of the most prolific stock traders in Congress, making more than 600 stock trades in 2025 before suspending the trading toward the end of the year after much criticism.

Among his trades at issue have been the sale of Pennsylvania health care-related bonds worth between $100,001 and $250,000 and stock in four Medicaid providers worth up to $130,000 before he voted on massive Medicaid cuts. Democrats seized on clips of the Bresnahan trades that Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico brought up on Joe Rogan, during a discussion of how broken Washington was, and even on conservative channel OAN.

The trades have also been noticed by his constituents, with 54 percent of voters in his swing district knowing about the trades in an August Public Policy Polling poll commissioned by Democratic group House Majority PAC. House Republicans also have privately raised concernsabout the issue hurting Bresnahan, who has since introduced his own legislation to ban stock trading.

His trading has made its way into the campaign. A seven-figure TV ad campaign is already underway that cites his Medicaid-related stock trades. Cognetti, who does not own any individual stocks, featured Bresnahan’s stock trading as one of her main issues in her announcement video.

During the tele-town hall in June, one woman who said she had voted for him confronted Bresnahan, telling him, “You’re making all these trades … I thought you were supposed to stop trading,” adding, “I didn’t send you there to trade.”

​Politics

Politics and Arkansas BBQ with Gov Sanders and Jonathan Martin

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​Politics

President Donald Trump is delaying his endorsement in the Texas Senate GOP primary to ramp up pressure on Republican senators to pass his high-priority voting restrictions bill, according to two people close to the White House granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump had been prepared to quickly endorse John Cornyn after the Texas senator outperformed expectations and finished ahead of Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, in last week’s primary, the people said. But Paxton managed to at least forestall that outcome when he announced Friday that if the Senate passes the bill he would drop his campaign.

Paxton’s last-ditch gamble highlighted an area where he agrees with Trump while poking at a sore spot between the president and Senate Republican leaders who have been begging Trump for months to back Cornyn. And it changed the dynamics inside the White House, according to the two people, an operative close to the White House and an administration ally.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“I think that was a very smart strategy because it bought time. Because now, if you’re the White House or Trump, why would you now weigh in?’’ said the Republican operative. “Trump has remained very steadfast that he wants this done, and that is a huge priority, and he’s getting pissed off at these members and at [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune.”

Trump posted last Wednesday, the day after the primary, that he would endorse “soon” in the race — and wanted to see whoever he didn’t back drop out of the runoff.

He told House Republicans Monday in a speech at their annual legislative retreat in Florida that SAVE America is his “No. 1 priority” on the congressional agenda this year

Paxton, a favorite of the far right with strong MAGA grassroots backing, initially said he would not end his campaign even if Trump backed Cornyn. Trump responded in an interview with POLITICO last week that the comment was “bad for him to say,” and reiterated he would announce his pick soon.

But Paxton soon came up with an offer: He would step aside if the Senate moved the voting restrictions bill that passed the House but has stalled in the Senate. Republicans lack the necessary 60 votes to break the filibuster to pass the bill and don’t have the bare majority needed to alter Senate rules. Cornyn has long been one of the Republicans who hasn’t supported ending the filibuster but has said he backs the SAVE America Act.

Paxton’s gambit caught the attention of the president, who on Monday declared the SAVE America Act should be the GOP’s “No. 1 priority” during a speech to House Republicans in which he dedicated 13 minutes to the issue.

The president also was irritated when news articles from Axios and The Atlantic published Wednesday declaring that Trump was “expected” to endorse Cornyn, according to the Republican operative. A POLITICO story stated earlier that morning that Trump would likely endorse soon, with a source predicting he wouldn’t back Paxton. Trump and others in his orbit hate when stories get out ahead of official announcements.

The move paid off for Paxton by giving his allies more time to voice their displeasure to the White House at the possibility that Trump would be swayed by pro-Cornyn establishment Republicans in Washington.

That pressure campaign has ramped up in recent days since reports surfaced Trump was close to backing Cornyn. The administration ally said Paxton’s allies are mounting a “big counter-offensive.”

Those pushing against a Cornyn endorsement include Texas donors, according to a Paxton campaign aide.

“The grassroots donor community in Texas did not believe or realize how close Trump was endorsing Cornyn,” said a Paxton campaign aide, granted anonymity in order to speak freely. “Once they realized that the threat was real, they went very hard in the paint.”

A Cornyn campaign aide declined to comment.

While donors work the White House behind the scenes, Paxton also has allies making their case online like conservative influencers Laura Loomer, Jack Posobiec and Caroline Wren, who have blasted Cornyn and touted Paxton. They have warned that a Trump endorsement for Cornyn would mark a betrayal to the MAGA base.

“The Republican establishment is just as guilty as controlled opposition in the destruction of this republic, and exhibit one is John Cornyn,” Steve Bannon, longtime MAGA whisperer, said on Monday on his latest War Room podcast.

Cornyn and his allies have scrambled to respond. On Saturday, Cornyn posted on X, while tagging Trump’s account, that he had supported the SAVE America Act “from day one.” Cornyn declared he “will happily support the ‘talking filibuster’ if that’s what it takes to pass this into law” — a shift from the skepticism he voiced about the feasibility of the talking filibuster just a few weeks ago. He got backup from other Republicans — including from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a MAGA ally who is leading the charge for the bill in the Senate, who vouched for Cornyn’s support.

But on Monday, Thune poured cold water on Trump’s hopes once again, stating that formally nuking the legislative filibuster is “not going to happen” and arguing that a talking filibuster without forcing through a rules change is “way more complicated” than people realize.

Cornyn’s supporters believe he still remains in a strong position to receive the president’s backing, especially since Democrats nominated state Rep. James Talarico, a pick that even Republicans say is a formidable general election candidate. Many national Republicans say putting forward Paxton would be an expensive endeavor that would risk the seat and could cost them the Senate, as his past ethics issues and personal scandals make him a vulnerable candidate.

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CHICAGO — An AI-enhanced former congressman is hitting the Chicago airwaves.

As he campaigns to reclaim the South Side congressional seat he once held, Jesse Jackson Jr. is launching a new TV and digital ad featuring an endorsement from fellow former Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush — delivered with an assist from artificial intelligence.

The spot, set to begin airing today in the race, initially shows Rush speaking in his actual voice, weakened from a battle with throat cancer.

“Cancer damaged my vocal cords. It didn’t take away my voice,” Rush says in the ad.

He then continues speaking in a restored version of the voice he had decades ago.

“I want to tell you why I believe in Jesse Jackson Jr.,” says Rush, the longtime Chicago congressman who pushed Jackson to reclaim the 2nd Congressional District seat, using the enhanced voice to deliver a testimonial about Jackson’s record.

Rush, who has become familiar with AI technology’s ability to restore his voice for podcasting and broadcast interviews, said he recognizes there are concerns that it can be misused in political campaigns. But in this case, he said in an interview, “It’s being used in a positive way. It’s being used for the right reasons.”

The ad from Jackson’s campaign comes as two dueling political action committees with links to major AI companies circle the race.

Jackson is receiving support from a pro-industry super PAC, Leading the Future, which has poured money into advertising on his behalf and counts venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman among its backers.

A spokesperson for Jackson’s campaign said the ad with Rush had been in the works for months, before the AI-backed group got involved in the race.

“Integration of AI in this spot puts a spotlight on how much they believe in each other,” according to spokesperson John Digles.

A rival super PAC, Jobs and Democracy, which advocates for tougher regulations on AI, filed federal paperwork Friday signaling that it plans to begin $1 million advertising against Jackson.

The timing of that group’s filing raised eyebrows among some Democrats because it came the same day Jackson joined family members, three former presidents and thousands of others for a memorial service honoring his late father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who was buried Saturday.

The Congressional Black Caucus, some of whose members were in Chicago for the funeral services, criticized the super PAC’s move to announce its campaign as the family mourned.

By Sunday, a new filing was out indicating the super PAC was canceling the spending.

The 1st Congressional District seat Rush held for three decades until 2023 is now held by Jackson’s brother Jonathan Jackson. Rush encouraged Jesse Jackson Jr. to seek office again after stepping down in 2012 due to health reasons and then facing charges of campaign finance violations that resulted in him serving prison time.

Jackson is competing in a crowded field in the March 17 Democratic primary alongside Donna Miller, a county commissioner, and state Sens. Robert Peters and Willie Preston, among other candidates. The winner is widely expected to have a strong advantage in November in the predominantly Democratic district.

​Politics