Channel Tunnel rail traffic

Power failure halts Channel Tunnel rail traffic, causing travel mayhem

By Reuters

Train services through the Channel Tunnel linking Britain and continental Europe were suspended on Tuesday following a ‌power supply ⁠failure, disrupting peak winter holiday travel.

A spokesperson for ‍Eurostar, which operates high-speed trains linking London to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam ‌and Disneyland Paris, said services were halted indefinitely. Travelers at Paris’ Gare du Nord station were told operations would be interrupted until the end of the day.

Getlink, which operates the tunnel infrastructure and the Le Shuttle service carrying cars and trucks, said repairs to the power ⁠supply were underway and that traffic was expected to resume gradually from 2 p.m. GMT (9 a.m. ET).

“Due to a problem with the overhead power supply in the Channel Tunnel and a subsequent failed Le Shuttle train, we strongly advise all our passengers to postpone their journey to a different date,” Eurostar said in a statement.

The disruption affects one of Europe’s busiest international rail corridors at the height of the New Year travel season.

Several hundred Le Shuttle passengers were stuck in their vehicles after passing through passport checks and security at the terminal in Folkestone.

Officials said that for the time being they ‌could neither go forward – there were no trains – nor backwards, because they had already crossed into the French control zone.

Alison Raby said she had ⁠booked a day trip to a theme park in Belgium, but the ​four-hour delay made the excursion pointless.

“We’re stuck, basically,” she told Reuters.

Fellow passenger Phil Groves, who works for Britain’s National Health Service and was en route to Paris for New ‍Year’s Eve, said ‍he and his family had been stuck ⁠at Folkestone for six hours and were held in a “mammoth queue.”

“We’ve received no information other than the services are suspended,” he said.

Britain’s Port of Dover said it was operating a ‘turn up and go’ system for passengers affected by the tunnel disruption and that ferry operators currently had capacity to take extra travelers.

Le Shuttle carried 2.2 million passenger vehicles and 1.2 million trucks through the tunnel in 2024. Eurostar carried 19.5 million customers ​in the same year, its most successful to date.

Stranded passengers crowded the concourse at London’s St. Pancras station. One was led away by police, shouting “I just want to know if I’ll see my family” after an exchange with ​a Eurostar worker.

Progress???????

Takeaways from Trump and Netanyahu’s meeting in Florida

By Adam Cancryn

President Donald Trump’s Monday meeting in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu generated plenty of warm words — but no clear progress in their peace plan for Gaza.

The leaders held a private lunch at Mar-a-Lago aimed at working out a series of issues in the Middle East, as the two sides try to cement a lasting end to Israel’s war with Hamas and ensure broader peace throughout the region.

Trump at the outset of the session told reporters that he planned to speak with Netanyahu about “five major subjects,” later suggesting that they’d come close to settling three of them within the first five minutes of their session.

In addition to Gaza, Trump indicated plans to address issues in the occupied West Bank and potential threats posed by Iran.

But more than an hour later, the two emerged with no new milestones to announce.

Instead, they were seemingly content to shower praise on each other, with Netanyahu going as far as to announce that he planned to award Trump with Israel’s highest civilian excellence honor.

“President Trump has broken so many conventions to surprise people, so we decided to break a convention or create a new one,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu’s visit marked the second major trip to Mar-a-Lago by a foreign leader in as many days, as Trump engages in an end-of-year foreign policy flurry.

Here are the takeaways from Monday’s meeting:

Intense flattery, lingering divisions

Trump and Netanyahu spent much of their time in public together exchanging compliments, as both sought to show their relationship remains better than ever despite the occasional strains of the past year — and Trump’s growing wariness of some of Israel’s actions amid his efforts to keep peace in the Middle East.

“We’ve never had a friend like President Trump in the White House. It’s not even close,” Netanyahu said upon his arrival.

Trump returned the favor moments later, asserting that “Israel, with most other leaders, would not exist today.”

“The relationship’s been extraordinary,” Trump said.

The flattery only intensified from there, capped by Netanyahu’s announcement that he would make Trump the first non-Israeli recipient of the Israel Prize for Peace.

Trump, who called the award “really surprising and very much appreciated,” praised Netanyahu as a “wartime” leader and downplayed concerns that Israel is not moving fast enough toward the next phase of the Gaza peace deal. He instead put the onus almost entirely on Hamas.

But he did acknowledge ongoing divisions between the US and Israel, chiefly over the West Bank. Trump has opposed Israel annexing the area, aligning himself with many Western and Arab nations on the issue. The Israeli government, meanwhile, has discussed annexing parts of the West Bank in the past and intensified its military operations in the area since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

“We’ve had a discussion, big discussion, for a long time on the West Bank, and I wouldn’t say we agree on the West Bank 100%,” Trump told CNN’s Kevin Liptak.

Phase 2 in Gaza still on hold

Trump and Netanyahu also failed to reach an agreement on moving to the second phase of the US-brokered peace plan for Gaza — a sticking point that’s slowed work toward permanent peace and an eventual rebuilding effort.

Trump on Monday downplayed the lack of progress, insisting that he was “not concerned” about Israel’s actions in the region, even though its military has killed hundreds of Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect in October. Instead, he argued the plan’s success depends mainly on Hamas agreeing to disarmament.

But that’s unlikely to alleviate concerns within the Trump administration that Netanyahu is slow-walking the move to the next phase, leaving the US mired in the Middle East at a moment when Republicans are urging Trump to turn his focus to domestic matters.

Trump seemed to allude to the difficulty of the negotiations at one point, suggesting that Netanyahu was skeptical of giving “second chances” in an effort to ensure the ceasefire remains permanent. Still, he told reporters that “Israel’s lived up to the plan 100%.”

“They’re strong. They’re solid,” Trump said.

Grave warnings for Iran

Trump had a far clearer message on Iran, amid Israel’s warnings that the nation is trying to rebuild its missile capabilities following US strikes on a trio of nuclear sites earlier this year.

The president vowed to strike Iran again if he determined the nation was pursuing an expansion of its ballistic missile program, saying he’d heard indications of building at new sites within the country.

“I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” he said, adding, “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

Trump later threatened “very powerful” consequences for Iran, urging the country to instead seek a deal with the US to avoid more military action. But he repeatedly struck a pessimistic note even while expressing hope that more strikes could be avoided.

“This is just what we hear,” Trump said of Iran’s actions. “Usually, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Foreign policy dominates Trump’s attention

Even aside from Netanyahu’s visit, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago holiday vacation has so far been consumed by the various foreign entanglements that shaped his first year back in office.

In between bidding farewell to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and greeting Netanyahu, Trump spent Monday morning on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He later said Putin told him that a Ukrainian drone attack targeted one of his residences, an allegation that Trump said made him “very angry.”

“This is not the right time,” Trump said, even as he conceded it was possible the allegation was false.

The president also offered a few new details on an operation he said targeted a “big facility” in Venezuela — an incident that became public only because he mentioned it offhand during a prior radio interview.

“It’s an implementation area,” Trump said of the dock that he claimed was being used to “load the boats up with drugs.”

But he declined to say much more, leaving the next steps in Venezuela — as well as in Ukraine and the Middle East — unclear by the end of the day.

Remember, she is insane, but next to him, she looks smart....

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Trump Turned on Her Over Epstein Survivors

The congresswoman revealed how and why she broke from Trump and Republican leadership.

Alex Nguyen

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that her defense of survivors of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and threat to disclose the identities of some of the men who abused them broke her relationship with President Donald Trump, who said his “friends will get hurt” if she went through with it. 

Greene’s claim came in remarks from two long interviews published Monday in the New York Times Magazine. After a closed-door meeting with Epstein victims in September and a subsequent news conference where she made the threat to share the names of some of the men, Greene said Trump rebuked her. 

“The Epstein files represent everything wrong with Washington,” the congresswoman told Robert Draper of New York Times Magazine, highlighting how Epstein went unpunished for decades and was allowed to continue to sexually assault girls and young women. 

Greene announced in November that she would resign on January 5, 2026, a year before her term ends. “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked, and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States, whom I fought for,” she stated in the video.

Greene told the Times that the last conversation she had with Trump was when she requested that he invite some of the survivors to the Oval Office. Trump, she recounted, replied that they did not deserve the opportunity. 

The congresswoman committed to opposing Republican leadership in the House and Trump, joining Rep Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in a bill that would force the Justice Department to release all of its documents on Epstein. 

Another breaking point was the fallout following Charlie Kirk’s assassination. She was shocked when Trump gave the “worst statement” possible at Kirk’s memorial service. “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” Trump said, noting it as the right-wing political activist’s weakness. 

This was un-Christian to Greene, and she realized that she was part of a “toxic culture” in Washington. 

“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” Greene told the Times earlier this month. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what.”

This was a stark contrast to many of her fellow public figures on the far right, who blamed the left for Kirk’s assassination. As my colleague Anna Merlan wrote earlier this month, this has led to a MAGA rift, along with conflicts over antisemitism that I reported about last week. 

Since the disputes over Epstein and Kirk, Trump contributed to death threats made against her, she claims, including calling her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green (sic)” in a November Truth Social post.   

Greene told the Times that she understood that loyalty to Trump was just “a one-way street” that ends “whenever it suits him.” 

All of this calls into question whether Greene’s departure from Trump is genuine. She told the Times that she remains a steadfast supporter of the policies on which Trump campaigned. But these clearly have not worked. Greene’s departure also calls into question the future of the Republican Party. Turning Point USA has endorsed JD Vance, but where other groups in the Republican Party go remains uncertain. 

Greene’s rehabilitation has doubt attached to it, too, regardless of whether the angle is a campaign for another political position or not. As Mother Jones’ Julianne McShane reported, the congresswoman has still made attempts to reconcile with Trump. And as the Times pointed out, Greene admitted that she only spoke out against Trump when his attacks targeted her. 

There’s also the fact that we still live in a political climate ruled by elites. Greene herself is a wealthy co-owner of a construction firm. It’s not a “big tent”—it’s still people at the top conversing with other people at the top on the direction of the country.

Gives up on federal high-speed

California gives up on federal high-speed rail funding

State officials said the federal government under President Donald Trump "is not a reliable, constructive or trustworthy partner" on the controversial project.

By Alex Nieves

California has ended a lawsuit challenging the termination of $4 billion in federal grants for its controversial high-speed rail project, ceding its claim to federal funding that the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to withdraw.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a motion last week to dismiss the complaint his office filed in July, after the Federal Railroad Administration nixed $4 billion in Obama- and Biden-era grants.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority said in a statement that the agency has decided to cut ties with the Trump administration, which has also threatened other pots of federal funding tied to the planned rail line connecting Los Angeles to the Bay Area.

“This action reflects the state’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California,” the statement said.

The move represents a major win for President Donald Trump, who has long criticized high-speed rail and issued a threat in February to investigate and kneecap the project.

“Under @POTUS’s leadership, we are protecting billions of American taxpayers’ dollars from funding California’s ridiculous train to nowhere,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a Saturday post on X. “A great way to ring in the New Year.”

The administration attempted to revoke $1 billion in federal high-speed rail funding during his first term in office, but the Biden administration restored those funds in 2021 before the courts could reach a decision.

The decision also reflects changing priorities under HSRA CEO Ian Choudri, who has focused on securing state funding and private investment since assuming the role in August 2024.

The move to drop the case comes just weeks after a federal judge rejected a Trump administration motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd, of the Eastern District of California, had pushed back on the administration’s argument that the grant cancellation was a contract dispute that should instead be handled in federal claims court.

FRA’s decision to terminate the grants came after the agency issued a scathing report claiming that the project has no viable path forward after missed deadlines, budget shortfalls and overrepresentation of projected ridership.

The project is now estimated to cost up to $128 billion, nearly four times its original $33 billion price tag.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers have doubled down on their support for the project, passing a bill this legislative session that guarantees it $1 billion in annual funding from revenues generated through the state’s greenhouse gas trading program.

HSRA also opened a solicitation for private investors earlier this month, with the hope of finalizing partnerships by next summer. Choudri told POLITICO in an October interview that the agency has received interest from dozens of potential investors, including six or seven of the large financiers.

Choudri said he anticipates selecting a private investor by May or June.

Step into the breach

States step into the breach as Obamacare subsidies lapse

Even state governments that want to help can’t completely cover rising insurance premiums.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein and Natalie Fertig

At least a dozen states are working to shield people from soaring health insurance costs following Congress’ failure to extend Obamacare subsidies for tens of millions of Americans.

The efforts, which include actions taken by state leaders in California, Colorado and Maryland, in nearly every case come with a major caveat: They will only be able to help a portion of the people whose health insurance will be too expensive without the enhanced subsidies that Congress opted not to renew before leaving Washington for the year.

“We can carry the cost for a little bit, but at some point, we will need Congress to act,” said Javier Martínez, speaker of the House in New Mexico, the only state so far to cover all lapsed subsidies. “No state can withstand to plug in every single budget hole that the Trump administration leaves behind.”

The speed at which the mostly Democratic states have taken action underscores the mounting national anxiety about the medical and political impact the end of these subsidies will have. Millions of Americans will no longer be able to afford health insurance, straining the budgets of state welfare programs and hospitals that are already in the red, and threatening to erode access to care to a level not seen in years.

Responses have so far been uneven, reflecting political and economic realities across the country. Georgia and Washington, for instance, are not likely to cover the subsidies, though for very different reasons. Other states, like Connecticut and New Mexico, have already acted, allocating money in sessions earlier this year in preparation for the possibility, and may add more in the upcoming year.

California, predicting that the GOP-led Congress would allow the subsidies to lapse, was one of the first to experiment with ways to protect people from rising monthly premiums. The Golden State is allocating nearly $200 million to replace the expired federal subsidies for roughly 300,000 of its poorest residents, but the rest of the state’s 2 million residents enrolled on the Obamacare exchange could be hit hard.

The state’s Obamacare market program, Covered California, expects as many as 400,000 people to go uninsured. In Maryland, which has far fewer impacted people to take care of, the poorest will see a more generous subsidy but people at higher income levels will receive a partial boost as well.

A few lawmakers in Maine and other battlegrounds, meanwhile, worry their efforts could disincentivize Congress from coming up with a federal solution, but say that shouldn’t influence states’ decisions to cover the gap in the short term.

And while there is a partisan divide, with far more blue states than red adopting policies to prop up the Obamacare markets, a few GOP-led states are feeling public pressure and are quietly taking regulatory action behind the scenes.

Local media obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act in September revealing that Arkansas recently joined deep-red Texas and Wyoming in enacting “premium alignment” — a health care market tactic that essentially shifts costs around in order to ensure the remaining federal subsidies get to as many people as possible and keep out-of-pocket costs down.

Most states have taken no action — including both conservative ones where leaders oppose the Affordable Care Act and states with progressive leaders who support the program.

In Minnesota, one of several states that may take up the issue when legislatures reconvene in January, the idea of replacing the subsidies has faced opposition from both parties.

State Sen. Matt Klein, who is running for the congressional seat vacated by Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, said he has struggled to convince some members of his party to allocate the funding because they see it as a boondoggle for private insurers.

“But once this sort of firestorm of, ‘I can’t afford my health care anymore’ ignites, it really creates a lot of political pressure for all lawmakers,” he said. “They may be more convinced that we need to do something.”

The main barrier to taking action, in many places, is the cost.

In Washington state, House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon cited his state’s budget shortfall as the primary reason they cannot backfill the health subsidies. And in Minnesota, Klein stressed, “We don’t, at this point in our fiscal cycle, have a lot of extra money.”

But in other states that have a budget surplus, including Georgia, the barriers are political.

Georgia Democratic Rep. Sam Park is among the Democratic lawmakers pushing the state to use some of its billions in surplus funding to make up for the expired subsidies, which he estimates would cost the state $900 million per year. States such as his that never expanded Medicaid, he said, will see hundreds of thousands of people priced out of the individual insurance market with nowhere to turn for coverage.

Georgia Republicans, however, have definitively ruled out using state funding to backfill the disappearing federal aid.

“We’re not going to clean up any mess produced by Washington, D.C.,” Sen. Ben Watson, Republican chair of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, told POLITICO in November. “We’re not here to make up any shortfalls that the congressional maneuvers or compromises will create.”

New Mexico’s ability to cover the subsidies in full is rare, but it wasn’t the only state to anticipate their expiration. Colorado passed legislation in a special session earlier this year that significantly reduced the expected increase in 2026 premiums — legislation they will try to extend through 2027 when lawmakers return in the new year.

Colorado state Sen. Kyle Brown, who sits on the joint budget committee, said making sure as many Coloradans as possible remain on their commercial insurance plan is important to keep his state’s already-struggling rural hospitals afloat, since private Obamacare plans pay doctors more for health services than Medicaid does.

“The places where insurance costs are expected to go up the most … are in our rural areas,” Brown explained. He added that he and other state officials fear that as more people go uninsured due to rising rates, they will further burden those same cash-strapped hospitals’ emergency care units, threatening to drive them out of business. “That’s why keeping people insured, even more people insured, is really critical.”

Other states are still debating if and how to backfill. In Maine, House Speaker Ryan Fecteau acknowledged in an interview that one concern is that states creating their own subsidy programs could take the pressure off Congress to act when they return in January.

“Part of me wonders if that’s sort of the experiment that’s being had here with states,” he said.

Park, in Georgia, argued that even if that’s the case, states should still step into the breach, calling it “a matter of life or death.”

“We’re talking about people’s lives,” he said. “I personally am quite tired of hearing politicians simply blame another party or another politician or another level of government. We all have the responsibility to do what we can with what we have.”

Biggest destroyer of peac

China stages military drills around Taiwan to warn ‘external forces’ after US, Japan tensions

Taiwan called the Chinese government “the biggest destroyer of peace” and placed forces on alert.

By Associated Press

China’s military on Monday dispatched air, navy and missile units to conduct joint live-fire drills around the island of Taiwan, which Beijing called a “stern warning” against separatist and “external interference” forces. Taiwan said it was placing forces on alert and called the Chinese government “the biggest destroyer of peace.”

Taiwan’s aviation authority said more than 100,000 international air travelers would be affected by flight cancellations or diversions.

The drills came after Beijing expressed anger at what could be the largest-ever U.S. arms sale to the self-ruled territory, and at a statement by Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, saying its military could get involved if China takes action against Taiwan. China says Taiwan must come under its rule.

China’s military did not mention the United States and Japan in its statement on Monday, but Beijing’s foreign ministry accused Taiwan’s ruling party of trying to seek independence through requesting U.S. support.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said rapid response exercises were underway, with forces on high alert. “The Chinese Communist Party’s targeted military exercises further confirm its nature as an aggressor and the biggest destroyer of peace,” it said.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he was not informed of the military exercise in advance but that he was not worried either, because China has been “doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area.”

Touting his “great relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump suggested he didn’t think Xi was going to attack Taiwan.

Beijing sends warplanes and navy vessels toward the island on a near-daily basis, and in recent years it has stepped up the scope and scale of the exercises.

Senior Col. Shi Yi, spokesperson of China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said the drills would be conducted in the Taiwan Strait and areas to the north, southwest, southeast and east of the island.

Shi said activities would focus on sea-air combat readiness patrol, “joint seizure of comprehensive superiority” and blockades on key ports. It was the first large-scale military drill where the command publicly mentioned one goal was “all-dimensional deterrence outside the island chain.”

“It is a stern warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and external interference forces, and it is a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity,” Shi said.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949, when a civil war brought the Communist Party to power in Beijing. Defeated Nationalist Party forces fled to Taiwan. The island has operated since then with its own government, though the mainland’s government claims it as sovereign territory.

Drills will continue on Tuesday

China’s command on Monday deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters, bombers and unmanned aerial vehicles, alongside long-range rockets, to the north and southwest of the Taiwan Strait. It carried out live-fire exercises against targets in the waters. Among other training, drills to test the capabilities of sea-air coordination and precise target hunting were conducted in the waters and airspace to the east of the strait.

Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence of the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, said that as of 3 p.m. Monday, 89 aircraft and drones were operating around the strait, with 67 of them entering the “response zone” — airspace under the force’s monitoring and response. The ministry detected 14 navy ships around the strait and four other warships in the Western Pacific, in addition to 14 coast guard vessels.

“Conducting live-fire exercises around the Taiwan Strait ... does not only mean military pressure on us. It may bring more complex impact and challenges to the international community and neighboring countries,” Hsieh told reporters.

Military drills are set to continue Tuesday. Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration said Chinese authorities had issued a notice saying seven temporary dangerous zones would be set up around the strait to carry out rocket-firing exercises from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., barring aircraft from entering them.

The Taiwanese aviation authority said more than 850 international flights were initially scheduled during that period and the drills would affect more than 100,000 travelers. More than 80 domestic flights, involving around 6,000 passengers, were also canceled, it added.

Commercial airlines began to announce dozens of cancellations and delays for domestic routes across Taiwan, particularly ones along islands near China.

The Chinese command released themed posters about the drills online accompanied by provocative wording. One depicted two shields with the Great Wall alongside three military aircraft and two ships. Its social media post said the drills were about the “Shield of Justice, Smashing Illusion,” adding that any foreign interlopers or separatists touching the shields would be eliminated.

Last week, Beijing imposed sanctions against 20 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives, a week after Washington announced large-scale arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $10 billion. It still requires approval by the U.S. Congress.

Under U.S. federal law in place for many years, Washington is obligated to assist Taipei with its defense, a point that has become increasingly contentious with China. The U.S. and Taiwan had formal diplomatic relations until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter’s administration recognized and established relations with Beijing.

Asked about the drills, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party has attempted “to seek independence by soliciting U.S. support and even risk turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot.”

“External forces’ attempts to use Taiwan to contain China and to arm Taiwan will only embolden the Taiwan independence forces and push the Taiwan Strait toward a dangerous situation of military confrontation and war,” he said.

Taiwanese army on high alert

Karen Kuo, spokesperson for the Taiwanese president’s office, said the drills were undermining the stability and security of the Taiwan Strait and Indo-Pacific region and openly challenging international law and order.

“Our country strongly condemns the Chinese authorities for disregarding international norms and using military intimidation to threaten neighboring countries.” she said.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry released a video that featured its weapons and forces in a show of resilience. Multiple French Mirage-2000 aircraft conducted landings at an air force base.

In October, the Taiwanese government said it would accelerate the building of a “Taiwan Shield” or “T-Dome” air defense system in the face of the military threat from China.

The military tensions came a day after Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an said he hoped the Taiwan Strait would be associated with peace and prosperity, instead of “crashing waves and howling winds,” during a trip to Shanghai.

Turbulent

The turbulent trajectory of Trump’s ‘Nazi streak’ acolyte

Paul Ingrassia’s almost Trumpian survival demonstrates how ideological affinity and personal loyalty can outweigh all other considerations in this administration.

By Daniel Lippman, Daniel Barnes and Sophia Cai

A conservative activist who had caught Donald Trump’s attention with flattery via Substack ahead of the 2024 presidential election imagined a prominent role for himself in a future administration.

In a group chat with half a dozen Republican operatives and influencers, Paul Ingrassia in October 2023 texted: “Trump needs me as his chief of staff,” according to a screenshot obtained by POLITICO.

“I’m not kidding.”

Ingrassia, then in his late 20s, had only graduated from Cornell Law School the year before and had yet to be admitted to the New York Bar.

The coveted job, of course, went to veteran political operator Susie Wiles, who typically shies from the limelight.

But Ingrassia had gained confidence about his potential path to the White House after his Substack columns, which included arguments that Trump would defeat Ron DeSantis in the primary, caught the then-candidate’s eye.

Trump responded with handwritten notes and Ingrassia posted them on X.

“Great seeing you at Bedminster — young and handsome,” Trump wrote to Ingrassia.

Another note, also posted on the social media site in the summer of 2023, read: “Paul, Great seeing you — the man behind the great writings — you are looking good.”

Ingrassia, 30, would eventually land a series of administration jobs, though not as the president’s top aide. He’s now known in Washington for withdrawing from a Senate confirmation process to lead a federal whistleblower agency after a POLITICO report in October revealed racist comments Ingrassia made in the same group chat where he mused about being chief of staff.

Ingrassia and his lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, did not respond to requests for comment for this article. In October, Paltzik did not confirm the texts were authentic, saying they could be manipulated and were provided without proper context.

The GOP-led rejection of Ingrassia’s nomination was a rare break between the administration and a largely compliant Congress. It didn’t result in his ouster. Instead, Ingrassia got an invitation to meet Trump at the White House and another administration post — this time at the General Services Administration that manages federal buildings, IT services and government procurement.

Alan Jacoby, the founder of Patriot Cigar Company who met Ingrassia through New York Republican circles several years ago, said Ingrassia’s goal before Trump was reelected was to get a position in the administration.

“We don’t always agree when it comes to political issues even though we’re both conservatives. However, his support for President Trump is unmatched,” he said.

Ingrassia’s almost Trumpian survival demonstrates how ideological affinity and personal loyalty can outweigh all other considerations in this administration. And while top officials in the Republican Party and White House have split between denouncing bigoted language exhibited by officials like Ingrassia — who said he has a “Nazi streak” according to the texts — and forming a defensive line around supporters, the messages don’t appear to have hurt his official standing.

GSA spokesperson Marianne Copenhaver hailed Ingrassia’s “outstanding service” in a statement about his new role as GSA’s deputy general counsel just weeks after GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said he wouldn’t support his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel because he didn’t understand “how anybody can be antisemitic in this country.”

The schism remains at the heart of an unsettled question about MAGA’s future and whether a Trump-style successor can emerge when others who’ve deployed a similarly bombastic and divisive approach to leadership have failed. Where many young Republican staffers lost government or party positions when inflammatory texts were made public in a different POLITICO investigation involving a separate text chain this year, Ingrassia got another senior administration post. In that sense he’s like Trump himself, who only gained more staying power during everything from the Access Hollywood video to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

For this article about Ingrassia’s journey from a once-obscure MAGA acolyte to a Trump world fixture, POLITICO spoke to more than two dozen administration officials, senators, Capitol Hill staffers and others who know Ingrassia. POLITICO also reviewed contemporaneous messages of former law school classmates and fellow conservative influencers. Many of the people were granted anonymity to speak candidly about Ingrassia because of retaliation concerns or because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Law school controversy

Ingrassia’s time in the administration has echoes of his law school experience.

He had trouble fitting into his cohort at Cornell Law, three former classmates told POLITICO, describing him as a quiet and closely guarded person.

But Ingrassia did draw attention — if unwanted — during his time at Cornell. In the wake of the 2020 election, while classes were partially virtual due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a classmate shared with other students a screenshot of a Twitter post by Ingrassia’s mother repeating claims that Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election, according to two of the former classmates.

“For a little change of pace, here’s Paul’s batshit crazy mom,” the classmate who posted the screenshot wrote in a GroupMe chat for the entire Cornell Law class of 2022, according to the two classmates in the chat. The post was swiftly deleted.

“Following some sage counsel here and issuing an unqualified apology. We obviously have some strong disagreements, but ‘your mom is batshit crazy’ is obviously well over the line and it’s incredibly unfortunate that I posted it here. My bad,” the classmate wrote a short time later, according to a copy of the message.

Reached for comment by POLITICO, Ingrassia’s mother, Donna Gallo Ingrassia, a Long Island real estate broker, defended standing up for what she believes.

“We are a family who stands up for what we believe in even if it is against the popular viewpoint,” she said in an email. “We fought for my daughter’s former classmate Gabby Petito [who was killed in Wyoming in 2021], fought against vaccine and mask mandates, we fought against the steal of 2020 and we campaigned hard for President Trump.”

A rocky entry

Years later, Ingrassia had the backing of his mother who trekked to the Hill to confront Democratic lawmakers who criticized her son’s nomination. “Obviously, I am going to advocate for my kids,” she told POLITICO. “People who do not ‘go along to get along’ are usually called ‘crazy.’”

Ingrassia’s bond with Trump only strengthened after those handwritten notes Ingrassia posted on X in 2023. In time, he would call himself “Trump’s favorite writer” after Trump reposted more than 100 of his Substack articles.

So when Trump took office a second time, Ingrassia was poised to thrive. He landed a position as White House liaison to the Justice Department. While most incoming Trump appointees were partying at balls on the night of Trump’s inauguration, Ingrassia spent more than an hour inside the D.C. Central Detention Facility.

He emerged to announce that two people who had pled guilty to assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol were being released after receiving pardons from the president.

It is “a monumental moment in our history,” Ingrassia told reporters.

But Ingrassia’s time at DOJ quickly went downhill.

Inside the department, he clashed with then-DOJ chief of staff Chad Mizelle after Ingrassia reportedly complained to the president that Mizelle was not working to advance his agenda. DOJ and Mizelle declined to comment.

It didn’t help Ingrassia that he lacked a relationship with Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to a DOJ official. That official added that Ingrassia did not generally know anyone in the department.

The official said he believes Ingrassia was a “Day 1” person sent by the White House, as the new administration placed loyalists across the government. The official added that people in the department knew Trump had done social media posts on Ingrassia’s writings.

The connection wasn’t enough. A month after he arrived at Justice, he was reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security. But his time there was even rockier.

Ingrassia seemed to want to build a rapport with colleagues, frequently attending DHS and administration happy hours to network, according to two people who saw him at the events. Despite his brashness on social media, Ingrassia was reserved in social settings, said the two people.

The scandals

But Ingrassia quickly encountered problems at DHS. In July, he took a work trip to Florida where he shared a Ritz-Carlton hotel room with a female colleague. An internal investigation ensued. The attorney for Ingrassia and a DHS spokesperson said the investigation into him ended and cleared him. His attorney denied wrongdoing.

Ingrassia sued POLITICO for defamation in Warren County, Virginia, in October after POLITICO reported on the Florida trip.

Ingrassia faced additional scrutiny over the summer after Trump nominated him in May to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates complaints from federal whistleblowers.

A day after the nomination, NPR reported that Ingrassia had called far-right influencer Andrew Tate an “extraordinary man” and “the embodiment of the ancient ideal of excellence.” Before joining the administration Ingrassia worked at a law firm Tate hired. Tate, who has been an advocate for “Holocaust revisionism,” has faced rape and human trafficking charges. He has denied the charges, which are pending.

On Capitol Hill, staffers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee started looking into Ingrassia’s background. Three Democratic Senate aides said in an interview that a staff vetting session on July 21 went poorly for Ingrassia. They said they were troubled he didn’t provide his full biographical information and that he pushed back when asked about the omission of numerous posts, podcasts, interviews and deleted writings.

Several staffers from Republican offices also asked tough questions of Ingrassia. Among them were his views on the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, which he had called “another psyop to distract Americans from celebrating Columbus Day.”

Just before Ingrassia was set to testify on July 24, his appearance was postponed.

“This big thing for our state is, he’s had some statements about antisemitism,” Scott, a member of the committee, said at the time.

In August, Ingrassia also lost a key ally at the White House. Sergio Gor, another controversial Trump aide who had been serving as presidential personnel director, was nominated to serve as ambassador to India in a shakeup. Gor, who had drawn the personal antipathy of Elon Musk for trying to wrest back control of agencies after a heated March Cabinet meeting, worked closely with Ingrassia and supported his nomination, according to three administration officials. His departure deprived Ingrassia of an influential defender.

Replacing Gor was Dan Scavino, a White House deputy chief of staff and one of Trump’s closest aides, with whom Ingrassia was not as close, according to two of the administration officials.

Ingrassia still had other defenders in the West Wing, including Trump aide Natalie Harp, according to two administration officials. Harp is known as Trump’s “human printer” because she prints out articles for him to read, including many of Ingrassia’s Substack pieces.

“Natalie Harp in the White House is a big advocate of Paul’s,” one of the officials said.

Gor and Harp were natural allies. Like Ingrassia, they rose to their positions thanks to their fierce loyalty to Trump. Like Ingrassia, they lacked establishment bona fides. Like Trump, they protected their own.

Gor, Scavino and Harp did not respond to requests for comment.

Two months after Gor’s August nomination, Ingrassia was scheduled to appear before the homeland security panel for a Senate confirmation hearing that was supposed to take place on a Thursday. He was in a “murder board” prep session on the preceding Monday afternoon to prepare for the expected avalanche of questions about his background and controversies, according to four administration officials.

But that same afternoon, POLITICO published its article on his inflammatory texts. The reporting revealed that on a January 2024 text chain with Republican operatives and influencers, Ingrassia said the MLK Jr. holiday should be “tossed in the seventh circle of hell” and that Juneteenth and Kwanza “should also be canceled,” according to the chat. Paltzik, Ingrassia’s lawyer, said at the time that even if they were authentic, they were meant to be self-deprecating and satirical.

The reaction was swift. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he hoped the White House would withdraw the nomination and that Ingrassia couldn’t pass.

Hours later, Ingrassia posted on X that he was withdrawing his nomination “because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time.” He said he was grateful for the “overwhelming support” he received during the process “and will continue to serve President Trump and this administration to Make America Great Again!”

Even people close to the White House with knowledge of how staffers felt about Ingrassia said the revelations of the text messages were not a surprise given his association to extremists like Tate and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

But since nominations are ultimately chosen by Trump, West Wing staffers back candidates until it becomes evident there are simply not enough votes to confirm them, according to two people who were involved in the process.

Some White House staffers were ultimately “relieved” that he withdrew his nomination, said the first person close to the administration.

“The writing was on the wall early on, and I think the recent changes at [the White House Presidential Personnel Office] allow this nomination to finally die,” the first person added, noting that there was “the onslaught of accusations and many people [questioned] his qualifications to begin with” when Trump tapped him.

Even if staffers aren’t fully on board with everyone Trump chooses, the first person said, the feeling is “let’s have the process work itself out” and “be loyal to the pick but be realistic and move on when needed.”

“Not sure anyone is like heartbroken,” the second person added. “It was never expected that it would go through, at least I never did.”

One reason he has kept a job is because Trump rewards his personal champions.

“Paul’s been a steadfast supporter of President Trump and a leader in the America First movement,” said Caroline Wren, a Republican strategist who served as a liaison between the Trump White House and participants in the Jan. 6 rally preceding the Capitol riot.

More trouble ahead?

Already there are questions about Ingrassia’s credentials at GSA, where he quickly moved from deputy general counsel to acting general counsel in a few weeks. An announcement about his elevation to a position that oversees more than 100 attorneys cites his key role in swiftly filling the DOJ and DHS with trusted political appointees.

“What are we? A halfway house for bigots who can’t find jobs anywhere else in this administration?” a GSA official said. Ingrassia’s predecessor at GSA, Russell “Rusty” McGranahan, had a three-decade career at top firms, including BlackRock and White & Case. He recently became a senior adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Rusty was well qualified and served the administration well. I just want the government to be staffed with experienced people who are taken seriously,” the official added.

Another person familiar with the internal workings of GSA said that Ingrassia “basically won’t be given anything meaningful because [agency] leadership doesn’t really want him.”

“I don’t know what he is or is not, but no one cares for him,” the person added.

Earlier this month, six Senate Democrats sent a letter to the White House and the GSA calling Ingrassia’s continued employment in the federal government “unacceptable,” citing POLITICO’s reporting.

“The Democrats clearly understand that Paul is a very intelligent, strong supporter of President Trump, which is why they want him out,” Ingrassia’s mother said.

Copenhaver, the GSA spokesperson, said that Ingrassia has a bright future at the agency.

“Paul Ingrassia is a well-regarded attorney who has provided outstanding service to President Trump and will continue to do so as GSA’s acting general counsel,” Copenhaver said. “The GSA has complete confidence in his ability to further both its mission and the president’s priorities.”

3I/ATLAS

Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. This deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo about 4 days earlier. Though faint, colors emphasized in the image data show off the comet's yellowish dust tail and bluish ion tail along with a greenish tinged coma. And even as it is scrutinized by arrays of telescopes and spacecraft from planet Earth, 3I/ATLAS is headed out of the Solar System. It's presently moving outward along a hyperbolic trajectory at about 64 kilometers per second relative to the Sun, too fast to be bound by the Sun's gravity.

NGC 1898

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away. Although it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, NGC 1898 is so far away that it takes light about 160,000 years to get here. This huge ball of stars, NGC 1898, is called a globular cluster and resides in the central bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) -- a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. The featured multi-colored image includes light from the infrared to the ultraviolet and was taken to help determine if the stars of NGC 1898 all formed at the same time or at different times. There are increasing indications that most globular clusters formed stars in stages, and that, in particular, stars from NGC 1898 formed shortly after ancient encounters with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and our Milky Way Galaxy.

Climate Attack

Trump’s Latest Climate Attack: Offshore Wind Farms

The administration halts offshore wind projects, citing dubious “national security risks.”

Oliver Milman

The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore wind farms already under construction, in the heaviest blow yet to an industry that the administration has relentlessly targeted throughout the year.

Trump’s Department of the Interior said that it was halting the building of five wind projects due to “national security risks”. The department said it would work with the US Department of Defense to mitigate the risk of the wind turbine towers creating radar interference called “clutter” that could, in some way, hamper the US military.

“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” said Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers.”

The halt will affect the Vineyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Massachusetts, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind in New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind in Virginia.

All of the projects were reviewed and approved under Joe Biden’s administration, which found there were no undue national security concerns raised by the developments. Democrats have pointed to two assessments by the Pentagon of Revolution Wind that found the project “would not have adverse impacts to DoD missions in the area”.

Wind developers and regional grid operators have warned that Trump’s attack on offshore wind will cost billions of dollars in investment, thousands of jobs, and a new supply of clean electricity that will help prop up grids facing heightened new power demand from the rapid advance of artificial intelligence.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that a Trump order to ban wind project permits was “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law”. The judge struck down the order following a legal case brought by 17 states and Washington, DC.

However, in halting the under-construction wind farms, Trump has escalated his battle against a beleaguered wind industry that he has long reviled, since he objected to the sight of wind turbines from his Scottish golf course more than a decade ago.

“Wind is the worst,” the president said at a Pennsylvania rally on 9 December. “That’s a scam. They ruin your valleys. They ruin your peaks. And [it’s] the most expensive energy.”

In fact, wind is among the cheapest energy sources, with costs falling sharply in recent years. Clean-energy advocates had hoped for a late blossoming of offshore wind in the US, which has lagged several countries in Europe, but this has been hampered by animosity from the Trump administration as well as some local opposition.

“For nearly a year, the Trump administration has recklessly obstructed the build-out of clean, affordable power for millions of Americans, just as the country’s need for electricity is surging,” said Ted Kelly, lead counsel at Environmental Defense Fund.

“We should not be kneecapping America’s largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity. Instead, this administration has baselessly attacked wind energy with delays, freezes and cancellations, while propping up aging, expensive coal plants that barely work and pollute our air.”

Isn’t Immune

Maybe Donald Trump Isn’t Immune to Political Gravity After All

MAGA and the GOP could only avoid it for so long.

David Corn

For over a decade—!!!—Donald Trump has defied political gravity. After descending that Trump Tower elevator surrounded by fake supporters who had been paid to attend his campaign announcement, Trump pulled one disqualifying move after another. He insulted war hero John McCain. He mocked a reporter with a physical disability. He made crass and crude comments. He lied relentlessly. He celebrated fringe players like conspiracy theory–monger Alex Jones. And with each of these misdeeds and missteps, the pundits declared he was kaput. But he wasn’t. Not even after the grab-’em-by-the-pussy videotape.

Trump was able to survive gaffes, controversies, and scandals that would blow away any other politician. In part that was because, as one of his early advisers told me, being an asshole was part of his appeal. It was baked into the cake. How many times since he was first elected president has a commentator said—or you thought—in response to some Trump outrage, no other politicians could get away with this? That includes bear-hugging Vladimir Putin, mismanaging the Covid epidemic (which led to avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of Americans), his first impeachment, his effort to overturn a legitimate election to retain power, his incitement of political violence that aimed to destroy American democracy, and the countless instances of grift and graft he and his clan have perpetrated.

It seemed that the rules of politics and public life did not apply to Trump. Yes, he lost the 2020 election, but he resurrected himself—yet again defying the conventional wisdom following the January 6 riot that he was finished politically.

Trump still survives revelations and scandals that would destroy past presidencies—swiping classified documents, paying off a porn star. But the good news is that this does not mean that the political universe has been permanently upended. In recent weeks, there have been signs that political gravity does still exist and that we are not adrift in a cosmos free of all rules.

The most obvious indicator was the off-year elections. History suggested that Democrats would fare well, given Trump’s falling approval numbers and still-too-high prices. And they did, even better than expected in many places. (See Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, and Eileen Higgins, who this week became the first Democrat to be elected Miami mayor in three decades.) Beyond those electoral returns, we are seeing other normal political occurrences.

Trump is technically a lame duck president. Given his hold on the GOP, which he has turned into a cult of personality, it might be expected that he could escape this diminished status and still dominate. And, mostly, that’s so. But there have been a few whiffs of Republican restiveness. His illegal military attacks on suspected drug boats prompted a few Hill Republicans to ask questions and even suggest the need for an investigation. That might not lead to a full-fledged inquiry. But it’s the most pushback we’ve seen from the GOP. And a handful of congressional Republicans have hinted that they are concerned by the dramatic hike in health insurance premiums that’s about to hit because Trump and the GOP killed the extended subsidies for Obamacare policies. Again, there’s no open rebellion—except for Marjorie Taylor Greene—but the 100 percent obeisance of the GOP has dropped a point or two.

Then there’s MAGA. As historians of political movements will note, none of them live forever. The tea party, BLM, Occupy, the nuclear freeze—eventually they lose steam and develop fractures; leadership fights and disagreements cause fissures and sometimes cannibalistic internal conflicts. We’re witnessing that with MAGA now. There have been numerous splits and disagreements these past few months, with almost a civil war over the release of the Epstein files (and that may still transpire, depending on what the Trump administration does in response to the new law that compels the release of these documents).

MAGA world had a major brawl over Tucker Carlson’s friendly and supportive interview with Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and Hitler fanboy. On the right, there’s been a pitched battle regarding support for Israel. The aforementioned Greene, once a MAGA favorite, has cast herself out of Trump’s circle of trust after tussling with him over the Epstein records and calling Israel’s war on Gaza “genocide” and voicing worry over rising health insurance premiums. The manosphere—Joe Rogan and the army of Rogan-wannabes—have groused about the ICE raids going too far, especially when they round up day laborers outside Home Depot who are simply looking for work. Steve Bannon, the grand strategist of MAGA, is not happy Trump is handing Big Tech a blank check. 

To get a sense of the insane vitriol and vituperation within MAGA land these days, check out this recent tweet from Laura Loomer, the avenging angel of Trumptown:

I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to dissect and process this particular feud—for you or for me. But the point is clear: These people are nuts, and the internecine bloodlust is high.

I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the other fractures that have arisen recently. But MAGA is behaving in a familiar manner, with grifters and ideologues vying for attention, money, and turf. Trump won’t be around forever, and there’s scrambling for positioning in the post-Trump era. That’s true within the GOP for those who yearn to run in 2028, presuming there will be an election, and it’s also true for those who want to claim the MAGA mantle next. These may be separate power struggles.

Here’s another sign of the reassertion of political gravity. After Trump won the election a year ago, there was much blathering about a strategic realignment in politics. He had increased his share of votes among Latinos, Blacks, and young people, especially men in these categories. Republicans were giddy, believing Trump had cracked a code that would bring these traditionally Democratic voters into the GOP coalition permanently. That was then. In the elections last month, these voters switched back to the Ds, even and especially young men. No, Trump did not deliver a history-defying permanent shift in electoral politics. It now looks like there’s a regression to the mean.

That brings us to Trump’s poll numbers. Cheap analysis focuses on this standard marker. But it shows us that Trump is not a supernatural politician. In recent decades, all presidents decline in popularity after they enter office. Trump is following that pattern—and more so. His approval rating, according to the latest Gallup poll, has plummeted to 36 percent, with disapproval hitting 60 percent. Some surveys have Trump a few points higher on approval. Yet it’s evident he’s getting close to hitting his floor.

My unscientific guesstimate is that about 30 to 35 percent of the nation fully buys Trump’s bunk. They believe his bullshit—America’s about to be destroyed by migrants; radical lunatics, commies, antifa, Democrats, and the media are scheming to annihilate the nation; the Deep State is out to sabotage Trump; and only Trump, the smartest, strongest, and most noble man in human history, can save the US of A. No matter what happens, they will stand by their man.

Yet the rest of the nation is not cottoning to his mass deportation crusade, his economic policies, his razing of the East Wing, his revenge-infused implementation of authoritarianism, his brazen corruption, his plutocratic policies, and his never-ending nastiness. It’s not wearing well. If you do a lot of crap that’s unpopular, you won’t be popular. That’s a rather basic rule of politics, and Trump is not escaping that. And Republicans, naturally, are wigged out that one of the major historical trends of American politics will likely hold next year: The president’s party gets socked in midterm elections.

It’s far too early to make any predictions. External circumstances can always change any political equation. What happens if there’s a war in Venezuela? Or if the White House can find a trans migrant who commits a heinous crime? And we all ought to worry about Trump and his crew concocting ways to screw with next year’s elections.

Don’t put on any rose-colored glasses. Trump has done so much harm and damage. According to Impactcounter.com, the ending of US foreign assistance and the demolition of USAID has led to nearly 700,000 deaths, including the deaths of 451,000 children. There’s still much harm and damage to come, here and abroad. But it is reassuring that the laws of politics remain partially intact. Trump, the GOP, and MAGA are not immune. But their opponents need to keep in mind that these vulnerabilities do not predetermine a downfall; they only provide an opportunity for a fight.

Do Its Job

NYC’s New Socialist Mayor Has a Radical Proposal: Have Government Do Its Job

Rent freezes and free buses can come later. But what if landlords obeyed the law and transit ran on time?

Abby Vesoulis

Have you ever reached out to a customer-service helpline and fallen into a vortex of bad phone-tree options, all AI-generated, none of which have anything to do with your problem? There’s no capable human to help—even after you beg for a “representative!” across the automated line.

That’s how Jennifer M., a lifelong resident of Astoria, Queens, felt when her 66-year-old mother-in-law was widowed and fell behind on paying her rent in 2023. Debilitated by severe arthritis and addled by grief, an eviction loomed in less than two weeks. Surely, Jennifer thought, her mother-in-law qualified for some government assistance. But figuring out what kind and from which agencies took her through the frustrating and often-futile process of trying to navigate New York’s byzantine bureaucracy.

“Everyone we would call, they would give us the runaround and send us right back where we started,” she says, asking not to share her last name to protect her mother-in-law’s privacy.

That is, until she requested help from the office of then-New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is now mayor-elect of New York City, and reached his constituent services director, Mariela Ortiz.

Ortiz has served in this role for the last three of Mamdani’s five years in the state legislature and has become well-versed in helping the people of New York’s District 36 battle slumlords and unresponsive government agencies. To prove a housing complex was illegally turning off the heat in the middle of the night, for instance, Ortiz once secured a building inspector to do a surprise inspection at midnight. (She hasn’t received complaints about heating there since). After a year of chronic outages, she pushed the city to restore gas to 20 residential customers and a beloved Mexican restaurant. She has even personally accompanied worried constituents to their traffic court and social security hearings.

“Our agencies are here to provide services,” Ortiz says of her job, which entails helping dozens of people per week. “This is what they’re supposed to be doing.”

But in treating constituent problems as urgent and solvable, Ortiz actually provided an answer to a strangely radical hypothetical question: What if every day government services actually worked?

Right now, most New Yorkers don’t think that they do. In fact, only 27 percent of residents rate government services as excellent or good, according to a 2025 report from the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC); in 2017, 44 percent gave satisfactory scores. During outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’s tenure, for example, most city buses received “failing grades” on metrics such as arrival and wait times. Bad landlords cost city taxpayers an estimated $300 million per year in incurred expenses, such as emergency shelter and legal services. Roughly 35 percent of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps) took longer than 30 days to process.

“This is a wake-up call that things are not where they need to be in New York,” CBC President Andrew Rein told local news site amNY. “New Yorkers are telling their leadership to focus on these priorities.”

Members of Mamdani’s incoming team—which Ortiz expects to join in some capacity—promise that they will. While the administration’s goals include free city buses, rent freezes, and city-run grocery stores, they also want clean and safe public transit that runs on schedule, and the imposition of immediate consequences for landlords, businesses, and agencies that fail to abide by code.

“There is often low trust in government because our processes are just too hard to navigate,” Elle Bisgaard-Church, Mamdani’s chief of staff in the assembly, and soon in his mayoral office, tells Mother Jones. “It’s really important to us that there are fewer barriers for New Yorkers to get what they need from the government, which is supposed to serve them.”

A prerequisite for addressing constituent problems, however, is knowing what they are. On a recent Sunday, leading up to his January inauguration, Mamdani wanted to find out, so he brought a pen and notepad to a series of 3-minute sit-downs with over 100 New Yorkers.

During his 12-hour “The Mayor is Listening” event at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens on December 14, New Yorkers vented about the kinds of grievances that come across Ortiz’s desk every day: difficulty communicating with New York agencies; road construction work during rush hour traffic; apartments without sufficient heat or hot water in the winter; illegal price gouging in rent-controlled buildings.

I reached out to Mamdani’s incoming deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, who has served in many high-ranking roles across New York City and state government—including as deputy mayor once before under Bill de Blasio—to learn about what the team took away from these brief meetings. There was genuine excitement about the campaign platform, he said, but also earnest demands concerning basic needs.

New York City is “the most expansive major local government in the country,” Fuleihan says. “So the school districts, the water and sewer, streets, traditional city services that we’re going to deliver—excellence has to be achieved [because] New Yorkers will feel that on a day-to-day basis.”

Even with his long experience, Fuleihan, who is 74, says he’s learning a new approach to governance from Mamdani. “He has made clear to us that we’re all going to be part of the effort of listening to New Yorkers,” he says. “That’s not something that somebody in my role would traditionally do, right? They would be in City Hall.”

As an assemblyman, Mamdani took cues from the community when working on advocacy and legislation. When roughly a quarter of constituent complaints pertained to the high Con Edison electric and gas rates, he joined as a party in the New York State Public Service Commission case against the utility company, which helped secure lower rate hikes and more transparency.

According to Ortiz, Mamdani also inserted himself into email chains and joined virtual meetings to push along individual constituent issues. A perk of her boss’s recent mayoral win, Ortiz says, is that agencies seem to be even more responsive to her requests.

Jennifer M’s family crisis was quickly resolved. Given the pressing eviction deadline, Mamdani’s office escalated her mother-in-law’s case with a government housing agency and helped her to apply for a grant that covered her rent so that she was able to remain in her home. As a result of a thorough case assessment, Ortiz also discovered the woman was eligible for a rent-increase exemption for senior citizens and approximately $350 more in monthly Social Security benefits—money the widow has been able to use to stay current on her rent.

After he is sworn in on January 1, the struggle for Mamdani and his team will be expanding this approach for a constituency that will have increased seventyfold, from 122,000 to 8.5 million. He’s made his loftier ambitions clear. But, even before those big plans can be realized, he is determined to expand his previous strategies to improve the efficiency of existing government services.

In that work, Mamdani’s team may discover what so many major corporations seem to forget: Even without bells and whistles, customer service that simply does what it is supposed to do can go a long way to ensure brand loyalty. The same is likely true for voters.

When I asked Jennifer M. which mayoral candidate received her vote in November, she didn’t miss a beat: “Who do you think?”

Bans Abortion Care for Veterans

Trump Administration Bans Abortion Care for Veterans

The policy will even apply in states that protect abortion rights.

Alex Nguyen

In another assault on reproductive rights by the Trump administration, the US Department of Veterans Affairs sent out a memo on Monday announcing that it will no longer provide abortion or abortion counseling.

This change stems from a Department of Justice legal opinion on December 18 that reinstated exclusions on abortions and abortion counseling that the Biden administration had removed in 2022. That Biden-era ruling expanded abortion access for veterans in cases of rape, incest, or threats to life and health, even in states with bans. 

The DOJ cited a rule the VA proposed in August that argued Biden demonstrated federal overreach by expanding abortion access just months after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But, according to the VA, Biden’s decision forced taxpayer funding for abortion.

“Pregnant Veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most,” Denis McDonough, Biden’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs, said in 2022, calling it “a patient safety decision.”

The new directive, obtained by Mother Jones, states that it won’t prohibit care to “pregnant women in life-threatening circumstances, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages.” However, these exceptions often do not work. According to Jessica Valenti, a writer on feminism and politics, exceptions “are deliberately crafted to be impossible to use” and only exist “to make Republicans seem a little less punishing.” 

Half of the states in the country protect the right to abortion. The VA’s ban will also apply in those states.

The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to Mother Jones’ questions about the removal of exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or health emergencies and the usurping of state laws.

The scale of this issue is significant. According to the VA’s own numbers, there are more than 700,000 family members who are eligible for its care. There are over 2.1 million women veterans and thousands of transgender men and non-binary veterans who may need abortion care. 

The VA’s memo also states that employees may request to opt out of providing “any aspect of clinical care based on their sincerely held moral and religious beliefs, observances, practices, or exercises,” which could leave the door open for more discriminatory lawmaking in health care access.

For the Trump administration, that is the point. Project 2025 recommended that the Veterans Health Administration “rescind all departmental clinical policy directives that are contrary to principles of conservative governance starting with abortion services and gender reassignment surgery.” Roughly half of the president’s judicial nominees have anti-abortion records.

Posting Over 100 Times

Trump Spent Christmas Posting Over 100 Times on Truth Social

Someone was stirring at Mar-a-Lago.

Katie Herchenroeder

As the clock struck midnight on Christmas morning at one Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, at least one someone was stirring. 

Starting in the early hours of December 25 and ending in the evening, President Donald Trump posted over 100 times on Truth Social. 

Hours before Trump sat alongside first lady Melania Trump to answer the calls of children dialing into the North American Aerospace Defense Command, during which he told kids from Oklahoma that “we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa,” the president shared posts attacking Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and former President Joe Biden, amongst several others. 

At 12:01, Trump began the spree by sharing an over-eight-minute video by someone explaining “The DEMOCRAT FRAUD PYRAMID.” 

Throughout the day, concluding around 7 o’clock, the president repeated many times that the 2020 election was stolen. He also shared a post that praised White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s handling of the “fake news,” another of someone who called Democrats a “criminal organization,” and one where Trump said, of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), “Throw her out of the U.S., Now!”

Many times, Trump would post a photo or video to his platform and then immediately after post a screenshot of how a supporter responded to his post. For example, around 1 in the morning, Trump shared a video of White House border czar Tom Homan at a press conference, discussing the administration’s mass deportation campaign. Less than one minute later, there’s another Trump post of a user called “RWB_American” on X quoting the video and writing about “the success ICE is having at nabbing illegals that need to be departed.” 

The official Christmas presidential message from the White House, though, had a different tone. 

“The First Lady and I send our warmest wishes to all Americans as we share in the joy of Christmas Day and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” it began. The message contained religious messages about “the gift of God’s only begotten Son” and Trump’s vow to always remain one Nation under God. (There was a lot of religious messaging across the administration on the 25th, spurring critiques from those saying the various posts skirted the US’s separation of church and state.)

President Trump ended his posting spree with a Merry Christmas message to constituents. It read, in part, “Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to “drop him like a dog” when things got too HOT.” 

Then, as a somewhat ominous sign off, Trump wrote: “Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!”

Predator

Kara Swisher Calls RFK Jr. a “Predator”

The veteran tech journalist is asking for more accountability for men in power.

Alex Nguyen

Kara Swisher, the veteran tech journalist who had a leading hand in uncovering the affair between then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and journalist Olivia Nuzzi, said in a Friday interview that RFK Jr. also needs to be held accountable given his long history as a “predator.”

“It’s crazy that people don’t care,” Swisher said, regarding how his well-documented allegations of sexual misconduct didn’t impact his confirmation as secretary of health and human services. “It’s because he’s lying about it.” 

Eliza Cooney, a former babysitter for the Kennedy family, said that RFK Jr. sexually assaulted her when she was 23 years old and he was 45. 

Kennedy reportedly sent a text to Cooney that deflected responsibility: “I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable…If I hurt you, it was inadvertent.”

Before he was confirmed, his cousin Caroline Kennedy wrote to several Congress members that they shouldn’t approve his nomination, calling him a “predator” that was “unqualified” for the job. 

“He lacks any relevant government, financial, management, or medical experience,” she said. “His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.”

RFK Jr. also appeared in Jeffrey Epstein flight records released in 2024.  

But he was confirmed anyway. 

“He’s murdering people with the vaccine stuff,” Swisher also told Miller.

The CDC voted earlier this month to limit hepatitis B vaccines for newborns, rolling back over 30 years of evidence that the vaccine lowers the probability of liver diseases caused by the virus. Models project that delaying the vaccine from birth to two months could lead to at least 1,400 infections and 480 deaths every year. 

The detrimental impact of RFK Jr.’s confirmation is obvious, but as Nina Martin noted in our Heroes and Monsters series this month, Swisher is correct—not just about Nuzzi but also how men in power like RFK Jr. continue to go unpunished.

Epstein files rollout

Schumer moves to sue the Trump administration over Epstein files rollout

The DOJ is facing accusations of not complying with the law.

By Hailey Fuchs and Calen Razor

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to force a vote on a measure to allow the chamber to jump-start litigation against the Trump administration for failing to comply with the new law requiring the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“The law Congress passed is crystal clear: release the Epstein files in full so Americans can see the truth,” the New York Democrat said in a statement Monday. “Instead, the Trump Department of Justice dumped redactions and withheld the evidence — that breaks the law. Today, I am introducing a resolution to force the Senate to take legal action and compel this administration to comply.”

The resolution would establish “authority to initiate litigation for actions by the President and Department of Justice officials inconsistent with their duties under the laws of the United States.”

It’s unlikely that enough Republicans would join Democrats in supporting the measure, but Schumer intends to put his colleagues on the spot in January, bringing the resolution to the floor when the Senate reconvenes after the holiday recess.

It follows Friday’s long-awaited rollout of materials from the Justice Department in its case against the late, convicted sex offender. That day, Dec. 19, marked the legislation’s deadline for public disclosure — but DOJ has said it would instead slowly release materials over the course of weeks, sparking bipartisan outrage.

The White House on Monday pointed to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent interview with NBC News, in which he claimed his department was doing everything in its power to comply with the law.

Asked about potential threats about impeachment proceedings, contempt or criminal referrals, Blanche responded: “Bring it on.”

The White House referred further comment to the Justice Department. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress passed legislation last month granting the Justice Department 30 days to publicly release its materials. The bill provided few exceptions for when files could obtain redactions — primarily in instances where DOJ wanted to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims.

The White House and congressional GOP leadership had led a long campaign to thwart passage the bill. However, it ultimately advanced unanimously in the Senate and with only one nay vote in the House: Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who argued it could jeopardize the privacy of Epstein’s victims and others.

After an initial dump of materials Friday and Saturday, Democrats were quick to blast the administration for failing to release the Epstein files in full and accused the administration of unlawfully redacting information.

Relatively little new information was included in the batches of materials that have been released so far.

Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who championed the legislation and led the effort to force a floor vote in the House to release the files — suggested they would urge the House to invoke its long-dormant power to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in inherent contempt of Congress for her agency’s failure to comply with the law.

On Monday, Khanna posted on X that he, Massie and Epstein’s accusers are eager to see the draft indictment, interviews in which witnesses name other men who might have perpetuated sex crimes, emails from Epstein’s computer and the Epstein prosecution memo.

3 Republican senators

These 3 Republican senators are giving John Thune headaches

Veteran hard-liners have new perches of authority and rising influence among Republican senators.

By Jordain Carney and Jennifer Scholtes

As Senate Majority Leader John Thune rushed to advance a new funding package this month, he faced a familiar roadblock: a trio of conservatives from his conference’s right flank.

Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah banded together as they sought to advance key conservative priorities, including an end to spending earmarks — holding out for weeks as Thune strained to keep the 2026 funding process on track and avoid another costly government shutdown on Jan. 30.

The tensions between the fiscal hawks, who want to drastically slash spending, and more pragmatic corners of the Senate GOP, including members of leadership and the Appropriations Committee, are nothing new. But these hard-liners have now found a larger pool of allies as the conference’s center of gravity slowly shifts right. They also have new perches of authority that give each a powerful megaphone.

Thune ultimately wore the three Republicans down with some outside assistance from President Donald Trump, cutting deals to win their consent to advance the proposed trillion-dollar “minibus” funding package. Ultimately, it was Democratic objections that prevented the Senate from acting in the final legislative days of 2025.

But Lee, Johnson and Scott are unapologetic about using their power amid the growing perception among some of their colleagues that they are frequent thorns in Thune’s side.

“We’re actually trying to do important things,” Johnson said in an interview. “No matter what I would have done, Democrats would have held out until the very last minute, too. So, I mean, sorry about your frustrations, colleagues.”

Since January, the trio has chosen to exert their leverage during key moments where GOP leaders have sought party unity. As Thune worked to advance the party’s sprawling domestic policy bill over the summer, the three Republicans haggled repeatedly over the measure’s parameters — including during a procedural vote that was left open for hours as they negotiated. Last month, they briefly withheld support for the bill that ultimately ended the 43-day government shutdown, huddling with Thune before ultimately voting in favor.

Publicly, their colleagues are respectful and note that every senator has a right to use the legislative tools available to advance their own agenda.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), an appropriator and Thune ally, noted that Johnson, Scott and Lee “reflect a bigger share of the caucus” that is decidedly conservative, while “folks on the other end of the caucus” also use their leverage from time to time.

“That’s just how it works,” Hoeven said.

But behind the scenes, the hardball tactics have rankled Republican senators. As the spending standoff dragged on in recent weeks, some privately urged Thune to call the fiscal hawks’ bluff by putting the spending package on the floor, essentially daring Johnson or others to publicly object.

“He’s going to keep doing it until they call his hand,” one GOP senator said about Johnson, adding that Thune risked being “miserable” unless he asserted himself.

A second GOP senator, who was also granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal conference dynamics, added that the trio has been more “emboldened” this year than under prior GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The senator said that’s due to Thune’s “looser” leadership style and his determination to move funding bills individually rather than simply banking on a single omnibus deal.

“We haven’t done an appropriations process in a long time,” the senator added.

Those tensions have played out quietly behind the scenes in GOP lunches, with the conservative trio at times sparring with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other members of the government funding panel who want to revise spending levels enacted under former President Joe Biden.

But the two GOP senators agreed that they did not think Lee, Scott and Johnson would be engaging in their current tactics were McConnell still in charge, or even under Collins’ predecessor as Appropriations chair, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

“Shelby would have taken away every one of their projects,” the first GOP senator said.

The shift in leadership style was by design. The same GOP senators kvetched that McConnell was too centralized, with Scott unsuccessfully challenging him in 2022. In his bid to take over as Republican leader two years later, Thune pledged to shift power back to individual senators and committee chairs — and the three conservative malcontents, once dismissed as outliers, are now more difficult to ignore.

Scott leads the Senate GOP’s Steering Committee, holding weekly meetings with the conservative-oriented group as well as hosting a weekly lunch for the larger conference. Lee chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of several one-time rebels who received gavels in January. And Johnson — long been willing to be a squeaky wheel — leads the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel’s investigative subcommittee in addition to having seats on the powerful Finance and Budget committees.

At the same time, the Senate GOP conference has undergone a subtle transformation in recent election cycles, inching toward the right as the most pragmatic Republican dealmakers are replaced by senators more closely aligned with the MAGA movement — giving Scott, Johnson and Lee a growing set of allies.

Thune has been dealing with the hard-liners one step at a time. Gaining their approval for the recent funding package, for instance, required promising several amendment votes as well as a path forward for a pet Johnson priority — a bill that would exempt some federal employees from furloughs during government shutdowns.

“He has more patience than any three of the rest of us do,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) added that Thune wants “to the maximum degree possible to make sure that people in his conference are heard and respected” — even if, she said, he “has a lot of frogs that keep hopping around.”

Asked about his message to the holdouts, Thune pitched the funding package as being in “everybody’s best interest” and better than the alternatives — a new shutdown, another short-term stopgap or a mammoth omnibus loathed by conservatives. Thune also helped facilitate a potential path toward enactment for Johnson’s shutdown bill, connecting him with Speaker Mike Johnson.

“I think you always have to keep the perspective in this job … that the most important vote isn’t the last vote, it’s the next vote,” Thune said about his broader approach to leadership this past year.

The conservative trio is looking ahead to the next fight, as well. Even after Scott cut a deal to advance the funding bill, he rekindled the earmarks fight, accusing Democrats in an X post of “packing the latest appropriations package with taxpayer-funded earmarks” and trying to “undermine Pres. Trump’s agenda.”

Republicans, Scott said, must “stand strong.”