Idrees Kahloon/The Atlantic:
The GOP Is Realizing That Trump Won’t Be Around Forever
The intra-party fight over the Epstein files was only the prelude.
The reality that Donald Trump’s presidency will end in January 2029 is already making Republicans restless. Normally, Trump angers, exhausts, and eventually prevails over elected Republicans—not vice versa. Just this week, though, rebellious Republicans forced the release of the so-called Epstein files in defiance of Trump, who had spent months trying to suppress them before abruptly reversing course. Plenty of other cracks are showing too: Staunch allies of the president are mouthing critiques that would have been unfathomable a year ago. These disputes are the prelude to an ugly battle over the post-Trump Republican Party.
Karen Tumulty/Washington Post:
Is the past week a turning point for Trump’s second term?
The resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA hard-liner, is just one sign of a possible rebellion in the president’s party as Trump struggles with low poll numbers.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) had joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) to introduce the bill in July and then lead the signature-gathering exercise to force a vote. Massie said in an interview that his own party’s leadership in the House has ceded too much to Trump.
“Basically, Mike Johnson has handed the keys to the House of Representatives to the president, and we took the keys back this week,” Massie said. “They weren’t driving very well, and we were able. We didn’t crash the car. We got it right to the destination.”
POLITICO:
‘Is the price of doing this worth it?’: North Carolina Republicans worry about Trump immigration raids
The concerns surrounding Trump’s immigration clampdown in the Tar Heel state speak to a tension at the center of the president’s immigration agenda.
“Kick out the ones that are bad hombres, the ones who have criminal records, the murderers and the rapists,” she said. “But do not touch the lady who has been here for 10, 20 years, contributing to the economy.”
Patrick Sebastian, a GOP pollster based in North Carolina, said voters “draw a clear line” between deporting immigrants who are living in the country illegally and working but not breaking other laws, and unauthorized immigrants who have committed crimes.
“In purple states, there’s broad support for removing the latter — and the left looks foolish protesting that,” Sebastian said. “But the other narrative has gotten more play over the past week, and that could be a problem for Republicans.”
What Republicans won’t acknowledge is that the entire ICE/BPS deal is entirely cosplay public relations stuff. It’s hurting the economy as well as US citizens, and there was never a plan to only deport “bad hombres”. So there’s no ‘fallback’ plan to fall back to.
Independent:
Republicans face brutal losses in key voter group over Trump migrant sweeps and affordability failure: ‘Just wake up’
Latino conservatives tell Eric Garcia that high costs at the supermarket and draconian immigration policies could cost the GOP most of the gains Trump made last year
But the same forces that led Latinos to vote Republicans into power seem to be working against them now as Hispanics register their anger at draconian efforts to round up, deport and detain undocumented immigrants — and even some migrants in the United States lawfully. Even more pressing, many Hispanic voters are voicing their anger at the high cost of living, which they see Trump as doing nothing to correct.
Election Law Blog:
New polling from NPR/Marist aligns with much of what we are seeing in other polling: Trump’s approval rating is now below 40% and Democrats appear to have an edge in the midterm. But what is more interesting is its message that both parties need to rebuild the electorate’s trust by delivering for ordinary Americans. NPR nicely summarizes and, in doing so, reinforces that an under-appreciated factor driving our current politics is the social distance between party elites and those they seek to represent–a point to be drawn from Theda Skocpol’s historical comparison of civic and political networks.
‘I feel lost,’ said poll respondent Wayne Dowdy of Memphis, Tenn., who calls himself a ‘lapsed Democrat.’ ‘The parties don’t speak to me anymore.’
He said he often feels unseen by the Democratic Party, but, given the alternative, he plans to keep supporting Democratic candidates — for now.
The disillusionment extends to how people see those in the opposite political party. Big majorities of Democrats and Republicans said the other party is ‘dishonest’ and ‘closed-minded’ about politics.
x
X rolled out a new feature overnight showing where accounts are based. This network of “Trump-supporting independent women” that claimed to be “real Americans” are based in Thailand.
The photos were stolen from European models & posts pushed pro-Trump lines while targeting Islam and LGBTQ people.
— Benjamin Strick (@bendobrown.bsky.social) 2025-11-23T12:54:58.536Z
That happened on Twitter when they briefly turned on “where is this account from” and then hastily turned it off so trolls could reorient. Now it’s back on.
Jason Willick/Washington Post:
With great presidential power comes great presidential blame
Trump has devised the most powerful executive branch of modern times. Now he owns whatever goes wrong.
Maybe the combination of unprecedented presidential powers and declining political fortunes is not actually a paradox. With great power, after all, comes great responsibility — and therefore great blame. In his 1986 paper, “The Politics of Blame Avoidance,” scholar R. Kent Weaver argued that politicians need to “avoid blame for unpopular actions” more than they need to “claim credit for popular ones.” When the White House tries to be all-powerful, it might get more credit when things go well. But it also quickly runs out of places to redirect blame when they don’t.
Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:
For America’s deeply corrupt billionaires, time heals all wounds — even from a murderous Saudi prince’s bone saw.
It wasn’t just Oval Office-bound candidate Joe Biden who’d promised (falsely) to make MBS “a global pariah” after the CIA stated the obvious, that the crown prince was behind the barbaric murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Six years ago, some of the nation’s top business leaders — like the CEOs of J.P. Morgan Chase, Ford, and Uber and Donald Trump billionaire pal Stephen Schwarzman — abruptly ditched a high-profile Saudi investment forum, and a few businesses totally cut ties with the oil dictatorship.
In 2025, any pretense of “corporate social responsibility,” let alone shame, in America’s C-suites is as outdated as dial-up internet. Schwarzman — who cancelled his 2019 flight to Riyadh but not his Blackstone Group’s lucrative ties to the Saudi wealth fund — toasted MBS at a White House dinner Tuesday night, as did Ford CEO William Clay Ford Jr.
Gothamist:
Mamdani, Trump lovefest shakes up NY's political landscape ... for now
From shocked to bemused to barely surprised — New Yorkers voiced a gamut of reactions after watching President Donald Trump’s unexpected embrace of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office Friday.
But the biggest question for many was: How is this going to play in 2026?
Republicans nationwide have been planning to use Mamdani as the poster boy for liberalism run amok, but on Friday Trump told reporters he was confident that Mamdani “can do a good job. I think he is going to surprise some conservative people actually.”
Perhaps nowhere did the unexpected praise land more awkwardly than in the New York governor’s race where Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik has been relentlessly trying to tie Gov. Kathy Hochul to Mamdani since Hochul endorsed the incoming mayor in September.
Immediately following Friday’s press conference, Stefanik dug in further.
Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis and Debra Houry/MS NOW:
We are former CDC officials. RFK Jr.’s change to vaccine guidance is propaganda.
Under Secretary Kennedy, CDC materials can no longer be assumed to reflect scientific authority.
Career staff across multiple CDC centers have told us that no scientific offices — or their leadership — were asked to review or clear the new content. (The Washington Post reported the same, citing five agency officials.) In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Kennedy said he personally ordered the changes.
This is not science. It is propaganda.
When you remove scientists from science, you don’t get truth. You get ideology. The secretary’s apparent aim is not to clarify evidence but to manufacture doubt and hand opportunists a government-branded document they can use to prey on anxious parents. Why invest in rigorous research when you can exploit the credibility of the nation’s leading public health agency to turn conspiracy theory into policy?
Heidi Stevens/Chicago Tribune:
After Trump’s ‘Quiet, piggy’ moment, we’re done asking why survivors don’t come forward, right?
We’re done asking why sexual assault survivors don’t come forward, right?
And when they do find the courage to come forward, we’re done asking what took them so long, right?
We’re done filtering their stories through a “what will she gain from this” lens instead of a “what will this cost her” lens, right?
We’re done pretending this culture is even remotely safe for survivors, even mildly interested in their truth, even marginally intent on their healing, let alone their justice.
Right?
Because the president of the United States, when asked about his documented friendship with a convicted sex offender, just replied, “Quiet, piggy.”
You can see the whole thread here without going to Twitter.
