Foreign MAGA

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments.  For one, we have learned that foreign interference in American politics has not gone away.

Marina Dunbar at The Guardian:

Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.

The new tool, called “about this account”, became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed, and how the X app was downloaded.

As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.

“This is easily one of the greatest days on this platform,” wrote the liberal influencer Harry Sisson. “Seeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this.”

The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the Daily Beast. Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with about 1 million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.

Another user also uncovered several additional cases. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand. MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, operates out of Nigeria, while MAGA Beacon is based in south Asia.

Miles Klee at Rolling Stone:

A user with the handle @AmericanGuyX, for example, who represents themselves as a “Florida guy,” regularly posted in support of Trump and Musk while denouncing figures including George Soros and fear-mongering about the U.S. national debt. Their location, according to X, is India. On Saturday, Trump shared an X post from @TRUMP_ARMY_ about a Supreme Court ruling on Truth Social; that person, who has more than half a million followers, also lives in India. And a now-suspended account with the handle @American and a profile image of a bald eagle superimposed on an American flag traced back to Pakistan.

Other accounts featuring MAGA slogans, American flag emojis, references to the American Revolution, and Trump-favored words such as “patriot” were found to be run by users in places including Nigeria, Turkey, Ukraine, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Quite a few have substantial followings and at some point alluded to voting for Trump in 2024 despite evidently lacking U.S. citizenship. There was evidence, too, that more of these inauthentic profiles are springing up every day and often rebranding to gain a wider audience. The MAGA account “Charlie’s Voice Rising,” or @CharlieK_news, which uses an avatar of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and has nearly 200,000 followers, was created less than a year ago by someone in Eastern Europe, and the handle has been changed multiple times.

 

ACA Subsidies

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  Trump was a liability for Republicans in the 2025 off-year elections.  He could be a bigger liability in the 2026 midterm -- and not just because of his low approval ratings.

Congressional Republicans are in a tough spot.  On the one hand, anything bearing Obama's name is toxic to GOP activists. On the other hand, the general public now favors the Affordable Care Act by nearly a two-to-one margin. And about half of those who receive ACA premium subsidies are either self-employed or work for a small business — exactly the kind of voters that marginal Republicans need in a general election. 

Robert Jimison at NYT:

Representative Jen Kiggans, Republican of Virginia, once called for eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, has repeatedly called it “a disaster.”

But the two are part of a small group of G.O.P. members of Congress — most of them facing tough re-election races next year in competitive districts — who have broken with their party to push for a temporary extension of a crucial piece of the law: subsidies, currently slated to expire at the end of the year, to help Americans afford their premiums.

Their eagerness to vote for an extension, which was Democrats’ main demand in the weekslong government shutdown fight, underscores how entrenched the health care law has become, even among Republicans who once fought to kill it. And it helps explain why President Trump, who has long railed against the law, commonly called Obamacare, is said to be weighing such a move as he and his party toil to address affordability issues that could be a major liability for them going into the midterm elections.

Letting the subsidies lapse would put a heavy financial burden on millions of voters just as the G.O.P. is grasping to keep control of Congress.

Bad November for Trump

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments.

Chris Megerian at AP:

Thanksgiving may not provide Trump with much political respite after Democrats won sweeping victories in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere earlier this month. Some research indicates that holiday meals could cost more this year , despite the president’s insistence otherwise , a reminder of persistent frustration with elevated prices.

Meanwhile, Trump is struggling to advance a plan to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine after an earlier version faced swift criticism from European allies and even some Republicans. The U.S. military is also poised to target Venezuela with military strikes, part of an anti-drug operation that could ultimately destabilize the country’s leadership. [CBS poll finds 70% would oppose an attack on Venezuela.]

In Washington, Trump faces the possibility of a splintering Republican coalition ahead of next year’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Some members of his party already took the rare step of crossing the president by successfully pushing legislation to force the Justice Department to release more documents about the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Trump faced a setback in court this week when a federal judge tossed cases against James Comey and Letitia James, two targets of the president’s retribution campaign.

The Very Unhappy House Republicans

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  Trump was a liability for Republicans in the 2025 off-year elections.  He could be a bigger liability in the 2026 midterm -- and not just because of his low approval ratings.  He is effectively pushing Republicans out the door.

MTG explaining her decision to resign:

Loyalty should be a two way street and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district's interest because our job title is literally, "Representative."

America First should mean America First and only Americans First, with no other foreign country ever being attached to America First in our halls of government.

 Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, 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.

Jake Sherman at X:

A few other GOP members messaged us over the weekend saying that they, too, are considering retiring in the middle of the term.

Here’s one particularly exercised senior House Republican:

“This entire White House team has treated ALL members like garbage. ALL. And Mike Johnson has let it happen because he wanted it to happen. That is the sentiment of nearly all — appropriators, authorizers, hawks, doves, rank and file. The arrogance of this White House team is off putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened. They don’t even allow little wins like announcing small grants or even responding from agencies. Not even the high profile, the regular rank and file random members are more upset than ever. Members know they are going into the minority after the midterms. “More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out.”

It Sounds Better in the Original Russian

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments.

Associated Press:

Lawmakers critical of President Donald Trump’s approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine war said Saturday they spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio who told them that the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians and not the actual proposal offering Washington’s positions.

A State Department spokesperson denied their account, calling it “blatantly false.”

Rubio himself then took the extraordinary step of suggesting online that the senators were mistaken, even though they said he was their source for the information. The secretary of state doubled down on the assertion that Washington was responsible for a proposal that had surprised many from the beginning for being so favorable to Moscow.

It all added up to a confusing — and potentially embarrassing — turn of events for a Trump administration-blessed peace plan that already faced a potentially rocky future.

The widely leaked 28-point U.S-backed peace plan was, according to the White House, the result of a month of work between Rubio and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff along with input from what it said was both Ukrainians and Russians. The plan acquiesces to many Russian demands that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has categorically rejected on dozens of occasions, including giving up large pieces of territory. Trump says he wants Ukraine to accept the plan by late next week.

“This administration was not responsible for this release in its current form,” said Republican Mike Rounds from South Dakota, speaking at a security conference in Canada. “They want to utilize it as a starting point.”

Rounds said “it looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with.”

Rounds was not kidding.  Hafiz Rashid at TNR:

The U.S. peace plan presented to Ukraine appears to have been translated from Russian.

The syntax of certain phrases are more common in the Russian language, such as the third point of the 28-point plan: “It is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries and Nato will not expand further.”

“It is expected” is not commonly used in English, but it is common in Russian and appears to come from the phrase ожидается or ozhidayetsya, according to The Guardian’s Luke Harding. Other words that appear to be translated from Russian include “ambiguities” (неоднозначности) and “to enshrine” (закрепить).

It’s no accident, either: The plan was hammered out by President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the two met last month in Miami. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also involved, no Ukrainian or European officials were, which is pretty evident by its contents.

For example, under the proposal, Ukraine would cede Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk to Russia and would be banned from joining NATO. Russia would get readmitted to the G8. Ukraine would also reduce the size of its military by hundreds of thousands, and no NATO troops could be stationed in the country. Sanctions against Russia would also be lifted but would snap back if Russia invades Ukraine again.

Grok’s Conclusion:
“This document is almost certainly translated from Russian into English by a native Russian speaker or a non-professional translator. It is not originally written in English. pic.twitter.com/uNF7yup85n

— Meaghan Mobbs (@mobbs_mentality) November 22, 2025

ChatGPT confirms.: "This is almost certainly a translation, not originally written in English. The underlying source language was almost certainly Russian, with a possibility of Ukrainian, but the linguistic signals point more strongly to Russian → English translation."

Trump Calls Critics "Traitors"

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Todd Spangler at The Detroit Free Press:

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin's office said Michigan State Police responded to a bomb threat at her Oakland County home on Friday, Nov. 21, a day after President Donald Trump called her and other Democrats traitors for putting out a video message to members of the military telling them it's their right and duty to disobey illegal orders.

A message posted on social media platform X by a spokesperson for Slotkin, D-Michigan, said Slotkin wasn't at her home in Holly at the time of the threat. Michigan State Police searched the premises "and confirmed no one was in danger," the message said.

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite:

President Donald Trump began posting earlier than usual to rant about the shock resignation of former ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), whom he disparaged with a derisive moniker.

MTG shocked the political world when she announced on Friday that she will resign from Congress effective Jan. 5, 2026. The congresswoman released a lengthy statement via video on X/Twitter in which she said, in part, “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

...

Trump first reacted to the news by phone on Friday night, telling ABC News White House correspondent Rachel Scott that “I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great.”

The president expanded on the thought early Saturday morning with a Truth Social message posted at 6:45 AM that featured characteristic insults:

 

Dictator Stuff

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Trump is calling for the six Democratic lawmakers who urged the military not to follow any illegal orders to be arrested, and he’s reposting replies saying they should be hanged and calling them terrorists. pic.twitter.com/j4m7ZBcm50

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 20, 2025

Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

Senior White House officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount.

The discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, come as Paramount portrays itself as the best bid for Warner Bros Discovery, after the company announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an easier time getting through regulatory review.


Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House but, in at least one of the calls, engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said