Swalwell Scandal

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Seema Mehta,  Dakota Smith and Nicole Nixon at LAT:

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested California governor’s race, is facing mounting calls to drop out of the contest after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by a former staff member and other women in reports published on Friday.

A woman who worked for the Northern California congressman said they had a consensual relationship at times, but that he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too inebriated to consent, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle. Three other women also have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including sending unsolicited nude photos, according to CNN.

The allegations have Swalwell’s campaign teetering on collapse, with powerful labor organizations and other major supporters pulling their endorsements and canceling political ads promoting the once-promising candidate. Prominent Democrats — including U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter — are among the politicians who called on him to rdrop out of the race.

Riley Rogerson at Politico:

The situation presents a predicament for the sitting House Democratic leaders, who have insisted on letting a full Ethics Committee investigation play out before supporting formal discipline against another House Democrat accused of misconduct, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.).

Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California did not speak directly to consequences in the House in a joint statement.

But House Republicans were already discussing by Friday evening the likely scenario that one of their own members will bring a censure effort against Swalwell, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in an interview that she was weighing a censure and other action against Swalwell based on the reports of sexual assault allegations against him.

Luna said she would act “if there is evidence brought forward.”

 

The Day of Melania

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

Stephen Collinson at CNN:

The most plausible explanation for first lady Melania Trump’s out-of-the-blue address on the Jeffrey Epstein drama was that she was trying to make it go away.

But her stunning on-camera statement Thursday from the White House Cross Hall — the spot where her husband last week spoke to the nation about the Iran war — will almost certainly have the opposite effect.

“I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said, in a statement that was all the more remarkable since there had been no widespread public speculation about the matter in recent days.

It brings to mind this scene in All the President's Men (which premiered exactly 50 years earlier).

Howard Simons: Did you call the White House press office?

Bob Woodward: I went over there; I talked to them. They said Hunt hadn't worked there for three months. Then a PR guy said this weird thing to me. He said, "I am convinced that neither Mr. Colson nor anyone else at the White House had any knowledge of, or participation in, this deplorable incident at the Democratic National Committee."

Howard Simons: Isn't that what you expect them to say?

Bob Woodward: Absolutely.

Howard Simons: So?

Bob Woodward: I never asked about Watergate. I simply asked what were Hunt's duties at the White House. They volunteered he was innocent when nobody asked if he was guilty.

The Streisand Effect, according to Wikipedia:

The Streisand effect describes a situation where an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information results in the unintended consequence of the effort instead increasing public awareness of the information.

 Bill Kristol:

Melania’s focus was on . . . Melania. She began, “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” Her purpose, she said, was to defend “my reputation,” to clear “my good name.” (Emphasis mine.)

And so she asserted that “I have never been friends with Epstein” and that “I . . . was never on Epstein’s plane.” She also claimed that “My email reply to [Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine] Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.1 My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.”

Left unsaid, but not unimplied, was that none of these claims could be made about her husband. He was a pal of Epstein’s. He was on Epstein’s plane. His relationship with Epstein, as exemplified for example in his contribution to Epstein’s birthday book, was more than “casual” or “trivial.”

Melania also chose to express concern for Epstein’s victims, something her husband has conspicuously not done.

And she went on to say that

Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.

So the Epstein investigation is not, as her husband has asserted, a “hoax.” Nor is it yet time, as her husband has said, to move on. The truth hasn’t yet been uncovered, and we need to uncover it. And if doing so leads more “prominent male executives” to resign, so be it. One wonders: Could Melania have one prominent male chief executive in mind?

Melania chose not to include in her statement any assertion of her husband’s innocence of complicity in the Epstein affair.

Melania is perhaps not a deep thinker, but she’s no fool. Since immigrating to the United States three decades ago, Melania Knauss has done well for herself. She’s shown that she has a shrewd sense of how to operate in her adopted country. She’s risen to the top, while mostly avoiding being directly engulfed in all the scandals that have raged around her.

 

Trump v. Catholics

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling at TNR:

 Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.

The Trump administration had taken issue with the pope’s critique of its militaristic proclivities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top Pentagon officials were particularly aggrieved by portions of Leo’s January 9 speech in which the pope argued that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,” and that “war is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.”

The pope’s address was dissected line by line and interpreted as a hostile message toward the administration, reported Letters from Leo Substack writer Christopher Hale.

It was difficult not to interpret Leo’s comments as an immediate commentary on Donald Trump’s second administration, which had at that point bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, fiercely advocated for the dissolution of NATO, and threatened America’s allies, including claiming that the U.S. would seize control of Canada and Greenland.

But the blatant intimidation tactic is the first of its kind ever made by American officials to the Catholic Church. There are no public records of any previous meetings between Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon, let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

Pope Leo calls Trump’s ‘whole civilization’ Iran threat ‘truly unacceptable’https://t.co/5IYt7BhsMb

— The Hill (@thehill) April 8, 2026

Apocalypse Now

  Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Trump's threats to destroy Iranian civilization are a gift to the regime. They will alienate even its fiercest opponents, who believe the Islamic Republic has spent decades erasing 2500 years of Iranian civilization. It's malpractice for the U.S. president to threaten the same. https://t.co/BkANT7T08Q

— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) April 7, 2026

Trump Endorses Hilton, Thereby Helping Democrats

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Seema Mehta at LAT:

President Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton for California governor late Sunday night.

The endorsement could have a major impact on a race that remains up for grabs, with recent opinion polls showing Hilton and his top Republican rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, as top contenders in the 2026 contest.

“He is a truly fine man, one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that he has known Hilton for many years.
...
Despite California’s solidly Democratic electorate, a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Times found Hilton and Bianco leading the crowded field of candidates just months before the June 2 primary — leading to the possibility of Democrats being shut out of a November election that will determine California’s next governor. The crowded field of Democrats in the race has splintered their party’s voters, providing an opening for the Republicans, the poll showed.

Under the state’s top-two primary system, the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

If Trump’s endorsement leads to California Republican voters coalescing behind Hilton, severely damaging Bianco’s campaign, that likely would reduce the odds of two GOP candidates finishing in first and second place in the primary.

In California’s 2018 governor’s race, Trump’s endorsement of Republican businessman John Cox helped cement him as the GOP frontrunner and led to his second place finish in the primary election. That propelled Cox to the general election, where he was trounced by Newsom.

Trump's Easter Messages

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

On Easter morning, the president of the United States just posted the following:

Joyann Jeffrey at People:

President Donald Trump elicited laughter at a White House Easter lunch when he seemingly compared himself to Jesus Christ.

At the annual event on Wednesday, April 1, Trump spoke about Palm Sunday and said he could relate to one of the monikers that people use when referring to Jesus.

"On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise honoring him as king," he said in footage that has since been deleted from the White House website.

"They call me king now. Can you believe it?" he added with a smile.

Trump called God bringing the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt “an amazing period of time” and compared it to the United States under his presidency. pic.twitter.com/IjJ3BcXjJl

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) April 4, 2026

The Trump Budget: Coming to a Democratic Attack Ad Near You

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

In early February, a YouGov poll found majorities of Americans supported increasing government spending on veterans (74%), Social Security (69%), Medicare (67%), aid to the poor (64%), Medicaid (59%), and the environment (52%).   Only 34% wanted to increase defense spending --and that was before the Iran war, which is unpopular.  Last week, Pew found 61% disapproved of Trump's handling of the war, and 59% said that the US made the wrong decision to use military force in Iran.

 

Trump: "Don't send any money for daycare because the U.S. can't take care of daycare…It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal." pic.twitter.com/TTZqVVSKKj

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) April 1, 2026

Morgan Phillips at Fox:

The White House on Friday proposed a sweeping fiscal year 2027 budget that would dramatically increase military spending to roughly $1.5 trillion while cutting billions from domestic programs, marking a sharp shift in federal priorities toward national security and border enforcement.

...

Several major agencies would see significant reductions under the plan, including: NASA, cut by about $5.6 billion, or 23%, State Department and international programs, down roughly $15.5 billion, or 30%, Environmental Protection Agency, cut by more than half, Department of Labor, reduced by about $3.5 billion and Department of Housing and Urban Development, down $10.7 billion.