Selling Out Ukraine

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

Drew Hinshaw et al. at WSJ:

Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach last month, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine.

But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends.

At his waterfront estate, billionaire developer-turned-special envoy Steve Witkoff was hosting Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and Vladimir Putin’s handpicked negotiator, who had largely shaped the document they were revising on the screen. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, had arrived from his nearby home on an island known as the “Billionaire Bunker.”

Dmitriev was pushing a plan for U.S. companies to tap the roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, frozen in Europe, for U.S.-Russian investment projects and a U.S.-led reconstruction of Ukraine. U.S. and Russian companies could join to exploit the vast mineral wealth in the Arctic. There were no limits to what two longtime adversaries could achieve, Dmitriev had argued for months: Their rival space industries, which raced one another during the Cold War, could even pursue a joint mission to Mars with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials. By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies.

Pete Hegseth and War Crimes

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

Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima at WP:

The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.

The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

Hegseth’s order, which has not been previously reported, adds another dimension to the campaign against suspected drug traffickers. Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign — which has killed more than 80 people to date — is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.

The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., these officials and experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law.

Trump has a history of condoning war crimes.  Steve Benen reported in 2018:

On his first full day as president, Donald Trump traveled to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, spoke in front of a memorial wall, and delivered one of the strangest presidential speeches I’ve ever seen.

Trump attacked journalists, lied about the size of his inaugural crowd, assured those in attendance about how impressed he was with his intellect, reflected on the number of instances in which he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and speculated about taking Iraqi oil.

But the Washington Post reported this week on something else that happened when the president visited the CIA and “was ushered up to the agency’s drone operations floor.”

Trump urged the CIA to start arming its drones in Syria. “If you can do it in 10 days, get it done,” he said, according to two former officials familiar with the meeting.

Later, when the agency’s head of drone operations explained that the CIA had developed special munitions to limit civilian casualties, the president seemed unimpressed. Watching a previously recorded strike in which the agency held off on firing until the target had wandered away from a house with his family inside, Trump asked, “Why did you wait?” one participant in the meeting recalled.

For those with a moral compass, such a comment is obviously jarring, especially coming from a president. But for those who’ve covered Trump’s public positions, this isn’t too surprising.

In December 2015, near the height of the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, then-candidate Trump endorsed torturing detainees — even “if it doesn’t work” in producing valuable intelligence — simply because he saw it as a worthwhile thing to do.

He added soon after, “[T]he other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.”

Trump Is Not Well

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. Last year, Trump was already showing signs of cognitive decline. It's getting worse.

 Daniel Orton and Robert Birsel at Newsweek:

Tim Walz hit back at Donald Trump after the president used an ableist slur to attack him during a late-night online tirade against immigration.

Trump called the Minnesota governor “seriously retarded,” a term widely regarded as derogatory toward people with intellectual disabilities. Walz responded by calling for the release of the president’s recent MRI results, drawing renewed attention to questions surrounding the 79-year-old commander-in-chief's health.

Trump's health has drawn increased scrutiny in recent months after he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition in older adults. He also confirmed receiving an MRI at Walter Reed in October as part of what the White House described as a routine physical, though Trump told reporters he had “no idea what they analyzed.”

"Release the MRI results," Walz wrote, sharing a screenshot on X of Trump's lengthy Truth Social post in which he slammed immigration, attacked Walz and Somali-American Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, and pushed unsubstantiated claims about Somali immigrants.

 Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman at NYT:

According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.

The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.

Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work.

...
Mr. Trump has long rambled in his speeches; during his 2024 campaign and in his second term, the meandering has often been noticeable. He can veer off script to share stories that are sometimes riddled with untruths, such as his false claim that his uncle, John Trump, had taught the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski at M.I.T.

“I said, ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump?’ He said, ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said, ‘seriously good.’ He said he’d go around correcting everybody,” Mr. Trump said during a speech in Pennsylvania in July. “But it didn’t work out too well for him, didn’t work out too well, but it’s interesting in life. But I will say this that we have the greatest brains, we have the greatest power and we are going to have more electric.”

A rational president would ignore the story, confident that it would soon fade away.  Instead, Trump spotlighted it. 

Marina Dunbar at The Guardian:

Donald Trump lashed out on Wednesday against a New York Times reporter, calling her “ugly inside and out” in his latest personal insult against female members of the media after last week calling another “piggy”.

In a Truth Social post, Trump criticized the newspaper for an article suggesting he was running low on energy in his 80th year, insisting he had “never worked so hard in my life”.

Trump specifically targeted one of the authors. “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” he wrote.

Rumors surrounding the president’s health have been circulating for months, with more questions raised after Trump admitted to having an MRI last month. He claimed it was part of a standard physical and would not reveal what body part the test had analyzed.

 

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

Releasing the Files?

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. Scandals persist. 

Perry Stein, Jeremy Roebuck and Theodoric Meyer at WP:

On Tuesday, the House and Senate agreed to pass a bill calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all unclassified information and files related to the sprawling sex trafficking investigation into the onetime powerful financier.

The Justice Department so far has continued to say nothing about how it would respond to that demand. There are many reasons to doubt that a bulk release of the files is imminent.

If President Donald Trump wanted Bondi to release all of the Epstein files, he could have ordered her to do so at any point in the past six months. He didn’t.

On Sunday, when Trump did an about-face and said House Republicans should vote in favor of releasing the Epstein files, he notably did not say he favored releasing them. Instead, he said in a social media post that the House “can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”

What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply.

The legislation that Congress agreed to pass Tuesday gives the Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release material. Among them: If release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a new federal investigation related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, megadonor Reid Hoffman and former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers. Bondi said the top federal prosecutor in New York City would take on the task.

That investigation could become a reason for the Justice Department to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have previously said they cannot release information about active investigations.

 

Epstein Stonewalling: Perverse Effects

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. Scandals persist. 

At Politico, Jack Blanchard and Dash Burns report:

The House of Representatives will vote today to release the Epstein files, and the outcome is already a dead cert. After Donald Trump’s dramatic U-turn on Sunday, Republicans are expected to support the effort from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) en masse. And as Dasha revealed last night, the White House now expects this bill to become law. What a world.

But because there are still ways for the administration to withhold or redact files, suspicions will not go away.

How different the summer and autumn could have been for Trump if he’d picked a different approach. On the podcast this morning, Dasha characterizes this as the “double-edged sword” of the president’s “attack, attack, attack” mentality: It is, after all, this same aggressive resilience that propelled him back into the White House for a second term. But it doesn’t always serve him well in the day to day.

After months of high-profile political rows, the Epstein files are now a mainstream cause — witness the survivors’ ad that aired during Monday Night Football last night; paid for by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. These things don’t come cheap.

And what we’ve seen so far has already been damaging for Trump. There’s been no smoking gun, but that image in Epstein’s birthday book — the one Trump still insists he had nothing to do with — will not fade from public memory. And people now believe Trump knew about Epstein’s crimes. A new Morning Consult poll shared with Playbook shows 60 percent of Americans think Trump knew what Epstein was up to, compared to just 15 percent who believe he did not. It’s not a great look.

Gift Grift

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. Scandals persist. 

Julianna Bragg at Axios:

A Swiss delegation presented President Trump with lavish gifts — including a 1-kilogram personalized gold bar worth $130,000 and a Rolex desktop clock — during a Nov. 4 visit aimed at persuading him to ease the tariffs he imposed on their country.

The big picture: The Swiss visit is one of many this year in which foreign leaders and organizations have presented Trump with luxurious gifts as they try to maintain relations with his administration.

The Foreign Gifts and Decoration Act bars the president and federal officials from accepting gifts worth more than $480 — the current minimum value — unless they're accepted on behalf of the United States or purchased by the official.

Yes, but: Trump and his family failed to report at least 117 foreign gifts worth roughly $291,000 during his first term in office, according to a 2023 report by the then Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Here's a look at some of the most grand gifts Trump has been given this year:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin presented Trump with a portrait of himself raising his fist — a depiction of him after the assassination attempt at Trump's 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
• The Qatari Royal Family sparked major ethics concerns after gifting Trump a $400 million jet to be used as the new Air Force One —the plane is worth 100 times more than every other presidential gift from a foreign nation since 2001 combined.

...... 

• South Korean President Lee Jae Myung presented Trump with a ceremonial gold crown. He was also the first U.S. president to be gifted a gold medal representing the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, the country's highest honor.

Nationalization of Elections

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.

At CNN, Ron Brownstein points to the increasingly important role of presidential approval/disapproval in deciding downballot elections:

From the 1970s through the 1990s, House candidates still won competitive shares (around 25% to 40%) of voters who approved of a president from the other party. But that number plummeted after 2000: Under George W. Bush and Obama, only 12 to 15% of voters who approved of the president supported House candidates of the other party.
...
As with many things, Trump intensified these trends. Widespread disapproval of his performance during his first two years powered the blue wave that swept Democrats to control of the House in 2018: 90% of voters who disapproved of Trump supported Democratic House candidates that year, the exit polls found.

Though Senate candidates have much more of an independent identity for voters than House members, the relationship was just as powerful in races for the upper chamber under Trump. Across the 2018 and 2020 elections combined, every Republican Senate candidate lost at least 89% of voters who disapproved of Trump, with only one exception — Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican Senate candidate to hold their Democratic opponent to less than 89% support among voters who disapproved of Trump, or to carry more than 8% of those disapprovers, according to the exit polls in states and races where such polls were conducted. (Collins won fully 23% of voters who said they disapproved of Trump, en route to her surprisingly easy 2020 reelection on the same day he lost her state decisively.)

Even in governors’ races — which were long thought to be more insulated from national currents than Congressional contests — Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, in his 2018 defeat, was the only GOP candidate during Trump’s term who carried even 10% of voters who disapproved of the president, according to exit polls.

Trump is uniquely polarizing.

Whatever the causes, the results of this month’s elections suggested that Trump’s impact on other contests remains uniquely intense. Significant majorities of voters in each of the major contests said they disapproved of his performance as president and overwhelming majorities of those disapprovers backed the Democrats: 93% of voters who disapproved of Trump voted for Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, and 92% of them supported Democrat Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, according to the Voter Poll conducted by SRSS for a consortium of media organizations including CNN.

Maybe most telling, 89% of voters — there’s that number again — who disapproved of Trump supported Jay Jones, the Democratic Attorney General candidate in Virginia who had been battered by a scandal over text messages in which he had mused about shooting political rivals. The Republican candidates drew a comparable level of support among the much smaller share of voters who approved of Trump.

People Support ACA Subsidies

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  In shutdown negotiations, Republicans refused to extend ACA subsidies, though Thune promised a Senate vote.  The issue is very likely to help Democrats.

KFF:

[P]ublic support remains high for extending the enhanced ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, with three quarters (74%) of the public in favor of extending them, a new KFF Health Tracking Poll finds.

The expiring tax credits are a central issue in the ongoing Congressional budget standoff, as Democrats want the tax credits extended as part of a budget deal while Republicans want to reopen the government before negotiating over an extension. Without the enhanced tax credits, ACA Marketplace enrollees who benefit from them would on average have to pay more than twice as much out of pocket in premiums next year.

...

Other findings include:

• Among those who want the tax credits extended, most say that either Congressional Republicans (38%) or President Trump (37%) would deserve most of the blame if they weren’t extended. Fewer say Congressional Democrats (23%) would deserve most of the blame.
• About half (47%) of the public correctly says that undocumented immigrants are not eligible to buy ACA marketplace coverage. About one in seven (14%) incorrectly say that they are eligible to buy marketplace coverage, while the rest are not certain. Similar shares of Republicans and Democrats know the correct answer.

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein

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. Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein.

Erica L. Green, Glenn Thrush, and Alan Feuer at NYT:

When a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails were made public this week, Donald J. Trump’s name was all over them. But on Friday, when Mr. Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate a list of powerful men mentioned in the emails, his own name was nowhere to be seen — he had singled out only Democrats.

Equally remarkable was how quickly Attorney General Pam Bondi acquiesced to his demand, even though four months ago the Justice Department formally declared that nothing in the Epstein files warranted further investigation.

That about-face, as much as any action Ms. Bondi has taken this year, demonstrated the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat. And, crucially, it could foreclose any further disclosures of the Epstein files.

...

Ms. Bondi’s decision to press forward with the investigation is a complete turnaround from a memo issued by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. in July, which said that officials had thoroughly scrutinized the Epstein files and had found nothing in them that could sustain opening further inquiries into anyone else.

Still, if an investigation into any one of the targets suggested by Mr. Trump were to ultimately start, it could allow the Justice Department to refuse to release any further files related to Mr. Epstein by claiming that the disclosures could harm continuing inquiries.

In his social media post connecting Democrats with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Trump named Mr. Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the venture capitalist and megadonor Reid Hoffman

 

President Trump just attacked me and lied about me. I haven’t called him at all, but I did send these text messages today. Apparently this is what sent him over the edge.

The Epstein files.

And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other… pic.twitter.com/EcUzaohZZs

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 15, 2025

Trump calls Marjorie Taylor Greene “Marjorie Traitor Green” on Truth Social. Is Speaker Johnson ok with this? pic.twitter.com/2S2PNz8F20

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 15, 2025

MAGA Grumbling

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. Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein.

Hannah Knowles at WP:

MAGA leaders erupted this week over President Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States needs foreign workers because it does not have enough “talented people,” questioning the president’s commitment to the “America First” politics he popularized.

A congressional push to release the government’s files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a years-long cause on the right — moved forward against the wishes of the White House, even as Republicans overwhelmingly dismissed newly released emails Epstein wrote, including some about Trump.

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a longtime Trump ally, sparred with the president on multiple fronts after suggesting that the White House was too focused on foreign affairs and denouncing recent aid to Argentina.

Trump Botches Epstein Messaging

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. . Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein. 

Marc Caputo at Axios:

Four months ago, President Trump blocked the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Wednesday's disclosure of thousands of Epstein emails showed why.

Why it matters: The emails contained no real smoking gun. But they shed new light on the relationship between the two men, with gossipy, unflattering descriptions of Trump by Epstein.

Trump was put into a defensive crouch as the news dominated conversation on Capitol Hill, television and social media.

The tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee all but ensured the GOP-run chamber would bend to public pressure and vote for a measure to release the investigative records Trump has tried to keep hidden.The White House lobbied two key Republicans on Wednesday to drop their support for the effort, to no avail.

The big picture: Trump's reaction to the Epstein scandal is a window into how he handles major controversies that invite criticism about his leadership.Whether it's a question about the current affordability crisis, COVID in 2020 or the Russia probe in 2017, he has a penchant for pushing back against attacks by calling them Democratic hoaxes or con jobs.

He then tries to kill the controversy with such a heavy hand that it helps keep the story alive.

 

One reason why the Epstein stuff won't go away is that this is one of the rare instances where Trump is concealing and dissembling just like a normal politician trying to conceal dark deeds. Normally Trump is outrageously brazen. He commits many of his worst acts very publicly…

— David French (@DavidAFrench) November 13, 2025

Trump Scandals, Mid-November

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. . Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein. 

Michael Gold at NYT:

House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged.

Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. He has said that he and Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, were once friendly but had a falling out.

But Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure.

Jeffrey Epstein in 2018: "i know how dirty donald is." pic.twitter.com/JYUscFmjdW

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 12, 2025

 

Kevin Breuninger at CNBC:

President Donald Trump has doled out dozens of executive clemency grants in the past few weeks alone, issuing pardons and commutations to major business figures, political supporters and other allies.

Some hope he’s just getting started.

Trump started wielding his presidential mercy powers aggressively on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned roughly 1,500 people who were charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Presidential pardons erase federal criminal convictions, while commutations shorten or cancel prison sentences, and sometimes related fines.

In subsequent months, clemency recipients have included a slew of well-known names, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, ex-Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer, Nikola founder Trevor Milton, reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

On Monday, Trump granted largely symbolic pardons to more than six dozen people who were involved in efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin revealed on social media. The people included in the batch of pardons are not facing federal charges related to the 2020 election. The presidential pardon power does not extend to state-level prosecutions.

That group includes Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s onetime personal lawyer and former New York City mayor, as well as his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

 

Leaders Under Fire From Their Parties

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

Robert Birsel at Newsweek:

Seven Democratic senators and one Democrat-aligned independent voted with Republicans on Sunday to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the deal, which failed to address the key Democratic demand of extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expiring on January 1.

Schumer was being criticized for failing to get Democrats to fall into line, underscoring growing tensions within the party over legislative strategy and leadership as it prepares for the run-up to midterm elections next year.

Alexander Willis at Raw Story:

An Arizona Democrat who was elected to Congress in September but still hasn’t been sworn into office is gaining new support from Republican lawmakers as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces growing scrutiny over an alleged attempt to block the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“We're all hoping that Speaker Johnson is going to read the tea leaves and get to work, swear me in so we don't have to go seek judicial support in him doing his job, but that's where we are,” Adelita Grijalva, who won her election on Sept. 23 and has since launched a lawsuit to force her swearing in, told MSNBC Saturday.

Grijalva and others have accused Johnson of delaying her swearing in to avoid the passage of a discharge petition that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The petition, which currently has 217 signatures, needs 218 signatures to force the House to vote on the matter — and Grijalva has pledged to sign it.

Grijalva told MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that a growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined her cause, however, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who told CNN recently that Grijalva “should be sworn in.”