Our most recent 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. Along with war and inflation, Trump's corruption is bringing down the GOP. Some lawmakers are starting to act.
Olivia Diaz st NYT:
A Republican senator on Tuesday called for the Senate to investigate whether Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, exploited his access to his father for personal gain, spurred by reports that a Russian oligarch funded a lavish wedding after-party for the younger Mr. Trump.
In a three-page letter, Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, urged the Judiciary Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., after it was revealed that a Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the festivities on an island in the Bahamas this year.
Issuing such a subpoena would be exceedingly unlikely by the Republican-led panel, and top Republicans would not say on Tuesday whether they planned to take action. But the request by Mr. Curtis marked a rare instance of a G.O.P. lawmaker daring to challenge the president.
The president has said that his son would repay the Russian businessman, Umar Kremlev, for what he called a wedding gift. But Mr. Curtis rejected that characterization.
“A toaster is a wedding gift,” the senator said in a social media post. “A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now.”
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The Utah Republican’s call for an inquiry came as a growing group of Republicans has become more emboldened about breaking with the president ahead of November’s elections. Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, a Republican running for the Senate, called on Mr. Trump on Monday to end the war with Iran. That came just days after two other G.O.P. lawmakers from Iowa who are battling for re-election, Representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, crossed party lines to help push through a Democratic measure directing Mr. Trump to halt the conflict.
Late conversion does not always work, however.
In South Florida, Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s latest campaign ad seems to be all voters can talk about.
The Republican’s video, released last week, was shot in front of the White House, not in the sun-blazed streets of Miami-Dade County. Though aimed at frustrated voters, it was framed as a direct appeal to President Donald Trump.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says while looking directly at the camera. She goes on to tell Trump that his advisers are giving him bad advice, and that his immigration policies are weakening Republicans’ standing with the Latino voters who helped power GOP gains in 2024.
But many Latino voters in Salazar’s district said she has misread their sentiment and that their support for Trump has not wavered. Their support for their congresswoman, however, has waned, they said — and the ad did nothing to restore their confidence.
“She’s out of line,” said Hector Rubio, a resident of Miami’s wealthy enclave of Key Biscayne. Rubio, a longtime Republican voter who supported Salazar in the past three races, said in Spanish that Trump “is doing what he can, and he could do even more.” As he watched his wife shop in the neighborhood’s busy farmers market on Saturday morning, Rubio advised Salazar to stick close to Trump.
Even those who agreed with Salazar’s message seemed to find fault in it, with many saying the lawmaker should have made her appeal to Trump earlier.
“Her blind support of Trump has me very disturbed. She’s not thinking for herself,” said Charles Parsons, 83, another Key Biscayne resident who voted for Salazar in the past but said Saturday that he will not support her this year, even though he plans to vote for other Florida Republicans on the ballot. “All she’s thinking about is her political survival, and this ad … does nothing more than exacerbate the wound for me.”
