The Kiling of Renee Good

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

Myah Ward at Politico:

The Trump administration’s rapid and aggressive response to the Minnesota shooting has prompted quiet concern among some administration allies, as well as former and current Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Particular anguish centers around how quickly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in public remarks from Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday insisted that Renee Good, the 37-year old woman killed by an ICE officer, had committed an act of “domestic terrorism” and tried to “ram them with her vehicle.”

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Just hours after the shooting in Minneapolis, DHS declared on X that the woman’s actions were an act of “domestic terrorism.” Noem gave live remarks soon after echoing this conclusion. White House officials argued the same, all before an investigation had really begun.

“Whatever outcome this investigation produces, I don’t see how anyone’s gonna believe it when the secretary already is firmly — and doubled down on — a conclusion without knowing all the facts,” said John Sandweg, who led ICE from 2013 to 2014 under the Obama administration.

Former FBI agent Asha Rangappa shreds the administration's story:

To me, the relevant window of time in assessing whether Ross reasonably believed that Good posed an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury can only begin from the moment Good accelerates. It could not be while she is reversing the vehicle, because we know that he voluntarily moves in front of her while she is doing that. And, as noted above, at the point where Good does accelerate, Ross has already 1) switched his phone to leave his shooting hand free; 2) moved in front of the vehicle; and 3) has his hand on the weapon in the holster. All of these are anticipatory, not reactive, movements.

The relevant window ends the moment Good drives away. There is no reason to believe Good poses a threat to anyone at that point (leaving aside that she has been shot) — she is not armed and dangerous, or fleeing from the scene of a violent crime, etc. And yet, Ross 1) continues to fire at her; 2) yells an expletive at her; and 3) continues filming. These are the actions of someone who is pissed off, not someone who believes their life has just been threatened.

 Josephine Walker at Axios:

Americans now disapprove of ICE and support protests against the agency, according to a new poll conducted the same day a federal officer fatally shot a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis.

Why it matters: President Trump's immigration crackdown is a cornerstone of his agenda, but ICE and Homeland Security tactics have repeatedly sparked protests and legal challenges. The agency's net approval fell 30 percentage points in a year.

Driving the news: A YouGov poll of over 2,600 U.S. adults on Jan. 7, found people don't like the way ICE operates.About 52% either somewhat or strongly disapproved of how ICE was handling its job, compared to 39% who somewhat or strongly approved.

Just 27% said the agency's tactics were "about right" compared to 51% who called them "too forceful". Another 10% said they were "not forceful enough."

A 44% plurality of adults approved of recent ICE protests, while 42% disapproved.

By the numbers: ICE had a +16 net approval rating last February at the start of Trump's second term, according to YouGov.

Big Mad Don

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- including the snatching of Maduro from Venezuela.

Whoa. Trump goes nuclear on the five Republicans who backed the Venezuela war powers resolution, saying they “should never be elected to office again.”

He names them: Collins, Murkowski, Paul, Hawley, Young pic.twitter.com/YvCKdhNzWx

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) January 8, 2026

Josh Dawsey, Annie Linskey, Lindsay Wise, and  Siobhan Hughes at The Wall Street Journal:

President Trump called Republican senators on Thursday to personally rebuke them for supporting a war-powers resolution that served as a symbolic repudiation of the administration’s moves in Venezuela, according to congressional and White House officials familiar with the calls.

Trump called Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Todd Young of Indiana, the officials said.

In at least some of the calls, he told the senators they were voting against the military, two officials said.

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A spokeswoman for Collins confirmed he called the senator. Trump expressed frustration at Collins for her vote, according to a person familiar with the matter. The president complained that she never did anything for him and said that supporting his efforts in Venezuela—and voting against the resolution—were important for the country, the person said. Most of the call involved Trump expressing his rage, and at one point he did say that he was so angry he might support Collins’s opponent, the person said.

Collins doesn’t have a Republican opponent. So far, only Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and Democrat Graham Platner, an oyster farmer, have indicated that they plan to run. The deadline for running is March 15, according to the secretary of state’s office, and the paperwork related to those bids became available last week, the office said.

When reporters read Trump’s social-media post to Collins Thursday after the vote, she said dryly that Trump “obviously is unhappy with the vote,” adding, “I guess this means that he would prefer to have Gov. Mills or somebody else.”

Limitless Power

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- including the snatching of Maduro from Venezuela.

David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.

Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

“I don’t need international law,” he added. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”

When pressed further about whether his administration needed to abide by international law, Mr. Trump said, “I do.” But he made clear he would be the arbiter when such constraints applied to the United States.

“It depends what your definition of international law is,” he said.

In 2019, he said: " Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President."

A Long Time in Venezuela

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- including the snatching of Maduro from Venezuela.

David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

During the wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Mr. Trump did not give a precise time range for how long the United States would remain Venezuela’s political overlord. Would it be three months? Six months? A year? Longer?

“I would say much longer,” the president replied.

Over the course of the interview, Mr. Trump addressed a wide range of topics, including the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, Greenland and NATO, his health and his plans for further White House renovations.

Mr. Trump did not answer questions about why he recognized Mr. Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s new leader instead of backing María Corina Machado, the opposition leader whose party led a successful election campaign against Mr. Maduro in 2024 and recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. He declined to comment when asked if he had spoken to Ms. Rodríguez.

“But Marco speaks to her all the time,” he said of the secretary of state. Mr. Trump added: “I will tell you that we are in constant communication with her and the administration.”

Mr. Trump also made no commitments about when elections would be held in Venezuela, which had a long democratic tradition from the late 1950s until Hugo Chavez took power in 1999.

Vacancies and Margins

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

MIA MCCARTHY, CALEN RAZOR and BENJAMIN GUGGENHEIM at POLITICO:

First, the GOP Conference’s long-planned, day-long policy retreat Tuesday at the Kennedy Center — intended to build unity around a legislative agenda in a midterm election year — was shaken by news of Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s unexpected death and Rep. Jim Baird’s hospitalization from a car accident.

It brought into stark relief the major math challenges House Republicans now face. LaMalfa’s passing brings the balance of the House to 218-213. And as long as Baird is out recovering, Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose a single GOP vote on party-line legislative business on the chamber floor.

“We keep saying we are one breath away from the minority — that’s more true today than ever,” one House Republican told Meredith Lee Hill.

Lindsey Holden at Politico:

Newsom has 14 days to schedule a special election, which would take place by mid-May unless the governor holds off until the June 2 primary.

The new congressional boundaries California voters approved in November don’t kick in until that primary. This creates a scenario in which a short-timer elected by LaMalfa’s current constituents could serve out the end of his term, followed by a representative running in the newly drawn, more Democratic, district.

Or, one candidate could thread the needle of both districts and serve the two terms back to back. However, that situation is fairly unlikely, considering the sharp red-to-blue swing Prop 50 will initiate.

California elections expert Paul Mitchell, who was involved in drawing the new maps, predicted in an X post that Newsom will schedule the special election in March, with a June runoff, or align it with the midterm primary with an August runoff.

January 6

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

Daniela Altimari:

In 2024, Democrats campaigned on a message that democracy was at risk by highlighting the harrowing Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

The warning, however, didn’t land with voters who were focused more on the cost of living than high-minded appeals about the rule of law and the fate of democracy.

Now, five years after the attack, the campaign dynamics of Jan. 6 have shifted in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.

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 “We can’t ignore that it happened, and we can’t ignore why it happened,” said Brian Lemek, executive director of Defend the Vote, a political action committee that backs Democratic congressional candidates. “But we don’t need to relitigate all that all the time. We need to focus on what people care about today.”

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While concerns about democracy and fair elections continue to rank high among Democrats, those issues have found less traction with Republican voters.

An Economist/YouGov poll released in July found that 89 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independent voters viewed Jan. 6 as “a violent insurrection.’’ (Meanwhile, 51 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of independents saw it as “legitimate political discourse.”)

“Trump’s reelection made it really clear [that voters] were able to overlook that violent assault on our democracy to improve their day to day lives,’’ Lemek said.

But some Democrats say there’s room in their 2026 messaging for a corruption angle that includes invoking the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.

Trump “did whatever the hell he wants, and he’s going to try to do that for the next three years,’’ Lemek said. Democrats “need to put some blocks in place to prevent him from causing any more damage. "

The Shrinking House Battlefield

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The off-year elections were good for Democrats, but...

 Yasmeen Abutaleb at WP:

Of the 39 seats Democrats are competing for, 28 are in districts that Trump won by five or more percentage points.

A gerrymandering spree instigated by Trump has narrowed the number of truly competitive seats, furthering a trend that was already underway in recent elections as the nation has become more polarized. That has not affected the race for the Senate, which Republicans are favored to hold.

Just 36 races in this year’s election are rated competitive by the Cook Political Report, compared with 49 races at the same point in the 2018 cycle. Half of the seats rated competitive by Cook this year are already held by Democrats, leaving the party even less room to gain ground.

“Democrats will have a very narrow but viable path to the majority. That’s a different scenario than 2006 or 2018, when Democrats put a ton of Republican-held seats in play,” said David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst at the Cook Political Report. “There’s so little elasticity in U.S. House elections these days compared to prior eras.”

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Democrats believe they have effectively neutralized Republican efforts to pick up additional seats through gerrymandering in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina by gaining seats of their own in California and Utah. The Indiana Senate rejected a partisan gerrymander last month, and Democrats are still exploring whether they could pick up seats in Virginia, Illinois and Maryland. Wasserman said the post-gerrymandering landscape remains “pretty equitable to both parties.”