Exactly eight years ago this week, as Sen. Bob Corker neared the end of his congressional career, the Tennessee Republican voiced his frustrations about the direction of his party, telling reporters that the GOP had become almost “cultish” toward Donald Trump.

The retiring senator added, “It’s not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president.”

Soon after, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Fox News and took issue with Corker’s comment, but not in an unexpected way. Instead of rejecting the senator’s characterization, the president’s son said, “You know what, if it’s a cult, it’s because they like what my father is doing.”

In other words, if the Republican Party was starting to resemble a cult, perhaps that deserved to be seen as a good thing.

This came to mind eight years later watching Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas offering his latest Trump praise.

Nehls: Donald Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a hundred years. He was born a very special baby. I bet the doctors said, “I can tell this is a very special baby.” pic.twitter.com/wvhqRAhpNM

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 11, 2026

“Donald Trump is the best thing to happen in this country in 100 years,” the retiring congressman said. “He was born a very special baby. I bet you the doctors said, ‘I can tell this is a very special baby.’”

As ridiculous as the rhetoric was, it was hardly out of character. As HuffPost noted, this is the same Nehls who said in 2024, “If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. That’s it.” Earlier this year, Nehls also wore a necktie with Trump’s face all over it to the State of the Union, then asked the president to sign it.

More recently, Nehls said, “I believe that Donald Trump is better than sliced bread. I think he’s almost the Second Coming, in my humble opinion.”

Such talk certainly brings to mind Corker’s concern about his party’s descent into “cultish” devotion, but Nehls isn’t alone.

Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, after winning his primary race, “I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later. Mr. President, you’re not far behind God, but we’re going to start with him.”

Around this time a year ago, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas similarly told Newsmax, “With Trump, all things are possible.”

Soon after, Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri delivered remarks on the House floor alongside a poster board featuring images of Trump and fireworks. When he wrapped up his comments, Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts asked his GOP colleague, “Cult much?”

The relevance of the simple question lingers for a reason.

The post ‘Born a very special baby’: Republican rhetoric on Trump becomes even more cultish appeared first on MS NOW.

The Trump administration’s highly aggressive efforts to obtain state voter rolls has, at least so far, failed spectacularly, losing in eight out of eight court fights.

But as such federal efforts continue, there’s apparently a new twist on the broader gambit related to state voter rolls. The New York Times reported:

The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a new rule that would allow it to refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that don’t turn over voter rolls to the federal government.

The rule, proposed last week, is vaguely written but appears to establish broad authority for the agency to intervene in the mail voting process. It calls on states to compile lists of mail voters that Postal Service employees would use to screen ballots for eligibility. If states refuse to comply, the agency could refuse to send their mail ballots.

Pointing to the proposed rule, published in the Federal Register last week, the Times added, “Screening mail ballots for voter eligibility … would amount to an unprecedented, and potentially unconstitutional, involvement of the federal government in the administration of elections.”

For Donald Trump, that might very well be the point.

In March 2025, just two months into the president’s second term, the Republican signed a radical executive order intended to impose sweeping changes on the nation’s system of elections. Trump, however, lacked the legal authority for such a power-grab, and his policy was rejected throughout the judiciary.

One year later, in March 2026, the president nevertheless did it again, signing another order in which he purportedly gave himself sweeping authority over the country’s elections systems. As part of the radical scheme, hatched to address a problem that does not exist, the Republican administration set out to create a citizens database, which the U.S. Postal Service would then use to limit mail-in voting.

It was widely assumed that this, too, would fail in the courts, but two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, allowed the executive order to restrict mail-in voting to stand (at least for now), ruling that the plaintiffs, the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens cannot claim to have been harmed by the policy because the president’s policy had not yet been implemented.

One day after the Trump-appointed judge allowed the president’s policy to remain in place, the U.S. Postal Service proposed its new rule to require states to provide voter-level data on mail-in ballots in federal elections.

There’s still a great deal of uncertainty about how, exactly, this policy would be applied, and the legal fight is ongoing.

Indeed, the Times’ report noted recent oral arguments before a federal judge in Boston in which a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general and voting rights advocates said the administration’s rule isn’t merely an unconstitutional federal intrusion into the voting process, but would also “be expensive, cumbersome and chaotic to comply with the demand to create new lists of voters and, in some cases, to change mail ballot designs, with fewer than 150 days until the 2026 general election.”

Time will tell what becomes of the fight, but that it’s even a possibility the USPS might refuse to deliver ballots unless states comply with Trump’s unnecessary demands is breathtaking. Watch this space.

The post USPS eyes new rule that would block ballots in states that balk at Trump’s demands appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* Donald Trump takes his endorsement record very seriously, to the point that he likes to pretend that he can singlehandedly choose election winners, especially in Republican primaries, with a snap of his fingers. A few months ago, for example, the president boasted online, “My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot.”

The trouble is, the power of his endorsement isn’t nearly as strong as he claims, as we were reminded again last week. In Iowa’s GOP gubernatorial primary, Trump threw his support behind Rep. Randy Feenstra, who narrowly lost to Zach Lahn.

Asked Thursday whether he regrets backing Feenstra, the president told reporters, “Had I been given the proper information, which I don’t think I was, I probably would have endorsed the other person, or not endorsed at all, but I would have endorsed the other person.”

He did not elaborate as to who failed to provide him with “the proper information.”

* Speaking of Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Lahn will face state Auditor Rob Sand, who won the Democratic nomination, and this week, Sand announced his running mate: Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer, a fifth-generation family farmer and lifelong Iowan.

* Alaska’s Division of Elections has issued a preliminary ruling that retired teacher Dan Sullivan is ineligible to run against incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan. A court fight appears increasingly likely.

* In Michigan’s closely watched Democratic Senate primary, there had been rumors for weeks that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer preferred Rep. Haley Stevens, and this week, he made it official, announcing his endorsement for the congresswoman. He told Punchbowl News that Stevens “has the best chance to win” in the fall.

* In Texas’ Senate race, former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, the former top Republican elected official in the state’s biggest red county, announced this week by way of a new radio ad, “I won’t vote for Ken Paxton.” The scandal-plagued state attorney general will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November, and a pro-Talarico super PAC is sponsoring the ad.

* Last September, Brad Lander was arrested at a protest inside a building that houses one of New York City’s immigration courts. This week, a judge found Lander, a Democratic congressional candidate, not guilty. Lander is taking on incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in a Democratic primary.

* Republican Rep. James Gallagher of California was sworn in this week as Congress’ newest member, a week after winning a special election to fill the vacancy left by the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa. The developments bumped up the total number of House GOP members to 218, giving the Republican leadership a little additional breathing room on close votes.

The post Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.12.26: Trump blames team after failed primary endorsement appeared first on MS NOW.

Late last year, the public learned that the Trump administration’s drive to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War would be, among other things, very expensive. In fact, an NBC News report said the initiative “could cost as much as $2 billion” in taxpayer money.

While that should have brought the conversation to a rather rapid end, the Pentagon nevertheless formally asked Congress two months ago to codify the president’s preferred branding in federal law.

Unfortunately, Republican lawmakers are taking this unserious effort quite seriously.

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee took up the idea, which Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the panel’s top Democrat, mocked as “one of the dumbest things that has been done by this administration.” Soon after, the GOP majority nevertheless voted to rename the department, adding the idea to a must-pass spending bill.

This week, the Senate Armed Services Committee did the same thing. Politico reported:

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, moving a significant step closer to solidifying President Donald Trump’s rebrand of the Defense Department as permanent.

The move came during the committee’s closed-door deliberations over its defense policy bill, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who announced the name change in explaining his vote against the legislation.

“It’s a juvenile move that sadly describes the reality of a president who has abandoned meaningful diplomacy in favor of starting doubtful wars in multiple locations and threatening even more,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement.

Kaine’s point resonated for a reason: The proposed name change remains an entirely unnecessary priority that sends all of the wrong messages to the world about the United States and its intentions. Career military leaders didn’t ask for this, and for the past several months, the proposed change did little more than annoy Pentagon insiders.

What’s more, it’s tempting to think Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Republican officials would put aside trivial pursuits like this during the ongoing war with Iran, which, more than 100 days in, hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.

But GOP members of Congress, at the White House’s behest, are embracing the scheme anyway.

That said, it is not a done deal, at least not yet. At issue is a legislative package called the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets defense policy and authorizes military spending. Every year, some bad ideas work their way into the bill, and every year, when the House and Senate get together to reconcile the competing versions of the NDAA, many of those bad ideas get filtered out. That may yet happen to the whole “Department of War” gambit.

Or it may not. Watch this space.

The post GOP advances push to rename the Defense Department (and spend a lot of taxpayer money) appeared first on MS NOW.

There are roughly seven months remaining in the current Congress, and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate still have an opportunity to try to govern and pass worthwhile legislation that the American public might like.

As is too often the case, GOP leaders’ focus apparently lies elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal reported:

President Trump and his allies have discussed pushing lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first-term impeachments, according to people familiar with the matter.

The resolution would allow Trump to claim a symbolic victory on a matter that has dogged him since his first term, part of a broader effort to burnish his presidential legacy. It would have little legal significance, however, because the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment, according to experts.

This is not simply a matter of backroom chatter and whispers from Capitol Hill hallways. Trump explicitly told the Journal, in reference to the efforts to “expunge” the record, “It should be done because I did nothing wrong.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly told the newspaper that he believes the effort “makes a lot of sense.” The Louisiana Republican, who called the president’s impeachments a “sham” and “a hyperpartisan attack job,” added, “It is a priority and something that Congress should make right.”

Before we dig in on what might actually happen with this effort, it’s important to understand how we arrived at this point.

On Feb. 5, 2020, Trump’s first impeachment trial concluded in the Senate. On Feb. 7, 2020, the president first broached the subject of trying to “expunge” the record, calling the effort to hold him accountable a “hoax.”

His message resonated with some of his allies. Indeed, then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin — years before the Oklahoma Republican moved up to the Senate, and more recently the White House Cabinet — introduced a resolution that would have declared Trump’s first impeachment “expunged.” Soon after, Mullin also took aim at Trump’s second impeachment, and that effort gained the support of, among others, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who made some amazingly misguided arguments in support of the idea.

The effort was largely ignored by the Democratic majority in the House, but as 2023 got underway, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he was willing to take a look at the idea, adding, “I would understand why members would want to bring that forward.”

Several GOP members endorsed the move and unveiled legislation soon after. To the president’s chagrin, the last Congress nevertheless failed to take action on this.

History buffs may recall that a related effort happened nearly two centuries ago. Lawmakers censured President Andrew Jackson in 1834, only to have his allies “expunge” the censure from the record in 1837 after control of the Senate switched party hands.

The point at the time was for partisans to say that the congressional action happened, but for the sake of the historical record, it didn’t really count. Trump and his acolytes appear to have similar intentions now.

Indeed, as recently as two months ago, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California introduced a measure to undo both of the president’s impeachments, which coincided with assorted items Trump posted on his social media platform endorsing the broader effort. The same week, as part of an effort that appeared quite coordinated, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard used her office to also take aim at the legitimacy of Trump’s first impeachment.

Just so we’re all clear, this is entirely about Trump’s ego and hurt feelings. There is no mechanism in place that allows for a president to be unimpeached. But Trump sees this as a stain on his record, and he’s eager to have sycophantic GOP members do his bidding, rewrite the recent past, symbolically wipe the slate clean and make him feel better about himself.

Whether such a campaign could generate majority support, however, remains to be seen. Watch this space.

The post Republicans prioritize effort to ‘expunge’ Trump’s impeachments from the record appeared first on MS NOW.

It’s been 10 days since California held its closely watched statewide primaries, and nearly every day since, Donald Trump has shared baseless conspiracy theories about the contests, with varying degrees of hysteria about Democratic mischief that hasn’t happened in reality.

The list of problems surrounding the president’s claims is not short. Even putting aside the obvious and inconvenient details — there’s literally no evidence of the system being “rigged,” Trump doesn’t seem to understand how election administration works, etc. — the fatal flaw in the Republican’s groundless claims is that the election outcomes haven’t quite turned out as Democrats would have preferred.

In Los Angeles’ mayoral race, for example, the Democratic incumbent would have welcomed the opportunity to run in the fall against a conservative television personality with an embarrassingly thin professional resume, but instead she’ll face a Harvard- and MIT-educated City Council member who’s already demonstrated an ability to win local elections.

In the state’s gubernatorial race, Democrats would have been delighted if Republicans had been locked out of the general election altogether, but instead, Republican Steve Hilton, a Trump-backed former Fox News personality, finished second in the multiparty “jungle” primary.

Yet despite the obvious flaws that have already made these theories flimsy, the president added a new twist on Thursday.

During a phone interview that aired live on “Fox and Friends,” Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade asked about the war in Iran. Trump responded by immediately focusing on his 2020 election conspiracy theories, which naturally led to his California election conspiracy theories.

“It was happening to Steve Hilton, and I went on a tear,” the president said. “And they said it was going to be two weeks and they’d know about Hilton, whether or not he’s going to make it. I went on such a tear, then they approved it immediately. They approved Steve. It’s such a rigged deal, it’s so crazy. They approved him so fast because everybody was watching.”

Hours later, at a White House event ostensibly about commercial fishing, Trump echoed his absurdities.

Trump again tells his delusional story about how Steve Hilton was "approved" to advance in the California election only because California officials were feeling "heat" after he started yelling about the "rigged election"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-11T19:43:09.045Z

“They said it’s going to take two more weeks,” the president said. “It was a week and it was heading south, and I started saying, ‘It’s a rigged election.’ And then they said it was going to take two weeks, one week, two weeks, and all of a sudden, [Hilton] was approved. You know why? Because the heat was on. They couldn’t get away with it. If I didn’t do it, I guarantee he wouldn’t be the nominee. It’s a rigged election.”

To the extent that reality impinges in any way on these presidential conspiracy theories, none of Trump’s claims was true, but of particular interest was his vision of how election administration works in the nation’s most populous state.

Hilton was already well positioned to advance to the general election when Trump started peddling baseless assertions. Earlier in the week, it became clear based on the remaining outstanding ballots that it simply wasn’t possible for any other candidate to surpass him.

But to hear the president tell it, election administration officials in California effectively told one another, “Sure, we planned to secretly arrange for Hilton’s defeat, but Trump is onto our nefarious scheme! It looks like we now have no choice but to let Hilton advance to the general election.”

In other words, from Trump’s perspective, when a Republican falls short, it’s proof that his conspiracy theories are true, and when a Republican doesn’t fall short, it’s still proof that his conspiracy theories are true.

This is madness, but a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in the Golden State nevertheless appeared on Glenn Beck’s program this week to ask Californians to help him uncover evidence (which he apparently lacks) that could lead to the kind of prosecutions the president wants to see.

The post Trump adds a bizarre twist to his baseless California election conspiracy theory appeared first on MS NOW.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana spent a year and a half trying to avoid Donald Trump’s wrath, in the hopes that it might help save his career. It didn’t work: The president, still enraged by Cassidy’s 2021 impeachment vote, helped orchestrate the senator’s primary defeat in mid-May.

Newly liberated, the Louisianan wasted little time showing renewed independence, defying the White House’s wishes on several issues.

Roughly a week after Cassidy’s loss, a similar dynamic unfolded in Texas, where incumbent Republican senator John Cornyn went to even greater lengths to stay on the president’s good side, only to see Trump back his primary rival and ensure his defeat.

An obvious question soon followed: After Trump became a problem for Cornyn, would Cornyn become a problem for Trump? An answer is starting to come into focus. The New York Times reported:

Now the Trump administration might find itself having to come to terms with Mr. Cornyn as he flexes new political freedom, joining a handful of other Senate Republicans not seeking re-election or defeated in primaries at Mr. Trump’s behest who now have added room to maneuver.

“I think it is going to be a pretty bumpy ride for the next seven months,” Mr. Cornyn said during a wide-ranging conversation in his Capitol office as he reflected on the tumultuous Texas election and his nearly quarter-century in Washington.

To be sure, there are key qualitative differences between Cornyn and Cassidy: The Texan is clearly to the Louisianan’s right. Even if Cornyn were to decide to ignore party pressures and the White House’s wishes altogether and simply vote his conscience on every matter, he’d still rarely buck the party line.

That said, it’s been interesting to see some unsubtle shifts in recent days. Before Trump endorsed his primary challenger, for example, the Texan launched an effort to rename a highway after the president. In the wake of Trump helping end Cornyn’s career, the senator decided the highway project was no longer a priority.

Similarly, when the president announced that Bill Pulte, the highly controversial director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would serve as the acting director of national intelligence, Cornyn was among the first GOP senators to say publicly that Pulte was unqualified for the position.

But the Times’ report highlighted an issue of even greater significance.

After Trump withdrew his outlandish $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS last month, he received two scandalous rewards from his own administration. The first was the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion compensation fund, while the other was an IRS audit shield, unveiled by his Justice Department, granting Trump, his family and his controversial businesses immunity from all existing IRS tax audits.

Of the two rewards, the former appears to have been discarded in the face of overwhelming bipartisan opposition, while the latter remains intact.

Cornyn, however, is opposed to both.

“I think that’s a terrible mistake,” Cornyn told the Times, referring to the audit shield. “The president needs to be treated like everybody else.”

Whether the Texas Republican actually intends to do anything about this belief remains to be seen, but his newly stated position keeps the issue alive and at least opens the door to potential congressional action.

As for the big picture, Cornyn went on to tell the Times, in reference to Trump, “If he would do that to me, he would do that to anybody. There’s never going to be good enough for him, other than 100%, you know, slavish adherence to whatever he wants. But obviously that’s not what the senator’s role is supposed to be, especially in terms of checks and balances.”

Putting aside the question of why it took a full decade for Cornyn to recognize this problem, he has a unique opportunity to partner with the so-called YOLO caucus with six months remaining before his involuntary exit from Capitol Hill. Watch this space.

The post After Trump became a problem for Cornyn, Cornyn may soon become a problem for Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The president sure is an unreliable narrator: “On Thursday morning, Trump threatened to strike Iran ‘very hard’ and announced plans to seize Kharg Island, the linchpin of Iran’s oil export infrastructure, and ‘assume total control’ of its oil and gas markets. By Thursday afternoon, he canceled the planned strikes and said ‘discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved.’”

* MS NOW put together a list of previous instances in which Trump has publicly delayed or canceled planned military action in Iran, and the list is not short.

* A heartbreaking milestone: “The war in Ukraine has often been compared to World War I for its brutal infantry assaults and heavy casualties. Yet the idea that it could, by any measure, surpass a conflict so long and bloody that French soldiers hoped it would be ‘the last of the last’ once seemed unthinkable. That is just what happened on Thursday. The war in Ukraine — which reached 1,569 days, or more than four years and three months — has now outlasted World War I.”

* Yet another strain on relations between the White House and New Delhi: “Three Indian sailors were killed in a U.S. operation to enforce its blockade of Iran, an Indian official said Thursday, the first reported deaths from the American effort to starve its foe of petrodollars and force it to make a deal to end the war.”

* On Capitol Hill: “The House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a last-minute attempt to extend a controversial warrantless-surveillance law, as Democrats protested President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily place Bill Pulte, a mortgage agency director and MAGA loyalist, atop the U.S. intelligence community. The vote failed 218-198, with 19 Republicans joining nearly all Democrats in opposing the bill.”

* An inauspicious warning: “Oil and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge in coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled American consumers.”

* All clear at the Pentagon: “A shelter-in-place order issued by the Pentagon Thursday due to an ‘air quality issue’ ended after it was deemed a false alarm, Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said.”

* Pakistan’s latest strike in Afghanistan: “The United Nations said on Thursday that 13 civilians were killed in airstrikes this week in eastern Afghanistan, as Pakistan claims that it was targeting militant camps along the long border between the countries.”

* This story out of Albania is worth keeping an eye on: “For over three years, Jared Kushner has striven to build a set of luxury hotels and resorts in a corner of Eastern Europe that U.S. investors typically overlook. It isn’t going well.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Thursday’s Mini-Report, 6.11.26 appeared first on MS NOW.