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      Americans are feeling the pain of the affordability crisis: ‘There’s not any wiggle room’

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      Frozen dinners were useful when no one was home to cook. A fancy cheese or apple roll felt like a family treat. But not any more. “We can’t afford to do those little luxuries any more because they’re just too expensive to feed five with,” says Cat Hill. “There’s not any wiggle room.”The 43-year-old from Hornby, New York, has been hit by both higher grocery prices and rising costs for her small business running a horse stable. Under Donald Trump, she worries it may get even harder. “With this administration, it doesn’t appear to be stabilising,” she adds. “It’s hard to think about how exactly we are going to ride this out.”Hill is among millions of people feeling the pain of the US’s affordability crisis. The costs of groceries, housing, childcare, education and healthcare have become intolerable to many, who in turn put the blame on politicians. As Thanksgiving approaches, it appears that the US president is belatedly waking up to the problem and scrambling for answers.During last year’s election campaign, Trump was all too conscious of the political utility of the high cost of living. He promised voters that he would bring down prices “starting on day one”. But two days after winning, he changed course by remarking: “Our groceries are way down. Everything is way down … So I don’t want to hear about the affordability.”Much of the first year of Trump’s second term was then dominated by his trade wars, his draconian crackdown on illegal immigration, his decision to send national guard troops into American cities and the longest government shutdown in history.But voters had other concerns. Prices rose in five of the six main grocery groups tracked in the consumer price index from January to September. These include meats, poultry and fish (up 4.5%), non-alcoholic beverages (up 2.8%) and fruits and vegetables (up 1.3%).Officials at the Federal Reserve have long been clear that Trump’s tariffs caused inflation, though it is uncertain how long the effects will last. Consumer prices had been increasing at an annual rate of 2.3% in April when Trump launched the import taxes and that rate accelerated to 3% in September.Adding insult to injury, even as the shutdown deepened the financial woes of many, Trump launched remodeling projects including a gilded ballroom attached to the White House and threw a Great Gatsby-themed party at his luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Tara Setmayer, co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led Super Pac, said: “The ads write themselves [for the midterm elections] in 2026 when you have a president who promised to make the American people’s lives better – and who was supposed to be a champion of the working class and not of the elite – bragging repeatedly from his gilded Oval Office while military families are on food bank lines.“It’s so tone-deaf and so ‘let them eat cake’ it’s hard to believe that he’s serious about this but he is and keeps constantly doing this. It screams: ‘I don’t give a damn about everyday people,’ and his base is beginning to wake up to the fact that perhaps he doesn’t care about us.”The shutdown froze the collection of the most recent data but it is clear that people feel like prices are too high. Consumer sentiment dropped to a near record low in November, going from 71.8 out of 100 in November 2024 to 51, according to the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers.View image in fullscreenJoanne Hsu, the director of the survey and an economist at the University of Michigan, said that even while concerns over tariffs have started to level off, consumers are still experiencing higher prices.Consumers “are continuing to be very frustrated by these high prices”, Hsu said. “They feel like those high prices are eroding their living standard, and they just don’t feel like they’re thriving at the end of the day.”It was against this backdrop that Republicans were blindsided by this month’s elections when Democrats swept the board from New York to Virginia with a message laser-focused on affordability. Economic worries were the dominant concern for voters, according to the AP Voter Poll.Trump entered a period of denial. He posted on social media: “Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems. It is a complete CON JOB. Thanksgiving costs are 25% lower this year than last, under Crooked Joe! We are the Party of Affordability!”But he was also stung into action. He conceded that some consumer costs are “a little bit higher” and floated some half-formed ideas to ease financial pressures. He said he may stretch the 30-year mortgage to 50 years to reduce the size of monthly payments.He partially backtracked on tariffs, a core part of his economic agenda, reducing levies on imports of products such as coffee, beef and tropical fruit, admitting they “may, in some cases” have contributed to higher prices.Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: “The fact that Trump decided to lower tariffs on coffee and bananas is a complete admission that across the economy he is jacking up prices on millions of families. That was a big tell and Democrats should be exploiting that.“Every Democrat should be going to a supermarket pointing to bananas and coffee on social media and saying, if you see prices come down, that is Trump admitting that he’s jacking up prices everywhere: your car, your baby diapers, your other foods.”Trump also proposed a $2,000 dividend, funded by tariff revenue, for all Americans except the rich. This could take the form of a cheque bearing his signature, reminiscent of stimulus cheques he sent to millions of Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic.But Republicans on Capitol Hill were distinctly sceptical about the idea at a time when the federal government is burdened by debt, warning that the Trump cheques could fuel even further inflation.It might be too little too late. In a recent Fox News poll, 76% of respondents had a negative view of the state of the economy – down 9% since July. In a Marquette University survey, 72% disapproved of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living. And in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 65% of respondents, including a third of Republicans, disapproved of Trump’s handling of the cost of living.On Monday, Trump used a summit sponsored by McDonald’s to insist the economy was moving in the right direction and cast blame on his predecessor, Joe Biden. “We had the highest, think of it, the highest inflation in the history of our country,” he said.“Now we have normal inflation. We’re going to get it a little bit lower, frankly, but we have normal, we’ve normalized it, we have it down to a low level, but we’re going to get it a little bit lower. We want perfection.”But Trump’s troubles might be giving voters a feeling of déjà vu. Biden tried to convince Americans that the economy was strong. “Bidenomics is working,” he said in a 2023 speech. “Today, the US has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”His arguments did little to sway voters as only 36% of adults in August 2023 approved of his handling of the economy, according to a poll at the time by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research.Now Trump is leaning on a message that echoes Biden’s claims in 2021 that elevated inflation is simply a “transitory” problem that will soon disappear. “We’re going to be hitting 1.5% pretty soon,” he told reporters earlier this month. ”It’s all coming down.”But Jared Bernstein, a former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Biden, disputes the notion that Biden and Trump were equally guilty of downplaying inflation. He said: “We were talking past people. They’re telling people things that are false. In terms of ineffective messaging, those are equivalent. In terms of truthfulness, one is is honest and the other is false.”Bernstein, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress thinktank, added: “They’re making a very consequential mistake, which is strongly, loudly asserting that people are better off than they know they are. What’s fascinating about all this to me is that Donald Trump believes, correctly, that he has a superpower. He can get his followers to believe whatever reality he puts out there, and that’s worked for him for a very long time but it won’t work on this. Affordability is kryptonite to his superpower because his followers know which way is up when it comes to prices.” More

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      Who can tame Trump? An unlikely candidate is emerging: the Catholic church | Simon Tisdall

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      The supreme court can’t do it – it’s packed with conservatives who owe him their jobs. Congress won’t do it – Republicans slavishly follow his orders, Democrats are ill-led and divided. For today’s White House, the concept of constitutional limits on executive power is a quaint relic. The news media, or sections of it, does its best amid constant legal threats. But, too often, they pay him off. Brave reporters who insist on asking awkward questions are insulted or silenced: “Quiet, piggy.”So who will tame Donald Trump? Who will halt his rolling constitutional coup – his ongoing evisceration of US democracy, civil rights, living standards, global reputation and moral integrity? Voters may try to indirectly rein him back in next November’s midterms (as they did recently in New York and elsewhere). But those elections are a year away. The emergency is today.What the US urgently needs now, metaphorically speaking, is a national champion, a sort of modern-day Saint George to slay the dragon, save the people and ensure the triumph of good over evil. Who, in reality, might fill this role of moral saviour?Step forward Leo XIV, the “American pope”, backed by the US conference of Catholic bishops and the clergy and grassroots activists of the Catholic church – unexpected, newly emerging standard-bearers for country-wide resistance to the Trumpist scourge. The bishops threw down the gauntlet in a “special message” this month. Inequality, immigration and civil rights are the battlegrounds on which the church, and some other Christian denominations, have begun to fight.“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanising rhetoric and violence,” the statement said. Citing the brutal tactics of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents, the bishops deplored the “climate of fear” created by Trump’s policies, the profiling of vulnerable citizens, shocking conditions in detention centres and lack of access to pastoral care.Expressing a view, rooted in scripture, that Britain’s Labour government and other western countries would do well to heed, they went on: “We recognise that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.” But creating safe and legal pathways for migrants was the preferable, ethical solution. Human dignity and national security were not in conflict, they said.Chicago-born Leo, increasingly outspoken in opposing Trump’s “inhuman” policies since his election in May, now stands at the head of this clerical revolt. Earlier this month, he demanded ICE rethink its demonisation of migrants – more than 2 million “illegal aliens” have been involuntarily removed this year and record numbers detained, official figures indicate. He criticised lethal US strikes on suspected drug smugglers off Venezuela, warning violence would fail. And he has challenged Trump’s climate-crisis denial, telling Cop30 that God’s creation is “crying out” for action.Organised opposition to Trump among Catholic and other faith groups on the “Christian left” is spreading at grassroots level. From New Jersey to California, parish priests and pastors have led local protests, boycotts and initiatives to counter ICE’s depredations. “Catholics are particularly well positioned to lead such a movement,” wrote Maria J Stephan, a specialist in non-violent civil resistance.About 22% of US adults identify as Catholic and more than four in 10 are immigrants or children of immigrants. “Many Catholics are likely among those now living in fear of masked agents abducting them in unmarked cars to detention centres … Meanwhile, close to three million black Catholics are experiencing attacks on the voting rights act and the weakening of civil rights protections,” Stephan wrote.The church has also launched assaults on Trump’s signature fiscal legislation, accusing him of “unconscionable” cuts in healthcare and food assistance, and unjustifiable tax breaks for the better-off. “Catholic teaching compels the faithful to uphold human dignity. It is hard to conceive of the law as promoting the sanctity of every life when it cuts key programs for the needy and expands tax cuts to the wealthy,” wrote Wheaton College professor of public theology Esau McCaulley.Catholics, like other US religious groups, are far from united in opposing Trump. He won 55% of Catholic votes last year, although support has since dropped sharply. Conservative critics have lampooned Leo as the “woke pope” – a reminder that on abortion and other issues, the Catholic hierarchy often takes an anti-progressive, reactionary stance.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore broadly, Christian nationalists and fundamentalists have allied with Trump and authoritarian rightwing populists in Britain and Europe to co-opt, politicise and weaponise religious belief. As in the secular sphere, the divide is stark. “Christian nationalism is particular rather than universal. It is about protecting ‘us’ against ‘them’ – the native versus the immigrant. It is about power more than love. It is about threat more than hope,” wrote commentator David Brooks. He could have been talking about Maga – or Reform UK.Increasingly erratic dictatorial behaviour, violent nihilism, exploitative religious hypocrisy and blatant corruption: this is the challenge facing the US and the world. Is Leo, speaking up for human dignity, decency and faith, the leader whose hour has come? He’s 70. He has the job for life. Trump has three years left in office. If he chooses to use it, Leo has the moral authority, political savvy and international standing to confront Trump, to positive effect, on poverty, inequality, migrants, civil rights, Russia, Palestine and other pressing issues.The American pope could do what others manifestly cannot: shame and tame the monster. To do so, he needs what Trump’s nemesis, the late Pope Francis, prayed for: the support not only of Catholics, but of “all men and women of good will”. That, and maybe a small miracle, too. After all, brave Saint George was martyred.

      Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator More

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      Trump news at a glance: Marjorie Taylor Greene is gone, but Trump wonders for how long

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      The surprise resignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene reverberated through Saturday, as figures from across the political spectrum gave responses ranging from criticism to acclaim, including Donald Trump, who hinted at a future political career for her.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman and Greene’s frequent sparring partner, criticized her voting record on healthcare and claimed “She’s carefully timing her departure just 1-2 days after her pension kicks in”, adding: “… her actions have not backed up the rhetoric. For all her talk, she’s still voting with them to gut healthcare … ”Greene voted in the summer for cuts to Medicaid and the reduction of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, but then in October criticized the ACA cuts as premiums soared.Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who has also taken public stands against Trump including over the Epstein files release, said on X that he was “very sad for our country but so happy for my friend Marjorie. I’ll miss her tremendously.”Greene said in her resignation video that she refused to be a “battered wife” after her public fallout with Donald Trump, but the president suggested to NBC News that he would like to see Greene resume her political career.“It’s not going to be easy for her” to revive her career in politics, he said, adding: “I’d love to see that.” In the meantime, “she’s got to take a little rest”.Greene could have led the anti-Trump resistance but the mob boss got his wayMarjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump acolyte turned nemesis who bested him over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, has stunned the political establishment again. In what should have been her hour of triumph, the Maga star abruptly announced that she was quitting the House of Representatives.In one timeline, she could have used the Epstein win as the foundation of an anti-Trump resistance in the Republican ranks. The party has spent the past decade demonstrating that cowardice is contagious. Instead Greene follows the likes of fellow dissenters Liz Cheney, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and Adam Kinzinger in heading for the exit. Trump has presided over the homogenisation of the Republican party: you are loyal to him or you are out.Read the full storyFrom staunch Trump ally to ‘traitor’: Greene’s career highlightsThe dramatic announcement of her resignation was a typical act: out of the blue, full of punchy language and rage and – mostly – unexpected by people on both sides of the political aisle.Here, we take you through the career highlights of the Maga star, beginning with a writing career for a conspiracy-laden website, followed by a run for Congress, calls for the death penalty against political opponents and a spectacular breakdown with the leader she was most loyal to, Trump himself.Read the full storyGrassroots campaign aims to repeal Missouri Republicans’ gerrymanderingAt the request of Donald Trump, Republicans called a special legislative session and carved out the Kansas City congressional district of longtime Democratic representative Emanuel Cleaver, and replaced it with a Republican one.However, thanks to a provision added to the Missouri constitution in 1908, voters there have a chance to rebuke politicians and stop it from going into effect.Read the full storyCourt rules Trump cannot expand fast-track deportation processA federal appeals court on Saturday declined to clear the way for Donald Trump’s administration to expand a fast-track deportation process to allow for the expedited removal of immigrants who are living far away from the border.The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit declined to put on hold the central part of a ruling by a lower-court judge who had found that the administration’s policies violated the due process rights of immigrants who could be apprehended anywhere in the US.Read the full storyUS veterans condemn Trump’s politicization of militaryVeterans have condemned the politicization of the military after Donald Trump accused Democratic lawmakers of “sedition, punishable by death” after a small group urged US soldiers not to follow any “unlawful” orders.“He uses sedition and treason very broadly and inappropriately,” said David Frakt, a retired air force officer and attorney in the judge advocate general (JAG) corps, the military justice branch. “The irony is that if anyone committed sedition or treason, it was the people that he urged to overthrow the government on January 6 [2021] – and you know, he pardoned all of those people and calls them patriots and martyrs and all the rest.”Read the full storyTrump to end temporary protected status for Somali immigrants in MinnesotaDonald Trump said late on Friday night that he’s “immediately” terminating temporary legal protections for Somali migrants living in Minnesota, further targeting a program seeking to limit deportations that his administration has already repeatedly sought to weaken.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Tatiana Schlossberg, a journalist and the granddaughter of John F Kennedy, disclosed on Saturday that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

      Less than a year after the Palisades fire destroyed nearly 7,000 structures in Los Angeles, the first completed rebuilt home is being celebrated in Pacific Palisades.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 November 2025. More

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      Five theories to explain the Donald-Zohran meet-cute | Dave Schilling

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      Zohran and Donald. Donald and Zohran. Not since Turner met Hooch has a couple so captivated the American psyche. This might be the meet-cute of the decade, unless you count RFK Jr and Olivia Nuzzi. Which was actually not cute at all, when I think about it.Why can’t we all stop talking about the New York City mayor-elect and his No 1 fan in the White House? Probably because absolutely none of this makes even a tiny bit of sense. From almost the beginning of his rise, Zohran Mamdani positioned himself as an anti-Trump democratic socialist who would use the bully pulpit of Gracie Mansion to battle Maga attacks on the city. Trump, sensing an opportunity to create yet another punching bag, called Mamdani a communist and questioned his American citizenship. He even went to the trouble of endorsing Mamdani’s opponent, Andrew Cuomo, in the mayoral election.Something changed. Hard to say where or when, but clearly, after their meeting, Donald Trump started to see Zohran in a different way. Why would two politicians with seemingly nothing in common suddenly seem so chummy in the Oval Office?I have some theories, some more speculative than others:1 New York City is the center of the attention economyNew York is a place where tabloids scream all-caps headlines at people every day, where con artists can become legitimate celebrities simply for being somewhat successful at crime, and real estate developers with a taste for the spotlight can become president of the United States. I doubt I’m saying anything that will shock or concern you here, but it should be articulated: this meeting was an epic photo op for a couple of bros perhaps looking to grow their follower count. Donald Trump can smell a camera from 60 yards away, like some kind of bloodhound trained to chase paparazzi. He’s been putting himself in photos with successful people for years. It’s just one of those things he’s good at, and he learned that skill in New York. Zohran is also a New Yorker and understands the economy of attention. He had to go from polling below 5% to winning the entire election. Trump might live in Washington DC and Florida, but he’ll never stop being a New Yorker at heart. Game recognizes game.2 Donald Trump loves a winnerThen again, don’t we all? My son only started rooting for the Dodgers once they won the World Series last year. Nothing more fickle than a young child desperate to avoid even the hint of failure. And no one is more disgusted by losing than our Big Boy in Chief. The idea of losing is so repugnant to him that he has regularly denied it. Zohran won with a clear majority and has support across numerous demographics. It was a clear and decisive victory. Trump might as well find a way to get some of that Zohran magic to rub off on him.3 Zohran is a millennial, and therefore completely nonthreateningSo much of Donald Trump’s political career has been defined by petty grievances and inside-baseball rivalry. Getting flamed at the White House correspondents’ dinner might have set him on the path to the presidency. People like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton are all in the same general age bracket, travel in similar social circles and probably ran into Donald Trump on more than one occasion before he became president. Jealousy, frustration or just plain old competitiveness might make all of the hectoring and political gamesmanship more fun for him, or at least more rewarding. Zohran is 10 years younger than Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and probably has never played golf with anyone he went to college with.4 Maybe they’re both really bullish on the Knicks this seasonIf Karl-Anthony Towns can find his shooting form and Landry Shamet stays hot, New York’s got a decent chance to make it out of the East.5 Donald Trump is a huge fan of the films of Zohran’s mother, Mira Nair?We don’t know what kinds of movies Donald Trump watched in the past. Maybe he really connected with the culture-clash romance of Mississippi Masala? Perhaps Monsoon Wedding was a VHS he wore out from incessant rewatch? I can definitely see him connecting with 1996’s Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. Splendid performance from Indira Varma.I guess, though, we’ll never know why Donald Trump said Zohran Mamdani could call him a fascist. Maybe he was just happy to have a distraction.

      Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist More

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      Politicians shocked by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise resignation announcement

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise resignation from Congress late on Friday, saying she refused to be a “battered wife” following her public fallout with Donald Trump, has been slammed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman and Greene’s frequent sparring partner.“She’s carefully timing her departure just 1-2 days after her pension kicks in,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement on her Instagram account, and criticized her voting record on healthcare.Greene abruptly resigned from Congress, effective 5 January, in a 10-minute video post outlining her unhappiness with Republicans on issues including the public release of the Jeffrey Epstein files in the government’s possession, US financing of foreign conflicts, Trump’s decision to potentially back a candidate against her, and the cost of living and healthcare.After her service to Trump, she said she objected to being “expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me”.“I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better,” Greene said.But Ocasio-Cortez said Greene “is saying a lot but her ACTIONS have not backed up the rhetoric. For all her talk, she’s STILL voting with them to gut healthcare … ”Greene voted in the summer for cuts to Medicaid and the reduction of enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, but then in October criticized the ACA cuts as premiums soared.Ocasio-Cortez also repeated some of her criticism of shares bought by Greene earlier this year before Trump said he was pausing tariffs. Greene has denied any impropriety in her stock trading.Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who has also taken public stands against Trump including over the Epstein files release, said on X that he was “very sad for our country but so happy for my friend Marjorie. I’ll miss her tremendously.”Massie added that Greene “embodies what a true Representative should be. Everyone should read her statement; there’s more honesty expressed in these four pages than most politicians will speak in a lifetime.”Early on Saturday, Trump also reacted to Greene’s announcement, posting on Truth Social that “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” had decided to call it “quits” because of “PLUMMETING Poll Numbers, and not wanting to face a Primary Challenger with a strong Trump Endorsement (where she would have no chance of winning!) … ”Trump also said that Greene’s political relationship with Massie “did not help her”.“For some reason, primarily that I refused to return her never ending barrage of phone calls, Marjorie went BAD,” he added. “Nevertheless, I will always appreciate Marjorie, and thank her for her service to our Country!”But Trump later told NBC News he would like to see Greene resume her political career.“It’s not going to be easy for her” to revive her career in politics, he said, adding: “I’d love to see that.” In the meantime, “she’s got to take a little rest”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDavid Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school massacre in 2018 who briefly served as a co-vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee and tussled with Greene over gun control, posted: “See ya!” on X.Greene was seen in a 2019 video following a then-18-year-old Hogg outside Capitol Hill, calling him a “coward” for not defending his stance on guns and accusing him of “using” kids to pass gun control laws. Hogg and other Parkland survivors used the video as evidence to call for Greene’s resignation when she was appointed to the House Republican committee in 2021.Barbara Comstock, a former Republican House member and a Trump critic, lauded Greene’s decision on social media. “She doesn’t want to be a Republican ‘battered wife’ taking Trump’s abuse and getting death threats and pretending it’s all ok only to end up in the minority. Good for her,” Comstock posted.Greene’s decision to leave Congress came soon after another plot twist was playing out in the White House between Trump and New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, who spoke of their shared commitment to the future of the nation’s most populous city.Trump, who had in the past called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job”, spoke of how impressed he was with the man who had called his administration “authoritarian” and said he anticipates a productive relationship.“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after a private meeting on Friday afternoon that lasted under an hour. “Because I want New York City to be great.”Mamdani said that he appreciated that during their meeting they “had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers”.Both said they had shared ideas about affordability and developing new housing in the city. “Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” the president said of Mamdani about inflationary issues. More

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      Republicans will be left holding the bill for Trump’s policies in the midterms | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The elections of 4 November were the end of a grandiose illusion. After his 2024 victory, Donald Trump claimed he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”, that his “mandate” was “massive” and that his “Maga movement” was irresistible, the wave of the future. It lasted 10 months, in which he had betrayed his chief promise to lower inflation, turned the public against him on every issue and Republicans at last faced a battering by voters.Trump’s image of omnipotence has rested upon a pyramid of dread. His ability to maintain the servility of the Republican Congress, whose members are intimidated by the danger that if they defy him he would support primary opponents to run against them, has been the political foundation for all the other forms of fear he incites throughout American institutions. Trump could not have leveraged himself as “dictator on day one” without congressional abdication. The Republicans immediately fell into lockstep. But within two weeks of the 4 November elections, only one Republican in the House voted against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Trump had called a “hoax” before he felt compelled to bend in the cyclone to sign the bill – and yet still suppresses the files.The Republicans in Congress now have another fear that places them in a terrible tightening vise. They have allowed Trump to avoid accountability and in next year’s midterms – of which these elections are an augury – they will be held mercilessly to account in his stead. Trump is the cause for which they will suffer the effect. He will not be on the ballot. Only they will pay the butcher’s bill.The Republicans are helpless. Through their abject obedience to him they have permitted Trump to sever their organic connection to their voters. None dare venture any longer to town halls in their districts. They cower before their constituents’ wrath over Trump. He is more unpopular than any president of recent time, including himself after January 6, with the exception of George W Bush at the end of his presidency in the financial collapse. The colossus who proclaims “I have the right to do anything I want to do, I’m the president” has reduced the Republicans to ciphers. They are not public servants, but his sycophants. Their lord, however, is not their protector. The closer they attach themselves to him, the more vulnerable they become. The voters repudiate Trump by rejecting Republicans.If the Republicans had paid more attention to his career, they would have observed that he always maneuvers to set up fall guys to take the rap. Trump has his Roy Cohns and his Michael Cohens. “He directed me to make the payment,” Cohen testified about the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels in order to shut her up to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. Trump was ultimately convicted in 2024 of 34 felonies of business fraud in an election scheme. “Michael has great liability to me!” Trump tweeted. Cohen served two and a half years in prison for tax evasion, lying to a bank, and campaign finance violations for the payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model with whom Trump had an affair. “The man doesn’t tell the truth,” said Cohen. “And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.” Trump called Cohen, who testified in the trial, a “rat”, a Mafia term for an informant. “The more people that follow Mr Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” Cohen told a congressional committee in 2019. The Republicans collectively are now Michael Cohen.A Marist-NPR poll on 19 November sent a shock wave. Democrats held a towering 14-point advantage. Then a Marquette University poll rolled in later that day showing Democrats with an 11-point advantage among likely voters. In the 2018 midterms, a Democratic lead of around seven to eight points on the generic ballot translated into a gain of 40 seats. The latest numbers might project roughly 60 seats. The supposedly dead Democrats would easily carry a large majority. With those margins, they would also likely take the Senate.If that seems too breathless, consider what the recent 4 November elections portend. Republican turnout cratered; Democratic enthusiasm ran high. The polls, which were weighted on the basis of the 2024 results, were distorted in showing closer races than the final counts. In the New Jersey gubernatorial contest, in the highest voter turnout in an off-year election in two decades there, the Republican vote count declined 42% for the Republican candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, compared with Trump’s 2024 total. In the Virginia gubernatorial race, the Republican vote count dropped by nearly 45% compared with 2024, while the Democratic vote fell by only 22%.The final polls significantly underestimated the winning margins for the Democratic candidates, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. Late polls had Spanberger leading by seven to 11 points, while others suggested a lead as narrow as 2.5 points or a virtual “dead heat”. In New Jersey, final polls had the race even closer. A RealClearPolling average showed Sherrill’s lead at approximately four to eight points, with some polls placing the race within a single point’s margin of error. Spanberger won by 15 points, Sherill by 13. The polls generally, in election after election, miscalculated the Democratic margin of victory by approximately five to nine percentage points compared with the actual results.All of Trump’s gains were swept away in every demographic group. In the two New Jersey cities with the greatest percentage of Hispanic voters, Union City and Perth Amboy, Sherill won by 69 points compared with Kamala Harris’ 17, and by 56 points compared with nine, respectively. Sherill won all 21 counties. The Democrats picked up enough state legislative seats, including in a district held by Republicans for more than three decades, to achieve a super-majority in the assembly.In Virginia, Spanberger outperformed Harris in more than 95% of Virginia’s counties and independent cities. The Democrats gained more than 16 points in small cities and 12 in rural areas. Before the election, Democrats held 51 seats and Republicans 48 in the house of delegates, with one vacancy. The Democrats won 13 seats and now have 64 delegates. Voter urgency to defeat Republicans was so persuasive that Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, whose emails expressing his desire to shoot the Republican speaker of the house of delegates in the head were a central focus of the campaign, won by six points.Elections elsewhere demonstrated the same pattern. In Erie county, Pennsylvania, which Trump had narrowly won, the Democratic candidate for county executive beat the Republican by 25 points. For the first time since 2006, Democrats in Georgia won statewide nonfederal offices with two candidates gaining about 60% of the vote for seats on the Georgia public service commission. Little noticed, Democrats flipped two state senate seats in Mississippi, which broke the Republican super-majority.The claim that Trump’s 2024 election represented a fundamental realignment of American politics has swiftly turned into a mirage. He had won by a slender margin of 1.5 points, overwhelmingly on the issue of inflation, and dependent on winning the 7% of voters who decided in the last week for him by nine points, generally considered low-propensity voters. This time, many of them apparently either switched to vote for the Democrats or stayed home. The much touted newly consolidated Trump electorate has vanished. Trump in office has built no mandate. His coalition has disintegrated and been reduced to his base, which is beginning to splinter over continuing inflation, increases in premiums for Obamacare and the Epstein files.Projecting forward, accounting for the discrepancy between the polls and the results in 2025, conservatively giving the Democrats running for the Congress an additional five points to make up for it, and assuming similar party turnout, the outcome would be startling. If that formula is to be believed, Democrats would win more than 60 seats in the 2026 midterms and capture the Senate, too.The circumstances that produced the Democratic sweep in 2025 will not be replaced by election day next year with the dawning of Trump’s “Golden Age”. His economic damage through his draconian and chaotic tariffs, a major contributing factor to inflation and unemployment, the poisonous combination of stagflation, can hardly be unraveled quickly, even if the supreme court supports lower court rulings against his invocation of emergency authority as unlawful. The rest of Trump’s policies radically redistributing wealth and resources upward and immiserating the working and middle classes, which have had unanimous Republican support, will not be reversed. In 2026, the midterms will be fought on even more difficult ground for Republicans of an even lengthier period of economic decline.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s absence from the ballot eliminates his attraction to the low-propensity voters that previously backed him. In any case, they have mostly evaporated, as the 2025 results demonstrated. It is a further illusion about the past election that if Trump campaigns on the stump for Republicans it will benefit them. In fact, Trump’s vote in 2024 was for Trump, but even so the congressional Republicans actually performed better than Trump. Overall, Trump did better in 198 congressional districts and the GOP House candidates did better in 237. For districts with GOP incumbents, Trump did better in 29, but the House candidates did better in 191, according to calculations derived from the Downballot.Now Trump’s enveloping presence casts a shadow over Republicans which they cannot escape. His unpopularity is deep and settled. The more he appears next to them, the more intensely the larger public is galvanized against them, if they need the reminder that the Republicans and Trump are one and the same. The Republicans have trapped themselves, willingly so. He is their cement shoes.The key propulsive numbers for turnout in the 2026 election are to be found among those who strongly approve and disapprove of Trump. In the latest Marist Poll, 68% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump, while 81% of Democrats and 60% of independents strongly disapprove. Those numbers can get worse for Republicans. Polarization now works against them. The numbers are inexorable harbingers of 2026.Trump himself is an immutable factor. He is hardwired against flexibility and self-reform, which he believes is the core of his strength and appeal. He is certain that his intransigence is his greatest asset. If he never gives in, he will always win. His only road to victory is that everyone must fear him. He cannot admit a mistake. It would violate his canon of power. Any erosion of his followers’ subservience is taken as not only an unjustifiable attack on his authority, but on his very being.Trump perceives every challenge, no matter how sensible, as an existential threat. He prizes unstinting fealty above reason. He can respond in only one way. Refusing to acknowledge the repudiation of the 4 November elections, he explodes in rage and aggravates alienation.He must call Marjorie Taylor Greene for questioning him a “traitor”. He must shout at a Bloomberg News reporter for asking a question about the Epstein files: “Quiet, quiet, piggy!” He must label an ABC News correspondent who also asks a question about his suppression of the Epstein files “insubordinate”. He must declare that Democratic members of the Congress, all military and national security veterans, invoking the law that the armed forces and intelligence officials are obligated not to follow illegal orders, are “traitors” who should be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL” for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”But in the midterm elections to come, however distant they may still seem, it is the Republicans in the Congress who will stand alone to receive the final verdict before the people for their cowardice in collaborating with Trump and as contemptible exemplars of all his collaborators.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to the Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Meet the conservative lawyer causing headaches for major news networks

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      In just 14 months, Daniel Suhr, the 40-year-old president of a two-person, Chicago-based, conservative legal organization called the Center for American Rights, has emerged as a thorn in the side of the major US broadcast news networks at a time when they face both financial and political vulnerabilities.Suhr has had a key ally in Brendan Carr, who was hand-picked by Donald Trump to serve as the chair of the powerful Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the Trump administration has sought new avenues to take on the mainstream media. Carr has resuscitated several complaints that were filed by Suhr and dismissed at the end of Joe Biden’s administration and has seemingly factored in Suhr’s suggestions when reviewing media mergers.One of those complaints, in October 2024, dealt with the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then vice-president Kamala Harris. It preceded by about two weeks a $10bn lawsuit by Trump against CBS that made similar claims and upended the political-media world for the next nine months. Suhr’s complaint led to CBS’s unprecedented decision to release the full, unedited transcript and video library from the Harris interview under pressure from Carr. And when Carr’s FCC ultimately approved Paramount’s long-delayed merger with Skydance Media in July, it included conditions that Suhr had asked for: the appointment of an ombudsman to handle complaints of bias at CBS News and the elimination of all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.“I think the commission did a great job in the final order,” Suhr said in a recent sit-down with the Guardian. “The commission’s order said that Paramount committed to news that was ‘fair, unbiased, and fact-based.’ I think those are great words. I would love to see all of our news be fair, unbiased and fact-based. I think that articulation of the standard is in many ways the fruition of what started with the one complaint.”It’s all a bit of a whirlwind for Suhr, who filed his first media complaint in September 2024. Critics of the way that Carr has used the commission’s limited regulatory oversight over the content of television networks to exert pressure have some questions – and some concerns – about how Suhr suddenly became such a key player in the administration’s regulatory apparatus, even as they say he’s very pleasant to deal with.“When you talk to him, he seems like a very reasonable, very articulate, smart guy,” said Gigi Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate who was nominated by former president Joe Biden to serve on the FCC but did not ultimately do so. “It’s just kind of curious that this person has come out of nowhere and is so active and is so tied with the chair. I think it raises questions that should be answered.”One of those questions is whether Suhr is taking his cues directly from Carr, who shares his belief that the mainstream media is biased in favor of Democrats.Over coffee recently in Washington DC, where Suhr had traveled to attend a dinner hosted by the conservative Federalist Society, he sought to explain how exactly his organization became a central actor in the conservative case against alleged bias in the media – and how he became what Sohn called “a cog in the Carr wheel”, though Suhr sees it differently.While Suhr said he’s a “big fan” of Carr, he pushed back on the notion that he works hand-in-glove with him. “I don’t run my complaints by [Carr] ahead of time,” he said. “I don’t run my complaints by his staff ahead of time.”Still, it’s undeniable that Suhr “has the ear of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on a number of policy issues,” as former telecommunications association executive Ted Hearn wrote last week, noting that he had endorsed the $34.5bn merger between Charter Communications and Cox Communications.Suhr said he has only met Carr once – though he did not disclose that his one meeting had occurred just hours before meeting with the Guardian for an interview. Carr posted a photo of the two of them on X, writing that Suhr is “doing fantastic work advancing the public interest in media policy”. (Carr did not respond to a text message seeking further comment about Suhr.)Asked about it later, Suhr explained the visit as just a “get-to-know-you” session – they didn’t talk about pending cases, which means there won’t be an official notice of their meeting – just a photo that Carr posted on X.In late September 2024, Suhr filed a complaint against ABC over its handling of the presidential debate it hosted between Trump and Harris. There was also a complaint against NBC over a pre-election appearance by Harris on Saturday Night Live,which Suhr argued was a violation of the equal time rule.Both complaints were closed at the end of Biden’s term by then-FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel and then reopened by Carr – though the chair chose not to bring back a petition to deny a local Fox station a license because of the Fox News Channel’s coverage of the 2020 election.“The dismissals by the FCC were so obviously correct under established precedent that I became a little curious about who would be dumb enough to file these things,” said Robert Corn-Revere, a first amendment litigator for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, when asked how he first became aware of Suhr. “There is no reason whatsoever for these proceedings to still be open and there was never a basis for them to be open in the first place.” (“[Corn-Revere] is entitled to his opinion,” Suhr responded. “I think our results speak for themselves.”)When ABC indefinitely suspended late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s show on 17 September Suhr was all over that as well. Earlier that day, he had filed a complaint to the FCC seeking consequences for ABC unless Kimmel’s show was taken off the air. That followed another complaint about two weeks earlier accusing Kimmel of using his show to benefit Democrats.Critics wonder whether Carr is keeping the complaints open to serve as a potential pressure point for networks – like NBC owner Comcast – that might need the FCC’s blessing for future transactions.Despite their issues with Suhr’s filings, which often allege violations of the FCC’s poorly defined “news distortion” standard, both Sohn and Corn-Revere acknowledged that there is nothing unusual about an outside organization filing motions that are aligned with an FCC chair’s priorities. But, Corn-Revere said, “I’ve just never seen it to be this sort of open and obvious as is going on now.”While he’s relatively new to taking on the media, Suhr is no stranger to politics. After graduating with a law degree in 2008, Suhr spent several years managing the Federalist Society’s law school chapters before joining the administration of Scott Walker, the Republican former Wisconsin governor . He then became a public interest lawyer, working for an organization called the Liberty Justice Center before forming the Center for American Rights with his partner Patrick Hughes. It was Hughes, who leads CAR’s board, who first suggested that Suhr should look into ways to combat what he saw as mainstream media misinformation after watching the ABC News-hosted presidential debate in September.“It was an unfair debate – the moderators were clearly in favor of the Democrats – and it made me think: ‘How can this be?’” Hughes recalled. “And so I said to Daniel: ‘We’ve got to do something about this. What are the standards under which the FCC regulates this?’ Because it can’t be right.”Hughes said he’s been pleased with the impact that Suhr has been able to have. “He’s brilliant,” he said. “He’s a terrific person and a fabulous lawyer and he’s doing a great job.”Sohn agreed that Suhr has “obviously been very successful” in his efforts.Suhr’s complaint against CBS is still open, even though the relief sought – forcing the network to release the 60 Minutes transcript – was already granted months ago. When asked recently why the FCC has not acted on complaints, Carr said they are still being investigated.Either way, Suhr is feeling better about CBS News these days, particularly after the selection of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief and the appointment of a prominent Washington conservative, Kenneth R Weinstein, as ombudsman.“We appreciate the change that is happening. We applaud it. We’re going to continue to be vigilant for consumers, but so far I’ve been thrilled,” Suhr said. “We just want journalists to be better journalists.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign from Congress in January amid fallout with Trump

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Friday evening she will be resigning from office effective 5 January 2026, in the wake of souring relations with President Donald Trump, mostly recently over a vote to force the release of files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein.In a four-page statement, the Georgia congresswoman said the legislative branch had been “sidelined” and accused Republican leaders of refusing to advance conservative priorities such as border security or “America First” policies.Until recently, Greene had been one of the most vocal and visible supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, crediting him with inspiring her to run for Congress in 2020. But in recent months, the congresswoman had become a surprising critic of the Trump administration – taking on the president not just over the release of the Epstein files, but also his administration’s support for Israel, and extending expiring Obamacare subsidies. She began questioning whether Trump was truly an “America first” president.“No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman,” Greene said.“When the common American people finally realize and understand that the political industrial complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.“Until then I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead,” Greene added. In a phone conversation with an ABC News reporter, Trump was quoted as saying Greene’s resignation was “great news”. He added that Greene hadn’t given him notice but “it doesn’t matter, you know but I think it’s great. I think she should be happy.”Previously, Trump has called Greene a “traitor” and “wacky” and said he would endorse a challenger against her when she ran for re-election next year. In a social media post last week, Trump speculated that Greene had turned against him because he advised her not to run for Senate and claimed she was “upset that I don’t return her phone calls”. In response, Greene accused Trump of lying and said she believed it was her persistent calls for his administration to release the Epstein files that “sent him over the edge”.Greene did not give House Speaker Mike Johnson advance notice of her resignation, according to NBC News. Her departure in January will narrow Johnson’s already razor-thin majority, leaving him less room to maneuver.Greene explained her decision in a 10-minute social media video posted on X on Friday night.In her resignation statement, she said: “I have fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect Donald Trump and Republicans to power … Through it all I have never changed or went back on my campaign promises … 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.”Last week, Greene said she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of her.In a post on X, Greene said that “a hotbed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.Greene reiterated these threats in her statement, saying that she has faced “never ending personal attacks, death threats, lawfare, ridiculous slander and lies about me, that most people could never withstand even for a day”.Her resignation comes after months of opinions that go against those of the White House and some of her Republican colleagues. Earlier this month, Trump pushed back against criticism from Greene, saying she had “lost her way” after she accused him of paying too much attention to foreign affairs and not enough to the rising cost of living in the US – points she also addressed in her Friday statement.Greene said she had broken with the US president over several issues, including the issuing of H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers, a ban on AI regulation, “50-year mortgage scams”, involvement in foreign wars, and the release of files related to the crimes of Epstein, the late pedophile Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.“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,” Greene said.Greene has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s war on Gaza, with US support, calling it “a genocide”.“If I am cast aside by Maga Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well,” Greene said.Her resignation comes halfway through her third term in the US House of Representatives. In her resignation speech, she did not say what she would do next but hinted at a future in politics, saying: “When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart … [and] that they, common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.”Political strategist Shermichael Singleton said Greene might be “looking at future plan”.“If I were advising her, hey, you might be able to get through this brief moment in time,” Singleton told CNN. “But perhaps she thought otherwise. Maybe she’s looking at future plans. But this is a big shocker.”Trump won her district in the 2024 presidential race with 68% of the vote; Greene won re-election with 64%. Despite strong support for Trump, voters in Greene’s district seemed to be unaffected by the representative’s scuffle with the president, according to NBC News. More