Politics Chat

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all U.S. aircraft one day after rolling out a new AI air traffic management platform. White House Counsel Will Scharf warned Representative Robert Garcia that Democratic oversight plans could be criminal. U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz accused Senator Richard Blumenthal of trying to intimidate Trump ballroom donors. A...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Democrats plan to move the January 6th plaque honoring law enforcement officers from the Capitol basement to public view. Sixteen Democratic senators asked Republican leaders to reverse the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for a higher federal minimum wage and an end to congressional stock trading and surveill...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Voters in the 2026 midterm elections rejected Trump and an era of concentrating wealth among a few. Some Democrats are frustrated with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Incoming committee chairs are signaling aggressive oversight starting in January. Representative Thomas Massie plans to reintroduce articles of...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: The 2026 midterm election appears to have been a sea change in American politics. Democrats are projected to win at least 258 seats in the House of Representatives. Democrats flipped seven Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Democrats also flipped governorships in Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada, and Texas. Rura...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Today is Election Day 2026. Polls suggest Democrats will take the House of Representatives. It is not clear what will happen in the Senate. There has been no violence at the polls. The administration has repeatedly lost in its attempts to steal the election. Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacked Trump for gaslighting Americans about gas prices. Republicans...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: The New York Times story about a second Dan Sullivan on the Alaska ballot is a non-story. Spoiler candidates are common in American elections. The bigger Alaska story is that at least 18 early and absentee in-person voting sites failed to open. Elon Musk funded Cornel West’s 2024 presidential run through two dark money channels. In the election of 1844, Lib...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Trump and his allies came into office intending to dismantle the postwar rules-based international order and replace it with spheres of influence. Trump has taken Venezuela and is pursuing an opaque oil deal with what appears to be a shell company. Right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro lost Brazil’s presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolson...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Trump said he asked Elon Musk to lift restrictions on Starlink and Starshield, the communications networks Ukraine relies on to fight off Russia. The slowdown of those networks during a massive Russian barrage left Ukraine unable to defend against incoming drones and missiles. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that Vladimir Putin has somet...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Socialism is a system in which the government owns the means of production. After the Civil War, opponents of Black voting used the term socialism to attack Black political participation. Two days before congressionally mandated sanctions on Russia were set to take effect, Trump said he would waive them. Russia has proposed a trilateral meeting with Trump a...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Trump has flipped U.S. foreign policy away from the post-World War II rules-based international order. He is openly siding with Vladimir Putin over Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump removed sanctions on Russian oil, even as Congress voted overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis for more sanctions. SpaceX communication systems that direct Ukraine’s...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: Trump posted videos of lions and tigers attacking humans. Right-wing influencers spread a false story that Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was being treated for a mental health crisis in Ohio. The Wall Street Journal reported that Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, spent New Year’s Eve 2024 in Dubai with two fugitives cha...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: The Wall Street Journal reported that Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Greece, asked Trump loyalist Eric Deters to pay off 100,000 dollars of her American Express bill before her Senate hearing. Days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Project Meridian, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey’s company received a 2.9 billion dollar...

At a Nebraska rally, Trump said of Iran that if it had a nuclear weapon, let them take out Los Angeles or San Diego, calling it a small price to pay, and the crowd cheered. The White House later said he had been misconstrued. The United States has not invited the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to observe its elections this year, the first time since 2002, leaving only Russia...

In today’s Politics Chat: Special counsel Jack Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Chuck Grassley. Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt accused Smith of perjury over a claimed February 2024 trip to Atlanta. The claim relied on text messages mentioning a Hawkeyes game, which turned out to reference an Iowa basketball game Smith attended in Maryland, not an Atlanta Hawks game....

A federal judge blocked the State Department's Office of Remigration from sending deportees to third countries with no ties to them, a program that has cost more than 400 million taxpayer dollars. Another federal judge ruled Homeland Security cannot keep holding detainees in abysmal conditions at a facility in New York. A judge also blocked Trump's ban on White House press access for Politico, CNN...

The White House revoked press credentials for CNN, Politico, and MS NOW after aide Natalie Harp reportedly showed Trump stories that angered him. In a UN speech, Trump suggested he might annihilate Iran and declared the United States would dominate the Western Hemisphere. Trump also attacked the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Vladimir Putin. The administration is moving to remove...

House Speaker Mike Johnson sent members home until after the midterms, reportedly to avoid a vote on Representative Thomas Massie’s eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Massie’s articles cite War Powers Act violations tied to the Iran war, unauthorized strikes on boats near Venezuela, and 2025 strikes in Yemen. Diesel prices have surpassed 6 dollars a gallon, a rec...

Retired judge J. Michael Luttig warned that House Speaker Mike Johnson could install a loyalist clerk to refuse to seat duly elected Democrats after the 2026 midterms, paralyzing the House. The Supreme Court ruled that the administration cannot implement its mail-in ballot screening program before the midterms. Of 30 lawsuits seeking state voter rolls, Trump has now lost all 23 that have been deci...

In today’s Politics Chat: Since September 8, Iran-backed Houthi forces have seized much of Yemen's Red Sea coastline, including the port of Mocha, about 50 miles from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, threatening a second major oil chokepoint alongside the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude jumped to around 106 to 109 dollars a barrel, and diesel hit a record 6 dollars a gallon, up from 3.70 dollars a year ago...

In today’s Politics Chat: Elon Musk is spending up to 100 million dollars on the midterms, including backing ‘Vote Safe,’ a site that reportedly collects extensive personal data unlike the official. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won just over 43 percent in a regional legislative election Sunday, and Musk congratulated them. Four Wall Street Journal reporters detaile...

In today’s Politics Chat: A federal judge in Boston, Indira Talwani, blocked the Trump administration's new mail-ballot verification system until September 10, and the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after the hearing went poorly. Trump's record on lawsuits seeking state voter rolls now stands at 0 and 23, including losses before judges he appointed himself. House Speaker Mike Joh...

In today’s Politics Chat: A federal whistleblower says the U.S. Postal Service rushed a new mail-in ballot verification system that could reject entire batches if even a single barcode fails to scan. Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to Postmaster General David Steiner demanding answers by Friday. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Trump can continue building his White House ballroom, deciding the...

In today’s Politics Chat: Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America," a symbolic move with no binding effect abroad. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from trade talks and imposed retaliatory tariffs effective September 8 targeting Republican districts, pivoting Canada's trade relationship toward the European Union instead. A new Strength in Numbers poll fou...

In today’s Politics Chat: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, sparking Democratic backlash. Trump's tariff war with Canada, launched under emergency powers after courts struck down earlier tariffs, is reworking the post-World War II international order built on free trade and alliances. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has refused further negotiation a...

Topics covered in today’s Politics Chat: USS Abraham Lincoln resupply crisis, fabricated polling scandal, Natalie Harp and Trump's inner circle, spheres-of-influence foreign policy, alienating traditional allies, South Korea military exercise cancellation, North Korea and Russia alignment, Iran war, Strait of Hormuz control and transit tolls, rising diesel and food prices, renewable energy imperat...