Longtime political scientist Dr. Norman Ornstein on Thursday floated a prediction that one political commentator suggested could throw the November 2026 midterms into chaos.

“Something I predicted multiple times is about to come true,” said Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and contributing editor for The Atlantic.

Ornstein said that President Donald Trump’s acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, “is going to cut a deal with Maduro to have him falsely claim that Venezuela tilted the 2020 elections. In return, he and his wife are likely to be in the same prison as Ghislaine Maxwell.”

Maduro is Nicolás Maduro, the former president of Venezuela whom the U.S. Army’s Delta Force captured in January. He and his wife, currently imprisoned in Brooklyn, are expected to stand trial on numerous drug-trafficking charges.

Blanche reportedly is behind the controversial move of former Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell to a less-restrictive prison.

Political commentator Tara Setmayer, co-founder of The Seneca Project, appeared to agree with Ornstein.

“I’m hearing this Maduro rumor also,” she wrote. “As soon as he was captured, I thought Trump would try this nonsense.”

“Firing [Pam] Bondi, then [Tulsi] Gabbard opened up this scheme with Blanche & [Bill] Pulte as the henchmen,” she explained. Pulte is the acting Director of National Intelligence, who replaced Gabbard.

“I hope this doesn’t happen but it’s more than plausible and would throw the midterms into utter chaos,” Setmayer warned.

Political strategist and California State Senate candidate Christine Pelosi responded to Ornstein, saying, “Co-sign.”

She explained that she had discussed the scenario with journalist April Ryan back in February.

“My personal theory on this is, number one, Donald Trump can’t believe he lost” in 2020, Pelosi told Ryan. “He would like to take every ballot and recount them himself, but he can’t.”

“But I think they seized Georgia [ballots] because he wants to find a way to pardon Maduro,” Pelosi continued. “He wants to find a way for Maduro to admit election fraud in 2020, so he can justify taking over the financial resources of Venezuela. It’s always the money. Yes, it’s the racism. Yes, it’s the xenophobia. Yes, it’s the pulling up the ladder behind it. But ultimately, with Donald Trump, it is follow the money.”

Also responding to Ornstein was investigative journalist Dave Troy, who wrote: “This is insane but totally plausible. We are living in a fact-free world now.”

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As temperatures in the Big Apple are set to hit triple digits, Republicans are melting down over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s request that residents in the five boroughs turn their air conditioners to 78 degrees — advice President Donald Trump’s own Department of Energy offers as well, as do some of their own states.

“New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool,” Mayor Mamdani noted on Wednesday, as a multi-day heat wave pushed temperatures to the mid-90s. Temperatures are expected to hit 100 degrees on Thursday for the first time in over a decade.

“Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can,” Mamdani asked. “Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings, dimming/turning off our lights during peak electricity demand, asking private partners to do the same, and powering down non-essential equipment. A stable grid means the AC stays on, and lives are saved. Let’s ease demand — and get through the heat — together.”

That request did not go over well on the right.

“Welcome to socialism, where the government demands you turn your house into a sauna because they can’t plan for the super unpredictable fact that it tends to get hot in the summer,” retorted U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX).

“This is what socialism looks like, folks,” added Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP’s nominee for governor of Ohio. “The right answer isn’t restrictions or mandates. It’s drilling, fracking, coal, & nuclear. That’s how we’ll roll in Ohio.”

“In a first-world country, you could turn on the A/C….” wrote U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), only to be met with a community note on the X social media platform, which read: “Ted Cruz’s own state has made the same request on numerous occasions.”

Emmy Award-winning WTTG anchor Jim Lokay also responded to Senator Cruz, writing: “Trump’s own Department of Energy website recommends setting the AC at a range of 75-78 degrees.”

Indeed, on its website, the Department of Energy says: “The Department of Energy (DOE) and ENERGY STAR recommend finding a comfortable indoor temperature during the day and increasing it by 7°F when no one is home. Start with an indoor temperature between 75-78°F during the day.”

Critics slammed some of the Republicans’ responses — especially that of Sen. Cruz.

“You are the absolute LAST person to weigh in, Captain Cancun,” retired intelligence officer Travis Akers wrote.

“Your state’s electrical grid crashes if it gets too hot or cold, so I wouldn’t be throwing stones here,” said Democratic strategist Mike Nellis.

NYC SIZZLES 🥵: FOX Weather Senior Correspondent Robert Ray hits the scorching streets of New York City as an intense heat dome traps millions in life-threatening temperatures. New Yorkers are already feeling the burn: pic.twitter.com/HbMhU6L2P6

— FOX Weather (@foxweather) July 2, 2026

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Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is dismantling the right’s attack on what some see as an increasing embrace of socialism in America — by defining what actual socialism is, explaining that most Americans support European-style social democracy, and revealing that right-wing radicals’ attack on so-called socialism is really just an effort to dismantle social democracy and democracy.

Actual socialism, Krugman says, is government ownership of the means of production. What some on the right decry as socialism is social democracy, which Krugman explains is “an ideology that is OK with living in a mostly market-driven economic system in which some people make much more money than others, but one that advocates policies to tame markets and inequality with progressive taxation, safety net programs, and regulations.”

Americans overall support social democratic priorities, Krugman finds, citing a YouGov poll. That includes replacing private health insurance with national government insurance, government paying college tuition, and government building public housing.

But social democratic programs, which Krugman calls “as American as sliced bread,” also include programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, a national minimum wage, and progressive taxation.

“There is,” Krugman writes, “a real groundswell of dismay over an economy that increasingly favors a tiny group of billionaires, and a political system that all too often works on these oligarchs’ behalf. When people say that they favor socialism, surely what they are often really saying is that they are angry about the rise of oligarchy. They are not demanding a dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Krugman asks, “Why, then, does it look as if socialism is on the rise?”

“Mainly,” he answers, “because right-wing propagandists continually smear social democratic policies as socialist, trying to make popular, mainstream policy ideas sound extreme. And some Americans who are basically social democrats in effect respond by saying, ‘Well, if that’s socialism, I guess I’m OK with socialism.'”

Krugman concludes that while there are “left-wing radicals in America, they have no realistic prospect of getting their way.”

He says that it’s “important to understand what the current uproar over socialism is really about. For the most part, it’s an attempt to distract from the danger posed by the important radical movement in America — that of right-wing radicals who want to dismantle both social democracy and democracy itself.”

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