There’s no question the U.S. Senate is “truly in play” right now — it’s conceivable that Democrats could take the majority. But there’s one reason why a simple 51-seat majority will not be enough to accomplish the big tasks, such as convicting President Donald Trump should he be impeached, or blocking Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, argues Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark.

One senator could blow up the Democratic agenda: Last argues U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is the reason a simple majority won’t be enough — and explains why losing the Senate entirely would be “bad.”

“Democrats are likely to come close to flipping the Senate, so if they fall short the narrative will be that Trump ‘held’ and did better than expected,” he posits.

If Democrats remain in the minority, “impeachment becomes an even more politically-fraught exercise.”

And lastly, if Republicans control the Senate next year, Last says there is a greater than 90 percent chance that Trump will have the opportunity to replace the two oldest Supreme Court justices: conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. That would create “a Trump-picked majority on the Supreme Court for a generation.”

Last says that Democrats have a “2-in-5 chance” of flipping Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Maine. (He also notes that he’s “spitballing” on the numbers.)

If everything went the Democrats’ way, including holding on to Georgia and all currently-held seats, they would have a 53-seat majority, pulling off what would be a “political earthquake.”

READ MORE: Whistleblower Says DOJ Ordered Prosecutors to Rush SPLC Indictment: Report

Last says Democrats “probably need to get at least 52 seats” — because 51 leaves them at Fetterman’s mercy.

Fetterman, according to Last, “routinely criticizes the Democratic party itself.”

Fetterman’s public appearances over recent months — often on Fox News — have led some to wonder if he is preparing to switch parties. His comments — and votes — at times appear to align more with the Republicans than with Democrats.

Democratic strategist and pundit James Carville last month suggested that if Fetterman wants to run for re-election as a Democrat in 2028, “he has no chance in a Democratic primary.”

Last posits that 53 seats are possible, but absolutely not likely. “Hitting 51 seats is, by comparison, much more achievable. Even winning Maine, North Carolina, Michigan, Alaska, and Ohio would be a long row to hoe, and even if Dems got it done, they only end up with 51 seats.”

What happens if Democrats win a 51-seat majority?

“Republicans will make a full-court press” to get Fetterman to join them. “Why wouldn’t Fetterman switch? He is a ballroom-endorsing, Netanyahu-maximalist who has a good relationship with Trump and has been gradually expanding his grievances as not merely being with progressives, or Israel-skeptics, but with the main body of Democratic voters and elected Democrats in Congress, too.”

Last calls a 51-seat Democratic majority a “perfect storm” for Republicans, who “can give him anything—not just the promise of a shot at holding onto his seat in 2028 by clearing the field for him, but friendly spaces on Fox and a warm, post-Senate embrace that finds room for him in their ecosystem.”

Of course, Last warns, he was wrong about Fetterman in 2021 and 2022.

READ MORE: ‘Lying’ Samuel Alito Is a ‘Coward’: Elections Expert

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President Donald Trump and the GOP have an affordability crisis on their hands, and they are dealing with it — not by solving it, as a “normal” political party would do — but by “denying reality,” argues Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman.

After all, Trump promised to make prices drop on “day one.” He vowed to cut energy costs in half. That has not happened.

“He has instead presided over rising inflation — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure is running almost a percentage point higher than it was when he took office — and his Iran debacle has caused a spike in gasoline and diesel prices,” Krugman writes.

Krugman points to several prominent Republicans who over the past few days have taken to the nation’s airwaves to claim that gas prices are falling.

CNN put the falsehoods in focus:

U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) on Thursday claimed “gas prices continue to come down.” CNN’s fact-checker Daniel Dale noted that “average gas prices in the US as a whole and in his home state of South Carolina had actually gone up over the last day, week, month and year, according to AAA data.”

READ MORE: Whistleblower Says DOJ Ordered Prosecutors to Rush SPLC Indictment: Report

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Dale found, “falsely claimed Thursday that gas prices are much lower now than they were ‘two years ago,’ when, he claimed, they were ‘$6.’ Thursday’s AAA national average, $4.30 per gallon, was actually higher, not lower, than the average two years prior, when it was $3.66 per gallon.”

One day earlier, CNN notes, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “falsely suggested” the average gas price in California was $8 per gallon right before the Iran war started. “The state average at the time was actually $4.64 per gallon, according to AAA.”

Krugman calls it “striking” that Republicans are “lying” by trying to create an “alternate reality” about a fact that most Americans can see on a daily basis, on “giant signs all around America,” namely, at the gas station.

So why do they, apparently, think these lies will work?

Krugman argues Republicans are pretending that President Donald Trump’s second term in office started during President Joe Biden’s term in office, “after the inflation surge of 2021-2022,” and not after what he calls the “immaculate disinflation” that followed.

Calling that effort “games with the timeline,” Krugman notes that it will not work: “That ship has already sailed (and sunk).”

So who is it for?

An “audience of one”: President Donald Trump, who, “swaddled in his Mar-a-Lago bubble,” doesn’t know that prices at the pump and inflation are up.

“Trump says that we have no inflation,” Krugman notes. “He recently insisted that inflation was 5 percent at the end of Biden’s term and took credit for falling inflation before he took office. So Republicans determined to say whatever he wants to hear — which means everyone still in the party — feel obliged to praise his inflation record, the facts be damned.”

READ MORE: ‘Lying’ Samuel Alito Is a ‘Coward’: Elections Expert

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Several Democratic members of Congress are demanding answers from the Department of Justice after a whistleblower alleged that prosecutors were ordered to rush the controversial indictment of a prominent left-leaning civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC has long drawn fire from some on the right who label it a hate group — a charge rooted in opposition to the organization’s work tracking discrimination and extremism.

MS NOW reports that it exclusively obtained a description of the whistleblower’s allegations, which state that prosecutors had concerns about the strength of the case against the SPLC. Former federal fraud prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, an MS NOW contributor and a former Mueller team member, called the legal theory behind the indictment “exceedingly far-fetched.”

“According to whistleblower information provided to this Committee, Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh ordered your office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama, to rush through the indictment of the SPLC, despite serious concerns about the strength of the case,” reads a letter from U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

MS NOW reports that current and former DOJ officials describe Singh as an “enforcer” for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has pushed U.S. attorneys to bring cases of interest to Trump.

Raskin and Scanlon’s letter alleges “systemic flaws” in the indictment.

READ MORE: ‘Lying’ Samuel Alito Is a ‘Coward’: Elections Expert

“As you are well aware,” the Democrats’ letter continues, “it is a violation of Department of Justice (DOJ) regulations to  commence a prosecution when an attorney for the government does not believe ‘that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.’ It is also a  violation of federal law to intimidate or injure individuals or organizations for exercising their  constitutional rights, including their right to free speech.”

The letter was sent to Kevin Davidson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama.

The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted by a federal grand jury last month in Alabama’s Middle District on charges including fraud and money laundering. The indictment alleges the 54-year old organization, which worked to bankrupt the Ku Klux Klan through lawsuits, paid more than $3 million to informants working in extremist groups.

“The indictment alleged that those informants furthered the hateful aims of the various groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi groups,” MS NOW reports. The SPLC denies any wrongdoing, saying its informants fed intelligence to the FBI and DOJ for years.

Weissmann noted that the indictment does not specify what the SPLC told donors that was fraudulent.

“DOJ’s exercise in gaslighting-by-indictment also requires America to bury its head in the sand and pretend SPLC’s payments to infiltrate white nationalist groups were meant to support them, despite evidence to the contrary presented in its charging document,” Raskin wrote to Singh.

Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, charged that federal prosecutors are “bringing cases without probable cause or any reasonable expectation of winning at trial.”

“Instead, the clear purpose of your directive and the onslaught of bogus cases is to intimidate and stifle criticism of this Administration’s policies,” Raskin said.

READ MORE: Trump Attacks ‘Very Disloyal’ GOP Senator — Calls for Him to Lose Primary

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