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COMMENTARY

‘Knives Are Out’: McCarthy Launches Bid for Speaker Despite Majority Not Assured, Predictions of ‘Spectacular S-Show’

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Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has just launched his bid to become Speaker of the House in a letter on his official government website, but his plans to take the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been massively hampered after it quickly became clear that no “red wave” would appear Tuesday night, and it remains uncertain which party will have the majority in the House.

The first warning, of course, came after McCarthy’s prediction one year ago this week, as MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted today, that Republicans would flip more than 60 seats on Election Day did not happen — not even close. And in McCarthy’s usual style, he not only had bragged they would, he made it personal.

“If you’re a Democrat and President Biden won your seat by 16 points, you’re in a competitive race next year. You are no longer safe,” McCarthy told reporters last week, as The Hill had reported.

“It’ll be more than 70 [Democratic seats] that will be competitive. There’s many that are going to lose their races based upon walking off a cliff from [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] pushing them,” McCarthy said nastily. “She may not care if she lose. She lost 63 the last time she was Speaker moving policy that the country didn’t care for.”

READ MORE: ‘Absolute Disaster’: Veteran Conservative Pundit Warns Republicans’ Midterms Performance Is ‘Searing Indictment’ of GOP

“Many believe she won’t stay around” in Congress, McCarthy added, telling House Democrats: “So she’s not going to be there to defend you.”

That turned out to be massively false. At best, if Republicans do take the House majority, MSNBC has been projecting about 225 GOP seats, so a majority of around seven or so.

The second sign was McCarthy’s disastrous “Take Back the House” party during which he apparently expected to announce he would run for Speaker.

It was conspicuously delayed. By hours.

This was the scene at midnight for his expected announcement, via CBS News’ Caitlin Huey-Burns.

1:50 AM:

2:00 AM:

And yet, despite the lengthy delay of several hours, McCarthy remained cocky and apparently unaware of how things work.

Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich at 1:47 AM tweeted, “GOP source tells me ‘if it wasn’t clear before it should be now. We have a Trump problem.'”

Remember, that’s from a Fox News reporter.

READ MORE: ‘How Is This Not a Red Wave?’: Frustrated Fox & Friends Hosts Struggle to Understand Election Results

She continued, saying, if there’s a slim GOP majority, the “Knives are out for Kevin McCarthy.”

Late Tuesday night The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta noted, “Folks, if you’re wondering how Speaker Kevin McCarthy would handle a 6- or 7-seat majority, it’s worth considering there may never be a Speaker Kevin McCarthy at all.”

In other words, McCarthy does not appear to have a lock on the Speaker’s gavel, even if the Republicans take the majority.

Indeed, just past midnight, CBS News Chief Election and Campaign Correspondent Robert Costa reported: “Several House GOP sources tell CBS after midnight tonight that they are now increasingly worried that if GOP wins a narrow House majority, it’ll be utter chaos for McCarthy/leadership team. Rep. [Marjorie Taylor Greene] & her allies would have much more sway in a tight GOP House, the sources predict.”

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes summed up what some appeared to be thinking.

“One of the possibilities currently on the table is Speaker Kevin McCarthy presiding over, like, a 10-vote R majority in the house, which will be a *spectacular* s-show.”

To which former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied, “If he can get elected speaker with that narrow of a majority…”

A reporter for the far right Newsmax adds, “Despite the talk of Trump today, a lot of the blame in GOP circles is being allocated to Rep. Kevin McCarthy who insiders say may not have the votes to be Speaker in the likely event Republicans take House control.”

It’s not looking like an “easy ascension” to the Speakership for Leader McCarthy.

“House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is moving swiftly to lock down the votes to claim the speaker’s gavel as a hard-right faction of his conference discusses whether to mount a long-shot challenge to complicate his bid and force concessions in the process, according to multiple GOP sources,” CNN reports Wednesday at 1:45 PM ET.

“McCarthy privately spoke to his closest advisers and confidantes in a Wednesday morning phone call just hours after his party appeared on track to take the House but fell short of their bullish expectations of a massive GOP landslide. The California Republican tapped a group of members to be on his whip team that will help him secure the 218 votes in order to win the speakership in January, with GOP lawmakers on the call promising to ‘work hard to get him elected,’ according to a source familiar with the matter.”

“But McCarthy’s easy ascension to the speakership will be determined in large part by the size of a potential GOP majority. If McCarthy maintains a narrow majority, then the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus could stand in the way of his leadership ambitions. CNN has not yet projected a Republican takeover of the chamber.”

 

 

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COMMENTARY

Trump Starts Weekend Early After Griping Workers Get Too Many Days Off

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5 months ago

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June 20, 2025

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After stalling on a decision in the escalating Middle East crisis and delaying action—some say potentially in defiance of federal law—on the congressionally mandated TikTok ban, President Donald Trump, facing sliding poll numbers, a widely criticized budget bill on the brink of collapse, a looming debt ceiling showdown, and apparent tensions with his Director of National Intelligence, is heading to his Bedminster golf resort for a MAGA dinner and an early weekend likely to include several rounds of golf.

The decision to leave the White House early on Friday comes after he left the G7 early this week, reportedly to make a decision on whether or how to help Israel attack Iran. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, jokingly said Trump exited the conference with top world leaders because he was “bored,” The Hill reported.

The President is slated to exit the White House at 2 PM Friday.

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

“With the world on edge, the president’s early departure underscores a pattern critics say reflects misplaced priorities, favoring fundraising and familiar retreats over the day-to-day demands of governance,” MeidasTouch News reported.

The long weekend also comes just hours after President Trump denounced “too many days off” for federal and other workers, a remark he made on Juneteenth, a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Trump had campaigned on passing the legislation to honor and celebrate the day that symbolizes the end of slavery, but made no mention of it this year.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump decried Thursday evening.

“I know this is a federal holiday.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

This week, in addition to meeting with his national security team, and an “awkward” meeting with players of the Juventus soccer team, Trump presided over the installation of two 88-foot flag poles and the raising of massive American flags at the White House.

READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen

Trump’s long weekend also comes just one week after millions protested his policies across all 50 states and internationally on Saturday, while he attended a military parade celebrating his and the U.S. Army’s birthdays, and after a tragic political assassination of a Democratic lawmaker and her spouse.

It also comes one week after Trump appeared to make a major about-face, saying farm, hotel, and restaurant workers are valuable and extremely difficult to replace. He suggested that ICE would pause targeting those workers, only to turn around just days later to announce “the largest mass deportation program in history.” The pause on deportations was canceled, leading one notable political commentator and legal analyst, Joyce Vance, to wonder if Trump is actually in charge.

“Who’s running the show?” she asked, suggesting someone may have “countermanded” him on the deportations. “Who’s in charge? Trump or someone else?”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

 

Image via Reuters

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COMMENTARY

‘The Generals Stay Silent’: Experts Alarmed as Trump Politicizes Army at Fort Bragg Rally

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5 months ago

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June 11, 2025

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Military and political experts, veterans, and journalists are condemning President Donald Trump’s political rally at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, warning he crossed a critical line by delivering overtly political and authoritarian-themed remarks before U.S. Army troops. They also expressed alarm that uniformed soldiers appeared at ease booing his political opponents—another troubling breach of military norms. Some now say the time has come for generals to publicly speak out.

The commander in chief entered the event to “Hail to the Chief,” and as he took to the stage, his “MAGA anthem,” “Proud to Be an American,” played. For nearly one hour, in about 9,000 words, Trump delivered a political stump speech. He attacked his political opposition, Democrats, including President Joe Biden and his administration, California Governor Gavin Newsom (“Newscum”) and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He attacked transgender Americans. He attacked the Democratic U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, calling them “a very hostile group of people that I think really don’t want to see America be great again.”

He got the soldiers to boo “the fake news” media, and President Joe Biden. He told them the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.”

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

He attacked the people in Los Angeles protesting his deportation policies, describing it as “anarchy,” while telling the soldiers that defending their  civil rights was not the reason Americans fought overseas:

“Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California. As Commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It’s never going to happen. What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country.”

He thanked the generals, and mentioned some by name. He talked about “the real generals,” as opposed to the ones Americans see on television.

Critics are warning of grave consequences.

“This is the most unacceptable and egregious politicization of our troops we’ve ever seen,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff, an Army combat veteran, responding to video of Trump getting the soldiers to boo the press, President Joe Biden, and the mayor of Los Angeles.

“And it’s not a one off. It’s a strategy,” added Rieckhoff, who is also the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “And one we’ll see in full and dangerous display this weekend at his military birthday parade for himself. Trump wants the world to think our great military is HIS military. And wants to coerce and manipulate troops into making them think it is too. And driving down their public trust and approval by the minute. Trump has created America’s greatest civil-military relations crisis since the Civil War. And it’s just getting started.”

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), warned: “America’s Generals and Admirals are terrified. They are cowed. They seem unlikely to hold the line and live up to their oaths to serve the U.S. Constitution.”

Lamenting that “the Generals stay silent,” he added: “Our democracy is in great danger. This morning I wonder if we crossed a line and there’s no going back.”

Army combat veteran Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” responded to Vindman by saying, “The silence is deafening.”

READ MORE: Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Retired U.S Army lieutenant general Russel L. Honoré, who served as the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, blasted Trump’s speech: “Damn @POTUS Speech At #FortBragg  was inappropriate, criticizing previous administration, and Generals while speaking to troops , I never witnessed that S..t like this in 37 years in Uniform.”

Author and former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel observed, “Unlike other militaries, American soldiers do not swear an oath to the state, or a person, or a monarch, but to the Constitution. Trump calls them ‘his’ military—but they are ours, and they swear to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ not one man.”

Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and Russia expert, at The Atlantic targeted the generals for staying silent.

He wrote, “senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff, General Randy George? Will he speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? Where is the commander of the airborne troops, Lieutenant General Gregory Anderson, or even Colonel Chad Mixon, the base commander?”

“Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?”

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, often seen on cable news, called Trump’s speech “a disgraceful politicization of the active Armed Forces. He is the Commander in Chief. The only loyalty of the Armed Forces is to the Constitution. Their focus is on protecting America from foreign enemies. Grave danger.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

 

Image via Reuters

 

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COMMENTARY

Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

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5 months ago

on

June 10, 2025

By

President Donald Trump made a series of inaccurate claims in his remarks on Tuesday, conflating World War I and World War II, incorrectly suggesting he spoke with the governor of California on Monday when it was just after midnight Saturday morning, and asserting—contrary to the First Amendment—that protests, even peaceful ones, can be shut down with “heavy force.”

During remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked when he last spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom. “A day ago,” he said Tuesday afternoon, which was three and a half days after the governor confirmed his phone call. Trump also confirmed the call by sending a screenshot to a Fox News reporter. The screenshot read June 7, 1:23 AM.

“Recently, other countries celebrated the victory of World War I, France was celebrating, really,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg on Tuesday afternoon. “They were all celebrating. The only one that doesn’t celebrate is the USA and we’re the ones that won the war. Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese thrown in. But we won the war.”

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

The United States was part of a coalition during both WWI and WWII. Trump was speaking about WWI, but then claimed, “Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese.”

That’s a reference to World War II—Japan was on the side of the Allies, with the U.S., in WWI.

Also on Tuesday, Trump declared that anyone caught protesting his controversial military parade on Saturday will be met with “very heavy force,” despite the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly protecting political protests.

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

“We won the war, and we’re the only country that didn’t celebrate it, and we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday,” Trump claimed. Veterans Day was initially created as Armistice Day to honor those who died in World War I.

“And if there’s any protestor that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. By the way, for those people that want to protest, they’re gonna be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but, you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

The First Amendment protects both political speech and the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Trump did not state “violent protestors,” or “rioters.” He said “any protestor.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Subterfuge’: Noem Push a ‘Prelude’ to Invoking Insurrection Act, Experts Warn

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

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