The event quickly spiraled after a request to pray for Kirk from Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado led to objections from Democrats and a partisan shouting match.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a close friend of Kirk’s, told Democrats on the floor that they “caused this” — a comment she later said she stood by, arguing that “their hateful rhetoric” against Republicans contributed to Kirk’s killing.
Johnson banged on the gavel, demanding order as the commotion continued.
“The House will be in order!” he yelled to no avail.
The incident underscored the deep-seated partisan tensions on Capitol Hill as the assassination of Kirk revives the debate over gun violence and acts of political violence in a divided nation. As Congress reacted to the news, lawmakers of both parties publicly denounced the assassination of Kirk and called it an unacceptable act of violence.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was “deeply disturbed about the threat of violence that has entered our political life.”
“I pray that we will remember that every person, no matter how vehement our disagreement with them, is a human being and a fellow American deserving of respect and protection,” Thune said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), whose husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer three years ago, also denounced the fatal shooting.
A few hours after the commotion on the House floor, the White House released a four-minute video of President Trump in which he said Kirk’s assassination marked a “dark moment for America.” He also blamed the violent act on the “radical left.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those that contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said as he grieved the loss of his close ally.
Person of interest in Charlie Kirk shooting released from custody, FBI director says – CBS News
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FBI Director Kash Patel says a person of interest in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk has been released from custody. CBS News’ Anna Schecter has more.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration and the conservative movement were stunned Wednesday by the shooting of Charlie Kirk, a disruptive leader in GOP politics who accomplished what was once thought a pipe dream, expanding Republican ranks among America’s youth.
Inside the White House, senior officials that had worked closely alongside Kirk throughout much of their careers reacted with shock. It was a moment of political violence reminiscent of the repeated attempts on Donald Trump’s life during the 2024 presidential campaign, one official told The Times.
“We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!”
Kirk, a founder of Turning Point USA, was instrumental in recruiting young Americans on college campuses to GOP voter rolls, making himself an indispensable part of Republican campaigns down ballot across the country. That mission made his shooting on a college campus in Utah all the more poignant to his friends and allies, who reacted with dismay at videos of the shooting circulating online.
His impact, helping to increase support among 18- to 24-year-old voters for Republican candidates by double-digit margins in just four years, has been credited by Republican operatives as driving the party’s victories last year, allowing the GOP to retake the House, Senate and the presidency.
Democrats have recognized his prowess, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom hosting him on his podcast earlier this year in an appeal to young, predominantly male voters lost by the Democrats in recent years.
“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form,” Newsom said on X in response to the news.
As videos of the shooting circulated online, a number of prominent Republicans, including senior members of the Trump administration, reacted to the news by asking the public to pray for the young activist.
“Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk, a genuinely good guy and a young father,” Vice President JD Vance said in a post on X.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said federal agents were at the scene of the shooting in Utah. FBI Director Kash Patel added the FBI will be helping with the investigation.
Wilner reported from Washington, Ceballos from Tallahassee, Fla.
Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who was convicted of perjury in 2016 after a wide-ranging scandal rocked state politics, will launch a new podcast on Tuesday to discuss her journey since exiting office.
Kane teased her new show, “Through the HurriKANE,” with a recorded message posted on Instagram.
“Have you ever looked down and seen the pieces of your life on the floor — and wondered what happened?” Kane asks. “You haven’t just been through a storm. You’ve been through a hurricane. Sometimes we think that we’ll never have joy. We’ll never have love again. We’ll never have a normal life again.”
Kane, 59, promised the podcast will teach listeners about “resilience, healing and finding hope in the storm.”
In 2012, Kane was elected as Pennsylvania’s first Democrat and first woman to serve as attorney general. The Scranton native entered office as a rising figure in Democratic politics, having earned a key endorsement from former President Bill Clinton after previously working on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
A promising start to Kane’s term as the state’s top prosecutor unraveled when she was accused of leaking confidential grand jury documents to the Philadelphia Daily News. Prosecutors said Kane shared the documents, which involved a 2009 investigation into the former head of the NAACP in Philadelphia, as an act of vengeance against a pair of rival former state prosecutors. Kane took exception to their own alleged leaks of information about her decision not to charge a group of Philadelphia legislators who had been implicated in a bribery scheme.
During the probe of Kane’s conduct, she was accused of lying to a grand jury tasked with investigating the leaked documents.
In 2015, Kane was charged with perjury, obstructing justice, conspiracy and official oppression. She did not testify at her trial in Montgomery County the next year, and she resigned from office the day after her conviction.
“This case is about ego — the ego of a politician consumed with her image from Day One,” Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said at the sentencing in Norristown. “This case is about retaliation and revenge against perceived enemies who this defendant … felt had embarrassed her in the press.”
Kane was sentenced to serve 10 to 23 months in prison. After losing her appeal in 2018, she ultimately served eight months in the Montgomery County prison before she was released on five years of probation.
Prosecutors described Kane’s tenure as driven by personal and political vendettas that wore down morale in her office.
The year before Kane was charged, she released nearly 400 pages of emails containing pornographic, racist and misogynistic content that had been shared among high-ranking state officials — including judges and prosecutors — during former Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration. The emails were discovered during an internal review of the state’s investigation into Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children at Penn State University. The scandal led to the resignations of several officials, including a former state Supreme Court justice, but was not directly tied to Kane’s own political downfall.
Kane made headlines again in 2022 when she was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after a minor crash with another car in Scranton. She was acquitted later that year.
Kane’s podcast, touted as “the story you didn’t know you needed to hear,” will be available on all major podcast platforms on Tuesday.
In some particularly tortured living rooms across America, people are playing a parlor game called Who Is the Next Democratic Leader? Its central premise is that someone will save Democrats specifically and democracy more generally. Maybe that’s true, maybe another Obama will spring from the head of Zeus fully formed and serving in the Senate, or maybe it will be a big messy primary à la 2016 or 2020.
But before asking who the next leader of the party is or will be, it helps to ask who are today’s Democratic kingmakers who can anoint an upstart with legitimacy, who can help shepherd a chaotic Democratic Party apparatus behind a rising star. Some of the faces are familiar, some are newcomers wielding tremendous power.
When I asked Dan Pfeiffer, my favorite of the Pod Save America guys, he essentially rejected the premise of my question. “Given how most Democrats feel about the party these days, endorsements from establishment leaders are likely to be net negatives, and people will be clamoring for the support of party outsiders.”
I heard something similar from Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist who previously served as a deputy governor of Illinois and as a campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral campaign. “I feel like that world doesn’t exist anymore. Party machines are mainly dead,” Tusk wrote to me. “Endorsements typically don’t matter much because people have so little faith in institutions. The candidate with the most money doesn’t necessarily win so having rich donors isn’t enough. I think now it’s a cult of personality rather than being blessed by a kingmaker.”
These responses capture the wider frustration with the Democratic Party, but I don’t necessarily agree that this sentiment negates the influence that powerful figures could potentially wield.
I got much more fulsome responses when I granted sources anonymity. “I think Nancy Pelosi still plays a big role,” one young congressional staffer told me. “Mike Bloomberg and Bill and Melinda Gates. Donors: George Soros, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Future Forward PAC. Rachel Maddow.” She added that Obama is still very much a kingmaker in the party, and that his endorsement was helpful to Kamala Harris’s campaign. Similarly, a famous writer told me that “despite being old and tired, you gotta say that [Chuck] Schumer and [Hakeem] Jeffries are still kingmakers—helps to have their support.”
It also seems inevitable that the next Obama will almost certainly need the support of a broad podcast coalition. In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris’s campaign didn’t end up doing Joe Rogan’s show. “There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn’t want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash,” campaign adviser Jennifer Palmieri said, according to the reporting by the Financial Times. But next time, the young congressional staffer told me, things will be different. “In an upcoming election, a Joe Rogan endorsement could mean almost as much as an Obama endorsement.”
Anna Commander is a Newsweek Editor and writer based in Florida. Her focus is reporting on crime, weather and breaking news. She has covered weather, and major breaking news events in South Florida. Anna joined Newsweek in 2022 from The National Desk in Washington, D.C. and had previously worked at CBS12 News in West Palm Beach. She is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University. You can get in touch with Anna by emailing a.commander@newsweek.com.
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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reacted to the special-election win of James Walkinshaw to replace late U.S. Representative Gerald Connolly’s seat in Virginia.
The victory Tuesday night further shrinks the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
Why It Matters
The outcome whittles Speaker Mike Johnson‘s already narrow margin in the House, shrinking the GOP’s effective working majority and complicating the path for party-line votes ahead of a looming government funding deadline at the end of September.
Before the election, the House stood with 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats; Walkinshaw’s win moves the balance closer and limits Johnson’s margin for defections.
What To Know
In a statement sent to Newsweek via email, DNC Chair Ken Martin reacted to the party’s win, saying, “Virginians are seeing Republicans for who they are: self-serving liars who will throw their constituents under the bus to rubber stamp Donald Trump‘s disastrous agenda — and they’re ready for change.
“Rep-elect Walkinshaw’s victory continues the dominant trend we’re seeing so far this year – Democrats are massively overperforming in nearly every race. With elections in less than two months in the Commonwealth, Virginians are fired up and ready to hold Trump and Virginia Republicans accountable for their billionaire-first agenda.”
Walkinshaw, 42, member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and former chief of staff to Connolly, ran to succeed Connolly after his death in May, The New York Times reports.
The seat is in a heavily Democratic district in northern Virginia.
The Associated Press called the race for Walkinshaw at 7:36 p.m. ET.
This is a developing story that will be updated with additional information.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks at a news conference with Texas Democrats at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union hall on August 5 in Aurora, Illinois. (Photo by… Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks at a news conference with Texas Democrats at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union hall on August 5 in Aurora, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Rep. Zack Stephenson presents a bill that would address compensation for minors appearing in Internet content, to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee in 2024. The bill passed and was signed into law. (Photo by Michele Jokinen/Session Daily)
Minnesota House Democrats picked Rep. Zack Stephenson as their new caucus leader Monday, signaling a desire for continuity after the assassination of their late leader Melissa Hortman in June.
Stephenson, who has represented the Coon Rapids area in the House since 2019, was Hortman’s 2004 campaign manager as an inexperienced, early 20s college student. Hortman was a mentor to Stephenson for 20 years, teaching him about campaigning, fundraising and serving a Twin Cities metro swing district. Stephenson was also a good friend of Hortman’s and served as a pallbearer during her funeral.
In a closed-door meeting, Stephenson garnered votes from the majority of the 66 House Democrats. The circumstances of Hortman’s death made choosing her successor challenging, but multiple contenders campaigned for it, including DFL floor leader Jamie Long and Reps. Tina Liebling, Dave Pinto and Cheryl Youakim.
“I am honored to have the support of my colleagues to serve as caucus leader,” Stephenson said in a statement released by House DFL Monday. “Speaker Hortman is irreplaceable — as a leader, a strategist, a colleague and a friend. While I’ve been chosen to lead, it will take all of us, working together, to move forward, honor Speaker Hortman’s legacy, and build a Minnesota where everyone can succeed. We are all still grieving, but I am confident we can carry our shared work into the future.”
Stephenson is likely to follow Hortman’s well-thumbed political playbook: raise money, recruit sound candidates and incessantly knock on doors.
The House is expected to return to a 67-67 tie between Republicans and Democrats after a Sept. 16 special election to replace Hortman in a solidly blue suburban Brooklyn Park district. Stephenson will need to negotiate with Republicans to pass any legislation, deftly say “no” to unrealistic member demands of his own caucus and raise piles of money to campaign in 2026.
If House Democrats take back control of the House next year, Stephenson will be a frontrunner for House speaker.
Rep. Aisha Gomez, the co-chair of the House Taxes Committee and a leader of the left flank of the party, called Stephenson “smart, tough, capable, empathetic,” in a text message to the Reformer. “He studied at (Hortman’s) side and she trusted him completely. He wants to do right by her and by us and the people of our state. Our caucus is united behind him and collectively we have a lot of brilliance and heart to bring to the work ahead of us.”
Stephenson served as a House Ways and Means committee co-chair this year, putting him at the center of budget negotiations with legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz. He’s also compiled a significant legislative resume, including authorship of the House bill legalizing cannabis in 2023 and a bevy of consumer protections enacted when he was chair of the Commerce Committee in 2023-24.
Stephenson is also a Hennepin County prosecutor.
Stephenson will have to hit the ground running: Walz said he will call a special session on gun control following the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church, and Stephenson will need to work with House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican, to pass any sort of gun or school safety measures.
Hortman and her husband Mark were killed on June 14 in their Brooklyn Park home in a political assassination by a man who was targeting Democratic elected officials and abortion rights advocates, prosecutors say. Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were severely injured but survived a shooting by the same man, according to charging papers, at their Champlin home on the same night.
The ability to retaliate against Donald Trump’s power grabs and other outrages is a rare pleasure for Democrats, which is why Gavin Newsom’s counter-gerrymandering effort in California is so wildly popular among Democrats. If Democrats can’t stop Trump’s egregious policies in Congress (and they really can’t) and the U.S. Supreme Court is either enabling him or slow-walking efforts to rein him in (which it clearly is), then they need different arenas in which to contest his authoritarian ways. Since Trump chose to intervene in state-government prerogatives by ordering the Texas legislature to grab the GOP some new U.S. House districts, it made perfect sense for California to respond, even though it would require a constitutional amendment enacted via an insanely expensive ballot-initiative fight.
But Democrats shouldn’t reflexively ape Trump’s every excess, particularly in formulating an agenda for their eventual return to power. They currently have the high ground with a small but strategically critical share of voters who dislike partisan power grabs no matter who is carrying them out. These voters may not want to restore Democrats to power in 2026 or 2028 if they believe that when it comes to lawless conduct, “both sides do it.” It’s not some sort of lack of fighting spirit that makes Democrats value the Constitution, including such key restraints on presidential power as the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights. An essentially stable system of laws and institutions is what can keep America from lurching back and forth between authoritarian governments of the left and right every four years and eventually a meltdown of democracy itself.
Fortunately, much as many rank-and-file Democrats would relish a tit-for-tat fight to the end, current Democratic retaliatory efforts are measured and, more important, are necessary to the occasion.
Newsom’s Prop 50 isn’t a legislative coup like the one in Texas; it places the prospective congressional map before voters for their approval or disapproval. It doesn’t scrap California’s nonpartisan redistricting system in favor of the kind of pure legislative powers enjoyed by Texas Republicans; it puts it aside until the next regular round of redistricting when it will be resumed. And its goal isn’t some sort of Democratic seizure of power along the lines that Trump and his party are undertaking every day; its goal is to break the GOP trifecta in Washington next year so that Congress will no longer be a pure rubber stamp for whatever the president wants, making it possible for something approaching normalcy during the last two years of the Trump era.
Making that happen, and then presenting 2028 a real referendum on the future of the country, is the prize Democrats should value above the emotional satisfaction of turning the tables on Trump or the GOP once they return to power. It’s hard to maintain any sense of restraint or equilibrium about politics and government right now but, with skill and luck, we’ll someday remember this moment as a terrible aberration rather than a new normal.
As Zohran Mamdani greeted supporters following his upset victory over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June, the chants erupting around him weren’t about pragmatism or compromise—they were about housing, justice and revenge against a system he said had failed ordinary people.
“This wasn’t just a primary,” Mamdani told the crowd. “This was a referendum on a crumbling status quo.”
The 33-year-old democratic socialist’s victory wasn’t just a local surprise; it symbolizes a broader political shift. Across the nation, more voters—urban and rural, working-class and professional—are rejecting technocratic centrism in favor of leaders who promise to fight, not finesse.
For decades, “moderation” in U.S. politics was synonymous with stability. The Reagan era’s embrace of supply-side economics in the 1980s set a conservative template; the Clinton years extended it through “Third Way” centrism—balanced budgets, free trade, welfare reform. The pitch: a steady hand at the wheel.
Newsweek Illustration/Getty Images
But the underlying economy didn’t support that narrative for long. From 1980 to 2020, the top 1 percent went from controlling 25 percent of national wealth to nearly 40 percent, according to Federal Reserve data. Over the same period, wage growth for middle- and lower-income workers stagnated.
Housing costs also jumped 300 percent in urban areas, far outpacing income. By 2024, Gallup reported just 34 percent of Americans identified as moderate—down from over 40 percent in the early 1990s—while self-identified conservatives and liberals reached historic highs.
“Moderation meant compromise—not excitement. People lost faith that those deals ever made a difference at their own dining table,” Mike Madrid, a political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, told Newsweek. “When rent and tuition cost more than your paycheck, a handshake won’t help.”
As the 2024 election made clear, politics is now filtered through the realities of inflation and affordability. Inflation peaked above 9 percent in 2022 and remains stubbornly elevated; nearly 40 percent of Americans say the cost of groceries is their biggest concern, a July AP-NORC poll found.
Mamdani’s win in New York was the clearest sign of this mood on the left: a candidate who spoke bluntly about rent, wages and fairness defeating a seasoned moderate with a long career in public service, even if it ended in disgrace. Democrats have often hesitated to fully embrace that message, but Republicans have done the opposite with Donald Trump—rallying quickly and decisively around a single figure who steadily pushed moderates out of his party.
MAGA: The First Rebellion
The first real test of this shift came from the right. Donald Trump’s rise in 2016 marked a direct challenge to Republican orthodoxy, promising to fight for those left behind by globalization while mocking the party’s traditional leadership.
By 2025, the transformation was complete. A mid-2025 Gallup survey found that 77 percent of Republicans identified as conservative, while moderates dropped to a historic low of 18 percent. And even as the president’s overall popularity has slipped in his second term, more than 85 percent of Republicans still approve of Trump’s leadership.
Mitt Romney and John McCain talk on Romney’s campaign bus on January 4, 2012. Mitt Romney and John McCain talk on Romney’s campaign bus on January 4, 2012. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
“Republicans have near unanimity in supporting Donald Trump, and he is exhibiting strong leadership,” Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek. “Contrast this sharply with Mitt Romney‘s loss in the 2012 presidential election and the Republican Party being rudderless.”
It was a hostile takeover of a party that once valued calm stewardship and corporate-friendly conservatism. Mitt Romney was sidelined. John McCain fought Trump until his death in 2018. George W. Bush‘s brand of “compassionate conservatism” was shelved before he even left office. Liz Cheney was cast out of House leadership and lost her Wyoming seat after defying Trump on January 6. Paul Ryan walked away from Congress as Trump’s grip tightened. Marco Rubio fell in line and now serves as his secretary of state. One by one, the party’s old guard was replaced, leaving the GOP remade in Trump’s image.
But Trump’s consolidation of the GOP is only half the story. His political rise has also reordered the map of American politics in ways that continue to haunt Democrats. According to a New York Times analysis, Trump improved Republican margins in nearly half of U.S. counties across his three presidential campaigns—1,433 in all—while Democrats gained ground in just 57.
The Democrats’ Mamdani Dilemma
Mamdani’s primary upset in New York reflects a similar shift on the left. His platform—rent freezes, city-owned grocer stores, free bus service, steep taxes on the wealthy—was more blueprint than compromise. His backers are not looking for a manager; they want a revolution.
And the numbers show their enthusiasm. In the June primary, Mamdani defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo by 12 percentage points, earning 56.4 percent of the final round of ranked-choice votes to Cuomo’s 43.6 percent—a decisive victory for an underdog few expected to win.
But the Democratic establishment has kept him at arm’s length, despite polls showing Mamdani likely to win the general election in November. Weeks after his win, half of the state’s top Democrats still hadn’t endorsed him. Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all stayed silent—often mumbling through media appearances when pressed on the subject.
At “Brooklyn Against Trump” Event, Zohran Mamdani and Brooklyn Leaders Call Out Trump and Cuomo as Architects of Housing CrisisBrooklyn Against Trump At “Brooklyn Against Trump” Event, Zohran Mamdani and Brooklyn Leaders Call Out Trump and Cuomo as Architects of Housing CrisisBrooklyn Against Trump Zohran Mamdani for NYC/YouTube
“It is pathetic,” said former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau during a recent episode of Pod Save America, the popular liberal podcast. “Donald Trump’s going to try to get Eric Adams out of the race so that he can help Andrew Cuomo. Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have not yet endorsed the candidate who won the Democratic primary in New York City—the choice of Democratic voters,” he added.
For some on the left, dissatisfaction with Democratic leadership has reignited a longstanding debate about the party’s future. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has even suggested that progressives consider running as independents rather than as Democrats.
“If there’s any hope for the Democratic Party, it is that they’re going to have to reach out—open the doors and let working-class people in,” Sanders said during his “Stopping Oligarchy” tour, a five-city rally alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aimed at mobilizing resistance to Trump, Elon Musk, and what they describe as a billionaire-led assault on American government.
“If not, people will be running as independents, I think, all over this country.”
“We’re seeing Democrats in New York who want to flip the tables over, much like Republicans did in their Tea Party moment,” Madrid, the political analyst, told Newsweek. “Voters seem to be asking their politicians to take a stand and adopt clear positions, and I think one of the reasons the Democratic campaign lost last year was because the positions weren’t clear enough.”
Can the Center Hold?
Not all centrists are fading. But they no longer sell themselves. Survival now depends less on policy and more on posture. Candidates who look like fighters—even if their actual politics are relatively moderate—are the ones breaking through.
In Arizona, Senator Ruben Gallego offered a glimpse of what that looks like. Running in a state Donald Trump carried, Gallego didn’t try to tiptoe around culture wars or triangulate. He leaned into toughness, telling voters he would fight for wages, affordability, and border security while refusing to get pulled into debates over “masculinity” that have roiled both parties.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., arrives for a vote in the Capitol on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., arrives for a vote in the Capitol on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
“A lot of times we forget that we still need men to vote for us. That’s how we still win elections. But we don’t really talk about making the lives of men better, working to make sure that they have wages so they can support their families,” Gallego said in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times Magazine.
“He’s not playing both sides,” Madrid told Newsweek. “He’s saying: I’ll go fight and I’ll come home with results. People see that. They want that posture. His win showed that even in red states, a Democrat could compete if they looked like someone ready to brawl for ordinary people.”
The same instinct is showing up elsewhere. California Governor Gavin Newsom, once accused of hedging or “fence sitting,” on divisive issues, has adopted a more aggressive style in his battles with Trump, boosting his standing in Democratic primaries. Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders still draw crowds because they fight visibly.
“The lesson for Democrats is to stop talking only to their base,” Madrid said. “You can have politicians in the very center of the party like Gallego or on the far left like Mamdani, and both are succeeding right now.”
Klink, the veteran GOP strategist, also warned that moderation without fire simply doesn’t cut through anymore. “Generally, Democrats fare better when they nominate a moderate candidate,” he said. “But the base decides the pace. Moderates decide the margin. Without base energy—without fight and authenticity—you’re invisible.”
While Democrats are still grappling with whether to embrace the party’s more radical flank or hold to the center, the picture inside the GOP is far clearer. Trump has already answered the question for Republicans: the path to power runs through him. Where Democrats debate strategy and identity, Republicans measure their future in degrees of loyalty to the president.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) (L) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (R) take an elevator just off the Senate floor after the Senate stayed in session throughout the night at the U.S. Capitol Building on July… Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) (L) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (R) take an elevator just off the Senate floor after the Senate stayed in session throughout the night at the U.S. Capitol Building on July 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
A CBS News/YouGov survey found that 65 percent of Republican voters say loyalty to Trump is important, with more than a third calling it “very important.” In practice, that has meant dissenters often retreat when it matters. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has voiced concerns about Trump’s hold on the party but still voted for his signature “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia briefly criticized the package, then fell back in line to support it.
After months of friction with the White House, Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Don Bacon announced their retirements rather than continue testing their luck in a party where deviation is punished and loyalty is prized. In today’s Trumpist party, such departures have become increasingly rare — simply because so few dissenters remain.
WASHINGTON — Facing viral rumors of his imminent death, President Trump emerged in the Oval Office on Tuesday alive and scowling. Core tenets of his economic policies were under strain. Flashy diplomatic overtures to Moscow appeared to be backfiring. And a scandal over a notorious sexual abuser that has fixated his base was roaring back to life in Washington.
It was a challenging week for the president, whose aggressive approach to his second term has begun to hit significant roadblocks with the public and the courts, and overseas, with longstanding U.S. adversaries Trump once hoped to coax to his will.
The president called for an expedited Supreme Court review of an appellate court ruling that he had exceeded his authority by issuing sweeping global tariffs last spring — a decision that, if left standing, could upend the foundation of his economic agenda. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued jobs numbers showing a contraction of the labor market in July, a first since the depths of the pandemic in 2020.
New art lining a hallway in the West Wing features photographs of Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where Trump said the Russian president had agreed to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss an end to the war. Yet, three weeks on, Russia had launched its most intense bombardment of Kyiv in years, and Putin traveled to Beijing for a military parade hosted by Xi Jinping, which Russian state media used to mock the U.S. president.
During an appearance in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump said reaching a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine has turned out to be “a little bit more difficult” than he initially thought.
And a rare spree of bipartisanship broke out on Capitol Hill — in opposition to Trump’s causes.
A tense hearing at the Senate Finance Committee with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid bare concern over the direction of federal vaccination policy and public health recommendations under his leadership across party lines.
Trump declined to stand behind him wholeheartedly after the hearing. “He’s got some little different ideas,” Trump told reporters, adding: “It’s not your standard talk.”
On Wednesday, moments after a group of more than 100 women pleaded for Trump’s help from the steps of the Capitol seeking transparency over the investigation of their alleged abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump dismissed the matter as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.
“The Department of Justice has done its job, they have given everything requested of them,” Trump repeated on Truth Social on Friday. “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”
Trump was close friends with Epstein for more than a decade. But his base has repeatedly called for the release of thousands of files in his case — and some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress are set to vote against his wishes for a discharge petition directing the Justice Department to do so in the coming days.
A far-right political activist released hidden camera footage this week of a Justice Department official claiming the agency would redact the names of Republicans, but not Democrats, identified in the files. In the video, the DOJ official also suggested that Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recently moved to a lower-security prison as part of a deal to keep her quiet.
Public support for Trump has appeared stable since July, with roughly 42% of Americans approving of his job performance across a series of high quality polls. But the end of the August recess in Washington — and the oncoming flu and COVID-19 season — could return public attention to subjects that have proved politically perilous for the president this week.
Polls show that a majority of the president’s Republican voters support vaccines. They oppose Putin and increasingly support Ukraine. And across the political spectrum, Americans want the Epstein files released, unredacted and in full.
A string of court losses
The president’s agenda suffered several setbacks this week, as federal judges across the country ruled his administration had broken the law in various instances.
In San Francisco, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of military troops in Los Angeles was illegal and barred soldiers from aiding immigration arrests in California in an order set to take effect next week.
In Boston, a federal judge said the Trump administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research funds awarded to Harvard University. In another court ruling, a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala.
And on Friday afternoon, a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from taking away the deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians living in the United States.
While the court decisions represent a snag for key portions of the administration’s agenda, the cases continue to play out in court — and could ultimately turn in favor of Trump.
Legal experts are closely watching those decisions. In the case of the military troop deployments, for instance, some fear a reversal on appeal could ultimately hand the president broader power to send troops to American cities.
Trump has floated additional federal deployments — to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans — in recent days.
Trump reacts to a bad week
Trump greeted the waves of bad news with a characteristic mix of deflection, finger-pointing and anger.
He warned that losing his appeal on tariff policy at the Supreme Court would render the United States a “third world country,” telling reporters, “if we don’t win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly.” And he said he was “very disappointed” in Putin.
After the parade in Beijing — which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a longstanding U.S. ally now ostracized by Trump’s tariffs — drew widespread media attention, Trump wrote on social media that the countries were conspiring together against the United States.
In another lengthy social media post on Friday, Trump accused Democrats of fueling the Epstein “hoax” as a means to “distract from the great success of a Republican President.”
Days earlier, survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse publicly pressured lawmakers to back a legislative measure to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier.
“This is about ending secrecy wherever abuse of power takes root,” said Anouska De Georgiou, who was among the Epstein victims who held a news conference on Capitol Hill.
A few high-profile Republicans also broke with Trump on the Epstein issue, calling for more transparency on the investigation. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she is willing to expose those who are tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking case.
On a phone call with Trump on Wednesday morning, Greene suggested he meet with Epstein’s victims at the White House while they were gathered in town. He was noncommittal, the congresswoman told reporters.
The survivors left town without a meeting. At the direction of the White House, Republican leadership continues to press Republican members to oppose efforts to release the files.
Is legislation from the obscure backbench House Republican Jen Kiggans the key to avoiding a government shutdown? Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA/Reuters
At midnight on September 30, the government funding patch Congress enacted in March will expire. That means major federal functions will shut down if Congress and Donald Trump don’t intervene. The time frame for keeping the government open is actually shorter than that, since the House and Senate plan to be in recess for the Rosh Hashanah holiday on the week of September 22.
Unlike the budget-reconciliation procedure that led to the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill, appropriations measures can be filibustered in the Senate, so Republicans need Democratic votes to keep the government open. And the congressional minority is not particularly inclined to cooperate on another bipartisan spending patch as Democratic activists were incensed by their leaders’ cave on spending back in March. At a minimum, Democrats will need significant trophies if they are to supply the seven or eight Senate votes needed to quash a filibuster.
The most obvious trophy would be Trump agreeing to put the kibosh on his Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought’s provocative efforts to cancel previously appropriated spending by executive fiat, which has made Vought a devil figure to people on both sides of the aisle in Congress (not that the Republicans will say anything publicly). In the unlikely event the president did rein in Vought, that might not be enough to tempt Democrats into a spending deal since the threat of a government shutdown is their only bit of leverage for the foreseeable future. Senator Elizabeth Warren has suggested she would only vote for a spending bill if Republicans agreed to scrap the Medicaid cuts in the OBBBA, which is about as likely as Rand Paul joining the Democratic Socialists.
There is one thing that could lure Democrats into voting to keep the government open: a bipartisan effort to extend the tax credits (set to expire at the end of the year) that make Obamacare premiums affordable for a lot of middle-class Americans who get their health insurance from the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. As Punchbowl News reports, Republicans are nervous about the spikes in premiums, which will happen as early as November 1 (when open enrollment for Obamacare policies begins) if Congress doesn’t act to extend the subsidies:
Letting the premium subsidies lapse could lead to more than 4 million people losing health insurance, according to the CBO. Longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin recently said the issue would be the party’s “greatest midterm threat.”
Inflation and rising costs of living are already a looming political liability for the GOP heading into 2026. Republicans are also under heavy fire for the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill. So the Obamacare cliff could make those problems worse.
Let’s be clear:Republicans are in charge of Washington, so if premiums go up or huge chunks of Americans lose their health-care coverage entirely, the GOP will get the blame. They privately acknowledge that.
On the other hand, most Republicans hate Obamacare, and for the House Freedom Caucus types who wield so much influence in the party right now, the idea of working with Democrats to salvage premium subsidies is anathema to everything they believe. It is theoretically possible, however, to discern a potential bipartisan coalition to get this done, and it could be a crucial lubricant for negotiations on a more general spending patch as well. There’s even a legislative vehicle in place, per Punchbowl News:
A group of vulnerable House Republicans and moderate Democrats is introducing a bill that would extend the subsidies for a year, pushing the deadline beyond the midterms. This could cost around $24 billion, based on the CBO’s estimate last year.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is leading the bill along with GOP Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.), Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), David Valadao (Calif.), Young Kim (Calif.), Jeff Hurd (Colo.), Tom Kean (N.J.) and Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.). Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (N.Y.) and Jared Golden (Maine) have signed on, too.
As a sign of the GOP Zeitgeist, Representative Jen Kiggans professes to dislike the Obamacare subsidies but argues they should be carefully phased out rather than abruptly terminated. So in any potential deal the length of the extension could be a big sticking point. And if extending the subsidies indeed becomes the glue that could seal a spending patch, there remain a host of disagreements over the length of the patch and whether any spending reductions accompany it.
Aside from the partisan dynamics in the House and Senate, the entire health-care industry is mobilizing a lobbying blitz to save the subsidies, which are of particular concern to the health insurers that pocket them. Their efforts should keep things bubbling in Congress even if Democrats and Republicans are loathe to reach a deal. It’s possible Democrats will insist on at least a brief government shutdown to show “the base” they are willing to fight Trump’s power grabs. But the unlikely topic of Obamacare could yet provide a bit of bipartisanship amid the chaos and authoritarianism of Trump’s Washington. Some Democrats who might otherwise consider a deal could look out their windows and see National Guard troops patrolling and balk at any accommodation of the GOP.
Nine former directors of the CDC have written an op-ed published in the New York Times where they condemn Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, saying Kennedy is “endangering every American’s health.” Dr. Mandy Cohen, one of the op-ed’s co-authors and a CDC director under President Biden, joins CBS News to discuss.
Early details on U.S. strike against drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela – CBS News
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. military on Tuesday struck a drug-carrying vote hailing from Venezuela. President Trump later said 11 people were killed in the strike. CBS News Pentagon reporter Eleanor Watson has more.
What to know after Trump says “we’re going in” when asked about National Guard troops in Chicago – CBS News
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President Trump said Tuesday that National Guard troops would go into Chicago over crime in the city, but didn’t specify when. CBS News White House reporter Olivia Rinaldi has more.
Just before midnight on Friday, August 22nd, insects circled the bright lights outside the Texas state capitol and sprinklers watered the lawn. Inside, lawmakers milled around the Senate chamber as a long day threatened to be prolonged.
A few weeks earlier, at the behest of President Donald Trump, Texas Republicans had introduced a mid-decade redistricting bill, redrawing the congressional map to give the party the likelihood of five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Without the proposed changes, Republicans were at an “extreme risk” of losing the House, Ken King, a representative from the Texas Panhandle and the bill’s author, said. The bill was a shoo-in in the Republican-dominated Texas legislature. To protest it, a contingent of more than fifty Democrats in the Texas House had fled the state, delaying the vote and drumming up national interest. After two weeks in Illinois and elsewhere, they returned to Texas, where the Republican majority quickly passed the bill. Yet the Democrats claimed a kind of victory. “The quorum break was beyond our wildest dreams,” Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said. “Would you be talking about redistricting, about gerrymandering, about racial discrimination, about trying to cheat the public if we did not do this?” Now the redistricting plan had to clear the state Senate, where a substantial Republican majority made a similar quorum break unfeasible. Instead, Carol Alvarado, a state senator from Houston, prepared a last-ditch effort to filibuster the bill.
Texas has strict rules regarding the filibuster: No eating, drinking, or bathroom breaks; no sitting down or leaning on a desk; no off-subject speech. Texas’s most notable filibusterers of the modern era have been women. “Texas women are tough,” Alvarado told me. “We’ve had to be tough.” In 2013, the state senator Wendy Davis spoke for nearly thirteen hours, attempting to delay the passage of a restrictive abortion bill. In 2021, Alvarado herself filibustered for more than fifteen hours, a state record, to protest a bill that imposed new restrictions on voting. (Both laws ended up passing.) This time, she was aiming to break her own record. In order to do so, she’d prepared “mentally and physically,” she said: a good night’s sleep, a hot-yoga class, a big meal of barbecue. She wore a catheter underneath her loose patterned dress, and the same sneakers she’d worn four years ago.
Twelve years ago, Davis’s filibuster kicked off around noon, on a Tuesday in late June. She spoke in front of a packed Senate gallery, with crowds spilling out into the capitol rotunda; a YouTube live stream, hosted by the Texas Tribune, drew nearly two hundred thousand viewers at its peak, as many as were watching MSNBC at the time. The attention catapulted Davis to national fame. Her pink running shoes briefly became Amazon’s top-selling women’s shoes, and she raised nearly a million dollars in campaign funds, most of it from small donors. Texas Republicans seemed to have learned their lesson. In 2021, most of Alvarado’s filibuster took place in the dead of night, owing to procedural delays. Because of COVID restrictions, the public gallery was closed to spectators. “There’s not a lot of fanfare, a lot of people cheering you on,” she said. “But once you get going, you’re kind of going off adrenaline, especially in the middle of the night.”
In August, as Alvarado was preparing for her filibuster, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called for a three-hour dinner break. Alvarado immediately sensed that something was up. “We all kind of thought, Well, that’s odd. What’s this really for? Because it’s certainly not to eat,” she said. When the legislators returned, instead of calling on Alvarado, Patrick recognized Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock, who laid out a dubious objection to Alvarado’s filibuster—she had sent out a fund-raising e-mail that afternoon. “It’s disrespectful, it violates the decorum of the Senate, and personally, I’m offended by it,” he said, and then motioned for an immediate vote on the redistricting bill. It passed along party lines; there would be no filibuster that night. The scattered spectators in the gallery seemed shocked by the speed at which the planned protest had been circumvented. “Fascists! Fascism has come to Texas!” a man yelled. State troopers massed around him; later, he was led out of the capitol in handcuffs.
Aaron Madison, an Austin-based Uber driver, opted to spend his Friday night at the capitol, because he “wanted to see Democrats do something” about the redistricting, he said. “I knew it probably wouldn’t be stopped, but at least to see them fight and delay it. And I was proud that they were going to filibuster.” He’d found the stillborn protest “depressing,” he told me afterward. “I’ve done a lot of volunteering, I’ve worked elections for five years, I’ve volunteered with Beto’s group,” he said, referring to the former Democratic congressman and Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. “It’s, like, you want to do something to make a difference, but it feels like, no matter what you do, Republicans find a way to get their way.”
The state legislature is “the finest free entertainment in Texas,” the political columnist Molly Ivins wrote, in 1975. “It beats the zoo any day of the week.” Ivins gleefully chronicled legislators’ fistfights, shoving matches, name-calling, and double-crossing. But she also detected a spirit of mutual allegiance. “There is a Texas legislative tradition that allows them to respect publicly, and yes, even love, those canny country bastards who always beat them,” she wrote.
Little of that collegiality is in evidence these days. Texas Republicans, having gone nearly as far as possible to expand gun access and to ban abortion, have now turned to directly punishing Democrats. Earlier this year, the Texas House prohibited members of the body’s minority party from being able to chair committees, ending a long-standing tradition. In the state Senate, the atmosphere has become “much more divisive, meaner,” Alvarado said. “I think it’s all driven from national politics.” For more than half a century, Texas Monthly has published an annual list of the best and worst legislators; this year, the editors declared that, in a political context dominated by “small-mindedness and an emphasis on punishment and coercion,” they were unable to do so.
Texas Democrats have little structural power—they’re “outnumbered and outgunned,” as Alvarado put it—and their counterparts across the aisle are loath to work with them, so they’ve increasingly focussed on fighting in a different arena. “You have to resort to things you would not ordinarily be doing,” Alvarado said, of her quorum-breaking colleagues. “If they had stayed put and had a spicy, juicy, lively debate, it would not have gotten national attention.” During the lawmakers’ two weeks on the run, Gavin Newsom announced that California would embark on a partisan redistricting map of its own (albeit one that must first be approved by voters). The drama was further heightened by Texas Republican leaders’ calls to track down, fire, or arrest the quorum-breakers. Once the Democratic legislators returned to Texas, they were tailed by state troopers, to insure that they didn’t leave again. Representative Nicole Collier, of Dallas, refused the police escort and instead spent two nights sleeping in her office, live-streaming to an audience that, at times, rivalled that of Davis’s 2013 filibuster. The Democrats may have lost the vote, but they had gained ground in the war for attention.
Nine former directors of the CDC have penned an op-ed for the New York Times condemning Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decisions as “endangering every American’s health.” It’s part of the continued fallout over the firing of the agency’s director last week. Dr. Céline Gounder has more.
A judge this weekend blocked the deportation of hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala after lawyers notified the court that the children were being loaded onto planes. Camilo Montoya-Galvez has more.
Chicago officials say they’re hearing it will be days, not weeks, before National Guard troops like the ones patrolling Washington, D.C., arrive in their city despite their objections. Nancy Cordes reports.
WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party’s standing in public opinion polls has sunk to its lowest point in more than 30 years. Many of the party’s own voters think their leaders aren’t fighting hard enough against President Trump. In one survey, the words they used most often were “weak” and “tepid.”
“The party is in shambles,” said James Carville, the political strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House after a similar bout of disarray a generation ago.
And yet, in recent weeks, the beleaguered party has begun to exhibit signs of life.
Its brand is still unpopular, but its chances of winning next year’s congressional elections appear to be growing; in recent polls, the share of voters saying they plan to vote Democratic has reached a roughly 5% lead over the GOP. Potential presidential candidates, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, are competing noisily for the title of fiercest Trump-fighter. And they have an ace in the hole: As unloved as the Democratic Party is, Trump is increasingly unpopular, too, with an approval rating sagging to 40% or below in some polls.
“There’s no requirement that people love the Democratic Party in order to vote for it,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said last week. “In an era of negative partisanship, people are motivated to vote more by dislike of the other party than by love for their own.”
So Carville, despite his diagnosis of “shambles,” thinks things are looking up in the long run.
“The Democratic Party’s present looks pretty bad, but I think its future looks pretty good,” he said. “I think we’re going to be fine.”
He cited several straws in the wind: the Democrats’ new energy as they campaign against Trump; the encouraging poll numbers on next year’s congressional elections; and an impressive bench of up-and-coming leaders.
“The talent level in the current Democratic Party is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Whoever comes out on top of that competition is going to be a pretty strong candidate.”
But that nomination is three years away — and meanwhile, Democrats face daunting hurdles. For one, Trump has pressed Texas and other Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to cement GOP control of the House of Representatives — an effort that could succeed despite Newsom’s attempt to counter it in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a measure to redraw California’s congressional map to aid Democrats.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
The Democrats, by comparison, remain leaderless and divided — arguing over the lessons of their 2024 defeat and debating how to regain their lost support among working-class and minority voters.
In a historical sense, the party is going through a familiar ordeal: the struggle a party normally faces after losing an election.
So Carville and other strategists have sketched out variations of what you might call a three-step recovery plan: First, get out of Washington and rally public opposition to Trump. Second, focus their message on “kitchen table issues,” mainly voters’ concerns over rising prices and a seemingly sluggish economy. Third, organize to win House and Senate elections next year.
“We have to do well in 2026 to demonstrate we’re not so toxic that people won’t vote for us anymore,” said Doug Sosnik, another former Clinton aide.
They’re arguing over the lessons of defeat and debating how to regain lost support among working-class and minority voters.
In battling Trump, they say they’ve found a starting point.
“We’ve found our footing. We’ve gone on the offensive,” argued Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who spent most of the summer campaigning across the country. “Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for billionaires have given us a message we can unite around.”
They still have plenty of differences over specific policies — but a spirited debate, some say, is exactly what the party needs.
“The most important task of the Democratic Party is to organize … the most robust debate Democrats have had in a generation,” said William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former Clinton aide who argues that the party needs to move to the center.
Here’s what most Democratic leaders agree on: They’ve heard their voters’ demands for a more vigorous fight against Trump. They agree that they need to reconnect with working-class voters who don’t believe the party really cares about them. They need to cast themselves as a party of change, not the status quo. And they need to begin by regaining control of the House of Representatives next year.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) says the Democrats have “found our footing.”
(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)
Most Democrats also agree that they need to focus on a positive message on economic issues such as the cost of living — to use this year’s buzzword, “affordability.”
But they differ on the specifics.
Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have focused on “fighting oligarchy,” including higher taxes on the wealthy and government-run health insurance.
Khanna, a Silicon Valley progressive, is campaigning for a program he calls “economic patriotism” — essentially, industrial policies to spur investments in strategic sectors.
Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a blunt-spoken populist, wants to make capitalism do more for ordinary workers. “Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “We’re afraid of saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.’”
And from the party’s centrist wing, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describes his program as “build, baby, build,” arguing that Democrats should focus on making housing affordable and expanding technical and vocational education.
A sharper debate has opened over social and cultural issues: Should Democrats break with the identity politics — the stuff Republicans deride as “woke” — that animates much of their progressive wing? Moderate Democrats argue that “wokeness” has alienated voters in the center and made it impossible to win presidential elections.
“I think there’s a perception that Democrats became so focused on identity that we no longer had a message that could actually speak to people across the board,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NPR last month.
The controversy over transgender women and girls in women’s sports has become an early test. Newsom, Buttigieg and Emanuel have broken with the left, arguing that there’s a case for barring transgender women from competition. “It is an issue of fairness,” Newsom said on his podcast in March.
Their statements prompted fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates. “I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” Emanuel joked in an interview with conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly in July.
Other Democrats have tread more cautiously. “We need to make a compelling economic vision … our first, second and third priority,” Khanna said. Meanwhile, be said, “we can stay true to our values.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin was blunter. “We have to stand up for every LGBTQ kid and their family who want to play sports like any other kid,” he said last week.
Those battles will play out over the long campaign, already in its first stirrings, for the next presidential nomination — the traditional way American political parties settle on a single message.
“It takes time for a party to get up off the mat,” acknowledged Sosnik, the former Clinton strategist. “We didn’t get here overnight. We’re not going to get out of it overnight.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, will be facing a political test when Congress reconvenes this fall as lawmakers will be considering a new funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.
Newsweek reached out to Schumer’s office for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Democratic voters across the country have become increasingly frustrated with what they view as a feeble response from congressional leaders to President Donald Trump‘s agenda amid his second term in office. Democrats in Congress lack a majority in the House and Senate, limiting their ability to block his agenda from passing, but voters have pushed for stronger action from elected officials.
Schumer faced a tsunami of Democratic backlash in March after he declined to block a Republican-led stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown. Schumer and eight other Democrats voted in favor of a procedural motion to allow debate on the bill but ultimately voted against its passage. That vote, however, allowed it to pass the filibuster and become law, Democratic critics say.
What To Know
Congress has until October 1 to pass a series of bills to fund the government through fiscal year (FY) 2026. Republicans have slim majorities in both chambers—a 219-212 advantage in the House and a 53-47 advantage in the Senate—meaning any vote on the package may again prove to be a tight vote.
This presents challenges for both parties—Republican leaders will have to appease both swing-district moderates and Make America Great Again (MAGA)-aligned conservatives
However, Democrats like Schumer will also be facing a test as he seeks to appease the Democratic voter base, while also working with Republicans to get some concessions in the bills.
In March, Democrats from across the spectrum expressed frustration with Schumer and other Democrats advancing the spending bill despite a lack of concessions made by Republicans to earn his support on the bill, which critics argued cut critical programs. Democrats called for Schumer to face a future primary or step down as party leader, which he has declined to do.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Associated Press/Canva/Getty
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also a New York Democrat, sent a leader to GOP leadership urging a meeting to “discuss the need to avert a painful, unnecessary lapse in government funding and to address the healthcare crisis Republicans have triggered in America.”
“The government funding issue must be resolved in a bipartisan way,” they wrote. “That is the only viable path forward.”
In the past, Democrats largely compromised “out of a calculation that the blame for a government shutdown could land more on them than on the Republicans,” Grant Davis Reeher, professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Newsweek.
“They run the same risk if they try to turn this new set of negotiations into a bigger fight over the Constitution and basic principles. That will appeal to the core base of their party, which wants to see more backbone, but it’s not clear how it play with the entire country,” he added.
Reeher said that the Senate, where legislation generally needs to pass the 60-vote filibuster to end debate on a bill, presents Democrats a stronger chance of mitigating some of Republicans’ desires to cut spending.
Democrats’ strategy on the legislation will largely depend on whether their goal is to mitigate future spending cuts or to walk back cuts already made to programs like Medicaid or public broadcasting, Reeher added, noting they would need to be more aggressive in the second strategy.
Anne Danehy, senior associate dean and associate professor of the practice at Boston University’s College of Communications, told Newsweek that Schumer may be “stuck in a tough position,” and that how he communicates about his decision-making process and vote is critical.
Democrats have two opposing philosophies on how to approach this sort of legislation, she said.
One side of the party believes Democrats should not “give Republicans anything” to show they disapprove of the “dismantling of the federal government, Danehy said.
“You have others like Schumer who are saying, ‘We don’t have a lot of choice here. We need to gain something or we lose everything, so we need to compromise or the American people could really suffer,'” she added.
Danehy warned that more Democratic outrage on the matter would further break down the party’s influence, which should be a concern for leadership as negotiations on the spending bills begin.
Reeher and Danehy questioned whether a more progressive Democrat could successfully primary Schumer in 2028 if he chooses to run again, even if he again faces outrage from parts of the base.
“There’s been a lot of talk about a credible primary challenge, but I don’t see that happening or at least being successful. Senator Schumer is not Joseph Crowley; he remains very attentive to New York State issues and to local communities,” Reeher said. “He won’t look past a potential threat. And a credible challenger would be risking a lot in taking him on.”
Others, however, have floated potential candidates like Representative Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez of New York who represents parts of the Queens and the Bronx in Congress, as a potential alternative candidate to Schumer in 2028—if she doesn’t run for president, that is.
Some polls have suggested Ocasio-Cortez could have an early advantage over Schumer. A Data for Progress poll, which surveyed 767 likely New York voters from March 26 to March 31, showed Ocasio-Cortez leading Schumer 54 to 36 percent.
But the primary is still years away, and the political landscape may change after the 2026 midterms when Democrats are hoping to reclaim control of the House and Senate. So, it’s quite unclear what issues may be at the forefront of Democrats’ minds come 2028.
What People Are Saying
Grant Davis Reeher, professor of political science at Syracuse University, also told Newsweek: “We’ve seen from polling that a lot of the Republican and Trump initiatives so far are not terribly popular, and that the public has some real concerns about some of the spending cuts, and the war on the federal workforce. Democrats should keep the focus on those things going into the midterms and not let the question of who is to blame for stalled negotiations on keeping the government running interfere with that focus. In that sense, I tend to agree with Senator Schumer.”
Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told NBC News host Kristen Welker on a Meet the Press interview in March: “I knew when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that there would be a lot of controversy. And there was. But let me tell you and your audience why I did it, why I felt it was so important. The CR [continuing resolution] was certainly bad…But a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, ‘essential.’ And they can determine without any court supervision.”
What Happens Next?
Negotiations may begin over the coming weeks, and Congress has until October 1 to pass some sort of spending bill to keep the government open. Whether they will have to continue relying on temporary stopgap measures or can successfully pass the appropriations bills is yet to be seen.
