On CNBC, Mike Johnson roots for the Supreme Court to give Trump — not Congress — full control of tariffs. "I'm cheering for the president that the executive will win," he says. And "I say that as a jealous guardian of the legislative branch." Jealous guardian, LOL. Never was a speaker more supine.

Self-described Democratic voters outnumbered self-described Republicans, but only by 5 points in Virginia and 7 points in New Jersey. In both states, Trump’s negative effect on the Republican candidates went far beyond that. ICYMI @saletan.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/hey-republ...

Republicans looking for someone to blame should look at Trump @saletan.bsky.social breaks down Tuesday’s results www.thebulwark.com/p/hey-republ...

The Republican brand is toxic among regular people, thanks to Trump. Republicans have nobody else to blame. NEW from @saletan.bsky.social:

Don't fall for the Republican excuses about Tuesday's elections. By every measure — militarization, deportation, gerrymandering, job approval, and asking voters whether he affected their decisions — the exit polls show Trump cost his party hundreds of thousands of votes.

At today's GOP presser, Mike Johnson links Mamdani to Obama, "who made health care unaffordable with his own socialist scheme." Calling subsidized private health insurance a socialist scheme is a quick way to show everyone that when you decry "socialism," you just mean anything that helps people.

"If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power." As one of many folks who have targeted Trump's despotism, without much success, I'm open to the idea that targeting the conditions might be more effective. That's Mamdani, BTW.

Kaitlan Collins: "We've seen some reaction coming in already tonight from former Trump campaign advisers, saying that they believe this is a candidate quality issue and that Republicans need to run better candidates who are more in line with the president in order to secure victories." LOL, sure. 🤣

Johnson: "The SNAP benefit is a very important question. The White House has bent over backwards...to make sure that Americans' pain is mitigated as much as possible." Trump 30 minutes later: "SNAP BENEFITS... will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government... and not before!"

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We will not have our Border Patrol officers smeared

U.S. Steel. Nvidia. Intel. Westinghouse. By squeezing one company after another, Trump "is literally seizing the means of production," writes @jvl.bsky.social. He's "a socialist...trying to make the American economy function more like Communist China." And all the while calling Mamdani a communist.

Tom Emmer couldn't care less about telling the truth, but his dishonesty exposes Mike Johnson's BS. @saletan.bsky.social on the man putting the lie to Mike Johnson's shutdown excuses: www.thebulwark.com/p/tom-emmer-...

Find the full video here: Full video: Substack: www.thebulwark.com/watch?utm_so... YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-L... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b... Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1Olcd45...

"He's so confident in his delusions." What's scarier about Trump - the delusions, or that invincible confidence? @saletan.bsky.social and @samsteindc.bsky.social talk Trump's nutty 60 Minutes interview:

GOP leaders in Congress say they can't end the shutdown because they need Democrats to break a filibuster. But the #3 House Republican says that's BS. He's smearing Democrats, hurling insults and urging Republicans to abolish the filibuster for appropriations. Meet Tom Emmer. He's a piece of work.

"It’s comforting to imagine that a president feels our pain. But Johnson can’t hide the truth: Trump is a sadist, and his strategy in the shutdown has been to break the Democrats’ will by hurting the people they represent." ICYMI @saletan.bsky.social:

Out: Voice of America broadcasts the words of Ronald Reagan to puncture the propaganda of foreign authoritarians. In: A neighboring democracy apologizes to America’s authoritarian president for puncturing his propaganda by broadcasting the words of Ronald Reagan. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/w...

“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa,” according to the notice, “and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.” But please don’t call our new refugee policy white nationalism. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...

It's so unfair that people accuse Trump of belligerence when he's working this hard to bring hostile nations together. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

By hosting Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson has "accelerated the right’s already prominent tilt toward authoritarianism and hate," writes @willsommer.bsky.social. "Nothing—including the racism, Holocaust denialism, and antisemitism Fuentes has championed—seems to be too hot for MAGA media to embrace."

It turns out — surprise, surprise — that when an administration skirts court orders restraining its abuse of power against noncitizens, the same administration goes on to skirt court orders restraining its abuse of power against citizens. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/u...

Trump is bragging about using the shutdown to screw Democrats, while Mike Johnson is talking about how much Trump cares about all Americans. @saletan.bsky.social on the GOP's phony "we feel your pain" gambit: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-isnt...

Mike Johnson says "Every day of this shutdown [Trump] has tried... to lessen the pain as much as possible." What a crock. Trump openly brags that he's using the shutdown to do mass layoffs, terminate programs, "kill" the Democrats, and inflict pain. Johnson can't hide the truth: Trump is a sadist.

During a recent press briefing, Speaker Mike Johnson used the word "pain" fourteen times to describe what Democrats were imposing and Republicans were trying to relieve. Yeah, no. @saletan.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-isnt...

No, Thursday’s out. How about never? Is never good for you? www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Among the nuggets in this @carolleonnig.bsky.social @byaaroncdavis.bsky.social report on the Trump classified docs investigation: Biden's DOJ blocked Jack Smith from seeking Cannon's removal. Another illustration that Trump's cries of "weaponization" were BS. It's his DOJ that's breaking all norms.

Brennan asks Graham about his call for regime change in Venezuela: "Are you talking about troops on the ground?" He hesitates. "I'll let the President speak to that. I'm talking about a briefing that would expand military operations potentially from the sea to the land. It is time for Maduro to go"

"Mayors and governors are saying no to these invasions. But Trump insists that residents are saying yes. Once again, Trump is faking consent." ICYMI @saletan.bsky.social on Trump's violations - and odd moment of honesty: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-admi...

This is why I took the under on "NBA coach gets arrested in illegal gambling investigation by 2026." The gambling industry's takeover of sports advertising (to the point of announcers touting betting lines during broadcasts) made this inevitable. The corruption unfolded right in front of our eyes.

Trump routinely claims that his troop deployments in cities are tremendously popular with those cities' populations. "You have black women with MAGA hats on in Chicago, all over the place." Actual opinion surveys tell a different story.

"You're not going to believe this, but last week Donald Trump said something that is true." @saletan.bsky.social on Trump's possibly accidental admission about militarized law enforcement: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-admi...

"In his next breath, Trump conceded, 'I didn’t run on that. I ran on crime, but I didn’t run on straightening out the city.' For once, he was speaking the truth." New from @saletan.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-admi...

"Trump never had a mandate to federalize, much less militarize, urban law enforcement. And twice in the last week, he admitted it." Then yesterday he turned around and claimed “We have the right to use the National Guard" because it's "one of the reasons I got elected." He's such a shameless liar.

"Evangelical Christians - who must be the most God people because they're very big with God, very strong on God - they vote for Trump, so that means that his relationship with God is good." @jvl.bsky.social and @saletan.bsky.social talk Trump's childish theology and afterlife anxiety:

At this point, any flicker of decency surprises me. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

"I was handed... a bag of bath salts that would be 'charged' by the machines ... there was no receptacle [for the] bath salts. The idea was that they would gain their power through osmosis." @willsommer.bsky.social investigates a right-wing streaming platform funded by a healing scam. What a story.

Bash asks Santos about his commutation, which voids his restitution sentence. "You were ordered by the court to pay $370,000 in restitution to the people you defrauded. Will you still pay that back?" Santos: "If it's required of me by the law, yes. If it's not, then no." It's not. And he knows it.

If you put your ear against the Capitol, you can hear the sound of a man who will do nothing to challenge—and anything to justify—presidential violations of the Constitution, as long as the president is of his own party. ICYMI @saletan.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/speaker-mi...

Britt rebukes Democrats for focusing more on Santos, whose commutation she defends ("President Trump has the opportunity and the ability to do this") than "on Abrego Garcia, who actually, as we well know, trafficked humans." Reminder: Santos pled guilty. Abrego Garcia has been convicted of nothing.

Johnson defends his refusal to swear in Grijalva: "I'm following the Pelosi precedent." When Republican "Julia Letlow was elected... Pelosi took 25 days to swear her in." Karl fact-checks him: "that was the date [Letlow] requested ... Pelosi didn't delay that." Johnson admits nothing and moves on.

Rand Paul warns that Trump's boat strikes may be killing innocents. "About 25% of the time the Coast Guard boards a ship there are no drugs. So if our policy now is to blow up every ship we suspect or accuse of drug running, that would be a bizarre world in which 25% of the people might be innocent"

ECB President Lagarde says so far, consumers are feeling only about a third of the eventual hit from Trump's tariffs. The "two-thirds borne by ... the exporter and the importer is based on a squeeze of their margins," she explains. When that gets "too tight," they'll pass the rest to "the consumer."

"If President Biden had sent the weaponry needed to Ukraine ...we wouldn't be in this war," says Katie Britt. Trump "has met with Zelensky more times in his 9 months...than President Biden did his entire time." The reason Zelensky meets with Trump is to plead for help. He didn't have to beg Biden.

Brennan on Trump's boat strikes: "the commander who was running Southern Command ... was pressured to leave his command post early ... You speak to the top officers. Can they, with confidence, refuse unlawful orders without fear of retribution or even losing their pensions?" Kelly: "They should."

Maybe someone should whisper to Trump that not trying to turn America into an autocracy might boost his chances of "making heaven." ICYMI @saletan.bsky.social on Trump's afterlife anxiety: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-is-w...

We're LIVE now with @samsteindc.bsky.social , @saletan.bsky.social, @eggerdc.bsky.social and @jvl.bsky.social talking the massive #NoKings protests. YouTube: youtube.com/live/IrUiCmd... Substack: open.substack.com/live-stream/...

Really enjoyed this conversation about Trump's fixation on getting into heaven. He thinks he can cut a deal with God, like a business transaction. @jvl.bsky.social, an actual adult who understands ideas like grace and salvation, explains Trump's childish theology. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTqJ...

If you’ve been telling yourself that we’re not really living under an authoritarian government, at some point you have to look at what’s going on and admit that this is what’s happening. I know it’s hard to accept. It sounds like it must be an exaggeration. But it’s true.

Trump routinely calls Jack Smith “deranged.” But in his remarks, Smith illustrated what it looks like to follow rules instead of trampling them. One of these men is engaged in naked, corrupt lawfare. Today's Morning Shots, from @saletan.bsky.social and @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social: