I mean, he might as well have said, "promises made, promises I’ll likely break." Sen. John Thune (R-SD) was easily reelected to lead Senate Republicans as they enter the minority next year, along with the rest of the leadership slate. The Senate’s lack of urgency and action partially contributed to the blue wave.
Some record of accomplishment. @LarryOConnor mocks John Thune’s pitch to stay Senate GOP leader after the election disaster: “Did you see John Thune on the campaign trail at all saying any of this? Me neither.” “Did John Thune secure the border? Did I miss something there?” “By the way, there’s a ton of judges waiting to be confirmed right now. Why weren’t those taken care of? Why are we waiting for a lame duck session to do that?”
The House got things done, and the Senate would just let it die in quicksand. The circus over DHS funding last Presidents' Day weekend and the now-dead Save America Act—Thune is an exceptional leader at crashing into the guardrails. And now, we’re entrusting him to fight as the minority leader. I’m prepared to be a doormat.
Thune suggests that there wasn't a ton Republicans could have done differently to avoid the midterm losses and said in meetings today he "wasn't apologizing for anything that we did." ` He said that tax cuts are "the most consequential piece of legislation I've worked on" and blamed government shutdowns for slowing down the GOP Congress "I think on the political side, I don't know what else we want. There was a lot of money that we raised ... but it's a good example that money sometimes doesn't matter if you don't have the winning message"
Thune suggests that there wasn't a ton Republicans could have done differently to avoid the midterm losses and said in meetings today he "wasn't apologizing for anything that we did." `
He said that tax cuts are "the most consequential piece of legislation I've worked on" and blamed government shutdowns for slowing down the GOP Congress
"I think on the political side, I don't know what else we want. There was a lot of money that we raised ... but it's a good example that money sometimes doesn't matter if you don't have the winning message"
And that’s after his tweet got ratioed to death, pelted like Bonnie and Clyde
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to block an effort to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, effectively killing the resolution by referring it to the House Judiciary Committee.
In a 211-to-204 procedural vote, House Republicans successfully rallied to table the impeachment push introduced by outgoing Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Massie was the sole member of his party to vote alongside all voting Democrats against referring the measure to the committee.
The move sidestepped what would have been a historic full House floor vote on individual articles of impeachment against a sitting Cabinet member. The impeachment resolution leveled serious allegations against Secretary Hegseth, accusing him of committing high crimes and misdemeanors while serving as the head of the Pentagon.
Among the charges were claims that Hegseth bypassed Congress by executing military operations in Iran without authorization, failed to minimize civilian casualties, ordered extrajudicial strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, directed operations involved in the capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and retaliated against Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
Rep. Massie claimed that Hegseth carried out unlawful orders and compromised constitutional standards, seeking a formal trial in the U.S. Senate. In response to the resolution, Hegseth and administration officials forcefully pushed back against the charges ahead of the vote.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday morning, Hegseth described the impeachment push as a partisan “farce” and “political spectacle,” asserting that policy disagreements over military campaigns should not be twisted into impeachable offenses.
President Donald Trump also rallied behind his defense chief in social media posts and public statements, defending Hegseth’s actions and urging congressional Republicans to reject the resolution. Following the vote, Pentagon officials declared total victory, stating that referring the articles to committee put an end to a political distraction.
Although the procedural maneuver halts the current effort during the outgoing Congress, the battle over Hegseth’s tenure may reemerge. House Democrat leaders, including Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), supported the impeachment push, and other Democrat lawmakers have signaled that they could revive investigations or file new impeachment articles when the new Congress convenes in January with a shifted Democrat majority.
Nonetheless, for now, the procedural vote ensures Hegseth remains in his post as the administration continues to uphold its foreign policy and military directives.
President Nayib Bukele did something bold and messy: he asked users on X to point out the exact location of a suspected gang leader’s home in Haiti — and then posted video saying Salvadoran forces struck and “destroyed” that house and the 400 Mawozo gang’s headquarters. It reads like politics by livestream and vigilante justice with a production crew. That alone deserves scrutiny and some applause.
What Bukele announced on X
On his X account, President Bukele asked followers to give the exact address of a luxury house linked to Wilson Joseph, the man known as Lanmò San Jou, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang. He later posted a produced video and declared Salvadoran troops had destroyed the house and the gang’s headquarters. The footage shows helicopter strikes and military movement. Whether you cheer or wince, the message was loud and simple: get coordinates, and men with guns will act.
Video claims and the need for verification
Verification gaps matter
Here’s the catch: the video Bukele shared is a montage and has not been fully geolocated. Independent on‑the‑ground confirmation of the exact target, timing, and casualty numbers is limited. Different outlets report differing casualty figures, and NGOs and U.N. officials warn about civilian harm. So while Bukele’s post is public and dramatic, smart reporting — and smart policy — treats the clip as a claim, not as indisputable proof.
Diplomacy, deconfliction, and inconvenient truths
There’s a reason diplomats and UN staff are twitchy. The U.S. embassy has reportedly registered concerns about coordination. U.N. offices and Haitian civil society are warning about strikes in populated areas and the risk to civilians. Conservatives who favor law and order should not automatically shrug off these warnings. Tough action against gangs is necessary. But amateur crowdsourcing of strike coordinates and unilateral foreign operations in a fragile state invite diplomatic headaches and, worse, civilian casualties.
Support the result, demand the record
Let’s be clear: 400 Mawozo and gang bosses like Lanmò San Jou have terrorized Haitians for years. Rooting them out is right. But cheering from the sidelines while applauding a crowd‑sourced hit job is short-sighted. If governments are going to act militarily, they must also document what happened, show the evidence, and answer tough questions about civilian protection and coordination with partners. Bukele’s move is effective theater. Now he — and partners on the ground — need to prove it was also precise, lawful, and worth the risk.
The House and Senate GOP have just picked their leaders for life in the minority — and the choices tell you everything about what kind of fight Republicans plan to run next year. Representative Jim Jordan won the House conference vote by a clear margin, and Senator John Thune was quietly re‑installed as Senate leader by acclamation. Same conference, different moods: one wants a brawl; the other wants to steady the ship.
What the votes actually were
House Republicans chose Representative Jim Jordan to lead the conference in the next Congress in a secret ballot, 106 to 73 over Rep. Steve Scalise. That’s a solid margin for Jordan and a clear signal: the rank‑and‑file want a tough, combative leader. In the Senate, Republicans re‑elected Senator John Thune and the leadership team by acclamation in a closed meeting. No roll call. No drama. Just continuity.
Why this matters for GOP strategy
This isn’t a cosmetic shuffle. Jordan’s elevation points the House GOP toward aggressive oversight, loud messaging, and a confrontational posture aimed at shaping the political headlines. Even as Democrats control both chambers, Jordan can use committee fights, subpoenas, and constant media pressure to set the terms of the debate. Meanwhile, Thune’s return signals the Senate conference wants stability and experienced hands in the minority — someone who knows floor tactics and how to slow or shape legislation without theatrics.
Jordan’s playbook: oversight, offense, and base fuel
If you know Jim Jordan, you know what to expect: relentless oversight probes and a hunger for headlines. That appeals to the party’s activist base and donors who want fire and fury against Democratic policies. It also risks alienating swing voters who punished the GOP in the midterms. So Jordan will have to walk a tightrope: be loud enough to satisfy the base, but disciplined enough not to hand Democrats easy talking points. Expect hearings, press surges, and a minority strategy built around keeping Republicans relevant and fundraising strong heading into 2028.
Thune’s retention: steady or stagnant?
Keeping John Thune suggests the Senate GOP chose cohesion over a full reckoning after election losses. That can be smart — the Senate needs calm tradecraft in the minority. But it also raises questions: will frustrated senators push for change, or will they give Thune room to adapt? A leadership that’s too comfortable risks looking complacent. A leadership that pivots too quickly risks chaos. Thune will have to balance managing dissent and setting a credible counterweight to Democratic priorities.
The bottom line: Republicans have split their playbook. The House, under Representative Jim Jordan, has chosen a scorched‑earth communications and oversight strategy. The Senate, under Senator John Thune, prefers a quieter, procedural resistance. Both moves are meant to keep the party competitive while it rebuilds. Now the test: can they turn combative energy and steady experience into a winning message for the country — not just for cable TV and donor emails?
California voters rejected a proposed tax on billionaires even as Democrats won control of Congress and scored victories in statewide races in the midterm elections.
Newsmax projected Monday that California voters had rejected Proposition 40, nearly a week after Election Day. With about 82% of the vote counted, 52.9% opposed the proposal and 47.1% supported it.
The tax would have imposed a one-time 5% levy on residents with a net worth of at least $1 billion.
Two competing ballot measures sought to restrict wealth taxes or impose added requirements on new state taxes. Under California law, when conflicting propositions pass in the same election, the provisions of the measure receiving more affirmative votes generally prevail.
Proposition 42, which would prohibit certain new taxes on personal wealth and retroactive taxes, remained undecided Monday night. With 87% of the ballots counted, 51.7% supported the measure and 48.3% opposed it.
Proposition 41, which would restrict certain new taxes, was defeated, with 54.8% voting against it and 45.2% in favor, according to Decision Desk HQ.
The campaign over Proposition 40 and the two competing measures was among the most expensive ballot-measure fights in California history, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
More than $400 million was spent on the three measures, with more than 90% going toward efforts to defeat the billionaire tax, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the California secretary of state's office.
Billionaires, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that financed advertising campaigns against the tax. Brin alone contributed $102 million.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Teachers Association, and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California were among the prominent Democrats and Democrat-aligned groups that expressed concerns about the proposal, including the possibility that billionaires would leave the state.
The Times reported that some billionaires, including Brin and fellow Google co-founder Larry Page, moved out of California amid concerns about the proposed tax.
Ads opposing the billionaire tax argued that it could affect all Californians, not just the ultra-wealthy. Advertisements featured teachers, firefighters, and other middle-class Californians arguing against the proposal, the Times reported.
Opponents of Proposition 40 said Californians made the "right decision," calling the proposal a "reckless experiment" that would hurt the state's economy. The coalition included the California Medical Association, California Primary Care Association, and California School Boards Association.
"Proposition 40 risked California's economic competitiveness and fiscal stability, as well as the revenue we rely on to fund our top priorities — from education and healthcare to public safety and infrastructure," the group said, according to the Times.
Leaders of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which sponsored Proposition 40, vowed to pursue another billionaire tax measure in 2028 unless state leaders find other ways to support healthcare, the Times reported.
California lawmakers face a difficult budget outlook next year, raising questions about how the state could replace an estimated $100 billion in federal healthcare funding cuts, according to the Times.
Supporters said the proposed tax on more than 200 California billionaires was intended to raise $100 billion, with 90% of the revenue going to healthcare and the remaining 10% to schools and food assistance.
"Billionaire-funded propaganda may have influenced the outcome of this election, but as hospitals reduce services, emergency rooms close and families lose access to care, the truth will become increasingly difficult to hide," Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for the SEIU-UHW, told the Times. "Californians will see for themselves what was at stake."
At the federal level, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who backed Proposition 40, are pushing for an annual 5% tax on American billionaires. Earlier this year, they introduced the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act.
Sometimes, what you call something matters. Other times, the courts aren't particularly interested in your creative labeling.
The Supreme Court made that second point abundantly clear Monday, handing the Trump administration a win in its effort to resume border wall construction in Texas — and delivering a rather pointed lesson about the difference between constitutional claims and statutory ones.
In Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, the High Court granted the administration's request to stay an October 2 preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge in the Western District of Texas. That injunction had halted construction of border barriers and roads in the Big Bend Sector along the U.S.-Mexico border.
At issue is a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which gives the Homeland Security secretary broad authority to construct border barriers and waive legal requirements that might impede their construction — including environmental and conservation laws.
There's a catch for anyone wishing to challenge those waivers in court, though: Congress specifically limited judicial review to claims alleging violations of the Constitution.
Enter the plaintiffs, including a river guide, an environmental organization, and a group dedicated to preserving a historic Texas church. They challenged the administration's waivers using what's known as the major questions doctrine.
That's a legal principle requiring clear congressional authorization before federal agencies can exercise certain powers of vast economic or political significance. The plaintiffs argued that the administration lacked that authorization. And the district court agreed, concluding that the major questions doctrine is rooted in constitutional separation-of-powers principles and therefore provided a constitutional basis for the challenge.
SCOTUS delivered a big NOPE to that view, however. In an unsigned, five-page opinion, the justices explained that while the major questions doctrine certainly reflects constitutional concerns, it's still a tool courts use to interpret statutes.
And the Court didn't mince words:
There is no such thing as a “constitutional” major-questions claim.
In other words, arguing that an agency exceeded the authority Congress granted it doesn't magically become a constitutional claim simply because the underlying legal principle has constitutional roots.
Call it what you like. It's still a statutory challenge.
Moreover, Congress expressly barred the lower courts from entertaining those challenges to the secretary's waiver decisions. Thus, the Court concluded that the administration was exceedingly likely to prevail on its argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction.
The justices also noted that the injunction was costing the government nearly $500,000 per day in unrecoverable expenses, according to a Customs and Border Protection official, and interfering with Congress's expressly stated preference for expedited border construction.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the stay, though she offered no written explanation.
Now, there's a caveat here: Monday's order is not a final decision resolving the underlying lawsuit. What today's order means is that the injunction remains suspended while the administration pursues Supreme Court review.
But the ruling carries significance well beyond this particular stretch of border wall.
Congress can limit lower federal courts' authority to hear certain disputes. And when it does, litigants cannot sidestep those limits simply by giving their statutory arguments a constitutional makeover. (A rose by any other name...)
It's also important to bear in mind that the separation of powers works in more than one direction. And sometimes, the most consequential question isn't whether the government acted lawfully, but whether the court had the authority to decide that question in the first place.
Zohran Mamdani's reported favor line to the White House may have just gone dead thanks to Stephen Miller.
The communist New York City mayor has quietly been asking President Trump's team to release individuals held in ICE custody, according to a Monday report from Politico.
Sources and quotes from Mamdani himself show that his inexplicably cordial relationship with the President had previously expanded into an open line of communication on specific immigration enforcement issues. According to Politico, that communication came through former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
It began in February, when Mamdani persuaded Trump during a White House sit-down to free Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva, who had been detained by federal immigration agents earlier in the day.
Mamdani pointed to her release as proof that his surprising relationship with Trump could deliver for New Yorkers. What nobody knew at the time was that he kept going back to the well.
Since then, Mamdani and his staff have handed Trump's team the names of about two dozen more immigrant New Yorkers in ICE custody and asked the president to order their release, according to two people with knowledge of the outreach. The most recent list reportedly came during Mamdani's September meeting with Trump at Gracie Mansion.
Of course, this whole tale rests on two anonymous sources, and even Politico admits it can't confirm that a single name on that list has walked free. That's an odd result for a president who is supposedly listening to favor requests. And the lack of tangible results fits the man who has made mass deportations the centerpiece of his agenda.
Mamdani's aides allegedly worked the requests mostly through Wiles, who has since left the White House. Aside from Aghayeva, Politico claims Mamdani was able "to secure a short-term visa for a woman from Ghana whose son was fatally shot in the Bronx."
"Other than that, not much substantive has materialized between the two ..." the outlet adds.
“Over the course of these conversations, we have been able to free a New Yorker from ICE detention," Mamdani said in an interview with Fox News. "We have been able to secure a visa for a grieving mother who would otherwise have to watch her son be buried from thousands of miles away."
And that includes Mamdani's team, who fear the hardline immigration-enforcement advocate will be less responsive to requests from Gracie Mansion.
Politico reports there is growing concern inside the mayor's administration that whatever door of communication was open is now closing since it seems "unlikely that Miller, given his posture on immigration, will keep playing ball in the same way Wiles did."
Good. Miller is making the right people antsy.
Murad Awawdeh, a close Mamdani ally, had a strange way of trying to keep their foot in the door.
“Stephen Miller is a cruel man who has spent his career targeting immigrants, but he is not the president. Donald Trump is, and the deportation agenda is his,” he said. “New York expects the president to work with the mayor, deliver for this city, and end the terror in our neighborhoods. Promoting Miller changes none of that.”
New York shouldn't "expect" anything, and I'm not sure the right approach to keep a cordial relationship alive is to insult the new Chief of Staff.
"We have a very strong deportation policy, there's no amnesty, there's no anything, we keep that," he told reporters. "But, we focus on the worst of the worst. We want the murderers out. We've gotten most of them out ... We want to get the worst of the worst, and then we'll see what happens."
Mamdani has supposedly been slipping names to the White House, but the guy answering the phone now is Miller. Something tells me that list is headed straight for the shredder.
Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.
Texas Democrats are wasting no time in putting forth a wildly progressive agenda for the Lone Star State, with dozens of bills being proposed to radically reshape the state.
BREAKING: Democrat Senator @SenRoyceWest
introduced a bill to end school choice for over 100,000 kids in Texas. He sent his kid to a private school. https://t.co/2fFiRLkQFq
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) November 9, 2026
Democrats are seeking to legalize marijuana, end school choice, restrict gun access, expand Medicaid, and double the minimum wage. The moves aren’t being limited to the Texas Legislature, either. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has proposed siphoning off massive chunks of the state’s emergency savings account to distribute $1,500 checks to state residents.
The fate of these proposals would fall in the hands of the Texas State Senate, the last body that Texas Republicans have retained control of following the 2026 midterm elections.
President Trump held an impromptu press conference lasting a little over 30 minutes, during which he gave an update mostly on the Iran War. UFC’s Dana White also fielded questions after being at the White House for other matters. No, he’s not the new press secretary, which the president admitted was a joke. Trump did, however, take questions, as he always does, and managed to take down CNN and outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in one swoop. Massie filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Monday. Kaitlin Collins was the one who got buzz-sawed here, though she’s used to it.
TRUMP: “Massie’s a loser. Just like you’re a loser at CNN.”
President Trump Calls In to Washington Journal Primetime C-SPAN host Mimi Geerges: "We heard that you like to watch C-SPAN. What do you like to watch?" President Trump: "I like to watch the call-ins because it gives me a little of an indication of where we are." https://t.co/wMrZmy3FSW
