Forbes Magazine: Watch The Moment When Senate Republicans Table Motion To Compel DOJ To Release Epstein Files

Posted on September 12, 2025 by kireschneider

“On Wednesday night, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), voted to table Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) vote to compel the DOJ to release the Epstein Files.”

Source:Forbes Magazine with a look at our tax dollars in action.

From Forbes Magazine

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) on why she voted to table Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s amendment to release the Epstein files:

“The amendment was a surprise and disrupted the normal process of working on the defense bill.”

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (Republican, Maine) on why she voted against Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s amendment to release the Epstein files:

“The effort to insert language into Congress’ annual defense authorization bill would have forced the public release of case files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein.”

This has been the The New Democrat’s point about why the Department of Justice should have already released the Epstein files by now… as Fred Schneider wrote back in August:

“But my point is, for reasons that I’ve already laid out, is Donald Trump literally has nothing to lose here in releasing them. He’s already the most unpopular 2nd term President, at least in the television and internet age. People who dislike and hate him now, won’t dislike and hate him more after those files are released to the public.

When the far-right of the Republican Party was talking about “family values”, morality and character, the need for these things in our government, that was just something they used to attack Democrats. That’s not what they care about. Someone could literally be a convicted felon, a serial liar and adulterer… if that person is on their side and represents their political values. And Mr. Trump’s professional celebrity base, would probably just view him as a bigger “rockstar” and “badass”, after the Epstein files are released.

The main lesson from Watergate that both Republicans and Democrats have failed to learn the last 50 plus years, that once a bad story is about to break, or has broken, is that the worst thing that you can do is to try to cover it up. What you do, is what a good lawyer would do in court: get the bad information and evidence about your side out, before the opposition and the media does it for you. Get ahead of the story and put your own spin on it, before you lose the narrative of it.

As long as The White House and Trump DOJ try to cover up this story, the longer it will be in the news, along with the slowing economy, rising prices, everything else that has gone wrong since Donald Trump became President again. And that’s not where you want to be going into an election year. So of course they should release the redacted portions of the Epstein files to Congress and the public as soon as possible. ”

From The New Democrat

And as Derik Schneider wrote last week:

“As far as the Epstein files, it’s hard to imagine a sitting U.S. President being more unpopular than Donald John Trump. He’s now in Joe Biden’s range as far as political unpopularity, with his low 40s and upper 30s approval rating. Releasing the Epstein files even with him all over them, couldn’t hurt himself anymore than what he’s already done to his own political standing. If anything, it would probably just make him seem cooler with his reality TV base and perhaps even Independents who voted for him, because they think he’s a “badass” or something:

“Yeah!!! The Donald rolls with pimps and sex traffickers!!! He’s even a bigger badass than we thought”

Or phrase that last part anyway you want.”

From The New Democrat

Senator Murkowski making the case for Congressional term limits with just this 1 statement right here:

“The amendment was a surprise and disrupted the normal process of working on the defense bill.”

This is what you can sound like when you’ve been in Congress for over 20 years: you run out of good policy arguments to vote against something that could hurt you with your right-wing, if you vote against them and instead rely on procedure, because you don’t want to offend other voters in your state, or hurt your credibility in Washington.

And Senator Collins who is now a 5 term U.S. Senator, who is at least considering running for reelection in 26, (even though she’s pretty unpopular in Maine) gets caught in-between 2 voting blocs that she needs to get reelected there in Maine: the MAGA base there and more independent minded Democrats in that state, as well Independents in general and this is how she explained her vote yesterday:

“The effort to insert language into Congress’ annual defense authorization bill would have forced the public release of case files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein.”

From recent Washington reporting on Congress, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (Republican, Kentucky) thinks he’s very close getting the 218 votes that he needs to bring a resolution to the floor that would force the House floor. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat, New York) is working on the same resolution, perhaps even with Representative Massie.

How much do you want to bet if the House votes to release the Epstein files, 2-3 weeks from now, and Chuck Schumer brings it up for a vote again in the Senate, that Senators Murlowski and Collins will vote for the amendment, then? And maybe 5-10 more Senate Republicans as well. I think they’re just buying their time here. They want to know that it’s going to pass the House, first, before going on the record in favor of it themselves. Which is another argument for Congressional term limits: only voting for legislation that you think is politically safe for you to vote for.

Source:The New Democrat

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Katie Phang: MAGA Rhetoric SPARKS OUTRAGE After KIRK ASSASSINATION

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Ederik Schneider

“Trump and the Far-Right are fanning the flames of political violence with hateful rhetoric and calls for the “extermination” of an entire group of people with different political beliefs. Katie Phang on why Charlie Kirk’s death should be investigated competently and thoroughly before anyone jumps to conclusions.”

Source:Katie Phang talking about Donald Trump & MAGA. Who else?

From Katie Phang

There is 1 comment and point here that I want you to concentrate here on and, before I show you the rest this story as far as what I’ll be talking about here today: Katie Phang said:

“I know we’re more divided now today because of people like Donald Trump and others in the far-right have decided that use of violent rhetoric, the use of hate speech is appropriate to go after their perceived political enemies and opponents. When Donald Trump calls the media “the enemy of the state”, when Donald Trump says horribly disgusting, depraved and denigrating language to describe people who are just of a different political ideology of his, that contributes to the environment that we’re in which is exceptionally and horribly toxic.

And before you come at me, saying I contribute to it, I’m a truth teller. So when I call out people for their incompetence and stupidity for their roles in making this country less than what it should be… less than what we deserve as Americans… I’m doing nothing but being a truth teller.”

Unlike Katie Phang, I’m not even a lawyer, let alone a skilled lawyer. But what I’m going to do here is something that skilled lawyers do, perhaps especially during cross-examination and use the words of the witness (in this case Katie Phang) words against her.

Katie Phang said so herself on her own video: “It’s not what we know that should concern people about this story, but what we don’t know already that should concern us. (That’s a paraphrase, but very close)

I think Katie Phang’s 2nd point here… is the point. We don’t even know who Charlie Kirk’s murderer is, let alone the motive or motives for this murder. But, she’s already blaming Kirk’s murder on Donald Trump and the far-right. So it’s easy to see why Katie Phang is now part of independent left-wing activist media, instead of MSNBC. And I’m sure feels a lot freer to say what she thinks and reports what she knows now.

Now, to get into what I really want to talk about here. The New Democrats didn’t have anything to say about this story yesterday, intentionally. It was literally breaking as the blog post was going up that day and we didn’t want to weigh in on it, especially as every Democrat, including even some left-wing Democrats, were going out-of-their-way to express that “political violence has no place in American politics”. Which is simply false, it obviously does. And anytime you hear a politician say otherwise, they’re lying to you. Or they are so dumb,they routinely misspell their own name, or tie their shoes together. I don’t think it should be part of our politics, but it obviously is.

The other reason, TND (unlike the mainstream media) we wanted to have more information and facts to come out before we started talking about this story. The mainstream media, especially cable media, that has 24 hours a day to fill, everyday, will talk about goldfish swimming in water (of all places) all day, everyday, if they think it will draw ratings for them. Even if they don’t have 1 damn bit new of information to report about goldfish swimming in water. As well as give these long editorials “but what does it say about America that we have political violence in it”, as if they’re trying to win an Oscar, or something. “The 2025 Oscar for fake emotion on live air goes to…

Well, 24 hours later, we still don’t know much more about this story. But, we do have a long track record of just ridiculous, hateful statements made by the late Mr. Charlie Kirk. And because of that, I could speculate for why someone might have murdered him. Sort of draw theories like how big city homicide detectives do (not just on TV) on why the murder was committed in the first place. Here are just a few of Mr Kirk’s past controversial statements.

Mr. Kirk’s past statements:

“Unfortunately I think it’s worth have some gun deaths every year, so we can have a 2nd Amendment and our other God-given rights. That’s a prudent deal. That is rational.”

If what we’ve seen so far about who the possible killer is and that person is a man and he has kids… maybe he lost a son or daughter to gun violence, you could see why that Kirk statement would piss off this man so much, that he would want to kill Charlie Kirk because of that. I don’t justify that, but there’s your reason.

Charlie Kirk on Dr. Martin L. King back in 2023:

“MLK was awful,” Kirk said. “He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”

Charlie Kirk on abortion, showing exactly why he was never a doctor:

“It is a growing consensus in the pro-life world that abortion is never medically necessary,” he told one female student, who then asked, if someone raped his hypothetical 10-year-old daughter, would he want the child to be born.”

Charlie Kirk on American women:

“Young women, they don’t value having children. Trump voters, young men, they want family, children and legacy. Young women who voted for Kamala Harris, they want careerism, consumerism and loneliness.”

I’m not saying any 1 of these quotes are the reason why Charlie Kirk was murdered yesterday. If the killer is a father, who has lost a kid, or kids to gun violence, Mr. Kirk’s quote about the 2nd Amendment, I think would qualify as a damn good motive. But that’s an if.

But I’m also not going to say that “America is worst off now because we have 1 less Charlie Kirk”. Because I would lying if I said that. I don’t feel sorry for him. I do feel sorry for his young son and young daughter. Growing up without your father and not even knowing him very well… I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even if you are the son or daughter Charlie Kirk. But he may have thought his kids having to grow up without him, might have been worth it in his grand quest to “take back America and return America to the real Americans”, anyway.

Source:The New Democrat

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Bill Scher: Ezra Klein (Almost) Gets It Right

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“Democrats shouldn’t abet authoritarianism by supporting MAGA spending bills. But neither should they own a government shutdown. There’s a better way.

The headline of Ezra Klein’s buzzy New York Times column—“Stop Acting Like This Is Normal”—is correct, because “Democrats cannot pretend this is a normal Republican administration.” The narrow prescription Klein offers congressional Democrats is correct: “Should Senate Democrats partner with Senate Republicans to fund this government? I don’t see how they can.”

But with the September 30 deadline for passing spending bills necessary to keep the federal government open, Klein takes his strategic advice for Democrats one step too far. He wants Democrats to force a government shutdown and take the credit for it.

The case for a shutdown is this: A shutdown is an attentional event. It’s an effort to turn the diffuse crisis of Trump’s corrupting of the government into an acute crisis that the media, that the public, will actually pay attention to. Right now, Democrats have no power, so no one cares what they have to say. A shutdown would make people listen.

This is the assumption that every shutdown agitator has made and learned the hard way is completely wrong. I summed up the legacy of shutdown failures two years ago for the Washington Monthly:

The late 1995 to early 1996 Republican-led shutdown couldn’t force President Bill Clinton to swallow deep budget cuts. The 2013 Republican-led shutdown couldn’t force President Barack Obama to defund his signature health care program. The 2018 Democratic-led shutdown couldn’t force President Donald Trump to accept legislation protecting “Dreamers” from deportation. The late 2018/early 2019 Trump–led shutdown couldn’t force congressional Democrats to fund his border wall.

These failures taught us that shutdowns make people forget what you have to say. Public attention shifts to how shutdowns hurt average Americans and how one political party is willing to harm constituents to play political games. Once public opinion quickly turns, the shutdown agitators invariably realize the shutdown failed to provide negotiating leverage and eventually cave…

Source:New York Times columnist Ezra Klein.

From The Washington Monthly

I completely agree with Bill Scher on this and surprising to no one, I completely disagree with Ezra Klein on this. And to show you how consistent I’ve been on this, here is some of what I wrote about this issue back in March and last week as well:

“So it looks like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and company have selected option a, which is to try to block this bill in hopes that Senate Majority Leader John Thune would sit down with Leader Schumer and they would work out a compromise. That’s a really risky play. A lot of political incentive for the Majority Leader to say:

“No. We’re in charge, we won the elections, we have The White House and Congress. Go ahead and shut the government down and take the blame for it”.

Which would be my response even as a Democrat, (from a political standpoint) if the Democrats controlled The White House and Congress right now and someone was drunk, high, stupid, and crazy enough (trust me: plenty of people with all those characteristics at once in Washington) to elect me Senate Majority Leader.

If John Thune doesn’t compromise here, this would be the best case scenario:

Senate Democrats relent and buck their leader and maybe 10 of them vote for cloture, just to avid the government shutdown on Friday.

Worst case scenario: the government shuts down this weekend because Leader Schumer holds his members together and. So now we’re in a shutdown next week and maybe Senate Democrats relent then because the politics here for them (especially if they’re up for reelection in 26) is too bad for them…

From The New Democrat

“If I’m Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files.

Again, if I were Chairman Martin, I don’t want September to be the month of Chuck Schumer’s government shutdown and when will Federal employees get to go back to work and will the one’s who are still working during the government shutdown… will they get paid for the work that they did when the full government reopens, etc.

I don’t want the Democratic opposition to be the issue this September and remind voters why Democrats lost in 2024. I want everything to be about MAGA and this MAGA government and their incompetence and corruption, led by their Dear Cult Leader, Donald John Trump.

Everybody knows what the Democratic Left wants… they want total chaos and then try to blame all that chaos and gridlock, on Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader John Thune, and President Trump. And you do that by literally blocking everything that comes to the Senate floor. They want Chuck Schumer to become Mitch McConnell’s political twin brother in Congress. The problem is, no one else in the country wants that and when you only at best represents maybe 1/3 of even your own party, you are not in charge of anything that’s important in Washington, anyway…

From The New Democrat

There is a very good reason why we’ve only had 1 government shutdown that was pushed by the opposition party when they were also the minority parry in Congress, but had enough seats in the Senate to prevent funding bills from going through, with just a simple majority vote… at least in the Internet age: this would never work!!!

The Ezra Klein’s, the Ron Filipkowski’s, and anyone else on the activist far-left in America, will just say:

“Republicans are in complete control of the government. Even a Senate Democratic led shutdown would be blamed on The White House and Congressional Republicans, because they are in complete control. And most Americans don’t understand the cloture rule in the Senate”.

Fine. But there’s 1 big problem with that: Most Americans still get their news from the media. The national Washington media understands Congressional rules and procedures that look like they could’ve been written in Greek or Arabic, as far as how complicated they are.

The voters will learn very quickly that if the government shutdowns, it will be because of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Senate Democrats. If Leader Schumer lost his political brain in the Potomac River or some place… perhaps he went out drinking with Senator Markwayne Mullin 1 night and lost all his brain cells. (Inside Washington joke)

Again, as I wrote about this last week:

“If I’m Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files…

The Democratic Left wants the Democratic Leadership to fight back. Great. But you don’t do that by shutting down the government, putting people out-of-work, especially in this weak Trump job market and forcing Federal workers to work for free, especially when grocery prices are going up thanks to President Trump’s tariffs.

This is how Democrats fight back:

This week Congress is debating the 2025 Defense Authorization Act. Senate Democrats, led by Leader Schumer, have an amendment that would get Congress to force the DOJ to release all the Epstein files, that are currently classified and hidden from the public. Senate Democrats could also force the Senate to vote on amendments that would repeal President Trump’s tariffs.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his House Democrats can force the House to vote on resolutions to release the Epstein files and repeal the Trump tariffs as well.

This is how you “fight back”, you continue to pressure this MAGA Congress to vote on amendments and resolutions, that are popular with the public at-large, but are very unpopular with President Trump and his voters. And you do this for the next 12 months as well, or until the Epstein files are completely released and the Trump tariffs are gone. But you don’t “fight back” by politically blowing up a building and hoping you can get out of the building before the whole damn building blows up and you aren’t hurt by it.

Source:The New Democrat

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Dan Mitchell: Socialism From Republicans Is Just as Bad as Socialism From Democrats

Posted on September 9, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“When Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination in the New York City Mayor’s race, many Republicans warned that his plan for government-run grocery stores was socialism.

Since Mamdani wasn’t threatening (at least not yet) to shut down private supermarkets, his plan would not lead to the usual consequences of socialism, such as bread lines and food rationing.

But it is a given that his plan would be a money-losing boondoggle.

So Republicans were correct to mock and criticize his vote-buying scheme.

Yet I wonder if those same Republicans will also condemn Donald Trump’s far more expensive and far more damaging plan to have the government become a dominant shareholder in Intel.

For more information on this depressing development, let’s start with the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about Intel last week. Here are some excerpts…

Source:Dan Mitchell is no one’s Socialist.

From Dan Mitchell

FOX News anchor Jesse Watters from last night arguing in favor of Socialism. Conservatives, where have you gone? We miss you: 

“Prices are still high. Can’t Trump just bring in some corporate executives and just say guys, there’s going to be a socialist revolution in this country if you don’t do something, please do something?” 

From Barbara Sobel

Being a Gen-Xer who came of age during the early 1990s, I’m old enough to remember when the Republican Party was the party of economic freedom, private enterprise, keep the government out of the economy, taxes and regulations down, let the “free market” and mother nature take it’s course, etc. That’s why Conservatives became Republicans in the late 1960s, especially after the emergence of the New-Left in the Democratic Party, along with the Cold War as well. 

But go up 20 plus years with the emergence of Donald John Trump and his political takeover of the Republican Party… the Department of Defense might no longer be the Department of Defense… maybe it’s the “Department of War” now, but the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party.

I know hearing “the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party”, sounds like “fish are no longer fish”, “prison inmates are no longer prison inmates. They’re now institutional guests.” But my point here is what’s called the Republican Party today, is at the very least no longer a conservative party. This is no longer the Republican Party of fiscal and economic conservatism, or even of national security conservatism. This is now just Donald Trump’s party and whoever is there, are only his guests and are only allowed to stay, as long as they’re 100% loyal to The Donald. 

The New Democrat has been talking about Donald Trump being a Socialist, since back in May when I wrote a counter-post to conservative columnist Kevin Williamson’s piece arguing that Donald Trump is-in-fact a Socialist. And here is some of what I wrote about that: 

“And The White House is out of believable, positive spin, The Donald himself has even run out of decent lies in how to spin his bad economy, (I guess the Trump tariffs have even hurt TrumpLies.Inc) so they’re desperate and are trying to come up with anything that they can think of at the time, to try to justify (because they can’t spin) the weaknesses in the American economy right now.

So Donald John Trump: the Manhattan real estate mogul, the self-proclaimed billionaire, the “king of reality TV”, sounding like a Socialist, because he’s talking about sacrifice and the need for Americans to cut back. When no one in his White House, including himself, would ever even consider cutting back anything that they enjoy in life, to benefit someone else who isn’t doing as well… I don’t think there’s anything more to it then what I just laid out. Donald Trump is not a Socialist… but he’s a desperate politician, to the point if sounding like a Socialist is what he needs to do to improve his political fortune, that’s exactly what he will do.” 

From The New Democrat

And even Larry Kudlow who gets down on his knees to pray to his Dear Leader Donald every day on his show… even Kudlow didn’t like the President’s socialist proposal for the U.S. Government to become part of Intel a couple weeks ago. Here is some of what I wrote about that: 

“As I’ve said before, (or something close to this) Larry Kudlow, Erick Erickson, and Steve Moore, are no one’s radical Hippies or flaming Socialists. Pre-Trump, both Kudlow and Moore would be what you would describe as Northeastern, country club, neoconservative, supply-side, Republicans. They were people who believed that government should be out of the private sector and just let companies operate freely in what they would call a free market.

Erick Erickson, perhaps a little to the left (key word being little) but he’s basically the Gen-X, male version of someone like a Phyllis Schlafly from the 1960s and 70s. Very radical as a right-wing culture warrior, but not a racist or an ethnic bigot. But someone you could describe as a true believer when it comes to what has been called Christian Nationalism. But someone who combined his radical, right-wing cultural war politics, with a more conservative-libertarian view of government when it comes to economic policy.

So when you even have people who are true Conservatives when it comes to economic policy, tell you that state socialism is a really bad idea and you are also on the Right, you should at least listen to them. Unless you are not a Conservative, and more of a State Socialist and someone who thinks… 

From The New Democrat

But I think my colleague Erik Schneider made the key point about Donald J. Trump back in August as far as how The Donald governs and does his own business: 

“If you know anything about Donald John Trump, you know that the only 2 things that he believes in, are himself and absolute power for himself. He’s not interested in political philosophy and doesn’t really practice any particular political philosophy. I’ve made this point before but if he thought acing and talking like a Socialist… hell, a Communist, would guarantee himself absolute power over anyone who even tries to confront him and challenge his power, that’s what he would talk and act like.

Donald Trump chose American, Anglo-Saxon nationalism, 10 years ago, because he saw a group of Americans who thought America wasn’t just going to hell (to paraphrase Eric Schnurer) but has been there at least since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

And DJT rightly calculated that if he became their leader, (cult hero or icon, god even, would be more accurate) he could use these people (which is exactly what he’s been doing) to not just become President of the United States, (which is something he thought about doing since his early 40s) but obtain absolute power for himself and be untouchable for the rest of his life. If you think about it, his “MAGA” movement, is the best con he’s ever pulled and probably the best political con ever pulled in American history, as far as how successful he’s been with it politically… 

From The New Democrat

To put it another way: Donald Trump is the Nihilist of American politics. He believes in nothing, at least philosophically. For you Seinfeld fans, if your show is the show about nothing, Donald J. Trump would be the perfect character for your show, because he’s about nothing other than himself. That’s why we have a President who is a registered Republican, but who is sort of governing like a Socialist on economic policy, because he thinks that personally benefits him, which is the only thing that he’s ever interested in.

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Chris Cillizza: Donald Trump Said No Lewd Letter To Jeffrey Epstein Existed

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Erik Schneider

“That looks a WHOLE lot like what the Wall Street Journal described back in July:

The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.

The letter concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

At the time, Trump insisted the whole story was a fraud. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” he told the Journal. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”

Trump went on to sue the Journal’s reporters, Journal publisher Dow Jones and its parent company News Corp for defamation. He is seeking $10 billion — yes with a “b” — in damages. The suit claims that the letter was “nonexistent..

Source:Chris Cillizza on The Wall Street Journal’s breaking story about President Trump.

From Chris Cillizza

Also from Chris Cillizza:

“Donald Trump long insisted that the infamous Jeffrey Epstein “birthday book” letter didn’t exist. He even sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on it. But this week, the House Oversight Committee obtained the actual letter — and it looks exactly like what was originally described.

So what does this mean? Did Trump lie about writing the letter, or is it somehow a forgery? In this video, Chris Cillizza breaks down the evidence, Trump’s track record with the truth, his history with Epstein, and what this revelation could mean for the broader fight over releasing the Epstein files.”

From Chris Cillizza

Our whole point here… or 1 of our 2 major points (to go along with the fact that convicted felons aren’t good spokespeople when it comes to morality and what is appropriate and they don’t make credible witnesses, especially when they’re serial liars) is the whole Watergate lesson: the coverup is always worst than the crime. Which is why Fred Schneider and Derik Schneider have been arguing for The White House and DOJ to just put it all out there, instead of pretending that it doesn’t even exist at all… or it’s just some “Democratic hoax.” As Fred Schneider wrote 2 weeks ago:

“But my point is, for reasons that I’ve already laid out, is Donald Trump literally has nothing to lose here in releasing them. He’s already the most unpopular 2nd term President, at least in the television and internet age. People who dislike and hate him now, won’t dislike and hate him more after those files are released to the public.

When the far-right of the Republican Party was talking about “family values”, morality and character, the need for these things in our government, that was just something they used to attack Democrats. That’s not what they care about. Someone could literally be a convicted felon, a serial liar and adulterer… if that person is on their side and represents their political values. And Mr. Trump’s professional celebrity base, would probably just view him as a bigger “rockstar” and “badass”, after the Epstein files are released.

The main lesson from Watergate that both Republicans and Democrats have failed to learn the last 50 plus years, that once a bad story is about to break, or has broken, is that the worst thing that you can do is to try to cover it up. What you do, is what a good lawyer would do in court: get the bad information and evidence about your side out, before the opposition and the media does it for you. Get ahead of the story and put your own spin on it, before you lose the narrative of it.

As long as The White House and Trump DOJ try to cover up this story, the longer it will be in the news, along with the slowing economy, rising prices, everything else that has gone wrong since Donald Trump became President again. And that’s not where you want to be going into an election year. So of course they should release.”

From The New Democrat

And as Derik wrote last week:

“As far as the Epstein files, it’s hard to imagine a sitting U.S. President being more unpopular than Donald John Trump. He’s now in Joe Biden’s range as far as political unpopularity, with his low 40s and upper 30s approval rating. Releasing the Epstein files even with him all over them, couldn’t hurt himself anymore than what he’s already done to his own political standing. If anything, it would probably just make him seem cooler with his reality TV base and perhaps even Independents who voted for him, because they think he’s a “badass” or something:

“Yeah!!! The Donald rolls with pimps and sex traffickers!!! He’s even a bigger badass than we thought”

Or phrase that last part anyway you want.”

From The New Democrat

But when you don’t get everything out there that’s against you, before the other side (including people in your own party) and the media does it to you, you are now the armed robber who decides to shoot the people in the bank, because he doesn’t want any witnesses and you don’t decide to do that until you have the money. You just added not just multiple murder 1 counts to your criminal conspiracy, on top of your armed bank robbery. You just made it worst for yourself.

The White House and DOJ already know how much of Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, from the case that the first Trump DOJ put together against Jeffrey Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, from back in 2018-19. Now it’s just a matter when the Congress and the people will get the whole story themselves, or most of it. And how the public gets that story.

Donald Trump could lie literally until American football is played on the Moon in real life. He’s literally capable of doing that. But the more he lies about this and the more the people know what’s actually the truth instead, the worst he and his party look. Which isn’t a good thing for a President with a low 40s approval rating, presiding over a weak economy, with weak job growth and rising inflation, going into an election year.

Source:The New Democrat

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Inside Politics With Dana Bash: America Lost Jobs For The First Time Since 2020

Posted on September 5, 2025 by FredSchneiderUS

“Friday’s jobs report painted a miserable picture of the labor market in practically every metric.

In addition to the weaker-than-expected monthly total of 22,000 jobs added last month and the revised June figures showing the economy shed jobs for the first time in five years, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% from 4.2%”

Source:CNN with a look at the American economy.

From CNN

I don’t claim to be an economist… but only because I’m not. Hopefully that’s not too simple for anyone who sees this and just seems like a natural fact instead. I guess I could dress up like an economist, or get a blue suit somewhere, perhaps grow a beard, get a pipe, etc… but it’s almost 2 months until Halloween. Besides, I gave up Halloween when I was like 15. And if I were to dress up for Halloween… safe bet it wouldn’t be as an economist.

My quick analysis about this jobs report, is employers and consumers don’t like tariffs. (Don’t need to be a Nobel Prize economist to figure that 1 out) When employers are worried about prices going up and equipment and all the things that they need to keep their business going.. when the cost of business for them goes up, or they’re worried about their cost of business going up, like with tariffs, they hire less because they’re worried about their cost of business too much, to expand their business. When employers hirer less, production also goes down because they have fewer employees working for them.

But what I’m really interested in here, is something I know something about, which is the politics here. As Astead Herndon said on this panel:

“Usually when we get to this point in politics, we ask the question “who is to blame… who will the voters blame?” I think Trump has actually taken care of that question for us because he made such a show about tariffs, he made such a stamp of this as his economy…

As my colleague Derik Schneider said on Tuesday:

“If I’m Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files.

Again, if I were Chairman Martin, I don’t want September to be the month of Chuck Schumer’s government shutdown and when will Federal employees get to go back to work and will the one’s who are still working during the government shutdown… will they get paid for the work that they did when the full government reopens, etc.

I don’t want the Democratic opposition to be the issue this September and remind voters why Democrats lost in 2024. I want everything to be about MAGA and this MAGA government and their incompetence and corruption, led by their Dear Cult Leader, Donald John Trump…

From The New Democrat

That’s the politics of this situation of this moment right now. Republicans are in complete charge of everything in Washington, when you look at the executive branch and Congress. And Republicans will argue that Senate Democrats can block just about everything and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer can stall Congress, pretty much all he wants. Fine. But the key words here are:

“Senate Democrats can block just about everything”

Everything that Republicans have done since taking over in January, has been by themselves. Either though reconciliation through Congress, where the House and Senate can both pass legislation, just by majority vote, with no input from Democrats at all, or through President Trump’s executive orders. And remember back in April when the President announced his tariff policy and how much he bragged about that and then go up 5 months later and job growth is even weaker now, and inflation is higher and Republicans are in complete control in Washington.

And if Democrats are smart (meaning we’re not talking about Chuck Schumer’s government shutdown 2-3 weeks from now) and don’t politically shoot all their toes off as they’re climbing the hill to take back Congress next year, or at least the House and win a bunch of governors races and legislatures as well, 2026 should be a great year for them.

Source:The New Democrat

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Ben Meiselas & Doug Jones: The Ghislaine Maxwell Meeting With DOJ

Posted on September 4, 2025 by kireschneider

“MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on GOP Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson failing to successfully cover up Trump’s dark past during recess and Meiselas interviews former Alabama Senator and top Alabama federal prosecutor Doug Jones about his response to what is going on with Trump’s cover up and more.”

Source:Medias Touch with a look at The MAGA Don & MAGA Mike.

From the Meidas Touch

As we’ve been arguing at The New Democrat for 2 weeks now… this whole relationship between Trump DOJ and Ghislaine Maxwell, is only about 1 thing: trying to make Donald J. Trump look as good as possible. And seem completely innocent of having any real relationship between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. As Fred Schneider wrote last week:

“I think Kristy Greenberg hit a home rune (or, should I say “grand slam” since that word has something to do with both baseball and tennis and the US Open is going on right now) when she was talking about Ghislaine Maxwell and the word “inappropriate”. Greenberg was talking about the interview that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (who still seems to think that he’s Donald Trump’s defense lawyer) and he asked Maxwell:

“Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein ever say or do anything that President Trump did anything inappropriate with anybody in your world?”

And Maxwell responded with:

“Absolutely never in any context.”

So Kristy Greenberg’s point here is that you don’t let the defendant (or in this case convict) get to decide for you what is “inappropriate” and what is “appropriate”. She’s been in prison for 5 years now because she was convicted of a lot of inappropriate actions. (And based on the evidence, did some really inappropriate things) And we’re not talking about serial jaywalker, (if you are a serial jaywalker, stay out of Washington and Chicago right now) or a shoplifter, who only steals because they are addicted to gum…

From The New Democrat

And as Ederik Schneider said last week as well:

“But I think “inappropriate” is a better word here because it’s clearer and gets right to the point. And when you are a sex trafficker, sex trafficking probably seems “appropriate” to you. Just like a rapist who thinks that the women that he raped, wouldn’t get sexy any other way, or would never get better sex, then what they got from him, so he was just doing them a favor. Or a serial murderer who thinks that his victims deserved to die. Both the murderer and rapist would be 100% wrong, but you can be wrong without lying.

I never met Ghislaine Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein, (I guess God has been looking out for me in this case) and I’m not a psychologist, but I’m thinking Maxwell hates prison so much right now, it’s so different from her former life and she’s been able to follow the news enough in prison, she clearly knew Donald Trump before he became President and maybe she thinks she has a credible dossier about him.

I think what Maxwell is thinking here is, that if she tells Trump.Inc everything they want to hear, including lying her head off to make The Donald look good here and risk future perjury charges against her from a different DOJ, that Trump DOJ will go easy on her and perhaps even let her out of prison well before her current release date. I think that’s her play for freedom right now. And we’ll see if it works or not.”

From The New Democrat

As Doug Jones said so himself, (who is a career lawyer) Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Ghislaine Maxwell’s former prison (before she was moved to Club Fed) in Tallahassee, Florida, on behalf of his client, (of course not the American people. Don’t be silly.) President Donald Trump John Trump, to ask Maxwell some of the most leading questions that she could possibly be asked:

“Did you ever see Donald Trump do anything inappropriate with Jeffrey Epstein?

Was Donald Trump ever aware of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking operation?

How well did did Mr. Trump know Mr. Epstein?

How well did you know Mr. Trump before he became President?”

Those aren’t the exact questions that DAG Blanche asked Maxwell, word for word. But those are the defense lawyer style questions that he asked her.

Imagine being a prosecutor and you have you the defendant on the witness stand and that person is on trial for sex trafficking and you have all the evidence in the world that you need to convict her… but there is 1 catch: you don’t ask her to explain all the evidence against her, or try to catch her in a lie, or multiple lies. What you do instead is, declare her a hostile witness and ask her defense leading questions like:

“Do you think it’s possible that the police and prosecutors just planted all this evidence against you?

Do you think that some disguised themself as you at all those sex parties?

Do you have an evil twin sister who was committing all these crimes and it was her doing all these things and not you?”

Of course the defendant would answer yes to all those questions, especially if they’re coming from the prosecution and the person is a serial liar and they simply believe they can get off and convince the jury that they’re completely innocent. That’s what Mr. Blanche was doing to her on behalf of his client Donald J. Trump.

Go back to, I guess it was March, or early spring of 2017, Donald Trump had been President for about 2 months at that point and his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announces that he’s staying out of the Russia campaign interference investigation, because he worked for the 2016 Trump Campaign and he believed that he had a conflict of interest. And at I think a cabinet meeting or press conference, the President was asked about that and he said something to the affect:

“The Justice Department is or should be like my own personal law firm and just represent my interests.”

Well, President Trump has that now, thanks to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the 1st and 2nd officers at DOJ. Between the 2 of them, they’re responsible for running that entire department. And they’re simply doing that to defend the President’s interests not much more.

Source:The New Democrat

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Kristy Greenberg: THE CASE FOR CHARGING GHISLAINE MAXWELL WITH LYING TO THE DOJ

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Ederik Schneider

“Ghislaine Maxwell lied repeatedly during her interview with DOJ Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Making false statements to a federal officer is a crime. Former SDNY Criminal Division Deputy Chief Kristy Greenberg walks through the evidence of Maxwell’s lies and makes the case for why the DOJ should charge Maxwell with making false statements in her interview with Blanche.”

Source:Courtside With Kristy Greenberg with a look at convicted serial murderer Ghislaine Maxwell.

From Courtside With Kristy Greenberg

As Fred Schneider wrote about Ghislaine Maxwell last week:

“We have an expression… or joke, here at The New Democrat about liars. And it goes something like: “She has the credibility of a compulsive liar”. And if we were talking about a man here… replace “she” with “he” in our little expression. If the Southern District of New York didn’t have Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein dead to rights on the sex trafficking, where Epstein is probably looking at life in prison, if he didn’t take his own life and went to trial and Maxwell got 20 years, she would be a convicted perjurer right now, as well.

And yet this is the person that Trump.Inc wants to use as their character witness to prove that Mr. Trump wasn’t seriously involved with either of these distinguished individuals. Back in 2017, President Trump said he thought the U.S. Department of Justice was his own personal law firm. 8 years later, looks like he’s gotten that wish.”

From The New Democrat

I just want to focus on 1 point that Kristy Greenberg made, first and then I’ll get into what I really want to talk about here.

Ghislaine Maxwell said she wasn’t present and didn’t participate at sex acts recorded by Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. And the more obvious lie here, is that she hardly knew Jeffrey Epstein at all. So I guess when they were hugging each in those photos and on video… Epstein even kissed her a few times, that was just love at first sight, but they never went even further than that. Or they mistook each other for other people. Or another possibly and the fact in this case: they already knew each other very well.

The 2nd point I want to focus on here, Ghislaine Maxwell said that she had no clue that there was anything “shady” going on in Jeffrey Epstein’s world. But as Fred Schneider said last week:

“So Kristy Greenberg’s point here is that you don’t let the defendant (or in this case convict) get to decide for you what is “inappropriate” and what is “appropriate”. She’s been in prison for 5 years now because she was convicted of a lot of inappropriate actions. (And based on the evidence, did some really inappropriate things) And we’re not talking about serial jaywalker, (if you are a serial jaywalker, stay out of Washington and Chicago right now) or a shoplifter, who only steals because they are addicted to gum.

In Ghislaine Maxwell’s case, we’re talking about a sex trafficker, who was involved with Jeffrey Epstein in this criminal enterprise, for 20-25 years, before they finally got caught in 2019. But according to Deputy Attorney General Blanche, she qualifies as someone who knows the difference between “appropriate” and “inappropriate”. If Ghislaine Maxwell knows anything about “inappropriate”, she knows how to behave very badly. And even how to get way with it, up to a point. She was a woman behaving very badly, for. a very long time.

And if the Deputy Attorney General of the United States is going to make Ghislaine Maxwell a spokesperson for what’s “appropriate” and “inappropriate”… why stop there? Why not he invite the Idaho college serial murderer Bryan Kohberger to give a series of speeches on the importance of human life and being pro-life? He could give those speeches from his prison cell since we all know how private of an individual he his and doesn’t like coming out of his closet very often…

Kristy Greenberg calls that a lie saying that Maxwell lied when she said:

“I never saw anything shady going on in Mr. Epstein’s world”.

But I think “inappropriate” is a better word here because it’s clearer and gets right to the point. And when you are a sex trafficker, sex trafficking probably seems “appropriate” to you. Just like a rapist who thinks that the women that he raped, wouldn’t get sexy any other way, or would never get better sex, then what they got from him, so he was just doing them a favor. Or a serial murderer who thinks that his victims deserved to die. Both the murderer and rapist would be 100% wrong, but you can be wrong without lying.

I never met Ghislaine Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein, (I guess God has been looking out for me in this case) and I’m not a psychologist, but I’m thinking Maxwell hates prison so much right now, it’s so different from her former life and she’s been able to follow the news enough in prison, she clearly knew Donald Trump before he became President and maybe she thinks she has a credible dossier about him.

I think what Maxwell is thinking here is, that if she tells Trump.Inc everything they want to hear, including lying her head off to make The Donald look good here and risk future perjury charges against her from a different DOJ, that Trump DOJ will go easy on her and perhaps even let her out of prison well before her current release date. I think that’s her play for freedom right now. And we’ll see if it works or not.

Source:The New Democrat

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CBS News: New Push From Lawmakers to Release Epstein Files as Congress Returns From Recess

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“Democrats in Congress are making a new push for files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case as lawmakers return from their August recess. CBS News congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns has more on that and the looming government shutdown deadline.”

Source:CBS News with a look at Jeffrey Epstein’s files.

From CBS News

As I wrote about this back in March and no… nothing has changed my mind about a possible Chuck Schumer government shutdown, even in September:

“So it looks like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and company have selected option a, which is to try to block this bill in hopes that Senate Majority Leader John Thune would sit down with Leader Schumer and they would work out a compromise. That’s a really risky play. A lot of political incentive for the Majority Leader to say:

“No. We’re in charge, we won the elections, we have The White House and Congress. Go ahead and shut the government down and take the blame for it”.

Which would be my response even as a Democrat, (from a political standpoint) if the Democrats controlled The White House and Congress right now and someone was drunk, high, stupid, and crazy enough (trust me: plenty of people with all those characteristics at once in Washington) to elect me Senate Majority Leader.

If John Thune doesn’t compromise here, this would be the best case scenario:

Senate Democrats relent and buck their leader and maybe 10 of them vote for cloture, just to avid the government shutdown on Friday.

Worst case scenario: the government shuts down this weekend because Leader Schumer holds his members together and. So now we’re in a shutdown next week and maybe Senate Democrats relent then because the politics here for them (especially if they’re up for reelection in 26) is too bad for them…

From The New Democrat

The New Democrat has had 3 posts about the Jeffrey Epstein and his very own Epstein files (that he didn’t bother to take to his grave) the previous 2 weeks. From Fred Schneider:

“But my point is, for reasons that I’ve already laid out, is Donald Trump literally has nothing to lose here in releasing them. He’s already the most unpopular 2nd term President, at least in the television and internet age. People who dislike and hate him now, won’t dislike and hate him more after those files are released to the public.

When the far-right of the Republican Party was talking about “family values”, morality and character, the need for these things in our government, that was just something they used to attack Democrats. That’s not what they care about. Someone could literally be a convicted felon, a serial liar and adulterer… if that person is on their side and represents their political values. And Mr. Trump’s professional celebrity base, would probably just view him as a bigger “rockstar” and “badass”, after the Epstein files are released.

The main lesson from Watergate that both Republicans and Democrats have failed to learn the last 50 plus years, that once a bad story is about to break, or has broken, is that the worst thing that you can do is to try to cover it up. What you do, is what a good lawyer would do in court: get the bad information and evidence about your side out, before the opposition and the media does it for you. Get ahead of the story and put your own spin on it, before you lose the narrative of it.

As long as The White House and Trump DOJ try to cover up this story, the longer it will be in the news, along with the slowing economy, rising prices, everything else that has gone wrong since Donald Trump became President again. And that’s not where you want to be going into an election year. So of course they should release.”

From The New Democrat

I’ll talk about why I still oppose a Senate Democratic led government shutdown and then the Epstein files, but first what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer might be considering, first.

If I’m Ken Martin (the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) right now, I want September to be about the slowing Trump economy, with weak job growth, rising prices, and weak economic growth, etc and winning the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the Epstein files.

Again, if I were Chairman Martin, I don’t want September to be the month of Chuck Schumer’s government shutdown and when will Federal employees get to go back to work and will the one’s who are still working during the government shutdown… will they get paid for the work that they did when the full government reopens, etc.

I don’t want the Democratic opposition to be the issue this September and remind voters why Democrats lost in 2024. I want everything to be about MAGA and this MAGA government and their incompetence and corruption, led by their Dear Cult Leader, Donald John Trump.

Everybody knows what the Democratic Left wants… they want total chaos and then try to blame all that chaos and gridlock, on Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader John Thune, and President Trump. And you do that by literally blocking everything that comes to the Senate floor. They want Chuck Schumer to become Mitch McConnell’s political twin brother in Congress. The problem is, no one else in the country wants that and when you only at best represents maybe 1/3 of even your own party, you are not in charge of anything that’s important in Washington, anyway.

As far as the Epstein files, it’s hard to imagine a sitting U.S. President being more unpopular than Donald John Trump. He’s now in Joe Biden’s range as far as political unpopularity, with his low 40s and upper 30s approval rating. Releasing the Epstein files even with him all over them, couldn’t hurt himself anymore than what he’s already done to his own political standing. If anything, it would probably just make him seem cooler with his reality TV base and perhaps even Independents who voted for him, because they think he’s a “badass” or something:

“Yeah!!! The Donald rolls with pimps and sex traffickers!!! He’s even a bigger badass than we thought”.

Or phrase that last part anyway you want.

Source:The New Democrat

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Senator Joni Ernst Won’t Run For Reelection in 2026

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“Is Iowa a bellweather? Too early to tell, but the news is good! MAGA Senator Joni Ernst likely has some sooper dooper secret internal polling that scared the snot outta her. Tillis, Tuberville, McConnell also are OUT!”

Source:Cheri Jacobus having a good day.

From Cheri Jacobus

“Chuck Todd examines the electoral landscape and breaks down the path for Democrats to flip several senate seats and regain control of the chamber from Republicans and President Trump. He highlights North Carolina, Texas, and Maine as pickup opportunities, as well as several midwestern and southern states that could potentially be in play.”

Source:The Chuck ToddCast. Perhaps you are already familiar with this redhead.

From The Chuck ToddCast

To completely clear the air here and put everything out on the record… I didn’t like Chuck Todd that much when he was at NBC News and MSNBC. And it wasn’t just his cheesy goatee and urban, white-collar, hipster, drinks coffee all day, works and lives out of a loft, persona, that I didn’t like about him. I think he came off as some Washington establishment, wishy-washy, reporter, who doesn’t want to offend anybody. And that’s what concerns him the most. But since he’s left NBC News and has gone independent, he now seems to feel the freedom to speak his mind and do some real reporting now.

I’ll give credit where credit is due, Chuck Todd suggested that Senator Joni Ernst wouldn’t seek reelection in 2026, to serve in the next Congress… almost 2 months ago. And that’s why I’ve linked his video on this post. And to pick up on what Cheri (I used to be a center-right Republican before I was brainwashed by left-wing Hippies) Jacobus said about Senator Ernst and her position on the Medicaid cuts that were part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, when she said:

“We’re all going to die anyway”.

Back in early June, I think that was the clue (and maybe Chuck Todd picked up on that as well) that Senator Ernst just wasn’t feeling it anymore (to use a pop culture expression) that she had enough and just didn’t care anymore, including about her political career. That she had enough of Washington, enough of Congress, enough of being a U.S. Senator, enough of MAGA even and feeling the need to carry Donald Trump’s water everyday, just to preserve what’s left of her political career.

If Senator Ernst did decided to run for reelection, she would probably be the favorite, even against a popular, mainstream Democrat, who knows how to campaign for both blue-collar voters, as well as college town hipsters and whatever minorities live in Iowa. But it would probably be a tough reelection battle for her.

I’ve had a hard time finding a concrete number here, but President Trump’s current approval rating right now in Iowa, is around 45%. Iowa is a state that the Republican presidential nominee has to win every election, just like with Ohio. It’s a big enough state with 3.5 million people (give or take) that it’s important for the Republicans in the Electoral College. But a state where it can be competitive, with the right kind of Democrat.

So when a Republican President (like Donald J. Trump) is not even at 50%, when even 50% would be a low number for a Republican, that’s bad news for a Republican statewide elected official who is up for reelection. And again as Cheri Jacbous said, I think the Senator doesn’t even want to entertain a close reelection battle right now. If she runs at all, she wants to essentially know that she’s going to win, or not run at all.

So what does this mean for Senate Democrats in 2026?

To make Chuck Schumer the Senate Majority Leader again, in the next Congress, Democrats need a net gain of just 4 seats. A lot tougher than it sounds. They have 13 seats that are up like in Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, which might be Republicans’ best shot at winning any pickups because these aren’t MAGA states and they would have to run with President Trump (whether they like it or not) in order to get his voters to the polls for them. So if you look at Senate Democrats chances here, they have to hold their own seats and not lose anything. I think that part is not just doable, but probably likely right now.

But the 2nd part in the Democrats scenario is they still need a net pickup of 4, just to win the Senate back.

So you look at North Carolina with Senator Thom Tillis retiring and former Governor Roy Cooper, who was a popular Democrat there, is probably the now the favorite there to replace Senator Thillis.

Look at Ohio with Republican Senator Jon Husted running to a full-term to replace Vice President Vance in the Senate. Again, The President is under 50% there, blue-collar, populist Democrat Sherrod Brown, who won 3 Senate races there, will probably be Senator Husted’s opponent there.

Maine is another solid possibility. Senator Susan Collins is like in the low 40s there and might not even run for reelection. The problem is who do Democrats nominate to run for Senate there. Maine gets stereotyped (and Maine Democrats seem to believe this as well) as a much larger Vermont, a place where both Socialists and Hippies are welcome and feel very comfortable there. And those are the type of Democrats that they tend to nominate statewide there. The problem is, Maine despite being a large state in territory, is almost 100% rural and completely small town, blue collar, and with a lot of small college towns as well. You don’t get elected there statewide, if you don’t win blue-collar voters, with a majority.

After North Carolina, Ohio, and Maine, I think Iowa now that Senator Ernst is not seeking reelection, is a real possibility for Democrats… with the right candidate, Similar with Maine, Democrats would need a candidate who can win both blue-collar, as well as young, college town, hipsters, who are part-time voters and want to be inspired by a candidate before they vote for that person. So that’s Iowa Democrats next task here: finding a candidate to run statewide, who can put that coalition of voters together, who is under 60, (55 or under, would be better) who is popular, with young people, but who can communicate with blue-collar voters as well. And last, but just as important as anything else… who is not a leftist.

Some political analysts are looking at Louisiana, if Senator Bill Cassidy doesn’t either run for reelection, or loses the primary to a MAGA member. I’ll take a look a Louisiana, when Senator Cassidy is not the Republican candidate there for 26. And the same thing with Texas, if Senator John Cornyn loses the Republican primary to Ken Paxton, that race could become playable, with the right Democrat.

But the House, is probably gone for Republicans right now. The question might only be now how many seats do they lose. Democrats only need 4 seats, but they would obviously like a governing majority. But I think the Senate is in play as well… I’ve believed that for a few months now. But Democrats might not need a straight flush, but they have to hold their own and probably win North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, and Iowa, to win back the Senate in 26.

Source:The New Democrat

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