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- Inside the Quiet Republican Effort to Flip Fetterman
It’s a few days after the election this November, and the results have become clear: Democrats have netted the four seats they need to claim a Senate majority. But then there’s a disturbance in the force: Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump persuade Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) to switch parties or at least become an independent to ensure Republicans retain power in the chamber. It’s a scenario that’s becoming less fantastical by the day. The political environment is curdling for Republicans, and the quiet campaign to lure Fetterman across the aisle is underway. Trump has made the sell, offering his patented total and complete endorsement plus a financial windfall to the Pennsylvanian. A handful of Senate Republicans are also gently feeling out Fetterman and responding to his concerns over the prospect of defecting from the Democratic Party, multiple high-level GOP officials tell me. If Fetterman does flip, according to officials who were given anonymity to talk about sensitive matters, it will be thanks in large part to his deepening friendship with a pair of senators and their high-profile spouses: Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and his wife Dina, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and her husband, Wesley. But the first-term Democrat — who’s infuriated his party with his harder line on immigration and staunch support for Israel, Trump nominees, government funding bills and most recently the president’s ballroom — isn’t yet persuaded. “I’m not changing,” Fetterman told me in an interview Friday when I asked if he was ruling out both becoming a Republican or turning independent. “I’m a Democrat, and I’m staying one. “ Yet, at least in private, he’s not totally rejecting dropping his “D.” When one senior Republican recently brought up the idea of becoming an independent to Fetterman, he absorbed the suggestion and didn’t embrace or reject the overture, according to a GOP official familiar with the conversation. In our interview, Fetterman said bluntly: “I’d be a shitty Republican.” There are his votes against big-ticket measures, such as last year’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, but also his liberal views on a raft of cultural issues. There’s something else, too: Fetterman has watched how his Republican colleagues who break from Trump, at different levels, have been treated. “Committed conservatives like Cassidy and Tillis are getting pushed out of their seats,” he noted. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2021, and the… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago - Why Elon Musk’s Friend Thinks He’s Wrong About AIWhat happens when you combine artificial intelligence with deadly weapons? That’s one of the pressing issues facing David Sacks, special adviser to President Donald Trump on all things AI. And as we see the rapid expansion and adoption of artificial intelligence — not to mention a growing anxiety over its potential for wreaking dystopian level havoc — Sacks is playing a key role in shaping White House policy around the burgeoning technology. Like his close friend, Elon Musk, Sacks was born in South Africa. He made a name for himself as a venture capitalist and a Silicon Valley veteran before Trump tapped him to serve as White House A.I. & Crypto Czar right after the 2024 election. (In March, Sacks transitioned to serve as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.) So given his background, it’s not surprising that when it comes to regulating AI, Sacks favors a “let them cook” approach. He’s convinced the way for the United States to win the global AI race is to move fast with minimally disruptive regulation. But with that approach comes a lot of questions about disruption to the workforce, lawsuits around problems AI has created, increased energy grid demands, all set to the backdrop of public fears around AI — and even Musk, an estranged co-founder of OpenAI, has expressed grave concerns about its potential dangers. But Sacks is an AI optimist. Yes, he says, there are potential threats — threats industry leaders are already working to eradicate. Over-regulating AI would put the U.S. at a serious disadvantage in the global marketplace “AI,” Sacks says, “is going to solve the problem that AI creates.”This interview has been edited for length and clarity. AI is a huge priority for the White House, and you have been the guy that has been helping build out the framework, setting the agenda of how the U.S. should really handle this. I want to start with that White House AI regulatory framework. It has these legislative recommendations guided by a vision of “permissionless innovation” and “minimally burdensome regulation.” Why do you think that a technology this powerful, this disruptive should be left mostly in the hands of private companies to control. Why the “let them cook” philosophy, as you call it? Well, I think the first thing to recognize is that we are in a globally competitive environment. We’re not the only… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 weeks ago
- What Canadians Are Grudgingly Learning From Trump’s Undiplomatic Ambassador
OTTAWA — The video playing was clearly Pete Hoekstra, the frequently combative U.S. ambassador to Canada. But something was off. He kept referring to Canada as a partner? “For all of the critical things that we need, Canada would be an ideal partner,” Hoekstra said in a prerecorded conversation at a conservative think tank in March. Hoekstra ticked off the ways the two countries could work together: deepened military cooperation in the Arctic, including through Trump’s “Golden Dome”; beefed-up energy cooperation on oil and gas, critical minerals and uranium; coordinating on artificial intelligence. At one point, he even cited the George W. Bush-era rhetoric of building a “fortress North America.” It was a detour from theacerbic,angry andhighly undiplomatic tone that Canadians had grown accustomed to from President Donald Trump’s man in Ottawa. The same man who wrote to The Globe and Maildemanding an apology for a column criticizing U.S. Olympic hockey players. The same man who reamed out a Canadian trade official with anexpletive-laden tirade at a high-profile gala. Yet here was Hoekstra, seemingly offering a helpful roadmap for exactly how Canada can partner with — and essentially survive — the United States under Trump. “I don’t do ‘diplomatic speak’ very well,” Hoekstra said in a wide-ranging interview Thursday. “I think when they listen to what I have to say, they know exactly what my viewpoint is. And they may disagree with it, but at least they understand where I’m coming from and where the United States of America is coming from.”Now one year into his job in the top diplomatic post, Hoekstra’s relationship with his Canadian hosts remains chilly. But it also seems as if both sides have at least begun to understand each other a bit more, with a pragmatic acceptance of their new realities. “Pay attention to Pete Hoekstra,” said a Canadian official familiar with Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. “I know he’s easy to hate and vilify, but some of the shit he says is channeling what the administration wants.” This official, like several others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a delicate relationship. Hoekstra also may have come to realize that he’s had some challenges getting his message out to a skeptical population. In addition to the relative olive branch in his remarks calling Canada a partner, he’s been venturing out to meet people across the nation’s provinces, including vocal critics. Hoekstra said… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago - It Took Charles a Lifetime to Be King. Now He Has to Deal With Trump.
“There are two tragedies in life,” the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said. “One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.” It’s easy to see King Charles III, the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, as a tragic figure. The king waited 73 long years to ascend the royal throne. Now three-and-a-half years into the job he craved his whole life, Charles faces myriad challenges: poor health, advancing years, estrangement from his California-dwelling son, and the Epstein-sized scandal enveloping his younger brother. And now this. What should have been a pinnacle moment in his reign — a state visit to America with all the pomp and ceremony that Washington can muster — has morphed into something much more serious: a high-stakes diplomatic mission to save Britain’s most important alliance. It’s hard for Americans to appreciate the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship in Britain. While Pete Hegseth cracks jokes about the once “big, bad Royal Navy,” Brits have long known the state of the nation’s armed forces is depressingly underpowered. But this never much mattered, given the endlessly touted “special relationship” with the United States. Images of FDR and Winston Churchill sharing cocktails; Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher locked in embrace; Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as the West’s bright young things; form part of a postwar national mythology. The bond is unbreakable, Brits have told themselves for 80 years. No nation is closer to the U.S. This special relationship — partly real, partly imagined — has allowed an entire generation in Britain to grow up feeling untouchable, safe under the impenetrable shield of the U.S. military umbrella. When anti-Brexit campaigners tried to warn in 2016 that leaving the EU would be a risk to national security, they were laughed out of town. Europe doesn't keep us safe, the Brexiteers said, convincingly. That job belongs to NATO — the most successful defensive alliance in modern history. Sure enough, Britain voted to leave the EU in June 2016. Donald Trump was elected president four months later.It’s taken another decade of turmoil to bring us to this point, but NATO now looks holed below the water line. It’s a “paper tiger,” Trump has said repeatedly over recent weeks, dropping hint after hint that he may no longer adhere to NATO’s central tenet — that an attack on any one of its members is an attack on… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago - Inside the Ballroom: Chaos and Confusion
One moment was utterly familiar: The massive ballroom at the Washington Hilton was filled with an indistinct buzz from thousands of mostly inconsequential conversations all blended together across a sea of hundreds of tightly packed tables, just like always happens before the formal program gets underway at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. The next moment was utterly bizarre: Women in gowns, men in tuxes, nearly everyone in the place crouching down on the floor as the ballroom turned quiet. When people tentatively lifted their gazes to survey the room we saw men with machine guns standing at the head table where President Donald Trump had been and cabinet secretaries being escorted by agents one-by-one out of the giant hall. The juxtaposition of those scenes may suggest a sudden, piercing realization of terror. Perhaps some in the room did experience it that way. For my part, and I sense for others around me, that’s not quite how it felt as the incident unfolded. The sensation instead was something akin to the blurred in-between zone of consciousness when a phone call awakens you in the middle of the night. Huh, what’s happening, I’m confused, is this for real? Donald Trump told reporters when he returned to the White House that the shots fired just outside the ballroom sounded to him like a food tray dropping. Yes — a good way of putting it. In my case, the noise was on the periphery of awareness, not enough to cause a jolt alarm or even to interrupt my conversation. (Others on the POLITICO team heard them clearly.) What happened next took place within seconds but seemed to unfold slower than that in my mind. The subconscious instinct to assume normal order was overcome by cognitive recognition that something definitely abnormal was underway. People were ducking on the floor. C’mon, I wondered, is that really necessary? The sight of agents with guns brandished made it clear that joining colleagues on the ground was in fact a good idea.Once there, my thoughts were dominated first by a question: What the hell is actually happening? Then came a journalist’s instinctual reaction: Whatever the answer is, the president just got rushed out of the event, this is a big damn story. Many colleagues while crouching on the floor lifted their phones above their heads to record the scene. At no time during the episode did I perceive… [TheTopNews] Read More.4 weeks ago - Trump Is Going After Birth Control. Here’s Why.
We are entering a startling new era in the politics of birth control, with President Donald Trump launching the most serious effort in decades to curb contraception. The Department of Health and Human Services recently released new guidance that outlines a major overhaul of federal family planning programs — prioritizing childbirth over contraception, and privileging “natural family planning,” like period-tracking apps, over far more effective methods, like the birth control pill. The Trump administration is also poised to establish new regulations that would end further funding for Planned Parenthood chapters. Millions of Americans who receive federally-backed family planning services are likely to feel the impact of such a policy shift. And there is real political risk as well. Birth control remains overwhelmingly popular in the United States: Only 8 percent of Americans say using contraception is morally wrong, according to Pew Research Center polling. (More Americans object to drinking alcohol, getting a divorce or being extremely rich). Given widespread support for birth control, it’s no surprise that politicians have long been reluctant to zero in on it. So, what’s changed? The unwieldy political coalition that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 is clamoring for action. For different reasons, an alliance of MAHA adherents, social conservatives and pronatalists are eager to go after birth control. With Trump sinking in the polls and his coalition fracturing, he may want to deliver for his core supporters. But regardless of whether he succeeds, the administration’s move signals a major transformation in America’s culture war: Contraception has gone from being politically untouchable to a real target on the right. A bit of history underscores just how significant this shift is. In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill, and a broad consensus in support of birth control quickly took hold. Nearly a century after moral crusaders had introduced the first laws criminalizing the use, mailing or sale of birth control, millions of Americans began using the pill. At the same time, as sexual mores changed, opposing contraception became a liability for an emerging anti-abortion movement. These activists claimed to champion the civil rights of the unborn. If they also targeted birth control, they opened themselves up to the argument that they were really trying to control women or police sex. The result: For years, opposing birth control outright was something of a political third rail, even after Congress… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 month ago
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