by Steve Benen | Jul 1, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
The ruling wasn’t as lopsided as many legal observers expected, but in Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that a president can override the 14th Amendment to the Constitution with an executive order. Though the 5-4 ruling left in place a status quo that has existed for generations, much of the right did not respond well to the news.
Much of the outrage from conservatives was tiresome and predictable, but one element of the pushback to the high court’s ruling stood out for unfortunate reasons.
A couple of hours after the decision was issued, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado argued by way of social media that the State Department “should immediately cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants.” Soon after, one of her colleagues went a step further by announcing plans for a legislative solution.
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said Tuesday that he’s moving forward with plans for legislation that he’s calling the Anchors Away Act, which would ban certain pregnant foreign women from entering the United States.
“So, I have a bill; it will be called ‘Anchors Away,’ which, look, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, if you’re not a green card holder and you have a child on U.S. soil, today, that child will be a U.S. citizen,” Ogles said in a video posted to social media. “Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that. … So in short, what this bill does is, if you are a pregnant woman, you can’t come into this country. You got to be a citizen, be here, you have to be a green card holder. So
by Ebony Davis | Jul 1, 2026 | 2026 election, elections, News, Politics
Democratic socialist Melat Kiros scored a major political upset Tuesday, defeating longtime Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District Democratic primary.
Kiros’ victory ends the incumbent’s three-decade tenure in Congress. DeGette has represented the Denver-based district since 1997 and has served 15 terms.
Kiros, 29, also defeated University of Colorado Regent Wanda James in the three-way contest, capitalizing on growing calls for generational change in one of Colorado’s safest Democratic districts.
With the district heavily favoring Democrats, Kiros is expected to enter the November general election as the overwhelming favorite.
The 29-year-old attorney and first-time candidate built her campaign around a message that the district needed fresh leadership after nearly 30 years represented by the same member of Congress. Running as a democratic socialist, she called for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, expanded affordable housing and stronger labor protections. She also made U.S. policy toward Israel a central issue of her campaign, calling for an end to all U.S. military aid to Israel and describing the war in Gaza as “the moral question of our time.”
Her campaign gained momentum in its closing weeks with support from progressive organizations, including Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America, while attracting thousands of small-dollar donors and volunteers.
“They can’t stop us from building this movement,” Kiros told MS NOW on Sunday.
The race became one of Colorado’s most closely watched primaries as progressive groups invested heavily in their effort to defeat one of the state’s longest-serving Congress members. The contest reflected broader ideological divisions within the Democratic Party, where younger, left-wing challengers have increasingly targeted veteran incumbents.
Despite advantages in fundraising, endorsements and name recognition, DeGette struggled to overcome an anti-incumbent mood
by Hunter Woodall | Jul 1, 2026 | 2026 election, News, Politics
After DSA candidates roiled traditional Democrats with wins in New York City last week, Tuesday’s primary in a Denver-centered district tested whether the left wing’s appeal could prevail elsewhere.
It turns out the democratic socialists’ reach extends well beyond New York — and it may well grow before the year is out.
Melat Kiros, backed by the national Democratic Socialists of America and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, upset Rep. Diana DeGette, who has held her reliably blue seat for almost 30 years.
“What we’re seeing right now is the response to voters feeling like the party has not actually been fighting for working people,” Kiros told MS NOW last week.
The result is that Kiros, a critic of the Israeli government and high-ranking Democratic leaders, will likely be a member of Congress come next year. That happened even as DeGette cast the race as a warning, with President Donald Trump’s second term continuing to upend governance from the nation’s capital.
“Now is not the time to gamble and send somebody with no experience to Washington,” DeGette said during a recent candidate forum. “We need a strong, bold, hardened leader who will hold Trump accountable.”
The result was one of several Colorado results Tuesday to test incumbents or prominent statewide officials navigating a turbulent moment in Democratic politics — one in which voters have shown an appetite for untested fighters over familiar faces who’ve served in Washington’s halls of power.
The night’s theme wasn’t clear-cut; the three marquee races diverged on everything from ideology to questions of approach and clout. But each pitted an incumbent whose Congressional ties became fodder for a challenger.
In 2020, Democrats’ ability to woo
by Steve Benen | Jun 30, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
After months of rhetoric about how he doesn’t really want or need Congress to do much of anything for the remainder of his presidency, Donald Trump has shifted gears in recent months, insisting that lawmakers approve an anti-voting bill he’s labeled the SAVE America Act.
His efforts, however, aren’t going especially well.
Part of the problem is that the Senate’s filibuster rule still exists, and as a procedural matter, there doesn’t appear to be any alternative way to pass the proposal. (Relatedly, there’s simply no way the package could garner 60 votes.) To make matters worse, even if the Republican majority were to follow the president’s instructions and scrap the filibuster altogether, the anti-voting legislation doesn’t even appear to have the support of 50 senators.
In fact, earlier this month, when White House allies tried to add Trump’s bill to a funding package, four Senate Republicans — Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted against it.
At that point, the president and his team started exploring a different kind of question: How could they apply leverage to this quartet?
An answer has proved elusive. The president and his political operation can’t go after Collins, because they need her to win in the fall to reduce the odds of Democrats claiming a Senate majority. Trump has tried to bully Murkowski with increasingly caustic harangues, but the Alaskan isn’t up for re-election until 2028, and she’s already proved an ability to persevere without the backing of Trump or the party.
That leaves Tillis and McConnell, both of whom are retiring this year, which has freed
by Steve Benen | Jun 30, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
To hear House Speaker Mike Johnson tell it, proponents of the bipartisan housing bill that cleared Capitol Hill last week have nothing to worry about. Asked about Donald Trump and the future of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing legislation, the Louisiana Republican told USA Today, “He won’t veto the bill.”
Time will tell whether the president makes Johnson appear foolish, but in the meantime, as Trump weighs his options, he continues to make clear that he just doesn’t much care about the proposal sitting on his desk.
Q: Will you sign that housing bill?TRUMP: It hasn’t been sent to me yet. It’s coming I understand, and then I’ll make the determination. Big deal. It’s a yawn.— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-29T19:39:05.433Z
Asked at an unrelated White House event on Monday afternoon whether he intends to sign the bill into law, the president could barely contain his apathy. “It’s a yawn,” Trump said, describing the bill that could very well be the first and only bipartisan breakthrough of his political career.
As part of the same exchange, the Republican added that the legislation is “so unimportant” when compared to the anti-voting measure he’s desperate to get through Congress.
The president has raised some vague concerns about the substance of the package, but his Monday comments hinted at a different kind of problem: Trump simply finds this boring.
Indeed, this wasn’t even the first time. The House speaker told House Republican leaders and committee chairs at their annual retreat in March that the president told him that “no one gives a (bleep) about housing.”
As a factual matter, that’s absurd, and there’s ample evidence that millions of Americans are
by Will McDuffie | Jun 30, 2026 | 2026 election, News, Politics
Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist candidate who ousted Rep. Adriano Espaillat in last week’s New York Democratic primary, told MS NOW on Monday that she is not a communist, responding to a CNN report on old social media posts in which she appeared sympathetic to communism.
Asked in a phone interview if she was a communist, Avila Chevalier said: “I’m not. I’m a democratic socialist.”
She called the focus on such rhetoric a “distraction.”
“The point isn’t whether or not I say it, the point is that they’re going to be reactive and trying to evoke a reaction to engage in that kind of distraction, and so what I’m trying to say is, I can say it until I’m blue in the face that I’m not a communist; I’m a democratic socialist,” Avila Chevalier said. “But that is again part of that distraction, where I now have to spend more time talking about that than actually addressing the issues for my communities.”
The posts, which CNN said came from a since-deleted account, included one lamenting the lack of Marxist literature in public libraries. Asked about it, Avila Chevalier said she believes “in freedom of speech, and believe[s] in making sure that we have access to all types of thought.”
“In an era of book bans, I think it’s important that we actually know what it is we’re criticizing,” she said.
Avila Chevalier defeated Espaillat after a campaign in which she defended controversial old social media posts voicing far-left policy positions, such as a desire to abolish prisons.
On Monday, she told MS NOW she wanted to use her power in Congress to transform the United
