by Steve Benen | Apr 23, 2026 | Maddowblog, Media, News, Politics
The FBI doesn’t investigate journalists often, but when it does, it tends to be because a reporter has a confidential source who’s been accused of leaking sensitive information to a news organization. Earlier this year, for example, the FBI searched the home of Hannah Natanson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The Washington Post, whose devices it seized as part of a criminal case involving an alleged leak of classified information.
The bureau does not, however, have a record of investigating journalists for writing an article the FBI director didn’t like. Nevertheless, The New York Times reported:
The F.B.I. began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Agents interviewed the girlfriend, queried databases for information on the reporter, Elizabeth Williamson, and recommended moving forward to determine whether Ms. Williamson broke federal stalking laws, the person said.
The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the investigatory steps “prompted concerns among some Justice Department officials who saw the inquiry as retaliation for an article that Mr. Patel and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, did not like, and who determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation.”
The bureau made no effort to deny the accuracy of the latest reporting, telling the Times on the record that investigators “were concerned” about the “aggressive reporting techniques,” though the FBI also confirmed that it is not pursuing a case against the reporter.
That this matter apparently will not proceed further is good but
by Steve Benen | Apr 23, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Three whole weeks had gone by without Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth firing a leading U.S. military official during a war, but the streak came to an abrupt end on Wednesday afternoon. MS NOW reported:
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan is leaving the Trump administration, the Pentagon announced [Wednesday].
‘Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan is departing the administration, effective immediately,’ Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement [Wednesday] afternoon.
MS NOW went on to confirm that Phelan, who had spent Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill talking to members of Congress about the Navy’s budget proposal, was in fact fired, driven in part by his poor relationship with Hegseth.
A related report in The Wall Street Journal described what sounded like a classic behind-the-scenes power struggle, with the Pentagon chief having grown frustrated by Phelan’s “close relationship” with Donald Trump: “Phelan regularly chats with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club, just down the street from his own Florida home, and told lawmakers last year that he exchanges texts with the president about shipbuilding in the middle of the night.”
The same article, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that Hegseth “worked to undermine Phelan” after he “pitched the idea for a modern battleship directly to Trump, bypassing Hegseth.”
But stepping back, the defense secretary’s insecurities are just a small piece of a larger, troubling story.
First, it’s worth emphasizing that Phelan was a curious choice for Navy secretary in the first place. He never served in the Navy and had no connection to the Navy or the U.S. Armed Forces before the president tapped him for the role. The gig appears to have
by Steve Benen | Apr 22, 2026 | Economy, Maddowblog, News, Politics
It’s hardly a secret that public concerns about inflation, affordability and the cost of living are a major concern for much of the country, so it’s important for Donald Trump to at least try to understand the issue at a basic level. So far, the president hasn’t even cleared a low bar.
KERNEN: By the time Biden left, inflation was down to about 3%–TRUMP: No it wasn’t. It was down to 5%. And the reason it was down was because I had won the election and it started falling after I won the election and I started getting prices down from right after November 5— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-21T13:00:43.699Z
During his latest appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” host Joe Kernen, widely recognized as a conservative voice, noted that the inflation rate “was down to about where it is now, about 3%,” by the time Joe Biden’s term came to an end. Before the host could even get to his question, Trump interrupted.
“No, it wasn’t,” the president insisted. “It was down to 5%.”
Trump went on to argue, “And the reason it was down was because I had won the election, and it started falling after I won the election, and I started getting prices down from right after Nov. 5.”
Fortunately, none of this is subjective. We’re talking about knowable and specific details. It’s very easy to check and see whether the president was right or whether he was clueless.
Take a wild guess where I’m going with this.
As the global economy started recovering in earnest in the wake of the pandemic, inflation roared in every advanced economy on the planet. Unfortunately, the United States
by Steve Benen | Apr 22, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Donald Trump has been unreserved in his vituperative labels for those who dare to disagree with him. This is, after all, the president who has told Americans that his political opponents are “fascists” who are also guilty of “treason.” His domestic foes are also “enemies of the people,” “the enemy within” and “threats to democracy.”
Last year, Trump went so far as to insist that Democrats are “evil” and members of “the party of Satan.”
Just over the last few days, however, the president has embraced a new word as part of his attacks against his critics. Earlier this week, he published an item to his social media platform in which he wrote, in reference to Democrats: “TRAITORS ALL.”
During a telephone interview with CNBC, the president used the same word in a similar context.
Trump: “We can’t let traitors like Schumer put pressure on you, where they say, ‘We want out!’ Think how bad that is. I’m negotiating with these people and they’re telling us, ‘We have to get out now!’ and they were in a war for 18 years.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-21T12:55:18.520Z
Commenting on White House negotiations with Iran, Trump said: “So, it’s tough, but we can’t let traitors like [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer] put pressure on you where they say, ‘We want out.’ Think how bad that is. I’m negotiating with these people and they’re telling us, ‘We have to get out now, we have to get out now, we have to get out now.’”
In other words, as the president sees it, public criticism of the war is necessarily bad for the United States because, as he sees it, the
by Steve Benen | Apr 22, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
At a White House event a couple of months ago, Donald Trump expressed a sentiment he has rarely shared, saying, “It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there.”
The moment of candor was striking, largely for its rarity. The president generally prefers brazen dishonesty, routinely boasting about his imagined popularity and even thanking the American public for loving him with such broad intensity.
But in late February, the mask slipped, and the president implicitly acknowledged the truth, though it was packaged in incredulity: Trump may not have understood why he’s so unpopular, but he was at least somewhat aware of the fact that he is unpopular.
If the Republican was amazed two months ago, he must be absolutely gobsmacked now.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, for example, found the president’s approval rating at just 36%, which was roughly in line with the latest NBC News survey. For the White House, the Associated Press’ latest national poll was even worse. From the AP’s report:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating on the economy has slumped over the past month as the Iran war drives prices higher, according to a new AP-NORC poll, with even Republicans showing less faith in his leadership.
The findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show a president who is struggling with unfulfilled promises to tame inflation and testing Americans’ patience with a conflict in the Middle East that has dragged on longer than expected.
Trump’s overall approval rating in the AP poll was just 33%, which is dreadful but not the worst part of the survey data: Only 32% approve of the president’s handling of the war in Iran; only
by Steve Benen | Apr 22, 2026 | 2026 election, Maddowblog, News, Politics
For generations, states redrew congressional district lines after the decennial census. There were exceptions, but in nearly all of those instances, mid-decade redistricting only happened when courts told states that their maps were unlawful and needed to be redone.
The idea that politicians would simply choose to start redrawing maps, in the middle of a decade, in pursuit of partisan advantage, was practically unheard of — for the most part.
Texas Republicans broke radical ground with a mid-decade redistricting scheme in 2003, and last summer, at Donald Trump’s best, GOP officials did it again: Fearing an electoral backlash in the 2026 midterms, the party decided to give itself a buffer, creating a new map designed to give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats, more than a year before voters cast a ballot.
At that point, the president and his allies seemed quite pleased with themselves. There was one angle, however, that Trump and his party neglected to appreciate: Democrats weren’t just going to sit back, capitulate and grumble about how frustratingly impressive the GOP’s hardball tactics are.
On the contrary, Democrats had the capacity to fight back — and they did.
After the president and Texas Republicans effectively launched a partisan arms race, California Democrats approved a comparable plan to give their party five more seats of their own. GOP officials, again at Trump’s behest, added a handful of additional seats to their gerrymandering tally in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, while Democrats in Utah gained an advantage in Utah after a failed Republican gambit.
All of which set the stage for a dramatic showdown in Virginia. MS NOW reported:
Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment on
