by Matthew Bartlett | Nov 7, 2026 | elections, Opinion, White House
This week’s midterm elections were a generational loss for the Republican party in more ways than one: the country has not seen a loss of this magnitude in generations, Republicans lost voters across all generations and it may take the GOP generations to recover.
Tuesday’s results were bad for the GOP, worse for President Donald Trump and the absolute worst for Vice President JD Vance, who is widely expected to run for the presidency in 2028. He is far more vulnerable in the Republican primary, and whoever wins that contest faces a general election made even more difficult for the GOP at large.
As Vance progresses, he will find that it is very hard to run for president with your feet in cement. He is largely untested as a candidate, certainly unpopular and tightly tied to a historically unpopular president. He will carry forward the baggage of the past two years, viewed as a co-conspirator and accomplice to the destruction that Trump has wrought here and abroad. And Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff means that the baggage will only get heavier and more horrific over the next two years.
As a presidential candidate, Vance will have to answer questions from a public that demands results and accountability, things he is sorely lacking.
Instead of addressing the elections in an interview or press conference, Vance decided to publish a post-election post on X.
“The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” he wrote. Voters wanted to “1) End the [Iran] war; 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation; 3) Put America First; 4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
Part anecdotes,
by Charles F. Coleman Jr. | Nov 7, 2026 | Civil Rights, Opinion, Politics, White House
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. A conservative culture warrior who as a private attorney represented Donald Trump during the House committee’s Jan. 6 investigation, she quickly delivered on the administration’s goals to roll back civil rights protections and reversed many the hard-fought gains of Kristen Clarke, her predecessor at the Civil Rights Division.
Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Heritage Foundation figures like Russell Vought, Brendan Carr and Kevin Roberts all connected MAGA culture war with efforts to roll back civil rights, making the leader of the DOJ’s civil rights unit of paramount importance. Dhillon delivered what MAGA wanted.
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Though the departure of a civil rights chief who fixated on imaginary discrimination against white men might seem like a step in the right direction, we won’t know that until we know who Trump will replace her with.
But in the meantime, we can point out just how bad Dhillon was for civil rights. Take, for example, allegations of discriminatory policing. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has historically investigated allegations of mistreatment of Black people and other marginalized groups by law enforcement officers. When police civil rights violations required federal intervention, the division led that effort and entered into consent decrees with law enforcement agencies to grant injunctive relief, often mandating additional training and accountability measures.
There were examples of such consent decrees in cities across the country before Trump became president in 2017,
by Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Nov 7, 2026 | Economy, Opinion, White House
President Donald Trump has long had a bone to pick with the Federal Reserve. Earlier this year, the Justice Department launched a criminal probe against then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell that was intended to force him out. Even after Powell was succeeded as chair by Kevin Warsh, the president has never let up in his quest to bludgeon the central bank into lowering interest rates.
“I’m a smart voice and should be listened to,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal late last year.
Warsh is about to enter the sixth month of his tenure helming the Fed. Both during and since his confirmation, he has faced scrutiny over his independence from the executive branch, but so far he has demonstrated he’s serious about fighting inflation. Now the Fed can count on new armor against Trump’s temper: A Democratic-controlled Senate.
GOP control of the Senate meant senators had to accede to Trump’s demands on nominees.
Though the inflation rate is well above the Fed’s 2% target, Trump has long argued the Fed should lower interest rates. As recently as September, after the Fed raised rates to a range of 3.75%-4.00%, the president said rates should be at 1% “or less.” With at least 54 seats after this week’s midterm elections, Senate Democrats are poised to deal a blow to the president’s goal.
Interest rates influence the cost of personal loans, auto loans and mortgages for American families. It also affects how much interest the U.S. government pays on its towering national debt. They are set by the Federal Open Market Committee — and of the FOMC’s 12 members, seven are also members of the Fed’s Board of
by David Rohde | Nov 7, 2026 | Iran, News, White House
The historic Republican losses in the midterm elections have left President Donald Trump with even fewer options for ending the war with Iran quickly, experts say.
Trump has said he would consider resuming strikes against Iran after the midterms. But U.S. airstrikes are unlikely to make the Iranian regime capitulate, and the country’s leaders are likely to stand by expansive demands they have made in negotiations.
“Iran has been very unwilling to have any reasonable discussions about peace,” said Leslie Shedd, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former senior aide to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
Trump could launch U.S. airstrikes against Iran but the government there has already absorbed thousands of such strikes.
In the unlikely scenario that Trump takes the extraordinary step of dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on a nuclear storage site beneath Pickaxe Mountain, it would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, which is deeply buried and also spans the country, experts said. The first attack since Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon of any size would create long-lasting radioactive fallout and threaten to destabilize existing weapons agreements among nuclear powers.
With Democrats winning more seats in Congress and Republicans showing increasing skepticism in the Iran war, lawmakers returning to Washington next week could insist on a war powers resolution or cut funding.
Other options for Trump — a U.S. bombing campaign, a reduction in U.S. forces in the region and a unilateral declaration of victory — will not change the strategic reality.
Iran has shown that the U.S. cannot stop it from intermittently shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and driving up global energy prices.
“Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said
by Felicia Schwartz | Nov 7, 2026 | Congress, elections, News, White House
It didn’t take long for Pete Hegseth to start praising his boss’s new right-hand man.
Stephen Miller’s appointment as chief of staff could be a lifeline to the embattled defense secretary, who has mounted an aggressive public campaign to save his job.
Hegseth was quick to congratulate Miller on Friday, posting a photo of himself alongside the new White House chief of staff with the caption: “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.”
Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic. pic.twitter.com/7gymf93Yee— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) November 6, 2026
He shared two other posts, offering “Huge CONGRATS” and asserting “Patriots in control.”
His posts initially made no mention of Susie Wiles, whom President Donald Trump had announced about an hour earlier he would be replacing with Miller. Hegseth posted again later, calling Wiles “a wonderful person” and thanking her for her “leadership, steady hand, and great service to the country and POTUS.”
The defense secretary’s social media posts were the latest example of concerted efforts to defend himself against a bipartisan impeachment push and rumblings that the president was looking to blame him for the election walloping his party suffered.
Hegseth’s aides coined the phrase “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic” in a social media blitz they began on Thursday as questions began to swirl about his future.
Wiles had soured on Hegseth in recent months as his management of the Iran war and the Pentagon — including a string of firings of top military officers — came under increasing scrutiny, according to an administration official familiar with the White House dynamics.
A senior administration official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal staffing changes, said Miller and Hegseth “have been extremely close since the beginning
by Steve Benen | Nov 6, 2026 | Economy, Maddowblog, White House
Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 59,000 new jobs being created in the United States in October. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals far exceeded those expectations.
All told, the economy added 165,000 jobs in October, and the overall unemployment rate inched lower, falling from 4.2% to 4.1%. Adding to the good news, job totals from August and September were also revised up by a combined 84,000 jobs.
The news wasn’t entirely encouraging — the BLS report showed more subdued wage growth, which is a problem for consumers trying to keep pace with rising inflation — but overall, this is one of the more promising monthly job reports of the year.
As for the larger context, 10 months into 2026, the U.S. economy has created 861,000 jobs so far this year — a monthly average of roughly 86,000 — which is a deeply underwhelming total that plainly contradicts the White House’s routinely happy talk about current conditions.
All told, the U.S. economy has added 977,000 jobs over Trump’s 22-month second term. Over the previous 22 months, the economy added nearly 3.25 million jobs. To date, the White House hasn’t even tried to explain why the domestic job market worsened after the Republican president took office.
To contextualize the data, I put together this chart to show month-to-month totals since the 2020 election. The blue columns point to Joe Biden’s presidency, while the red columns point to Trump’s.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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