There's a political cartoon out there just waiting to be drawn. Picture a coat-check window, with a line of people in front of it. But instead of coats, the sign says "Spinal Check." The person behind the counter is handing the person they're waiting on a full spine, while saying: "Here you go, Senator! Once you get it reinstalled, you'll find it's really liberating to get your spine back!" ...or something along those lines. The people in line would (if the cartoonist was good enough) resemble prominent Republicans who are now increasingly breaking with Donald Trump's agenda, of course.

We've been watching this process with some undisguised glee over the past few weeks, as a new reality sinks in over on the GOP side of the political aisle. Trump's job approval ratings have cratered way down into the 30s, and he is increasingly focused on things that are just not popular (some of which are downright ludicrous and bizarre). The political winds are at the Democrats' backs. Gas prices are still over four bucks a gallon nationwide, Trump doesn't even seem interested in ending his war of choice with Iran (he said this week the talks to end the war have gotten "very boring"), inflation is bad and getting worse, and the midterm elections are five short months away.

The self-preservation instinct (for some Republicans, at least) is finally kicking in. They are coming to the realization that the more they distance themselves from Trump's erratic behavior the better their chances in November may be. This is most notable in Senate and House races that experts are predicting are going to be close, because that's where the Republicans are going to be most vulnerable.

This hasn't turned into open revolt quite yet. Last night, the Senate held one of their marathon "vote-a-rama" sessions, and for a while it looked like GOP senators might join with the Democrats in voting to completely ban Trump from setting up his $1.776 slush fund of taxpayer money -- to be used to hand out gobs of cash to anyone Trump felt like handing it to -- but in the end they didn't have enough votes to overcome the 60-vote threshold required for such amendments. So now every Republican who didn't vote against it will have to face ads on the issue for the entire midterm campaign season, whether Trump goes forward with his slush fund or not.

This is not the only issue Republicans are rediscovering some spinal fortitude on, either. This week the House passed a bill which would force Trump to essentially end his war with Iran, and advanced another bill which would give Ukraine some much-needed military aid (which has yet to come up for a final vote). The Senate did manage to strip out the $1 billion they were going to just hand to Trump to finish his ballroom -- even though Trump promised over and over that "not one thin dime" of taxpayer money would ever be used on the project.

There is also some serious pushback from some GOP senators at the news that Trump appointed a woefully unqualified individual to serve as the acting director of national intelligence. Bill Pulte's only qualification for the job is that he is willing to do absolutely anything to attack and harass and weaponize the Justice Department (and the rest of the federal government) against Trump's political enemies, which was good enough for Trump to name him to the position. It's astonishing, but Trump managed to find someone even less qualified than Tulsi Gabbard to take over her job. And just today, seven Republican senators voted against renewing the FISA foreign surveillance law that's about to expire.

That's a lot of aisle-crossing in a very short period of time. Especially for Republicans in the current Congress, who have up to this point rolled over and given Trump pretty much everything he's asked for, no matter how misguided or downright crazy. The only real pushback they've given him previously was to force him to release all the Epstein files. But these are much bigger and weightier issues (such as ending an unpopular war).

There was precisely zero progress on the talks with Iran this week -- or, at the least, there were zero announcements about how the talks were going. They may have even completely ground to a halt, after Trump rejected the deal that was reportedly on the table and sent it back with some demands that are totally unacceptable to the Iranians. This led to an announcement in the Iranian media that the talks had completely broken down and they were walking away, although Trump insists they're still in progress. Once again, the world weighs what Iran says and what Trump says and comes to the conclusion that the Iranians are more trustworthy than the president of the United States (which is a pretty dismal commentary on its own). Meanwhile, the ceasefire seems to be teetering on the edge of also completely breaking down, as both Iran and the U.S. have launched attacks on each other.

Instead of wildly predicting that a deal was imminent (which he had been doing the previous week), Trump instead proclaimed that the talks were starting "to get very boring," and expressed complete indifference as to whether the talks were even still happening: "I don't care if they're over, honestly. I really don't care. I couldn't care less. If they're over, they're over."

In March, Trump was confidently predicting just the opposite, saying: "Somebody said today, they said, 'Oh, well the president wants to do it really quickly. After that, he'll get bored.'" before adding: "There's nothing boring about this."

Trump is much more interested in talking about the paint job he ordered for the bottom of the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, and trying to somehow cobble together some sort of concert at the end of the month (after all the other performers dropped out). Before that takes place, Trump is going to hold an "octagon cage match" of mixed-martial arts on the White House lawn on his 80th birthday (which also happens to be Flag Day). Trump even floated a completely delusional idea this week -- that the stage he's built for this event (which resembles a huge metal spider to a certain degree) should be kept up permanently -- Trump dared to compare it to the Eiffel Tower (which was initially supposed to be dismantled after the world's fair it was built for was over).

Meanwhile, the economy is still bad, and we'll find out next week how bad the official inflation number has gotten. Gas prices have receded a bit, but are still over four bucks a gallon nationwide, and Trump's answer is to slap some more tariffs on the rest of the world, for no reason whatsoever.

Trump's toadies are doing their best to spin all of this as a wonderful thing, without any notable success. Here's one of them from this week (from the guy who always has a smirk on his face):

Look, in the end, people look at their wallets. They decide how to vote. And if they look at their wallets and look at how much money they have after, you know, the increase in prices, they're going to find that they have a lot more money.

Sure... sure... and would you be interested in buying this lovely bridge in New York City? We'll let you have it for a bargain price!

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried his hand at laughable spin while testifying before Congress this week by insisting that "groceries are going way down" in price. This led to him being asked: "When's the last time you were in a grocery store?" which seems like a pertinent question indeed. He also stated that there's no reason to worry about fertilizer prices, even though they've gone up roughly 50 percent this year.

To celebrate their fantasy of a booming economy, the House just slashed food aid for pregnant women. You just can't make this stuff up, folks!

And to end on another head-scratching note, a Republican congressman from New Jersey has been missing in action for almost three months now. He claims he's dealing with a "medical issue" and will be back to work in a few weeks, but here it is three months later and no further details have been given. So the New York Times went on an old-fashioned journalistic-shoe-leather hunt for him, but couldn't find hide nor hair of him anywhere.

Mind you, this is in a district that Democrats were already targeting as one of the most flippable House districts in the country, so the longer the Republican stays in hiding the easier that is going to be to accomplish.

 

If we had an award for "most disappointing Democratic state of the week," California would win it hands down this week. This morning, as we have been doing all week, we checked the primary results from the election which was held on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, only a little over 50 percent of the votes had been counted. This inched up all week to hit 60 percent, where it stuck. Which is where it was this morning. We just checked again and (gasp!) it had leapt upwards to (drumroll...) 64 percent. This is nothing short of pathetic. Here it is, late Friday afternoon, and one-third of the votes still have not been counted yet.

California votes by mail, for the most part. But even that's no excuse really. Other states also largely vote by mail and they manage -- both blue states and red -- to report results a whole lot faster than this. Governor Gavin Newsom did sign a law to speed the counting process up -- from 30 days to only 13 days -- but that's still pretty obviously inadequate. The state should form a task force that travels to the other states with mostly mail-in ballots (red and blue) and learn how they can count their votes faster than we do.

(Hrrrmph.)

Sorry, just had to let everyone know that this is just as annoying (and embarrassing) for us as it is for everyone else.

Getting back to impressive Democrats, we first have a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out. Deb Haaland of New Mexico won her primary in the governor's race, and could very well become the first Native American governor the state ever has, which is pretty impressive.

Sherrod Brown of Ohio got a very impressive poll this week (from Fox News, no less) that showed him eight points up (53-45) over the sitting Republican senator he is running to unseat. That was certainly good news to read for many Democrats.

And Representative Ted Lieu deserves recognition for ripping into Marco Rubio during a committee hearing, on the subject of Donald Trump's increasing propensity to just fall asleep during important meetings. Rubio lied his face off, saying he'd never seen Trump fall asleep during a meeting, so Lieu played a few videos of Trump doing precisely that while Rubio was standing next to him talking to him. Lieu finished by repeatedly calling Rubio a liar (watch the whole video, it is pretty priceless).

But speaking of getting sleepy... (yawn)... our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award this week goes to Xavier Becerra, who may wind up winning the most votes in the California primary for governor. As of this writing (with only 64 percent of the votes counted), Becerra is now within about 10,000 votes of topping Republican Steve Hilton's vote count (Hilton currently has 26.63 percent, to Becerra's 26.47 percent).

It won't matter in the least which candidate winds up in first place, as both of the top two finishers will advance to the general election ballot, but it would be nice to see a Democrat on top of the standings.

But it's not for that reason Becerra is our MIDOTW winner. It's because of the comeback he managed. Right before Eric Swalwell was forced to end his candidacy, Becerra was far back in the pack of Democratic gubernatorial candidates, pulling in only about 5 percent in the polling. But then -- rather surprisingly -- after Swalwell did pull out, it wasn't the two other Democratic frontrunners (Tom Steyer and Katie Porter) who gained the most in the polls, it was Becerra. Becerra leapt into first place among Democrats, and he stayed there all the way to the primary election.

That is impressive. Becerra came from behind in a surge that absolutely nobody predicted at the time (when Swalwell dropped out) and he overtook the two previous frontrunners.

Personally, we're not that excited by his candidacy, because Becerra is (politically-speaking) a pretty boring guy. He's pretty centrist and incremental and accepts campaign cash from big corporations, so he's a long way from our ideal candidate for the Golden State.

But we have to give credit where it is due, and Xavier Becerra certainly deserve a lot of credit for his come-from-behind surge all the way to the top of the Democratic rankings (and, quite possibly, the primary vote count as a whole). So for pulling off this political feat, Becerra is indeed our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

He's also quite likely to be California's next governor (although there is an outside chance that Tom Steyer will also best Steve Hilton, which would give us a Democrat-versus-Democrat general campaign -- but Steyer's still got a long way to go to pull that off, so it should be seen as only a longshot at this point).

[Xavier Becerra is a private citizen, and it is our standing policy not to provide links to campaign websites, so you'll have to search his contact info our for yourself if you'd like to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

Katie Porter and Tom Steyer disappointed a lot of Californian progressives this week, but we don't think it rises to the level of an award for either of them.

Instead, we turn once again to Maine.

Graham Platner had not just one but two scandals revealed this week, as the New York Times published some reports that hadn't been aired yet.

The first was that Platner had been sexting with a number of women he wasn't currently married to, right after he did get married to his wife. His wife had informed his campaign of this months ago, when she was asked if she knew of any skeletons in Platner's closet that might harm him politically. A former member of the Platner campaign leaked this revelation to the Times this week.

Then it was further revealed that Platner was being accused of misbehavior with women he had dated before he got married (although the worst accusation came from a woman who is now a Republican activist).

This has left plenty of Democrats worried. It's not so much the revelations as it is the general feeling of not just: "Waiting for the other shoe to drop," as much as: "How many more shoes are going to drop, dude?"

Platner already had plenty of personal baggage to deal with even before the recent revelations hit the headlines. He keeps insisting: "That's all there is -- there's nothing more," and then new scandals erupt. Which must leave Maine voters wondering what else is eventually going to be revealed.

Platner is a political newcomer, and his rough-around-the-edges persona has been part of his charm, up until now. And it might not sink his chances of winning -- there's a growing feeling of "Who cares?" in both parties, in the age of Trump. Scandals which should have completely eliminated candidates from politics are now routinely shrugged off by the actual voters. Will Maine Democrats adopt this position, and will Platner still have a good shot at defeating the incumbent Republican senator (Susan Collins)? Or will it all prove to be too much, in the end.

Platner still hasn't even won his primary yet. The current Maine governor (Janet Mills) is still on the Democratic primary ballot (even though she suspended her campaign). So we'll have to see how this all plays out. But just like everyone else, we'll be watching to see if the situation with Platner gets even worse at some point. Because nobody really knows how many more of these shoes are going to drop. Which is why Platner gets this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Graham Platner is also a private citizen, so you'll have to search out his contact info if you 'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 844 (6/5/26)

We are going to dispense with the regular discrete format for talking points today to present a ridiculously-early speech draft (which we'll get to in a moment). For anyone disappointed by this, we recommend reading an article the Washington Post ran this week, which itemized why Donald Trump is losing the trust (and the votes) of farmers. Here are some salient points this article makes, each of which could easily be turned into a Democratic talking point:

• Last year, America's crop farmers lost $34.6 billion
• Farm bankruptcies surged to numbers not seen since 2020
• Seventy percent of farmers surveyed claim they cannot afford all the fertilizers they need [fertilizer costs are up 47 percent this year]
• Fuel costs continue to rise [because] the Strait of Hormuz remains closed
• Ninety-four percent of farmers reported that their financial situation has "worsened or remained the same" since last year
• Fifteen thousand farms closed in 2025 alone
• Bankruptcies [for family farms] were up 46 percent in 2025 and 70 percent by May of this year
• Trade war with China collapsed the soybean market

Call it a do-it-yourself talking points section.

Moving along, as we said we know this is ridiculously early. But we had the experience of casting a vote this week (in California's primary election) so elections were kind of on our mind.

So here is a proposed speech for a 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. It is (as you will see) filled with rage. Most of this rage is directed at some very petty things, but these things are not petty to Donald Trump. In fact, they seem to be the only things he is even interested in anymore. They are near and dear to his heart.

Which is why any Democrat running for office who makes the following pledges has a very good chance of winning our vote, just because. There'll be plenty of time later to fill in all the meatier parts that were only skimmed over at the end of this speech, but for now here's what's been enraging us the most.

 

A Democratic presidential contender speech filled with RAGE

I decided to run for president because what Donald Trump has done to our country fills me with rage. It enrages me to see America's standing in the world reduced to being a laughingstock. It enrages me to see how Trump has squandered the greatness of America and thrown the best parts of it on the trash heap. So I came up with my own slogan to run on: RAGE. It stands for "Restore American Greatness Everywhere."

This covers both big, important things as well as those that are small and petty -- but also seriously annoying -- because some of the petty stuff causes the most rage in me. So I'm going to start my list of campaign promises with some of these changes that will be easily to make, to restore dignity and greatness to Washington D.C.

If elected president, I promise that on Day One I will begin to tear down, get rid of, and replace all the tacky-ass crap Trump installed at the White House. And I will begin in the Oval Office itself. I will restore the sense of dignity that this office held before Trump started turning it into a monument to bad taste and excess. This is The People's House, not some palace for an egomaniac who would be king! Donald Trump saw the Oval Office in much the same way a small girl would imagine what the bedroom of a princess would look like: "More gold stuff! Yeah! Lots and lots of gold stuff -- everywhere!" All of that dreck will be pried off the walls before my first day in that office is over, because I don't want the American people to be subjected to this juvenile royalist fantasy for one minute longer than is necessary.

And then we'll take that giant pile of golden crap, and we'll auction it all off online. Any Trump supporter who wants to buy some doodad that hung in the Oval Office next to Trump will be free to bid as much money as they like, and the highest bidder will get it. And all the money will go straight into the U.S. Treasury.

Maybe the threat of this happening will force Trump himself to take all the crap down, on his way out the door? That'd certainly make my first day in office a lot easier and more pleasant! And it would just drive the point home to him that all those things that Trump did to create what to his twisted mind was "his legacy" are nothing more than a complete embarrassment to anyone who has a shred of good taste.

A much bigger job will be to tear down Trump's ballroom and restore the East Wing to its former dignity. No matter how far along construction has gotten on his egotistical monument to bad taste, it will be completely razed to the ground. We'll leave in any security upgrades Trump installed below ground (unless there's any golden tacky crap on the walls down there, which will of course have to be removed too), but everything from the ground up will be entirely dismantled and carted away to a landfill somewhere. Or maybe we'll auction some of it off as well, and make even more money for the Treasury.

How will I pay for this? I will go to all the corporations who donated millions of dollars to build this excrescence and I will publicly shame them into donating whatever it takes to tear it down and restore the East Wing to the dignity it once had. If they refuse to donate, I will call them out and publicly shame them mercilessly, and you can bet I will direct my administration to look long and hard for alternatives when doling out any federal contracts or special breaks to such corporations.

We'll also restore the White House Rose Garden to the way it looked when Jackie Kennedy improved it, and rip out that hideous patio Trump built. And we'll tear down those embarrassing used-car-lot-sized flagpoles Trump installed too. When I get done, the White House will be restored to its former greatness, while all the Trumpified tackiness will either be sold off online or unceremoniously dumped in a landfill somewhere.

What else? I heard that Trump is even considering just keeping up that hideous stage he's building for his martial arts fight later this month, comparing it to the Eiffel Tower. This more than anything proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how Donald Trump doesn't have an ounce of good taste in his entire body. If that laughable crap is still up when Trump leaves office, it'll be torn down as quickly as humanly possible -- that's a pretty easy promise to make!

But it's not just the White House. We're going to restore American greatness everywhere in D.C. If Trump has managed to desecrate the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery with a hideous giant arch, we will tear that sucker down too. We will restore the dignity and greatness of the final resting place of thousands of Americans who served their country in uniform by ridding it of one man's monstrous boost to his ego, and veterans everywhere will profoundly thank us for doing so.

We will systematically tear down anything Trump did in D.C. that is equally as tasteless. We will restore the quiet dignity to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We will rip Trump's name down from every building he has slapped in on -- or anything else he has desecrated with his name.

And we will simply not allow Trump to take that $400 million plane that Qatar gave him to Florida. That was theoretically a gift to the American people, not to Donald Trump himself, so why would we allow him to take it with him? We can either sell it off to the highest bidder, or perhaps use it as a federal airplane -- maybe we'll use it to transport federal prisoners around the country? That would certainly be fitting. We could even allow Trump's name to stick with it if that's what we do -- we'll call it: "Trump Con Air."

And you know what? I do not care what Republicans think of all this. I just don't! I won't ask anyone for permission to do any of this, and if Republicans complain then I'd merely point out that Trump didn't ask anyone before he tore down the East Wing -- and they had nothing to say about that at the time, so they simply have no leg to stand on.

I will unceremoniously fire all the Trump toadies, sycophants, boot-lickers, and ass-kissers he installed on all the various planning commissions and boards that approved all of this stuff, and I will replace them with competent professionals, because restoring American greatness everywhere doesn't just mean dismantling all of Trump's physical tackiness.

These are, of course, just the easiest things that can be changed to restore American greatness once again. But it will be cathartic for tens of millions of Americans. The bigger job is going to be to restore greatness to all of the institutions and traditions that served to make our country great in the first place. We will purge the Justice Department of all of Trump's partisan hacks and hire back the professionals that used to work there. Or we'll hire new ones who know full well that they will be dedicated to the U.S. Constitution, and not the whims of some petty tyrant who lives at the White House. We will purge all other agencies of inexperienced and unqualified partisans as well.

We will work hard every day to restore all the American greatness on the world stage that Trump has offhandedly squandered. We'll start by restoring the proper historic name to the Gulf of Mexico. And we'll send an apology to Denmark for all that nonsense about taking over Greenland. And another apology to Canada for Trump treating them like dirt instead of our closest ally and trading partner. And a big huge apology to NATO for having to endure a president who sucked up to Vladimir Putin every chance he got.

We will restore the medical and humanitarian aid America was famous for by rebuilding U.S.A.I.D. Uncountable millions will have died due to this cruel and unusual petulance from Trump, and we will work very hard to restore some of the trust the rest of the world had that America always stands for doing the right thing. We will restore our ties to the World Health Organization, since viruses and other diseases don't care what your passport says -- they spread throughout the world.

We will show the world once again that an American president can be trusted to know full well which countries are our strongest allies and which are not. Because we've got a lot of work to do and a long road ahead to restore American greatness on the world's stage.

We'll have a lot of work to do, because Donald Trump in his short time in office destroyed so much of what makes America truly great, because Trump simply didn't understand any of it. America should not be seen as the world's bully. The fact that it now is seen that way absolutely enrages me.

Which is why I've decided to use it as my campaign slogan. RAGE. Because the most important thing for the next president to do is to restore American greatness everywhere. We've got a long way to go, because Trump destroyed so many things for the stupidest of reasons. But that's my promise to you, the American people. I will spend each and every day in office channelling that rage and working hard to restore the greatness that we once had.

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground