By Chris Stirewalt | Friday, June 12
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By Chris Stirewalt
Friday, June 12
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© Jacquelyn Martin, Associated Press
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Whole Hog Politics: ‘I love the inflation’ and other Trump bluffs
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[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audience.]
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Thursday that Americans shouldn’t “put too much stock” into President Trump’s renewed threats to launch a ground invasion of Iran.
It was a little surprising to hear Johnson, who is famous for his flexibility in getting into even the most awkward postures to stay in sync with the president, publicly pooh-pooh Trump’s effort to ratchet up the rhetoric with Iran. But, as it would turn out just a few hours later, Johnson was still the master of Trump Terpsichore when the president abruptly rescinded his threat.
Johnson’s explanation for Trump’s invasion threat, “I think he’s communicating directly with our adversaries over there,” could have also applied to the president’s most recent banger about the domestic implications of the war: “I love the inflation.” But the problem there is that Trump’s bluffing about sky-high prices isn’t as easy to back out of as something as trivial as the deployment of U.S. ground forces in the Middle East.
Indeed, the challenge for Democratic ad makers will be choosing which bits of Trump’s bluster to put in the loop that will be played endlessly for swing district voters in the six weeks prior to Election Day. It would be hard to top "I don't think about Americans’ financial situation. I don't think about anybody,” but he may manage it yet.
As inelegantly as he may be doing it, the president is getting at the central struggle for him and his party this year. His second-term reinvention as a Teddy Roosevelt-style empire-building internationalist has collided with his equally ambitious effort to make the federal government into an instrument of his will.
Consider the pileup in Congress right now. The president said he was determined to have his notorious enforcer, Bill Pulte, become the director of national intelligence. This caused the moderate Democrats in Congress who can typically be counted on to support the extension of post-9/11 domestic surveillance powers to abandon their posts until Pulte was taken down. That doomed the extension in the Senate, but it was Republican opposition that submarined the measure in the House. Trump said he wouldn’t buckle, but, of course, backed down.
Congress has until midnight tonight to pass an extension, which will require some extraordinarily extraordinary measures. But there’s plenty of motivation to get it done while the United States simultaneously hosts a massive international soccer tournament and fights an on-again, off-again war with the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism.
Whether it’s the president’s effort to have a massive birthday bash for the country (and himself), the building of his much-yearned-for ballroom, establishing a fund at the Justice Department to pay his political allies or almost anything else these days, the Iran war and the resulting high prices are making everything harder.
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[Programming alert: Watch “The Hill Sunday” with Chris Stirewalt — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), a top congressional Republican, and former Vice President Mike Pence join Chris to talk about the latest in politics and policy. And, as always, we’ll hear expert analysis from our best-in-the-business panel of journalists, including Sabrina Siddiqui of The Wall Street Journal, Michelle Price of The Associated Press and Abe Greenwald of Commentary. Be sure to catch us on NewsNation at 10 a.m. ET / 9 a.m. CT or your local CW station.]
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Change from one week ago: ↓ 1 point. (-22.8 points)
Change from one month ago: ↑ 3 points. (-26.8 points)
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[Average includes: Reuters/Ipsos 35 percent approve - 65 percent disapprove; Emerson College 39 percent approve – 55 percent disapprove; Marquette University Law School 38 percent approve - 62 percent disapprove; American Research Group 31 percent approve - 64 percent disapprove; WSJ 41 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove]
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Democratic: 47.6 percent
Republican: 40.6 percent
Advantage: D +7 points
Change from one week ago: ↓ .4 points (D + 7.4 points)
Change from one month ago: ↑ .2 points (D + 6.8 points)
[Average includes: Reuters/Ipsos 41 percent Democratic - 37 percent Republican; Emerson 50 percent Democratic - 39 percent Republican; Marquette Law School 49 percent Democratic - 48 percent Republican; WSJ 48 percent Democratic - 40 percent Republican; Quinnipiac University, 50 percent Democratic - 39 percent Republican]]
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Writer Barry Schwabsky looks into the new collection of letters from famed critic Harold Bloom and finds something beautiful. The Point: “Harold Bloom wrote and edited so many books that it’s hard to imagine how he found the time between them to write letters. Yet write letters he did, and just as whatever he read, he read seriously, whatever he wrote he wrote seriously. That’s something I can attest from personal experience: as a former student of his at Yale, a grad school dropout, I ventured to send him a copy of my first book of poems when it was published in 2003. I suppose the most I had hoped for was a friendly note of acknowledgement. What came back was a long, handwritten letter, not discouraging, but containing some rather severe criticisms. I still consider it the most valuable and generous response I’ve ever received: Bloom’s reading was pitched at such a high level of expectation that it was both flattering and instructive to see my work measured by someone who expected it to be as deep and radical as that of Willam Butler Yeats or Wallace Stevens. That what Bloom wanted from my poetry might not have been congruent with what I wanted from it was neither here nor there; it was how much he wanted from it that moved me so much.”
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SENATE SCANDALS STILL SWIRL
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Platner dominates Maine primary anyway: The New York Times: “Graham Platner, the military veteran and first-time candidate whose populist message resonated with voters in Maine, prevailed over the state’s governor to win the Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday. Now, he will face Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable Republican incumbent, in one of the most consequential races in the country this fall. Mr. Platner’s campaign has survived a series of scandals about his personal life, which Republicans began highlighting within minutes of his victory. And he used his speech Tuesday night to cast Ms. Collins as a tool of a political establishment that has let Maine down.”
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Dems’ grudging acceptance: The Washington Post: “When Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) put out a joint statement on Democrat Graham Platner’s win in Maine on Tuesday night, it was 80 words into the 89-word message before they mentioned the controversial Senate candidate by name. The statement, issued by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, offered no words of praise for Planter, only a prediction that Maine voters 'will elect Graham Platner' over Sen. Susan Collins (R), helping Democrats to retake the Senate majority. The tone of the statement highlights how national Democratic leaders, many of whom long harbored concerns about Platner’s candidacy as he faces media reports about his checkered past, are grudgingly accepting that he will be their nominee in a must-win Senate race — even as Republicans start to use Platner as a cudgel against Democrats running nationwide.”
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Unless they can dump him later … : The Hill: “Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) on Tuesday said Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner should win his primary on Tuesday and then get off the ballot so that Democrats can replace him with a stronger candidate in the fall. ... He would then face Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the general election in a crucial race for determining which party will control the Senate. 'I think that he’s going to get off the ballot soon, I mean, you saw, today, reporting from his ex-political director saying that he lied about all this stuff and concerns that she had, I mean, the issues are just going to keep piling up,' Gottheimer told CNN’s John Berman on ‘CNN News Central.’”
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Paxton’s former longtime lawyer flips to Talarico: The New York Times: “A Houston lawyer who defended Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas against criminal charges, and represented him during his 2023 impeachment trial, has endorsed Mr. Paxton’s Democratic opponent in the U.S. Senate race, James Talarico. The lawyer, Dan Cogdell, said Mr. Paxton had ‘lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.’ Mr. Cogdell argued that Mr. Talarico prioritized ‘unity over division’ and could bring together Democrats and some Republicans, and that 'we need that right now.' Mr. Cogdell announced the endorsement on Monday in a podcast interview with Mr. Talarico that was recorded last month — the day after Mr. Paxton won the Republican primary over Senator John Cornyn.”
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ActBlue CEO takes the Fifth on foreign donations — The Hill
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Challengers seize on stock trades, prediction bets — Punchbowl
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RFK Jr.’s MAHA machine not pitching in for GOP — Politico
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Unions’ push for GOP House member as new Labor pick could threaten majority — Politico
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THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE
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“I have fought bitterly and stood up today to reassert the power of the Appropriations Committee, I said we’re guilty on our side, we did it, and now we are dealing with the consequences.” — Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) talking to reporters about the latest effort to circumvent her committee.
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“I wanted to write in with a bit of a complaint I had about your show. Specifically, Whole Hog Politics with Bill Sammon. I was listening to your discussion about California and the very late counting of ballots. You seemed pretty incensed at how long it is taking; calling it an ‘affront to the republic.’ You are not a man often taken by hyperbole, so I could tell this really bothered you. And I tend to agree with your view. If the ballots aren't in on election day, they don't get counted. I also think it is an incredibly bad look for California, and I'm sure the people who live there feel similarly to you, generally speaking. But you described it as such because it's going to give Donald Trump and his administration cover for election denial claims. I can only really scratch my head at this. You seemed far more irritated at the Californians and their self-evident incompetence than you did about the administration making false and malicious accusations about our election integrity, because the former will only support the latter. If those election denial claims are, as I and presumably you believe, actually false, then it seems you are angry at the wrong person. What California is doing is undesirable, but legal and ultimately in good will. The things the administration are saying may be legal, but are undesirable and in very bad faith. What I'm saying is, if California late vote counting is an affront to the republic, it would have been more clear what you consider those election denial claims to be.” – Justin Bliley, Washington Court House, Ohio
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Mr. Bliley,
There are many affronts to the republic, including but not limited to, the designated hitter rule, people who take their shoes off on airplanes and soggy hash browns. Not all affronts are equal, though.
As for what the correct object of my umbrage should be, I refer you to the fable of the frog and the scorpion. We need not wonder what the Trump administration means to do with elections this year. And while I find the claims to be mostly spurious, it is also true that many Americans — millions of Americans — believe that these claims are true, at least directionally. President Trump will have a big cheering section when he tries to take an axe to California’s elections. So why would the frog give that particular scorpion a ride?
I would also pause over the assumption about California Democrats’ election rules being “ultimately in good will.” Yes, there is much goodwill in the idea of making it easy to vote and to provide voters the longest period possible, but I assure you that unless the ruling party in Sacramento didn’t believe that there would be political advantage in holding the election open for an additional week, it would not have happened.
That desire for electoral advantage speaks to the fact that California Democrats should know better than to be giving rides to scorpions just now. The president tried and failed to subvert one election, paid no legal or political price for it and has shown pride rather than contrition for his behavior. What person could imagine that he will not try to do it again, especially as he telegraphs the moves almost daily?
The lamentable state of California’s elections isn’t just in that present danger but in the fact that it undermines public confidence in elections at exactly the moment that leaders in both parties claim that our democracy is in peril.
As I wrote in a Tuesday column in which I continued my fulminations about the state’s elections system:
“It would do scant harm to access if California changed its rules to state that it would count only the ballots officials had received by the end of Election Day. That would still give voters three weeks from when ballots go out at the beginning of October. That way, at the end of the day on Nov. 3, officials can turn on the machines already preloaded with millions of ballots and have results in all but the closest races before most residents go to bed. That’s a good tradeoff, providing among the most generous levels of access of any state while improving accuracy and expedition.”
All best,
c
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WHOSE HOUSE? ELMO’S HOUSE
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ABC News: “Elmo, the beloved red monster from ‘Sesame Street,’ sparked controversy this week with an innocuous social media post about the 2026 NBA Finals. The ruckus started after Elmo shared an X post on Wednesday -- as well as a matching post on Instagram -- wishing both the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs well in their first Finals matchup at the Frost Bank Center in Texas. ‘Elmo hopes both teams have fun!’ the post read. On Instagram, Elmo also shared a video of himself sinking a basket and celebrating with his best friend, Abby Cadabby. Elmo's neutral stance drew sharp criticism from Knicks fans online, with some pointing out that the fictional Sesame Street is located in New York City, with its iconic brownstone stoops, storefronts, and tight-knit neighborhood communities, and as such, Elmo should naturally root for the Knicks.”
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Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media.
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