Minnesota has been the white whale for Republicans in the Trump era. And 2026 could be the year they finally break through — if President Donald Trump and one of the most prolific peddlers of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election don’t sink their chances.

Republicans are growing optimistic about their chances of unseating Democratic Gov. Tim Walz next year, as he seeks a historic third term. But Trump’s increasingly caustic attacks on Walz and disparagement of Minnesota’s Somali community — and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s entrance into the gubernatorial race — could hurt Republicans’ chances of regaining ground in the state, some party strategists argue.

“When the president comes in with a flamethrower and just throws that type of rhetoric, there's no oxygen, and there's no space for the Republican to offer suggestions and to be thoughtful in that space, because the rhetoric of the president just paints them into a corner,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota GOP who backed the Democratic ticket in 2024.

Republicans have insisted they can be competitive statewide in the blue-leaning Minnesota ever since Trump lost Minnesota by less than 2 points in 2016. But since then, winning the state has beguiled both the president — who faced a 7-point loss in 2020 and a 4-point loss in 2024 — and Republicans in other statewide races, including two fairly comfortable wins for Walz in 2018 and 2022.

Still, Republicans see an opportunity to win back the Minnesota governor’s seat for the first time since 2006 by hammering Walz, who is running despite scrutiny into his oversight of state benefits and a star turn as the Democratic vice presidential nominee that put him in the crosshairs of Republicans across the country.

At the same time, Trump has also used the arrests of some Somali immigrants in federal fraud cases to broadly characterize the state’s Somali population as criminals — leaning on his trademark use of divisive rhetoric that some Republicans worry will fall flat.

That risk, insiders warn, could be exacerbated if Lindell, a Trump ally, wins the Republican nomination.

“We’d be cooked,” said Dustin Grage, a Minnesota Republican strategist. “I’d be moving to Florida very shortly. We would lose pretty badly if Mike Lindell were to get the nomination.”

Those close to the president strenuously disagree, arguing the state remains on the map. House GOP Whip Tom Emmer, the most high-profile Minnesota Republican and an ally of the president, said he’s spoken to Trump about the governor’s race and is confident that any of the 13 Republicans seeking the party’s nomination could defeat Walz.

“We should be able to beat Tim Walz with a dog,” Emmer told POLITICO in an interview.

The White House declined to comment. At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, Trump praised Lindell and said he “deserves to be the governor of Minnesota.”

Walz faces a tricky path to reelection, with no Minnesota governor winning three consecutive terms in the state’s history. That’s been made more difficult by several investigations during his tenure leading the state that revealed a ring of alleged fraudsters siphoning money from public programs. In 2022, federal prosecutors charged dozens of people for pocketing $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the Minnesota Department of Education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The massive scope of the fraud allegations (the Justice Department called it the “largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the United States”) triggered a state audit that found the Walz administration “did not effectively exercise its authority” to prevent the fraud.

In September, federal prosecutors charged eight people with defrauding a Minnesota housing and health benefits program of millions of dollars by submitting inflated and fake reimbursement claims. Six additional people were charged for participating in the scheme in December. That same month, a defendant previously charged in the pandemic program fraud pleaded guilty to attempting to steal $14 million from a Minnesota health care program that offers services to children with autism.

Prosecutors have broadened their inquiry into benefits fraud in the state to investigate billions of dollars in flagged billings of 14 public programs supported by Medicaid.

In response to a request for comment to a Walz spokesperson, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Richard Carlbom said in a statement that Walz “heads into reelection with a record focused squarely on working people and kitchen-table issues.”

“While the GOP clown-car primary remains consumed by infighting and loyalty tests for Donald Trump, Minnesota families are falling behind as Republicans unleash higher grocery prices, skyrocketing health care bills, and giant tax breaks for billionaires,” Carlbom said. “Minnesotans see the difference — a governor delivering for working families, or Republicans delivering loyalty to Donald Trump and a Washington agenda that puts billionaires first.”

In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up his efforts to link Walz to the abuse of government programs — while using incendiary rhetoric directed at the governor and the Somali community. In a social media post on Thanksgiving, he called Walz “seriously retarded” and accused Somali refugees of seeking to “prey” on Minnesotans. And at an early December rally in Pennsylvania, he again denigrated the Somali community while discussing “the great big Minnesota scam with one of the dumbest governors ever in history.”

Emmer, who said he spoke with Trump about the governor’s race as early as July, said he believes the president recognizes an opportunity in Walz’s vulnerability. “I think the president knows that Tim Walz is the weakest he's ever been in his political career,” Emmer said.

Former Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt, a Republican, said the fraud investigations are part of the risk for Walz in seeking a third consecutive term.

“If you can lay out a case that, ‘Well, you've been elected now for eight years, and you haven't fixed these problems,’ or ‘You haven't accomplished what you said you were going to’ … it kind of makes it an easier case to say, ‘Maybe it's time for someone new,’” Daudt said.

But the rhetoric Trump is using to highlight the fraud may reframe the issue to the detriment of Walz’s Republican opponent, said Brodkorb,the former party official. He believes Minnesotans are eager to weigh ideas on immigration policy and how to tackle abuse of public programs.

“The problem is when the president comes in and says things like, ‘Everyone in the entire Somali community is garbage,’” Brodkorb said.

Emmer, who adamantly defended Trump’s approach and his rhetoric attacking both Walz and the Somali community, credited him with shining a light on the state.

“If he hadn't said it exactly the way it is, and if he hadn't been so out there direct, guess what? Nobody would have covered it,” Emmer said.

The barrage directed at Walz and the state — including attacks from Trump allies, targeted probes from Cabinet officials and an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis — underscores the governor’s newfound national prominence since campaigning as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in last year’s presidential race.

Walz has emerged as a vocal critic of the second Trump administration, prompting a feud between the two. After a Democratic lawmaker was killed by a gunman and a second was seriously injured earlier this year, Trump said he would not “waste time” calling the “whacked out” governor.

Walz’s growing national profile both makes him a high-profile target in the 2026 midterms worthy of trying to defeat, GOP strategists say — but Trump’s intense focus on the race could also backfire given the state’s political makeup.

“Having Donald Trump being active in the race for a particular Republican may not be helpful, but it would be extremely helpful to raise the attention on Tim Walz and his record here in the state,” Daudt said.

And if Trump’s ends up throwing his weight behind Lindell — who conspired with Trump in 2020 to advance false claims that the presidential election was stolen — Republicans worry that could give Walz a clearer path to reelection.

“If [Lindell] is the candidate, that’s what the election will be about,” Daudt said. “It'll definitely be easier for Walz to make the election about Trump if Mike Lindell is the candidate. No question.”

Trump, who continues to claim the 2020 election was rigged, touted Lindell’s efforts to reverse the election results at the North Carolina rally, and empathized with how Lindell “suffered” as a result.

"He was just a guy that said, ’This election was so crooked, it was so rigged.’ He fought like hell," Trump told his supporters.

Lindell’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Some Minnesota Republicans hope that the party will back a more moderate candidate that can highlight Walz’s vulnerabilities.

But Emmer said candidates should do what they can to win the endorsement of the hundreds of highly engaged party activists who serve as delegates at the party’s nominating convention next year.

“I'm going to tell you the way you win this race. You go run your race to get an endorsement,” Emmer said. “As soon as you are the endorsed Republican candidate, you have won the primary in August, you are going to win the governor's race.”

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's a look back on the past year through the eyes of the cartoonists. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

After five years in the United States Senate, Republican Tommy Tuberville wants Alabamians to know one thing above all else as he embarks on a gubernatorial bid: his time as a college football coach.

That his campaign website is framed by a banner reading “Coach Tuberville for Governor” speaks to how much the GOP is relying upon local sports heroes to compete for offices up and down the ballot as the pivotal midterm elections approach.

Athletes and coaches are playing in some of the highest-profile races of the 2026 cycle, with control over Congress up for grabs in a year expected to favor Democrats. In Georgia, former University of Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley is hoping to capitalize on his athletic experience — and his father’s football fame in Athens — to break through in a competitive Republican primary and unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Former NFL kicker Jay Feely is running for Congress in Arizona. And former MLB star Mark Teixeira is a front-runner for Rep. Chip Roy’s open House seat in Texas.

Tuberville, who once led the Auburn University football team, still goes by “coach” around the Capitol.

Athletes-turned-politicians are hardly a new concept: former Rep. Jack Kemp brought his football background to the halls of Congress and the 1996 GOP presidential ticket; Jesse Ventura leveraged his WWE fame to win Minnesota’s governorship; and two-time NBA champion Bill Bradley served New Jersey in the Senate for nearly two decades and mounted a bid for the White House.

But at a moment of deep distrust and disdain for elected officials in Washington, both parties are looking for outsider candidates and athletes are increasingly fitting that mold. And the trend of leveraging sports fame for political gain has been supercharged in the era of Trump, who once owned a pro football team. The president has routinely campaigned alongside athletes and coaches, including Notre Dame hero Lou Holtz — whom he later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — and professional wrestling star Hulk Hogan. He backed Tuberville in his Senate run and endorsed former University of Georgia star running back Herschel Walker in his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2022.

This trend has been especially prevalent in the southeast, where college football culture reigns. Tuberville’s successful entrance into politics has inspired a new crop of football figures to make their own bids as Republicans in the SEC corridor, and many of them have consulted directly with the coach-turned-legislator about how to replicate his win.

Tuberville used his gridiron fame in Alabama to rocket to the Senate in 2020 without any experience in the public eye off the football field.

“I spent a lot of time in public life going to a lot of alumni meetings, shaking hands, marketing our program, selling recruits on the road, dealing a lot with parents — and it's no different than being in politics,” he said in an interview.

The party in Alabama isn’t making an active push to recruit former sports stars to run for office, but that hasn’t stopped other like-minded college athletes and sports figures from running their own plays for office.

“I think there's a natural bend towards these figures,” said Alabama Republican Party Chair John Wahl, who worked on Tuberville’s 2020 Senate campaign. “They already have some name I.D., they have fundraising capabilities, but they're seen as political outsiders and people who are going to represent the average, everyday American.”

Dooley, who is running for Senate with the backing of Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, approached Tuberville for some coaching prior to his run.

“The people that have called me, they ask: what is this? What do I have to do? And what does it entail? You know, first of all, being a senator, they all want to know first about campaigning. They want to know the ins and outs of it and what you have to do with raising money,” Tuberville said.

Dooley’s campaign did not make him available for an interview for this article.

Earlier this year, former University of Alabama star quarterback AJ McCarron launched his own bid for lieutenant governor — opening the possibility that, alongside Tuberville, the state could have been helmed by figures representing rival local football programs. He ended his bid on Wednesday, announcing he would no longer seek Montgomery’s second-in-command post “in order to accept a new career opportunity in football.”

Paul Finebaum, the lauded college football commentator, passed on a run for Tuberville’s seat earlier this month. He, too, spoke with the senator about the job as he was exploring a run, according to Tuberville. So did fellow Auburn Tigers basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who similarly opted against a bid after retiring from coaching.

But there will still be plenty of ‘Bama pride left: Sen. Katie Britt’s (R-Ala.) husband Wesley Britt starred for the Crimson Tide before playing three seasons in the NFL, a fact she was sure to highlight in her ads during her 2022 run for Senate.

This same trend is playing out in other parts of the country too. Michelle Tafoya, the longtime NFL sideline reporter, is inching toward mounting a bid as a Republican in Minnesota’s open Senate race. Meanwhile, Democrats have yet to significantly capitalize on that same trend in the deep-red part of the country to challenge the Republicans’ regional hegemony.

That isn’t to say they don’t have a bench elsewhere: former Rep. Colin Allred leaned hard on his bio as an NFL player in his unsuccessful 2024 Senate bid in Texas (he’s now running for his old seat). Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy played a few years of professional basketball in Europe before returning to the Bay State to launch her political career. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) is a former professional mixed martial arts fighter.

“Democrats tend to recruit a lot of ex-military or CIA people. They seem to think that’s more in their wheelhouse,” said long-time Democratic strategist James Carville.

“I think as people become increasingly turned off by ‘politics of Washington, ’you’re going to find these parties are going to be looking for different kinds of candidates,” he continued. “It might be a good idea to look for more opportunities like this.”

Nearly three-quarters of American adults are “frustrated” by the Democratic Party, an October Pew Research Center poll found. Sixty-four percent of Americans held similarly negative views of Republicans. That dissatisfaction makes the appeal of an outsider candidate who hasn’t touched politics before even stronger.

“I think people are ready for change,” said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and president of the progressive candidate recruitment organization Run for Something. “Often the best folks to shepherd that change are people who are new to the system, whether that's new to politics or new to community engagement.”

“I wouldn't say athletes is, like, a specific profile we're looking for, because you have to be really in it to solve a problem,” she continued, adding that wants to see “more artists, I want more musicians, and I want more nurses and teachers to run for office. I want more people who really care and who maybe come with a fresh perspective.”

While outsider candidates may prove a balm to those fiery sentiments, the public is not entirely sold on athletes wading into a political space. A late 2024 poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC at the University of Chicago showed that 26 percent of adults approve of athletes speaking out about political issues. 36 percent of respondents said they explicitly disapprove of athletes specifically sharing their political opinions.

“When you’re famous in athletics, everybody likes you,” Carville said. “In politics, as soon as you open your mouth, half the people hate you.”

Wyoming GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman on Tuesday announced her campaign for Senate, hoping to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis in next year’s election.

The Wyoming Republican is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, and with his backing she helped oust Republican then-Rep. Liz Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump’s, in the 2022 primary.

"This fight is about making sure the next century sees the advancements of the last, while protecting our culture and our way of life,” Hageman said in her launch video. “We must dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the next 100 years is the next great American century."

Lummis announced she would not seek reelection last week, saying she felt like a “sprinter in a marathon” despite being a “devout legislator.” Hageman, who had been debating a gubernatorial bid, was expected to enter the Senate race.

Hageman touted her ties to the president in her announcement video, highlighting her record of support for Trump’s policies during her time in the House and vowing to keep Wyoming a “leader in energy and food production.”

“I worked with President Trump to pass 46 billion in additional funding for border security, while ensuring that Wyomingites do not pay the cost of new immigration. We work together to secure the border and fund efforts to remove and deport those in the country illegally,” she said.

President Trump on Tuesday said Hageman has his "complete and total" endorsement, calling her "highly respected" in a post to Truth Social.

"I know Harriet well, and she is a TOTAL WINNER!" Trump said. He added that Hageman "WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN."

Trump won the deep-red state by nearly 46 points in last year’s election, and Hageman herself was reelected by nearly 48 points, according to exit polling.

Still, Hageman bore the brunt of voters’ displeasure earlier this year during a town hall. As she spoke of the Department of Government Efficiency, federal cuts and Social Security, the crowd booed her.

Former Sen. Ben Sasse announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer.

The Nebraska Republican shared the news on X, writing in a lengthy social media post that he had received the diagnosis last week.

“Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence,” Sasse said. “But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”

The two term senator retired in 2023 and then went on to serve as president of the University of Florida. He eventually left the school to spend more time with his wife, Melissa, after she was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Sasse continued to teach classes at University of Florida’s Hamilton Center after he stepped down as president. He previously served as a professor at the University of Texas, as an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and as president of Midland University.

Sasse on Tuesday shared that he and his wife have only grown closer since and opened up about his children’s recent successes and milestones.

“There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst,” Sasse said. “As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.”

Sasse said he’ll have more to share in the future, adding that he is “not going down without a fight” and will be undergoing treatment.

“Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape,” Sasse said.

Unreliable. Creating more problems than solving them. A negative force on the world stage. This is how large shares of America's closest allies view the U.S., according to new polling, as President Donald Trump pursues a sweeping foreign policy overhaul.

Pluralities in Germany and France — and a majority of Canadians — say the U.S. is a negative force globally, according to new international POLITICO-Public First polling. Views are more mixed in the United Kingdom, but more than a third of respondents there share that dim assessment.

Near-majorities in all four countries also say the U.S. tends to create problems for other countries rather than solve them.

The findings offer a snapshot of how Trump’s reshaping of U.S. foreign policy — including through an expansive trade agenda, sharp rhetoric toward longtime allies and reoriented military posture — is resonating across some of Washington's closest allies.

When asked whether the U.S. supports its allies around the world or challenges them, a majority of Canadians say the latter, as well as just under half of respondents in Germany and France. In the U.K., roughly 4 in 10 say the U.S. challenges, rather than supports, its allies, more than a third say it cannot be depended on in a crisis, nearly half say it creates problems for other countries, and 35 percent say the U.S. is a negative force overall.

Trump has blurred traditional lines of global alliances during his first year back in office, particularly in Canada and Europe. He called Europe a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in a recent POLITICO interview and his sweeping National Security Strategyargued that the continent has lost its “national identities and self-confidence."

By contrast, the strategy reserved less scathing language for Russia — even as U.S. allies in Europe gear up for what leaders have called a “hybrid war” with Moscow.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the administration’s approach when asked about European criticisms, saying the transatlantic alliance remains rooted in shared “civilizational” values. “I do think that at the core of these special relationships we have is the fact that we have shared history, shared values, shared civilizational principles that we should be unapologetic about,” Rubio said at a briefing last week.

But as Trump disrupts long-standing relationships, skepticism among allied leaders may be seeping into public sentiment, said Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

“Public opinion in democracies often reflects elite opinion,” he said. “What you're probably seeing there is that you do have politicians in these countries expressing skepticism about the United States and about the Trump administration, and that's being reflected in the public opinion polling.”

Leaders across Europe and Canada recalibrate under Trump’s foreign policy agenda

That dynamic is playing out across Europe and Canada, as leaders across the countries try to keep the increasingly strained relationships intact.

In Germany, wavering U.S. military support for Ukraine, questions about Washington’s commitment to NATO and Trump's tariff war have added urgency for Chancellor Friedrich Merz to move beyond the country’s long-established limits on defense spending and economic policy. Weeks before taking office, Merz secured a historic spending overhaul that unlocked hundreds of billions of euros for defense and infrastructure investments after years of self-imposed austerity.

“Every foreign policy statement by Trump is followed closely, and often discussed in light of what it may mean for U.S. policy shifts regarding European security issues, such as commitment to NATO, future U.S. troop presence in Europe, and support for Ukraine,” said Dominik Tolksdorf, a transatlantic expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

In France, where skepticism toward the U.S. has long run deep, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued personal diplomacy with Trump while using the president’s unpredictability to bolster arguments for greater European strategic autonomy.

“Handing over one’s sovereignty to another power is a mistake — De Gaulle said nothing else,” one high-ranking French military officer, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO. Another defense official said Trump’s National Security Strategy had increased “awareness that something is not right.”

In the U.K., Trump remains polarizing, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer has largely avoided public confrontation. His priorities now include finalizing a U.K.-U.S. trade deal and coordinating a European response to Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine — without angering the White House, the delicate balance many allied leaders are trying to strike.

Canada, meanwhile, has seen the sharpest deterioration in relations, which have soured amid a punishing trade war and Trump's intermittent rhetoric on annexation.

Flavio Volpe, the president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, described the economic disruption linked to Trump's trade moves. "People lost their jobs — ones they worked their entire lives — and billions of dollars in Canadian capital evaporated in an unexplainable turn away from the bankable post-Cold War balance of power by the White House," he wrote on LinkedIn.

Democrats remain skeptical of the U.S. on the world stage

Overall, Americans still view their country more favorably than their allies do. Nearly half — 49 percent — say the U.S. supports its allies around the world. A majority, 52 percent, say it can be depended on in a crisis, and 51 percent say the U.S. is a positive force globally.

But Democrats — who have displayed deeply pessimistic views about their country since Trump’s return to office — hold far more negative views.

Almost half of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris last year — 47 percent — also say the U.S. is a negative force in the world overall, compared with just 13 percent of Trump voters. Three in four Trump voters say the U.S. is a positive force in the world.

Many Democrats also don’t just express skepticism about the U.S., but view other countries and international blocs as stronger models: 58 percent of Harris voters say the European Union is a positive force in the world, and nearly two-thirds — 64 percent — say the same about Canada, greater than the shares who say the same about the U.S.

"This tracks with our other research on the rapid change of perceptions of the U.S. over the last year,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First. “Americans themselves are not blind to it.”

Prior to the 2024 election, strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans — 71 percent and 69 percent — said the U.S. was a positive force in the world over the course of its entire history, Public First polling from October of last year found.

Exactly one year later, Democrats have sharply changed their views, with 77 percent of Trump voters still saying the U.S. is positive, compared with just 58 percent of Democrats.

“That's around 1 in 8 Democrats changing their views on the role the U.S. has played in its entire history, in just one year,” said Wride.

Voters who backed Trump last November overwhelmingly view the U.S. in a positive light, but subtle differences emerge within his coalition. Eighty-one percent of self-identifying MAGA Trump voters say the U.S. is a positive force in the world overall, compared with 71 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters. Still, 17 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters say the opposite, that the U.S. is a negative force.

POLITICO’s Matt Honeycombe-Foster contributed reporting from the United Kingdom, Victor Goury-Laffont and Laura Kayali contributed from France, Nette Nöstlinger contributed from Germany and Nick Taylor-Vaisey contributed from Canada. Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing also contributed.

More than a dozen staffers at The Heritage Foundation are leaving the conservative think tank to join a nonprofit led by former Vice President Mike Pence as the embattled organization continues to reel from ongoing turmoil.

Advancing American Freedom — founded by Pence in 2021 “to defend liberty and advance policies that build a stronger America” — announced Monday that three senior officials who led the legal, economic and data teams at Heritage would be joining the group next year, along with several members of their teams.

The departures, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mark the latest sign of upheaval at Heritage, which has seen dozens of staffers flee the organization since it became engulfed in a scandal involving Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the ongoing debate within the conservative movement over antisemitism.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, the architect behind the “Project 2025” blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second administration, drew sharp rebukes from conservative voices, including commentator Ben Shapiro, after standing by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with Fuentes in October.

In the wake of the initial backlash, Roberts told staffers he’d make a “mistake,” but asked for the chance to “clean it up” during a November all-staff meeting, according to a leaked video first published by the Washington Free Beacon.

The hires by Advancing American Freedom signal that the organization is looking to position itself as a key player within the broader conservative movement.

“AAF is honored to welcome these principled conservative scholars to the team,” Pence, who has been the target of Trump’s ire since the former vice president certified the 2020 election results, said in a statement. “They bring a wealth of experience, a love of country, and a deep commitment to the Constitution and Conservative Movement that will further the cause of liberty.”

Andrew Olivastro, chief advancement officer at The Heritage Foundation, said in a Monday statement that the think tank’s “mission is unchanged, and our leadership is strong and decisive.”

"Heritage has always welcomed debate, but alignment on mission and loyalty to the institution are non-negotiable. A handful of staff chose a different path — some through disruption, others through disloyalty,” Olivastro said.

In his statement, Olivastro said several of the departing staffers were “terminated for conduct inconsistent with Heritage's mission and standards” last week, adding that “Their departures clear the way for a stronger, more focused team.”

Former Heritage Vice President John Malcolm is slated to lead AAF’s new Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, which is being relocated from Heritage. Jessica Reinsch, formerly deputy director of programs at the Meese Center, will serve as director of programs, and five other former employees at Heritage will also join AAF’s Meese Institute.

Five staffers from Heritage’s economic policy institute and its federal budget center will join AAF’s Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise, and former Heritage’s Chief Statistician Kevin Dayaratna will lead its Center for Statistical Modeling & Scientific Analysis.

Josh Blackman, a legal scholar who contributed to Project 2025, also resigned his post as senior editor of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution on Sunday. In his resignation letter, Blackman wrote that Roberts’ remarks “were a huge unforced blunder, and gave aid and comfort to the rising tide of antisemitism on the right,” in addition to undermining the work of the Meese Center.

“Your initial remarks were indefensible. Your apology was underwhelming. And the lack of any meaningful followup over the past three months has been telling,” Blackman wrote in his letter to Roberts.

Still, some Heritage staffers have remained loyal to the organization, with conservative activist Robby Starbuck sharing Monday that he would be extending his stay as a visiting fellow at the think tank. Starbuck wrote on social media that “these resignations have a lot more to do with 2028 than it does with anything else,” accusing Blackman and others who stepped down of yearning for “a return to the Pence/Ryan GOP.”

The shock waves from the infighting at Heritage, once a key player in the MAGA coalition, have continued to reverberate throughout the GOP, with Republican firebrands like Carlson, Shapiro, Vivek Ramaswamy and Steve Bannon sparring over Fuentes and whether he had a place in the party this weekend at Turning Point’s AmericaFest in Phoenix.

George Conway, a conservative lawyer and vocal critic of President Donald Trump, filed paperwork on Monday to run as a Democrat for the seat Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) is vacating.

News of Conway entering the race began surfacing last month, especially after Conway confirmed he had hired a Democratic pollster to weigh his chances.

Conway was previously married to Kellyanne Conway, who helped manage Trump’s 2016 presidential bid and then served in the White House during Trump’s first term.

Though George Conway was also offered a position with the administration during Trump’s first term, he declined. The relationship between the president and Conway turned contentious, with Conway often criticizing Trump and the president in turn commenting on the Conways' marriage.

The feud ultimately culminated in Trump calling Conway a “stone cold LOSER & husband from hell” and Conway calling Trump a “fascist.” Conway went on to pen an essay that called Trump “unfit for office.”

The lawyer eventually co-founded The Lincoln Project, a PAC of former Republicans with a self-described purpose of defeating Trump, and has continued to criticize the president.

Shortly after Conway filed to run, Councilmember Erik Bottcher announced he is ending his campaign for House of Representatives, choosing instead to run for New York State Senate.

But Conway will still join an increasingly crowded primary race for Nadler’s seat. At least nine hopefuls — including Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of John F. Kennedy — have filed to run for the position since Nadler announced in September he would not seek reelection.

March for Our Lives organizer Cameron Kasky, Assemblymen Alex Bores and Micah Lasher have also filed to run for the Manhattan-based seat.

CBS News abruptly pulled a “60 Minutes” investigation featuring Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison on Sunday, sparking swift backlash within the newsroom, including from the story’s veteran correspondent.

The canceled segment, yanked at the behest of newly appointed editor in chief Bari Weiss, focused on the notorious El Salvador prison that President Donald Trump has deported immigrants to despite reports of human rights violations within the prison. Several men now released from the prison were featured in the segment describing the conditions they endured within CECOT.

But Weiss nixed the segment just hours before it was set to air after calling for multiple additions, according to The New York Times, including an interview with top Trump adviser Stephen Miller or another top official in the Trump administration.

CBS said in a statement that the segment will air at a later date, and Weiss defended the decision to hold the segment in a statement to The New York Times.

“My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be,” Weiss said. “Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran correspondent on the story, condemned Weiss’ decision.

In an email obtained by The New York Times and later shared on social media by Times reporter Michael M. Grynbaum, Alfonsi told her CBS colleagues that reporters on the segment had requested comment from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. She added that the segment had also already undergone a rigorous review and fact-checking process.

To pull the story so close to airtime, Alfonsi said, is “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote. “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”

She continued, “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch' for any reporting they find convenient.”

Alfonsi added that if CBS’ new standard for airing a segment requires government interviews, then the government “effectively gains control over the '60 Minutes' broadcast.”

“We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it,” Alfonsi wrote. “When it airs without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘Gold Standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The cancellation of “Inside CECOT” is the latest in a string of controversial moves made by the media giant this year.

In July, CBS announced a $16 million settlement with Trump, who sued the company as a private citizen following his own appearance on “60 Minutes.” It was after that settlement that the Trump administration approved Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of CBS.

Weiss, founder of The Free Press, was appointed as editor in chief by Paramount owner David Ellison in October to overhaul the newsroom.

Trump has continued to express his displeasure with CBS, but that hasn’t stopped Ellison from courting the administration’s favor as he seeks to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

Progressives are pushing Medicare for All in some of the Democratic Party's most competitive Senate primaries next year, threatening the unity the party has found on attacking Republicans over expiring Obamacare subsidies.

In Maine, Graham Platner said he’s making Medicare for All a “core part” of his platform in his race against Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment pick who’s called for a universal health care program. In Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly are both championing the concept — and calling out rival Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi for not fully embracing it.

In Minnesota, Medicare for All has emerged as a key distinction between progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and moderate Rep. Angie Craig, who supports adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act rather than Medicare for All. Flanagan said she “absolutely” expects the policy to define the primary because “it doesn’t matter if I’m in the urban core, the suburbs or greater Minnesota — when I say I’m a supporter of Medicare for All, the room erupts.”

And it’s become a flashpoint in Michigan, where physician Abdul El-Sayed, who wrote a book called Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide, is using his signature issue to draw a contrast with Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who favor other approaches.

Medicare for All — government-funded health coverage for every American — is “where we need to point to,” El-Sayed said in an interview. “And I think you can galvanize a winning coalition around this issue.”

But some more moderate Democrats worry that progressives' renewed push for Medicare for All would undermine the party’s recent united front in fighting for an extension of the Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, leading to a significant spike in insurance costs for millions of Americans. Their effort initially failed in the Senate, but with the help of four vulnerable Republicans who crossed party lines this week, Democrats have now secured a House vote on an extension in January.

"We have a singular message, which is: ‘Don’t let these tax credits go.’ We have Republicans on the ropes,” said a national Democratic strategist who works on Senate races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t think introducing ‘we need MFA’ is the right strategy right now. I think it would be unhelpful."

Several Democratic consultants pointed to recent public polling showing Americans like having individual insurance coverage, despite being dissatisfied with health care companies. An NBC News poll found 82 percent of Americans were satisfied with their plans, both private and government-sponsored. Based on that data, these consultants said allowing Americans to buy into a government-offered plan, known as a “public option,” is more politically palatable.

Centrists have long dismissed Medicare for All as both a policy pipedream and political albatross for their party — a rallying cry for the left that serves as catnip for Republican admakers looking to broad brush Democrats as socialists. They argue that surveys often fail to present voters with the full picture of how Medicare for All would work, and therefore fail to capture its electoral toxicity.

“What we need to accept is there’s a deeply held skepticism among Americans about going zero to 60 that’s entirely government run, even though they don’t love the current system,” said Adam Jentleson, a Democratic strategist and president of the Searchlight Institute. “In isolation, this thing does okay. But it’s not how it plays out in real life, and the totality will crush us.”

The once-fringe policy that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) mainstreamed during his presidential campaigns has become a rallying cry for his favored candidates and other progressives across battleground primaries, as Democrats work to make health care costs central to next year’s midterms and as the party base clamors for fighters willing to disrupt the status quo. The push for Medicare for All, which receded during the more moderate Biden era, comes as Democrats have otherwise been unified on their health care messaging, forcing Republicans onto defense over their refusal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

“Do I think every single swing-seat candidate is going to come out for Medicare for All? No,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, a Democratic strategist and board member for the nonprofit Care in Action. “But if you want to signal that you’re unafraid and bold right now, and you want to say you’re not beholden to the status quo, it’s a perfect position for that.”

Progressives are emboldened by partisan and independent polling that shows most Democrats and a majority of independents support Medicare for All. A recent survey commissioned by Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-Wash.) leadership PAC and first reported by POLITICO showed 90 percent of Democrats back Medicare for All and found most independents and one in five Republicans back a “government-provided system.”

Jayapal, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, plans to push her colleagues to start promoting Medicare for All again in the new year. She predicted in an interview that support for the system will be a “defining factor” in the party’s primaries next year and an electoral winner in battleground House seats.

But proponents of Medicare for All argue that a government-provided system would lessen the pinch of rising health care costs. They say pushing to extend the ACA subsidies and promoting Medicare for All as an end goal are not mutually exclusive. And they point to several 2018 candidates who won tough seats while supporting the measure, including former Rep. Katie Porter in California to retiring Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.

“You can know that there are short-term stopgaps that must be taken to protect working people while also thinking that long term, we need a better system,” said Platner, who is vying against Mills to unseat GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.

Platner has been extolling Medicare for All from the start of his campaign and said it gets the “most raucous” response at his events across Maine, where a recent Pan Atlantic Research poll found 63 percent support for the system (and Platner trailing Mills by 10 points).

He argued in an interview that Mills isn’t as steadfast in her support for the concept because she “doesn’t talk about it all that often” and uses “vague language” when she does. Mills has said “it is time” for universal health care and that she’s “committed to finding a way to get there” if elected. Her campaign echoed that sentiment in response to a request for comment for this story, and cited her efforts to expand Mainers access to Medicaid.

In Minnesota, Flanagan said embracing Medicare for All has been a “journey” during her Senate campaign, as she heard from Minnesotans that the “cost of health care is the thing that comes over and over and over again.” Of Craig’s support for a public option, Flanagan said voters don’t want a nominee who “nibbles around the edges” instead of being “bold and audacious.”

Craig calls the public option a “big, bold reform,” but emphasizes that it’s a policy “we could actually accomplish in this country in a fairly short time period,” she said in a video this week.

In Illinois, Stratton and Kelly, two of the three leading Democrats vying to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, are jockeying for position as Medicare for All’s biggest champion in the race while their campaigns knock Krishnamoorthi for couching his support for the system. Krishnamoorthi said in a statement that while it’s “a noble goal, and I’m fighting to get us to universal coverage” his focus is on extending the ACA subsidies and reversing Republicans’ cuts to Medicaid.

And in Michigan, El-Sayed has slammed McMorrow’s call for universal health care with a public option as “incoherent” and ill-informed as the two compete for the same slice of progressive voters. McMorrow has knocked the idea of a single-payer system run by President Donald Trump and his controversial health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And she’s promoted a public option so people who like their private insurance can keep it. Stevens’ campaign says she supports strengthening Obamacare, including through a public option, without endorsing Medicare for All.

The issue is also becoming a flashpoint in Democratic primaries for some of the most competitive House seats in the country, driven in part by Sanders-backed candidates running from California’s Central Valley to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

“There’s immense hostility and anger toward the way the insurance industry functions, doubled up with health care itself being one of the biggest affordability issues,” said Mark Longabaugh, a progressive strategist who worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. “Progressives are smart to push the case.”

PHOENIX — After three straight days of MAGA infighting here at Turning Point’s AmericaFest, top Republicans — including Vice President JD Vance — tried to find agreement on Sunday afternoon, shifting their focus to countering the opposition.

“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance told the crowd to loud applause, adding later: “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other."

In his speech, Vance ripped into “far left” Democrats, casting their policies as toxic to Americans and blaming them for Charlie Kirk's September killing, which has loomed large over the gathering. He touted the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, vaccines and transgender issues, while calling for the crowd to engage ahead of next year’s midterms.

“If you miss Charlie Kirk, do you promise to fight what he died for? Do you promise to take the country back from the people who took his life?” Vance asked the crowd.

His speech at the Phoenix Convention Center is the culmination of a weekend-long festival for 30,000 of President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. But until Sunday, much of the weekend was clouded by an intra-party schism that kicked off during night one on Thursday, when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro ripped into a number of fellow MAGA-verse influencers, especially Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Steve Bannon.

“The conservative movement is in serious danger,” Shapiro said, especially from some “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

Those themes carried through on Friday and Saturday, with presidential-hopeful turned Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy casting the moment as “a time for choosing in the conservative movement.”

Like Shapiro, Ramasawamy focused significant time on Carlson and his interview with far-right influencer and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, listing some of his most inflammatory remarks and saying they “have no place in this movement.”

Then, Bannon hit the stage and reversed course, comparing Shapiro to a “a cancer, and that cancer spreads.”

“Ben Shapiro is the farthest thing from MAGA,” Bannon told the crowd.

The sold-out annual meeting is the group’s first since founder Charlie Kirk was gunned down in September. It has featured a broad array of figures from within the conservative movement, including top commentators, elected officials, candidates and religious leaders, culminating with Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday.

Johnson called the weekend an “epic and faithful battle that truly will determine the future of our great republic” while stressing the importance of keeping control of the House ahead of next year’s midterms.

Vance also spent much of his speech talking about the midterms, bashing Democratic Senate candidates Graham Platner of Maine and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who are both running in competitive primaries.

“We are gonna kick their ass next November,” Vance said of Democrats as the crowd immediately burst into “USA” chants. Outside of Johnson and Vance, a number of other speakers on Sunday sought to bridge the divisions that emerged in the prior days.

"I choose to build a movement, be part of a movement, that stands on principle, on strength, that loves the people in the movement, even sometimes when they piss you off,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who is running for governor. "You can't form a winning unit if you can't stay focused on the mission at hand.”

Donald Trump Jr. also sought to shift the focus to Democrats.

“The real enemy? It’s not Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro, it’s the radical left that murdered Charlie and celebrated it on a daily basis,” Trump Jr. told the crowd.

The political beliefs of alleged Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson, who is facing multiple charges including aggravated murder, aren’t easily defined.