Noem testified before Congress this week that Trump approved her $200 million ad campaign that featured her and Trump was supposedly very angry and it led to her firing. They’ve been playing for over a year in every media market. But I recalled that this story has been around since the early days of the administration and Noem has always told the same story — and Trump never denied it. The details are even more juicy that what they’re reporting today:
The Department of Homeland Securityhas budgeted up to $200 million to run anti-immigrant ads in the United States and overseas that repeatedly thank President Donald Trump for leading an immigration crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday night that these ads were Trump’s idea, and during the administration’s transition to power, the president asked her to star in ads thanking him “for closing the border.”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday night — at a tux and gown affair that served striploin, mashed potatoes, and raspberry cake — Noem recalled Trump telling her after she was nominated: “I want you to do [ads] for the border, and I want you to do those everywhere, not just in the United States, but I want them around the world. I want you to tell people not to come to this country if they’re going to come here illegally.”
She said the president continued: “We’re not going to let the media tell this story, because the media will never tell the truth. We’re going to run a marketing campaign to make sure the American people know the truth of what you’re doing.”
The ad campaign amounts to an extremely expensive taxpayer-funded propaganda blitz to scare off migrants and to flatter Trump on television. On Friday, Trump’s DHS secretary entertained the CPAC high-roller audience with her account of how Trump orchestrated the whole thing.
Noem said that Trump instructed that he didn’t want to be in the ads himself, telling her: “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.” She recalled: “I said, ‘Yes, sir, I will thank you for closing the border.’ So if you notice, in that ad, we thanked him for closing the border.”
Lol! I don’t know about you but Kristi’s story has the ring of truth if only because she so clearly doesn’t understand how much it makes him look like a narcissistic moron.
Of course that’s what he said. He’s always demanding that people thank him. It’s him.
Hegseth: "No stupid rules of engagement. No nation-building quagmire. No democracy-building exercise. No politically correct wars…An effort of this scope will include casualties. War is Hell and always will be." pic.twitter.com/yuvwJWTk0V
The Feb. 28 strike that hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the United States and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility.
But a body of evidence assembled by The New York Times — including newly released satellite imagery, social media posts and verified videos — indicates the school building was severely damaged by a precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
And official statements that U.S. forces were attacking naval targets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the I.R.G.C. base is located, suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike. […]
The elementary school is in the small southern town of Minab, more than 600 miles from Tehran but near the critical waterway of the Strait of Hormuz. Since Saturday is the start of the Iranian workweek, children and teachers were in class at the time of the strike, health officials and Iranian state media said.
No biggie.
It reminds me of the comment by former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs who defended the targeted killing of American Anway Awlaki by saying, “he should have had a more responsible father.” If those little Iranian kids didn’t want to be killed they should have had the good sense to be born American and live in the United States. Of course, that’s no guarantee that Trump’s administration won’t kill them too but it may be slightly less likely.
President Trump told Axios in an interview Thursday that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran’s next leader — just as he was in Venezuela.
Trump revealed this exclusively in an eight-minute phone call — his second conversation with us to explain his war planning.
Trump acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei, is the most likely successor — while making clear he finds that outcome unacceptable.
For several days, the Iranian regime has postponed the announcement of the new supreme leader. But statements by Iranian politicians on Thursday suggested an announcement could be imminent.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump said.
He added that he refuses to accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s policies, which he said would force the U.S. back to war “in five years.”
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments represent an extraordinary claim of American power over Iran’s political future, further muddying the objectives of the massive U.S. military campaign he launched on Saturday.
No shit. So I guess we’re going in with boots on the ground and plan to occupy the country? Because that’s the only way he’s going to get a vote on this.
They aren’t giving their country to him the way Trump’s puppet Delcy did. They are fighting. And I guess we’re fighting too — because Trump is so braindead that he doesn’t understand how any of this works
Ice Barbie told the Congress that Trump had approved her spending hundreds of millions on ads promoting herself and he got mad so he’s replaced her with the stupidest man in the U.S. Senate, Markwayne Mullin. It gets more and more surreal every single day.
A congressman embarks on a secret mission to rescue five American citizens, demanding a huge sum of cash from an ambassador – immediately! – to make it all work.
Truth, as people who follow politics closely, is always stranger than fiction.
Which brings us to the curious case of Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin and his suspended attempt to enter Afghanistan with a big sack of money that he hoped would be arranged for him by the US ambassador to Tajikistan.
“Mullin told the embassy that he planned to fly from Tblisi, Georgia, into Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, in the next few hours and needed the top diplomat’s help, according to the two U.S. officials familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations about a sensitive matter.
“The answer was no. Embassy officials told Mullin they could not assist him in skirting Tajikistan’s laws on cash limits on his way to visiting one of the most dangerous places on earth.
“Mullin was outraged by the response, the officials said — threatening U.S. ambassador John Mark Pommersheim and embassy staff and demanding to know the name of staff members he was speaking with.”
Even more remarkable? That this wasn’t, according to the Post, the first time that Mullin had attempted to pull this stunt. “Last week, Mullin traveled to Greece and asked the Department of Defense for permission to visit Kabul,” the Post wrote. “The Pentagon denied Mullin’s request, an administration official said.”
And this detail! “As of late Tuesday, U.S. officials said they were unsure of Mullin’s location. Mullin’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this story published.”
More highlights:
PAMELA BROWN (ANCHOR): Look, early voting is kicking off. The race is super tight, as you know. Some of Trump’s confidantes are starting to scare GOP veterans, based on our reporting just coming in. I have to ask you, should right-wing firebrands like Laura Loomer, who once said 9/11 was an inside job, be in Trump’s ear?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Yeah, President Trump is real good about surrounding himself around people that gives him the positive advice and information that is useful to him winning the election. To say who should be around his ear or who shouldn’t — this is a guy that’s been very successful in business. He’s built a wonderful brand, very successful business along the way. He’s not been in politics, but he knows how to put the right people in place to get the job done.
That was during the last campaign. After Trump had already been president for 4 years.
Markwayne Mullin: "War is ugly. It smells bad. If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that's happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, it's something you'll never forget. And fortunately you have President Hegseth — or Secretary… pic.twitter.com/kFTyKxS3Z8
Markwayne Mullin has never been in the armed service.
Markwayne Mullin was shook by the end of this CNN interview with Kasie Hunt. He's increasingly serving as a Trump spokesperson on TV and it's not going well. pic.twitter.com/TDfBpNQpXL
Sen. Markwayne Mullin: "Think about this, they were literally out there protesting carrying a foreign flag. That is absolutely insane. I mean, they're not just peaceful protesters."
In 2018, on the eve of the massive blue wave in the midterms that gave the Democrats a congressional majority, Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge for the first time that Republicans might actually lose. At a rally in Huntington, West Virginia, airport hangar, he told the ecstatic crowd, “It could happen. And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’”
That is how the president strategizes. And let’s face it, it’s worked pretty well for him so far.
Trump recovered his fortune by being rescued by a game show producer. Aside from being found civilly liable by a jury for sexually abusing journalist E. Jean Carroll and being convicted of 34 felony counts in a hush-money case, he has managed to evade accountability for all of his crimes and abuses of power. Tens of millions of Americans even put him back in the White House after he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and inspired an insurrection. He seems to think all this came about as a result of his strategic brilliance, or maybe his genetic superiority. But the fact is that it’s just plain old luck. Some people have more of it than they deserve, and he is definitely one of them. Over the course of his life, Trump has made decisions that would have destroyed the fortunes and reputations of anyone else. His greatest superpower is the ability to survive his own monumentally terrible judgement.
Now, as he wages war against Iran in a widening conflict that is quickly engulfing the entire Middle East, Trump is putting that preternatural resilience to what may be its greatest test. The Islamic Republic is proving an able military enemy, and with only one ally — Israel — at his side and tepid public support, the president has no plan for how win or for what comes next. Apparently, he’s just going to “figure it out.”
Part of that, the nation discovered on Tuesday, is an old method: using the CIA to arm and train unorganized opposition. The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is in talks about arming Kurdish forces to lead an effort to “dislodge the regime.” According to CNN, the CIA is already engaged on the ground and Trump has been speaking with Kurdish leaders.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the rumors of a Kurdish insurgency “completely false.” But the New York Times reported that the CIA had already “given small arms” to pro-American Kurdish forces in Iran before the current war started in hopes of destabilizing the Islamic Republic.
The CIA and U.S. military’s use of foreign militias has a long — and checkered — history spanning at least 65 years. The record shows that they have rarely had any positive effect, and most often, they have made situations worse.
Throughout the Cold War and beyond, America attempted to overthrow governments or fight proxy wars that often led to wider conflicts or the imposition of regimes that were worse than those they replaced. Far too often, it was done for the same reason Trump is citing now with Iran — to install, or at least create the conditions for, a new regime that “we can work with.” And sometimes, that has meant having little concern for the country’s people or democracy.
Consider the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 or the Reagan administration’s support for the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government. The former saw the CIA, in a plan that began under Dwight D. Eisenhower and was approved by his successor John F. Kennedy, training a group of Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro to make a secret landing in Cuba and fight their way to Havana, leading a popular uprising to topple the president. The group were captured immediately, leading to international embarrassment for the U.S. and for the young president, who took responsibility in public and, behind closed doors, vowed to never trust the CIA again.
In 1963, the agency supported a military coup by South Vietnamese forces against Ngo Dinh Diem, the country’s president. The act, which was intended to stabilize the country in its fight against North Vietnamese communists, did the opposite, helping to transform America’s role in the conflict from advisory to an all-out war that left over 58,000 U.S. service members — and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian military and civilians dead.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, under successive Republican and Democratic administrations, the CIA supported Operation Condor, a network of right-wing dictatorships throughout Latin America including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil.
Then there are the more recent covert adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the 1980s, the U.S. supported the Mujahadeen militants in their war against the Russians. Unfortunately, the Mujahadeen became disillusioned with their helpful allies and became the Taliban. That didn’t work out too well either. The CIA had been in Iraq in various capacities for decades before the first and second war, and they even went in prior to the 2003 invasion to — wait for it — establish contact with the Kurdish forces to secure their help.
But perhaps the most relevant precedent in Iran is the original CIA-backed overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the country’s democratically-elected prime minister, in 1953, which restored power to Reza Pahlavi, the last shah. This was done primarily to restore control of Iranian oil fields, which Mossadegh’s government had nationalized, to British energy companies. As with Afghanistan, this act sowed seeds of resentments and helped lead to the revolution in 1979, which got us to where we are today.
The first days of the war have been chaotic, as Trump, members of his administration and his congressional allies have given competing rationales to justify the war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to have landed on the doltish explanation that because Israel was planning to attack Iran, the U.S. had no choice but to join the campaign to preempt Iranian retaliation against American assets in the region. The implication of this slip was stunning: That America was a passive, secondary partner to Israel and could wield little influence over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For his part, Trump said on Tuesday he just “had a feeling” they were going to attack.
It’s impossible to be sure just why they chose to attack the regime when they did, other than the fact that Trump has almost certainly been persuaded by the likes of Rubio and long-time Iran hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that it will mean another path to glory. The problem is that they apparently forgot to plan what comes next.
Trump has said that he hopes Iran will be another Venezuela, a simple decapitation mission in which the people who replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader who was killed on Saturday in an air strike, would be eager to be bought off and do his bidding under threat of more bombing and carnage. But a problem emerged. Trump complained that the people he’d apparently been told were good candidates to become his puppets have all been killed. “I guess the worst case is we do this and then somebody takes over who is as bad as the previous person,” he said to reporters in the Oval Office. “That could happen.”
Indeed it could.
Trump exhorted the Iranian people to rise up against the government and threatened the authorities, telling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps via video they would get immunity if they laid down their arms. Who they are supposed to surrender to is unclear, to say the least, and how any of this could possibly come to pass without a U.S. presence on the ground is virtually impossible. While Trump has said that hasn’t ruled out sending in combat troops, it’s hard to imagine that he’s so far gone that what the Defense Department has dubbed Operation Epic Fury would be nothing compared to the fury unleashed by the American people if he launched some kind of ground invasion.
We had better hope Trump gets lucky once again. Otherwise, the results of his and Netanyahu’s war in Iran are likely to be as successful as previous U.S. efforts at regime change have been — which is to say not successful at all.
Photo: Street view of Dali City, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China with installed solar panels. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The White House scrambles to mitigate gasoline costs expected to rise with the Trump-branded Iran War. Meanwhile, China is already poised to profit. (“Like you’ve never seen”?)
A friend already regrets buying an electric vehicle now that Trump has defunded clean energy. Trump’s big bill slashed funding for building out the EV charging station network begun under Joe Biden. Trump eliminated EV tax credits last year, causing EV prices to soar, CNBC reported in August.
But China? E&E News by Politico reports that China is readying to become a clean energy powerhouse:
As Chinese officials meet in Beijing this week to identify the country’s top policies for the next five years, China watchers expect the country to continue prioritizing building a new energy system centered on renewables — and events in Iran aren’t expected to change that calculus.
“The country has definitely pulled all these triggers in the last few years to be prepared for a moment like this,” Ashish Sethia, managing director of BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, said in an email.
China has poured huge amounts of money into expanding manufacturing and critical minerals mining to fuel its explosive growth in clean technologies. In the first half of last year, China added more wind and solar facilities than the rest of the world combined, with more than a third of the country’s economic growth in 2025 coming from green technologies like electric vehicles.
So much winning … for the United States’ chief economic rival.
Europe and Pakistan largely rely on batteries and solar panels imported from China. In Europe, national security concerns have led to the Industrial Accelerator Act, which launched Wednesday with the goal of kickstarting clean tech domestic manufacturing to reduce dependence on Chinese goods.
Other countries that are friendly with China, though, have continued to buy its clean tech.
In Cuba, for example, energy shortages have long been a feature of life on the island, which has been under sanctions from the US for decades. Those have become more severe in the last year, prompting the government to turn to China for support building solar power and batteries.
Trump’s January “threat to impose tariffs on any country supplying Cuba with oil” will mean China’s renewables market in Cuba will expand (barring a U.S. invasion promoted by Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio).
The Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University believes that the Iran War’s closing the Strait of Hormuz will impact China’s supply of liquified natural gas and accelerate “its orderly transition away from fossil fuels.” Erica Downs reports: “Half of China’s oil imports and nearly one-third of its LNG imports transit this waterway.” The impact is likely to further push China to expand its clean energy sector as the U.S. market suffers both from Trump’s oil fixation and his illegal war against Iran. The “conflict is likely to reaffirm Beijing’s commitment to transforming China into an ‘energy superpower‘ that derives strength from its leading role in deploying green energy technologies at home and abroad.”
It could have been us, meaning the U.S. But Trump’s ten-year jihad against green energy means turning the U.S. into an energy backwater (and perhaps an economic one) in the 21st century while China’s domination of the renewables market builds. Like American farmers losing their soybean markets, America’s retreat under Trump into the 20th century means we will lose the clean energy market as well.
Not a war. “U.S. sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln marked ordnances headed for Iran with their names.” Photo: U.S. Central Command
Republicans in Congress passed on an opportunity to shed their leashes on Wednesday. Predictably, Rand Paul was Rand Paul in supporting a War Powers resolution for reining in Donald Trump’s war on Iran. John Fetterman was John Fetterman in opposing it (The New York Times):
Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that would limit President Trump’s power to continue waging war against Iran without congressional authorization, turning back a bid by Democrats to insist that Congress weigh in on a sweeping and open-ended military campaign.
The 53-to-47 vote against taking up the measure was almost completely along party lines, reflecting a deep partisan divide on the Iran war as the Senate delivered the first clear test of congressional resolve since the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran four days ago.
Senators Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, tried to force action on the measure. They invoked a provision of the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires that resolutions to terminate offensive hostilities be considered under expedited procedures.
Mr. Paul was the only Republican leading the effort, and no other G.O.P. senators joined him in support of the measure.
Calling Congress “The Department of Waffling,” Punchbowl News explains that with few exceptions Republicans are content to sit on their hands through classified briefings rather than “hold public hearings or exert any immediate pressure on the Trump administration.”
This is the Trump administration, after all, so no lofty pretensions about planting democracy in the Middle East as in GW Bush’s Iraq War. No, this time the gausy military objective is “a paradigm shift.” The goal in Wednesday’s vote was for Republicans to “keep their hands clean on the conflict for as long as possible” (Punchbowl News):
“Ultimately, if we can prevail here — in weeks, not months — take away [Iran’s] offensive capability, get these other countries working with us, this is a chance to change the paradigm and hopefully end this 20-year global war on terror,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said, noting that Iran is “at its weakest point.”
“Weeks, not months” is the key line here. Hoeven was speaking for most Republicans on this. Nobody knows how long the bombing campaign against Iran will last, and another war powers vote could be triggered — as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has threatened to do. Republicans would prefer to keep their hands clean on the conflict for as long as possible, especially given the uncertainty over how long this could last and how it’ll play politically.
Especially since midterm elections are eight months close. Taking any responsibility for Trump’s war or for fulfilling their constitutionally mandated role in approving wars is beyond them. That is unless and until they can do victory dances before November and take post hoc credit.
House Speaker Mike Johnson spun Trump’s illegal war of choice as Iran declaring war on us. “We’re not at war right now,” Johnson declared. Ours is an “operation.” Potted plants talk. Who knew?
“The same people who can’t agree on what to call it are the ones who launched it without a vote, without a plan, and without telling the truth,” Brian Allen on FKA Twitter offers. “They’re not confused. They’re hoping you are.”
🚨 Speaker Johnson just said both things out loud in the same breath:
“Iran declared war on us.”
“We’re not at war right now.”
Four days in. Six soldiers dead. Bases destroyed. A consulate struck. CIA arming militias for regime change.
The fact that Donald Trump appears to have unilaterally volunteered America’s service members to go to war on Israel’s behalf has not gone over well with the president’s base. MAGA is in open revolt over the administration’s decision to attack Iran, and the internet is awash in memes depictingTrump as Netanyahu’s dog, among more graphic visual metaphors.
Criticism of the decision has been sharp and widespread — coming from both mainstream conservative commentators like Megyn Kelly, once steadfast MAGA warriors like Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as from once-fringe alt-right figures like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, whose support Trump welcomed even as the broader Republican establishment shunned them over accusations of antisemitism.
Republicans don’t fear Iran as much as their MAGA base. The MAGA faithful know what they were promised, they know what they voted for, and they damn sure know what Trump has not delivered. Grocery prices are still high. Gas prices are set to rise. MAGA’s no foreign wars god king just launched one. And hell hath no “epic fury,” etc.
President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is telling his advisers to bring ideas to the Oval Office to lower gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran, according to two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations.
The White House is “looking under every rock for ideas on improving energy prices, especially gasoline prices,” said one of the executives, who was granted anonymity to describe internal administration discussions.
Perhaps they should look under the rocks where congressional Republicans are hiding?
THANK YOU @JIMMYKIMMEL FOR THIS HISTORIC CUP OF PEACE. MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS IS THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR PEACE ANY ONE HAS EVER RECEIVED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND AND IT WILL REPLACE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE — WHICH IS OUTDATED, AND SIMPLY NOT LARGE ENOUGH! MOTHER TERESA… pic.twitter.com/Kor5RPrUvo
I wrote about Talerico 6 months ago for Salon. If you haven’t followed his race you might find this interesting:
If you weren’t aware of right-wing organizer and podcaster Charlie Kirk‘s work until his tragic murder in Utah on Sept. 10, you probably didn’t realize he was the likely heir apparent of Donald Trump‘s MAGA movement. In fact, many people who were aware of his mission — which included co-founding Turning Point USA, the youth organization that helped return Trump to the White House, and touring colleges to engage young conservatives and harangue young liberals — might not have understood that. Kirk’s assassination made clear just how valuable and influential he was to the right. At 31, an official position of power within the GOP would have been his for the taking in just a few years.
His importance to the MAGA movement was underscored by their instantaneous crusade against the amorphous left. GOP influencers and officials, from the president on down, have vowed to avenge Kirk’s death by using the power of the state to quell dissent and, as White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller put it, “dismantle the left” — even as they eulogized Kirk as a model for free speech.
Democrats have been gobsmacked by this massive outpouring of anger that shows no signs of quieting. The party’s elected officials proclaimed their horror at the killing and made clear that political violence of any kind is unacceptable. But a few have stepped forward with messages that have resonated in different, deeper ways during this awful week of rage.
One of them is James Talarico, a Texas state representative and Presbyterian seminarian who announced a run for the United States Senate in the Lone Star State against GOP Sen. John Cornyn the day before Kirk’s assassination. At 36, Talarico is only a few years older than Kirk, and while he doesn’t explicitly fashion himself as a voice of the younger generation, he may nonetheless represent the same generational change for Democrats that Kirk did for the MAGA movement.
But Talarico’s message could not be more different.
Like Kirk, he is a strong Christian believer who is exceptionally good at communicating in a way that appeals across generational lines. Talarico is a master at social media, generating over a million followers on Instagram and TikTok, and he has appeared on Fox News and “The Joe Rogan Experience.” (Rogan told him he needed to run for president because we need “a good person” in office.)
Talarico’s words after Kirk died were memorable both for their grace and political savvy. “I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on nearly every political issue,” he said, “but he was a child of God. He was our sibling. Our brother. A human being — endowed with infinite worth and entitled to unconditional love. But now, his wife is left without a husband, and his children are left without a father. This latest political assassination comes just three months after the Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota State House was shot and killed in her home. Political violence has no place in America.”
Unlike some commentators who used the moment to endow Kirk with character traits he did not possess or practice, Talarico used the universal spiritual language of his church to eulogize Kirk as a human being rather than a political personality. He no doubt did that deliberately, as Talarico says constantly in his speeches and appearances that he believes America’s problems are more spiritual than political. But he made sure to note that violence and hateful rhetoric isn’t happening on just one side of the political aisle.
For some of us who live in blue cities, this all might seem a bit too much. We would likely prefer the more secular appeal of Zohran Mamdani, another youthful candidate who is running to be mayor of New York City. But despite the differences in their styles, both Talarico and Mamdani are making a strong case against the pernicious influence of the billionaire class and for the old-fashioned notion of the common good — and they are doing it not with angry rants but with smiles. Their words and actions, both in their own ways, offer a measure of relief from the relentless negativity and antagonism we’ve been dealing with for what feels like decades, and they are tailored to the places they seek to represent. It is smart politics.
Fresh-faced and squeaky clean, Talarico looks like he could have been a star in a 1950s sitcom. He speaks about loving your neighbor, but then he deftly pledges to “take on this broken political system and the very powerful people who benefit from this system being broken.” It’s populism in the language of a Sunday sermon, something that could appeal in a place like Texas.
But over the past seven years in the Texas statehouse, Talarico has also proven himself quite capable of facing down the hardcore right. According to Rolling Stone, he took on the two biggest billionaire GOP donors in Texas, oilman preachers named Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks:
“Tim Dunn on Sunday mornings preaches at a far-right church. And if you listen to his sermons, he doesn’t preach a theology of universal love. He preaches a theology of power and control and domination,” Talarico said. “He believes climate change is God’s will. He compares homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. He believes only Christians have a right to serve in public office.”
“What you’re seeing is a perversion of Christianity,” he said. “You can call it Christian fascism or Christian nationalism. Essentially, it’s the worship of power, in the name of Christ. And that is idolatry in its purest form.”
Coming from a devout believer like Talarico, that critique could resonate with at least some Texans who actually read the Bible and sense that their leaders, both political and religious, have gone down a dark path. (And bonus points to Talarico for directly calling it Christian fascism — he knows what we’re dealing with.)
Democrats want their leaders to fight, and as a leader in the battle against Texas redistricting that unfolded over the summer, Talarico showed he can be steely when necessary. But he’s betting that people are also looking for a way out of this maelstrom of endless, bitter recriminations, knowing that we have to try and find a way to unify if we want to save our democracy.
After the horrific week we have all collectively experienced, which began with Kirk’s senseless assassination and then continued with insults and aspersions from the right, you don’t have to be religious to feel Talarico’s words as a healing balm. I don’t know if this country, much less Texas, is ready for what he’s selling. But it’s high time we found out.
CORREA: What do you suggest I tell my constituents? Have a passport with you all the time?NOEM: No. I would tell your citizens to be grateful they live in this country where President Trump is upholding the law. We will help them self-deport.CORREA: These are American citzens!
