Dem
47
GOP
53
FBI Director Kash Patel. You might want to sit down for a moment while you let that sink in. Yesterday, the Senate made it official, confirming the 21st century's answer to J. Edgar Hoover 51-49. All the Democrats and independents voted against, along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME). Somehow, some way, Collins miraculously managed yet again to buck the party line in a way that didn't actually have any impact. What are the odds? Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had expressed reservations about Patel, but ultimately voted for confirmation, sparing J.D. Vance from having to hustle over to the Senate chamber to cast a tiebreaking vote.
"One can scarcely imagine a worse candidate to lead [DEPARTMENT or AGENCY]." That's a sentence we could have written, and did write, quite a few times over the past couple of months. And it most certainly applies to Patel. Like Hoover before him, Patel has every intention of using the Bureau as a cudgel against those he deems to be "enemies," whether of himself in particular, or of Donald Trump/MAGA in general. That said, Hoover preferred to be subtle, operating behind the scenes like a ninja (albeit armed with incriminating information/blackmail, and not a katana). Patel is like a bull in a china shop, having bragged openly that he looks forward to the "weaponization" of the FBI.
If that is not bad enough, Patel is also an outspoken election denier. Most Republicans have learned that pushing back against the results of the 2020 election tends to anger voters, while declaring those results to be legitimate definitely angers Donald Trump. So, they generally try to avoid the subject as much as possible. However, Patel is still beating that dead horse. So too is his boss, AG Pam Bondi. And her boss, Trump. It is good for democracy that elections are run by states, which means that there are at least some limits on what this trio can do to act on their delusions. However, it is also bad for democracy, and in particular for minority/women/trans/student voters, that red states know that they can subvert the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at will, in the name of "election security," and the federal government will be pleased to look the other way.
Patel's confirmation was not the only big news out of the Senate yesterday. Everyone knew this was coming, of
course, but McConnell took to the floor of the chamber and gave
a brief speech
in which he made it official: He will not run for reelection in 2026. That will bring an end to a Senate career
that started all the way back in 1984. Think: L.A. Olympics, The Cosby Show, the debut of the Macintosh,
the Oakland Los Angeles Las Vegas Raiders winning the Super Bowl, Ghostbusters and St.
Ronnie of Reagan. It's been a long time (and he nearly made it to the NEXT L.A. Olympics).
After the news broke, Axios had the headline "McConnell retirement sparks Kentucky political frenzy." Their dictionary must have a different definition of "frenzy" than ours does. On the Republican side, former state AG Daniel Cameron jumped in, which everyone knew he would do as soon as McConnell made it polite to do so. And beyond Cameron... well, that's actually it, so far. Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) is making some noise about getting in, but he's not crazypants enough for Kentucky Republicans, and there's a lot of opposition to him from groups with the money to try to undermine him (for example, Club for Growth, which has already endorsed Cameron). Beyond that, most of the Republican members of the House have made clear they are staying put. If Barr decides against making a bid, and Donald Trump DOES NOT back a non-Cameron candidate, then the Republican primary could actually be pretty quiet.
On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats got what might be called "silver lining" news. By that, we mean that Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) announced that he's not going to run. That will make Democrats, who have dreams of poaching a red-state Senate seat—and, just maybe, winning back the Senate—very sad. However, that also tells us that Beshear is most certainly going to run for president in 2028. Many Democrats see him as the Party's great, white hope. Hence the silver lining.
With Beshear taking a pass, that means the only Democrat who is officially in is state House Minority Leader Pamela Stevenson. She declared well before McConnell made his announcement yesterday. It is possible that Beshear aide Rocky Adkins, who previously served in the state House, will toss his hat in the ring, too, although he hasn't gotten in yet. If he does declare, then we'll have the fairly common Democratic primary dynamic of a Black candidate (Stevenson) against a milquetoast white guy (Adkins). In any event, McConnell's announcement resulted in a grand total of one candidate actually declaring a run for the soon-to-be-vacant seat. Again, does not sound like a "frenzy" to us.
And as long as we are on the Senate beat, there are two other stories worth passing along. The first is that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) decided to burn the midnight oil last night, because he wants to get a budget bill through the Senate before Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) can get a competing bill through the House. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has no problem staying up late, and introduced a whole bunch of amendments to the bill. For example, one amendment would forbid any cuts in tax rates if there is also a cut in Medicare or Medicaid. None of the amendments will pass; the point is to put Republicans up in 2026 (e.g., Collins) in the position of having to vote for unpopular things.
And finally, we'll note something that is not relevant to 2026, but could be in 2028. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has, as readers will recall, been rebranding himself. He was once a Bernie-style progressive, but now he's going for Manchin-style centrist. Given how the winds are blowing in Pennsylvania, you can understand the thinking, although one might ask: How well did "I can see both sides of the issue" work for Manchin? Or for Kyrsten Sinema? Both of those folks are out of work these days, if we are not mistaken.
Thus far, the results for Fetterman v2.0 are not promising. When he was meeting with Donald Trump, and otherwise worshiping at the altar of "centrism," he was lauded by right-wing media and voters, and slammed by plenty of folks on the left. This week, the Senator pushed back against DOGE, declaring that while cutting waste is a good thing to do, violating Americans' data privacy is not, and that "A party of chaos loses—always." So, now he is being excoriated by many of those same right-wing media and voters who were singing his praises last week. If Fetterman is not careful, he could end up a man without a party, not unlike Manchin and Sinema did. A challenge from both the right and the left (as happened in Arizona, with Sinema) is most certainly not out of the question.
Recently, Fetterman has gotten a concrete reminder that his new shtick is not playing well with the people who got him to the Senate in the first place, as he's been losing key staffers by the bushel. He had already lost his chief of staff, his communications director, and three other members of his comms staff prior to this week. On Wednesday, his new communications director (who lasted about a month in that post, but had been with the Senator since the beginning) and his legislative director said they would be leaving, too. Publicly, of course, all the departing staffers are saying nice things. However, it is not a secret that they are unhappy with Fetterman's rightward turn, and in particular his extreme hawkishness on Israel.
And so, despite the fact that the Senate has yet to pass any real legislation, and may not pass much stuff beyond the budget this year, there's still plenty of drama in the upper chamber. (Z)