Justice Department Will Release Part of the Special Counsel's Report This Week

Despite Judge Aileen Cannon's attempt to be nominated for a spot on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the DoJ says it will release part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's final report, namely the part about the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. The part relating to the documents Donald Trump stole and kept in his bathroom will be withheld from the public for the moment. However, that part WILL be shown to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees for private review, since the cases against two of Trump's co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, are ongoing.

The DoJ asked the Eleventh Circuit to overrule Cannon and allow the release of the full report now. If the court doesn't make a ruling before Jan. 20 at noon, it may never be released. Courts can act very quickly when they want to. Whether the Eleventh Circuit wants to remains to be seen. If it doesn't make a ruling before Trump is inaugurated, it will probably never be released, but since the ranking members of the House and Senate committees can view it, there could be some leaks. (V)

Trump Tells Hamas to Release the Hostages or Else

Much of what Donald Trump is spewing these days is patent nonsense. Conquering the Panama Canal by military force would undoubtedly cost some American soldiers their lives for nothing, and might lead to sabotage in the Zone. Conquering Greenland by force would be relatively easy, but occupying it and maintaining control in the face of a hostile population hell-bent on driving out the occupying army would surely result in the deaths of American soldiers and would be politically toxic.

But Trump's threat to Hamas to release the remaining hostages (and certainly the U.S. citizens being held hostage) potentially has real teeth. He wants them released before his inauguration. If Hamas were to release the Americans, but not the Israelis, Trump would probably declare victory and move on. If it doesn't, he could follow through by giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whatever weapons he asks for, including offensive long-range weapons to be used against Hamas' sponsor, Iran.

No one knows how many hostages are still alive. There are about 100 people who are thought to be held hostage, but the AP estimates that up to a third of them are already dead.

Israel and Hamas are nominally negotiating about conditions for releasing the hostages, but little progress is being made. Israel is insisting that the hostages be returned alive, but Hamas says it doesn't actually know who is alive and who is dead. Trump's inauguration could change the negotiations, of course. (V)

Trump Asks the Supreme Court to Block His Friday Sentencing

Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the New York fake accounting case tomorrow. He asked Judge Juan Merchan to delay it until after Jan. 20, when he could raise the "you-can't-sentence-a-president" argument. The judge didn't buy it and said sentencing will occur on Friday. Trump appealed to a mid-level New York appeals court and on Tuesday, it rejected his appeal. Trump is desperate to avoid the sentence, so he has now appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay sentencing.

Normally, the Supreme Court does not take up routine cases, like this one, which have no constitutional aspects at all. It is a Hail Mary play, but that is all that Trump has left. However, all it would take for Trump to win is for the Supreme Court to order Merchan to hold off sentencing until it has time to consider whether it should take the case. By then Trump will be president and can come with entirely new arguments.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg opposes delay and wants the sentencing to proceed tomorrow. Merchan has already hinted that his sentence will be "unconditional discharge," which means that Trump stays on the books as a convicted felon, but there is no actual punishment in the form of prison time, a fine, probation, or anything else. Trump doesn't like the idea of being officially a felon with no possibility of ever having his record expunged. Although some legal proceedings go on forever and a day, by tomorrow evening, we will know if Merchan issues the sentence as scheduled. (V)

"What's Actionable Here?," Part IV: How Badly Are the Democrats Wounded?

Time for us to (slowly) resume this series; we still have a lot to say on this subject. Many Democrats are bracing for the end of the world as we know it as Donald Trump takes office again. Some of them expect to be in the wilderness, well, forever, especially since many young Black and Latino voters voted for Trump. They were supposed to save the Democrats and didn't. A key question is: How deep is the wound, and is it fatal?

When Eleanor Roosevelt once asked Chairman Mao what he thought of the French Revolution, he is said to have replied: "It is too early to tell." Maybe that applies here, too. Here are the electoral vote maps for 1964 (left) and 1988 (right):

In 1965, the Republicans thought the sky was falling and that was the end of them. Nevertheless, in 1968, Richard Nixon (R) was elected president. In 1989, Democrats thought the end was nigh. Nevertheless, in 1992, Bill Clinton (D) was elected president. The moral is that Mao was right: don't jump to conclusions too fast.

That said, Thomas Edsall has an interesting column about how deep the wound is. It is largely based on a poll from a centrist Democratic think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. They polled 5,098 working-class (i.e., noncollege) voters in the swing states and another 881 in other states to get a feel of what they are thinking.

On the economy, immigration, and crime, the respondents think the Republicans will do a better job. This is not so unusual. Republicans generally do better on immigration because they want to stop it and on crime because they want to unleash the police and give felons harsh sentences. On the economy, many working-class voters want more economic growth and don't care what the environmental costs are, and that puts them at odds with the Democrats.

Two key questions were whether the parties were in touch with them and whether they were strong or weak. A large majority (53-34) said the Democrats were out of touch and weak (50-32). Also, on the question of whether the party would "fight for people like me," the Republicans won 50-36. Historically, Democrats won on this question.

The $64,000 question: Is the takeover of the Democratic Party by affluent college-educated types fatal? Certainly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt would never recognize the modern Democratic Party. But does it have any chance of regaining a majority of working-class voters?

The problem isn't economic policy. Joe Biden created more manufacturing and construction jobs than any president since Lyndon Johnson, and many of the jobs were in red states. Thanks to government subsidies, Intel is building a $100 billion semiconductor fab in Ohio—yet Harris lost Ohio and so did Sherrod Brown. TSMC is building a $40 billion plant in Arizona—yet Harris lost Arizona, although Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) did win (albeit against a deeply flawed opponent). Biden's economic plan is working. In 2020, the 2,548 counties that voted for Trump accounted for 29% of national GDP. In 2024, the 2,553 counties that voted for Trump accounted for 38% of national GDP. Biden's administration improved the economy of Trumpland by 30%. Economic output there went up by $3.7 trillion. That is a huge increase. Yet Trump did better this time than in 2020. Didn't the Trumpers realize that Biden was a godsend for them? Was it poor messaging on Harris' part?

Various political scientists say that economics is not the real problem. Trump voters are very upset by demographic changes and new gender norms and they see their way of life under assault—led by the Democrats. The most effective ad Trump ran was about the two federal prisoners who got taxpayer-financed gender-changing surgery. The tag line of the ad was: "Kamala is for them/they; President Trump is for you." The ad was devastating. Were Harris' positions morally correct? We are not taking a stand here, but the voters were clearly saying: I do not want them, Sam I am.

The Democrats' perceived elitism isn't just about education, but also about lifestyle and values. Democrats generally oppose a public role of religion, oppose gun rights, accept gay people as equals, and believe trans girls should be allowed to play on girls' sports teams. They also value the environment over jobs. Many working-class voters strongly oppose all of these views. For them, these factors are more important than the Biden economy, which created jobs and beat down inflation.

In Europe, the same scenario is playing out. Few of the E.U. countries have a left-leaning government and the left-of-center E.U. bloc has only 136 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament. How come? One theory relates to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, first described in 1943, as follows.

In places like Sudan and Yemen, where getting enough food to make it to tomorrow is a real struggle, who uses which bathroom is not on the agenda at all. Where there is enough food but there is chaos everywhere—say, Haiti—people worry about personal safety and order. Once order has been attained—say, in poorer areas of the U.S.—people think about (the lack of) community and related matters. After that is achieved, more or less, people have the luxury of worrying about cultural issues, like who uses which bathroom. In many Western countries, the bottom three levels are now taken as a basic right, something that wasn't true at all 100 years ago. Consequently, in almost every sufficiently wealthy country, the cultural issues are becoming the main political battleground. Liberalism planted the seeds of its own destruction by making the people well fed enough that they can be concerned with cultural issues.

In addition to all this, Donald Trump's victory was helped by his having an "enemy," namely the "woke elites." The Democrats didn't really have a boogeyman, other than Trump himself, but every party generally demonizes the other party. The unanswered question here: Is there any way out for the Democrats or are they doomed to be a minority forever? But before answering, study the two maps above and the election results 4 years later.

If the Democrats can find the right candidate and/or the right issue, they are not necessarily toast in 2028, but they have to watch out for election chicanery. Maybe a folksy Southern governor (a modern-day Bill Clinton) could do the trick. They even have a couple of them available and interested: Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) and former governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Maybe the Democrats could run some other candidate but make the whole campaign about "the billionaires vs. the people," with Elon Musk playing the starring role of Darth Vader here. Four years is a long time. (V)

Instead of Crying in Their White Whine, Democrats Are Going on Offense

In New York (and, to a lesser extent, in other states), Democrats are changing their strategy. Instead of attacking Donald Trump, which doesn't seem to work, they want to capture his winning issues and make them their own. If the voters care about cost of living, the Democrats should make it clear that their key issue is cost of living and they can deliver on it. For example, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) wants to send income-eligible New Yorkers a $500 check to help with the cost of living. She also wants to expand the state's child tax credit and make child care more available and affordable. This is a far cry from talking about a Green New Deal and certainly less satisfying to well-off progressives, but it targets people who have the votes.

On crime, perpetually a Republican issue, she wants to improve public safety on mass transit and make it easier to have mentally unstable people involuntarily hospitalized, something that is popular with voters but not at all popular with the ACLU. Concrete measures like this show that Democrats got the message.

Another issue Hochul has some sway over is sanctuary policies. They protect undocumented immigrants. The state could change them and not get in the way when the feds attempt deportations. Not getting in the way is a rare potential win with the voters that is free. It might even save money. It is hard to be "tough on crime" while protecting people who have violated immigration law. And the voters want "tough on crime."

Housing costs are a big issue. That can be addressed by the legislature in many ways, one of which is making it harder for communities to block high-density housing. By allowing more housing units to be built per acre, the supply will go up, which will (eventually) bring costs down. Subsidies are also in the toolkit.

Another area that seems to resonate with a large majority of voters, including working-class voters, is reproductive health. Democrats are going to work on that.

Many of these are economic issues, and if the problem is largely cultural issues, Hochul and other Democratic governors might need to get into a big public fight with progressives on an issue that is dear to the progressives but not so important for most voters. Potential areas are sanctuary laws, bathroom laws, Gaza, defunding the police and more. Just loudly standing up to the progressive wing could yield real progress in convincing working-class voters that Democrats are not captives of the progressive wing (anymore). Will that cost votes on the left? It is possible, but the next 2 years of the Trump administration may grudgingly convince many progressives that the worst Democrat is still a whole lot better than the best Republican and that staying home and sulking is going to result in a Republican win and horrific policies that they abhor. President Vance? President DeSantis? What's not to love? (V)

Congressional Republicans Are Worried about Trump's Immigration Policy

Donald Trump promised mass deportation. In 11 days, he is going to have to start delivering. Some Republicans are worried that his actions could split the Republican caucus in the House.

What some Republicans are thinking about is what happens when photos and videos of hysterically sobbing children in cages and separated from their parents hit the media. If the children are U.S. citizens, they cannot be deported, even though their parents can be. Just wait for interviews with parents who are faced with the choice of taking their 10-year-old who doesn't speak Spanish to Guatemala, a country the child has never been to and may know nothing about, or letting their U.S. citizen child be put up for adoption. It won't be pretty. The PR could be horrific and it could cause independent voters to reach conclusions about how heartless the Republicans are. The base will be overjoyed, but there aren't enough base voters to win elections. A huge amount depends on how the deportations are handled.

Trump has said he will focus on hardened criminals. The problem is that there aren't very many of them. Maybe he could round up a few hundred in local jails, but the base wants Operation Wetback, Part II. They want millions of people deported, not hundreds. That's where the problem comes in. Some high-profile Republicans, like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), also want that and will fight for it. His TX-21 district is R+13. He's safe no matter what, but plenty of other Republicans are not safe. How will they vote for funding and new laws? Will they even peep? And what about the H-1B visa immigrants? They are legal, but the government could end the H-1B program. Will it? Probably only over Co-President Elon Musk's dead body. But if it continues, people like Roy, Steve Bannon, and Laura Loomer are going to peep.

Once the criminals are all deported (or put in small boats 10 miles off the Mexican coast), what's next? How can large numbers of immigrants be found? It is known that many work at meat packing plants and in agriculture. Large numbers can be rounded up there, even though a dragnet will catch some American citizens as well, which will be bad PR. But if even tens of thousands of workers in meat packing plants are deported somehow, they won't be replaced. Nobody else will do that work. The plants will close and meat prices will go up. Democrats will point this out. The people who voted for Trump because he was going to lower grocery prices will notice.

Another little detail nobody is talking about: Where are the deportees going to go? Mexico doesn't want them. What if Mexican immigration officials at the border want to see passports and evidence, like return tickets, that the folks in the bus are just tourists? Suppose they refuse to let the buses through? Will Trump use the Army to invade Mexico? He can hardly foresee the consequences of that. Suppose the Mexican Army starts shooting back? Then what? It's been a long time since the U.S. Navy had to deal with hostilities on the Gulf of America.

Trump dug himself a hole by talking about deportations. If he had merely talked about sealing the border, that would not have resulted in heart-wrenching photos and videos. Building a wall is tough (and getting Mexico to pay for it is impossible), but some deterrents are easy. In many places the Rio Grande is so shallow that people can just walk across it. The Army Corps of Engineers could dredge it to a depth of 8 feet fairly easily. Floating barriers like those Texas used could deter most boats. Razor wire at the shore would stop most of those people who breached the barriers. Surveillance drones could show the Border Patrol where to go. None of that is difficult or even expensive. But Trump promised mass deportations and now he is going to have to deliver or look like a big bag of hot air. (V)

Ty Cobb Says Cannon Struck Out

Ty Cobb—Donald Trump's own former lawyer, not the long-dead baseball player—noted that Trump has called Judge Aileen Cannon "brilliant." Cobb's view: "Well, to the extent that she's brilliant, she's shining. And the only reason she's shining is she's his tool, and he polishes her religiously." And remember, Cobb is a lifelong Republican and Trump's former lawyer.

Cobb thinks Cannon is a stain on the judiciary and the appeals court needs to rectify this immediately. That court has reversed Cannon multiple times in the past and he is expecting it to do it again. (V)

Did RFK Jr. Commit a Felony in 2024?

Robert Kennedy Jr. is not a sure thing to get confirmed as secretary of HHS. The bear thing aside, most Senate Republicans know very well that vaccinations are pretty safe and the older ones remember people in iron lungs before Jonas Salk engineered a vaccine against polio. They are going to have to weigh their allegiance to Donald Trump over the harm that Kennedy could do to their constituents. It would take only four "no" votes among Republican senators to defeat Kennedy. Although Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is no longer in the leadership, he is still well respected within his caucus. And he knows all about polio: he had it as a child himself. The question now is whether it affected his spine as well as his legs.

But Kennedy has another problem. A watchdog group, Accountable.US, has filed a formal complaint with the New York State Board of Elections accusing Kennedy of voting fraud. Specifically, the complaint accuses him of registering to vote and then voting from a New York address, where he doesn't live and has never lived. That is a felony in New York State.

Kennedy voted by mail and gave his residence as a house in Katonah, in Westchester County. But Kennedy never lived in Katonah. He has lived in California for over 10 years. As evidence, the complaint points out in August a New York judge ruled that the form that Kennedy submitted to New York election authorities to get on the state ballot when he was a candidate listed the Katonah address, and that was false. In his defense, Kennedy said that he lived in a rented room in a house owned by a childhood friend who now lives in Katonah. But that friend's spouse testified that Kennedy visited and spent one night there, which does not qualify as residence under New York law.

This issue is sure to come up during Kennedy's confirmation hearing. Some Democratic senator is sure to ask: "Please explain how you were entitled to vote in New York, when a person who lives in the house you claimed to live in said you were there only 1 night last year." Even worse for Kennedy is that even if he is confirmed, NY AG Letitia James could pick up the ball and run with it. She could indict Kennedy for voter fraud and put him on trial. Because he violated New York State law, Donald Trump could not pardon him. It will be interesting to see if she takes action. (V)

A First Look at the 2026 House Races

Republicans currently have a 219-215 edge in the House, soon to be reduced to 217-215 when Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) resign to take jobs in the Trump administration, and then likely expanded to 220-215 after special elections fill the vacancies around April. But with such a close House, there will be hand-to-hand combat for a number of House seats in 2026. We already have an idea of which ones they might be based on the 2024 results and districts where the incumbent is in a district where the PVI favors the other party.

In 20 of the last 22 House midterm elections, going back to 1938, the president's party has lost seats in the House, often dramatically. The two exceptions were 1998, when the Republicans were busy impeaching Bill Clinton and 2002, when George W. Bush rallied the country after the Sept. 11 attacks. Here are the data. The color of the bar showing the loss (or gain) indicates which party the president was. It is a bipartisan kind of thing.

The mean loss for the president's party is 28.5 House seats. The median loss is 29.5. As they say, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but with a cabinet full of wackos and a president prone to chaos, Democrats have to like their chances. They know that in the 2018 midterms, during Trump v1.0, the Republicans lost 42 seats in the House. However, the president's party doesn't always lose seats in the Senate in the midterms. It depends on which class of senators is up and the dynamics of individual races. Also working for the Democrats is the DCCC chair, Suzan DelBene (D-WA), who has held the job before and knows the ropes quite well.

Here is an initial list of the hottest 2026 House races.

District	Current incumbent	Party	2024 Margin
CA-13	Adam Gray	Dem	0.1%
CA-45	Derek Tran	Dem	0.2%
IA-01	Mariannette Miller-Meeks	GOP	0.2%
ME-02	Jared Golden	Dem	0.5%
CO-08	Gabe Evans	GOP	0.8%
PA-07	Ryan Mackenzie	GOP	1.0%
PA-10	Scott Perry	GOP	1.2%
PA-08	Rob Bresnahan	GOP	1.6%
NC-01	Don Davis	Dem	1.7%
AK-AL	Nick Begich	GOP	1.8%
NY-19	Josh Riley	Dem	2.2%
AZ-06	Juan Ciscomani	GOP	2.5%
CA-27	George Whitesides	Dem	2.6%
VA-07	Eugene Vindman	Dem	2.6%
OR-05	Janelle Bynum	Dem	2.7%
CA-41	Ken Calvert	GOP	3.4%
AZ-01	David Schweikert	GOP	3.8%
IA-03	Zach Nunn	GOP	3.8%
WA-03	Marie Perez	Dem	3.8%
NM-02	Gabriel Vasquez	Dem	4.2%

As you can see, 10 of the closest 20 were won by Democrats and 10 were won by Republicans, so both parties will have to play offense and defense. However in the closest 10, 4 are Democrats and 6 are Republicans, giving the blue team a bit of an edge, especially if there is a blue wave (or blue ripple), as history predicts. (V)

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