Senate Democrats’ already difficult 2026 map just got even worse.

After losing the majority last November, the party faced a very narrow path out of the wilderness. Then Sen. Jeanne Shaheen piled on. The New Hampshire Democrat announced her retirement Wednesday, forcing the Democrats to defend a third Senate seat in 2026, in addition to retiring Sens. Gary Peters’ and Tina Smith’s seats in Michigan and Minnesota.

“It’s no secret that we face a tough map,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, though he remained upbeat: “I don't think you can read into losing one senator in a state where I think we will do very, very well.”

There might be more departures for Democrats to come, though in much bluer states: Sen. Dick Durbin is on retirement watch in Illinois and Sen. Michael Bennet is eyeing a possible run for governor in Colorado.

Durbin, who is 80, declined to share his own reelection plans on Wednesday but acknowledged that the party’s 2026 Senate map is “challenging.”

Democrats’ biggest challenge was always going to be a limited number of pick-up opportunities as they try to claw their way back to power: Sens. Susan Collins’ and Thom Tillis’ seats in Maine and North Carolina, respectively, are their best options. And, critically, winning both wouldn’t win back control of the Senate on their own — and neither are slam dunks for Democrats.

It all amounts to a reality check for the embattled party, even with the next election more than a year and a half away. While they’ve got less of a headwind than they had last year, when they lost four seats, 2026 is in many ways shaping up to be a stepping stone to their actual shot of flipping the Senate in 2028.

“The map is better in ‘26 than ‘24. It's not as good in ‘26 as it will be in ‘28,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in a brief interview. 

Republicans, for their part, view Democrats’ string of retirements as an acknowledgement that their GOP majority is likely to prevail during the midterms, even though the party is at real risk of losing their narrow grip on the House.

“Another one!” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who chairs the Senate GOP campaign arm, wrote on X. “Shaheen’s retirement is welcome news for Granite Staters eager for new leadership. New Hampshire has a proud tradition of electing common-sense Republicans — and will do so again in 2026!”

There could be competitive primaries for both parties across all three states. Democrats likely enter all three open-seat contests as at least light favorites; former Vice President Kamala Harris carried both New Hampshire and Minnesota, and while President Donald Trump won Michigan, Republicans have not won a Senate race there in decades.

Still, all three retirements this early in the cycle have Republicans crowing.

“It’s hard to beat an incumbent,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) “Statistically, it's very, very difficult. So it gives Republicans an opportunity.”

Republicans are also helped by few Maine Democrats relishing the idea of challenging Collins, a rare GOP moderate, and that’s especially true because the state will have an open governor’s race. And North Carolina’s Senate races have long foiled Democrats, even though some of Trump’s allies are flirting with trying to recruit a primary for Tillis. The GOP’s third potential headache – Louisiana – is a less of a risk in November because even if Sen. Bill Cassidy loses, the party is confident that whoever replaces him will be a Republican.

Democrats still believe they could get a tailwind that boosts their chances of picking up more seats next year: Namely Donald Trump and Elon Musk, whose efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government have roiled Washington and even sparked public grumbling from fellow Republicans.

“I happen to believe the dynamic is going to be pretty good. That's a huge factor,” Kaine said, while acknowledging things are a “long way out” from the election.

David Bergstein, a spokesperson for the Senate Democratic campaign arm, said in a statement that the midterm map “is ripe with offensive opportunities Democrats can take advantage of” plus “Republicans have more seats to defend, and they’re doing it in a hostile political environment.”

All three of the open Democratic seat states have a strong bench of Democratic House members elected in the 2018 wave. Privately, some Democratic operatives are relieved that older senators are bowing out during Trump’s first midterm, when the party in power traditionally loses seats. It’s perhaps a more opportune time to get fresh blood into the Senate Democratic caucus, which is still helmed largely by longtime members.

And the party has already been in an active recruitment effort as they shore up their roster for the midterm elections.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich) is taking steps toward a run, as is Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for a possible bid in Michigan.

In Minnesota, Democratic Rep. Angie Craig is seriously considering a run.

In New Hampshire, Democrats could face a crowded primary, something they are hoping to avoid. Rep. Chris Pappas, who’s won four terms in a purple district, is considering a run for Shaheen’s seat, as is first-term Rep. Maggie Goodlander. If Pappas doesn’t run, former Rep. Annie Kuster, who retired from the House earlier this year, told POLITICO she would “take a serious look at the race.”

Republicans are also gearing up for a fight. Former GOP Sen. Scott Brown (who represented neighboring Massachusetts), has been taking steps to stand up another bid in New Hampshire as he looks to make a political comeback after losing to Shaheen in 2014. Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who shrugged off Republicans’ attempts to recruit him to run against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in 2022, is apparently reconsidering for 2026.

“We’re going to need every dollar that can be raised to retain the seat — and an expensive primary I feel would not be helpful,” said veteran New Hampshire Democratic strategist Jim Demers.

Kelly Garrity contributed to this report

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Democrats still have a Gaza problem four months after Kamala Harris' loss.

A quartet of progressive advocacy groups are asking the Democratic National Committee in a new letter to better engage with pro-Palestinian voters, according to a copy shared with POLITICO — a sign that the party’s rift over the Israel-Hamas war could stretch into the midterms.

In the letter addressed to DNC Chair Ken Martin and Executive Director Roger Lau, IMEU Policy Project, IfNotNow, Gen-Z for Change and Justice Democrats accuse the Harris campaign of taking policy stances and issuing voter-outreach directives that served to “villainize” and “ignore” Democratic voters who were opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza and wanted the Biden administration to withhold military aid to the country.

That includes limiting follow-up to people who responded to campaign text messages by asking about Gaza, according to a Harris campaign organizer granted anonymity to discuss the internal instruction that was previously reported by NBC News.

The groups are asking the DNC to improve data collection on that front — and to probe the Harris campaign’s actions on the issue as part of Martin's promised post-election review. They are asking for a meeting with the newly installed chair ahead of the report’s release to discuss their own voter-engagement experiences over Gaza.

They also want Martin to assess whether Harris and President Joe Biden’s stances on Israel and Palestine turned away voters, citing post-election polling from IMEU and YouGov that showed “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top issue for nearly 30 percent of voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020 and someone other than Harris in 2024. The economy was a close second.

And they're angling to limit the influence of a powerful pro-Israel advocacy group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, by calling for a ban on super PAC spending in Democratic primaries — a signal of potential intra-party clashes over Israel policy to come.

The DNC did not immediately respond to questions about the letter.

Pro-Palestinian protests last year over the Biden administration’s handling of the war gave rise to a movement of “uncommitted” voters that opened a schism among traditionally Democratic constituencies and damaged Harris in some traditionally Democratic Arab American areas. Leaders in those communities have argued in the weeks and months since Harris’ loss that the then-vice president made strategic errors by refusing to give a Palestinian American a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention and shutting down protesters at campaign rallies who criticized her solidarity with Biden in supporting Israel.

“The chasm between the Democratic base and the Harris campaign could have been narrowed and course-corrected months prior to the election,” the advocacy groups argued in their letter to Martin. “The pattern of disregarding and ignoring the issues Democratic voters care about, may it be rising costs of living or ending U.S. complicity in war crimes abroad, will not lead to winning elections.”

The letter comes days after the arrest of a Palestinian graduate student involved in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University re-ignited a debate about immigration, free speech and anti-war protests on college campuses. Since President Donald Trump’s victory in November, pro-Palestinian groups in the U.S. have been confronting the challenge of an administration that has been sharply critical pro-Palestinian movement.

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© AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Democrats are deeply conflicted over the Trump administration’s arrest of a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University who faces deportation for his prominent role in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

Senate and House Democrats have condemned the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil as a violation of his First Amendment rights to protest — but have tempered their criticism to avoid supporting campus protests that at times featured harassment and assault of Jewish students.

They are also being careful to condemn Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250, and prompting an Israeli response that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, including many civilians.

“I abhor many of the opinions and policies that Mahmoud Khalil holds and supports, and have made my criticism of the antisemitic actions at Columbia loudly known,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a post to X on Tuesday.

But the New York Democrat challenged the Trump administration, which has called Khalil a supporter of Hamas, to justify his arrest by immigration agents outside his New York apartment over the weekend.

“If the administration cannot prove he has violated any criminal law to justify taking this severe action and is doing it for the opinions he has expressed, then that is wrong, they are violating the First Amendment protections we all enjoy and should drop their wrongheaded action.”

Khalil is a Palestinian from Syria who entered the U.S. on a student visa and had obtained legal permanent residency, commonly referred to as a green card. His wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant, his lawyers said in court papers.

President Donald Trump, who has said he wants to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses, celebrated the arrest in a social media post, saying it was “the first of many to come.”

A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Khalil on Monday, and scheduled a hearing on the case for Wednesday.

Schumer’s statement echoed a similar one from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released Monday.

“To the extent his actions were inconsistent with Columbia University policy and created an unacceptable hostile academic environment for Jewish students and others, there is a serious university disciplinary process that can handle the matter,” Jeffries wrote. “Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution.”

Other prominent Democrats are similarly wrestling with the arrest. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state said he had concerns about some of the campus protests that erupted around the nation after the Oct. 7 attack. But he noted in a social media post that “Khalil committed no crime” and “shouldn’t be locked up for expressing his political views.”

A small number of Democratic representatives have taken a less nuanced view, demanding Khalil’s release while expressing support for the pro-Palestinian movement in a letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“We must be extremely clear: this is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country,” said the letter, whose signatories include Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. “Khalil’s arrest is an act of anti-Palestinian racism intended to silence the Palestinian solidarity movement in this country.”

Other Democratic House members to sign the letter include Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, New York Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, was censured for her comments about the Israel-Hamas war in November of 2023. Omar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023 for remarks she previously made denouncing the Israeli government.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled the last name of Rep. Ilhan Omar.

© Yuki Iwamura/AP

Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian whose appearance at a New York rally for then-candidate Donald Trump drew bipartisan backlash after he made disparaging comments about Puerto Rico, has inked a deal with Netflix, the company announced Monday.

Under the deal, Hinchliffe will helm three live comedy show specials, with the first premiering on April 7, as well as his own stand-up special.

“Myself and our entire crew of Austin comedians, peers, and upcomers are excited for the opportunity to share our chaotic, insane show with a whole new chunk of the globe,” Hinchcliffe said in a statement to the press.

Hinchliffe, whose YouTube channel, Kill Tony, boasts over 2 million subscribers, gained widespread notoriety last year when he opened for Trump at an October Madison Square Garden Rally. His jokes, which assailed Puerto Rico, Latinos and migrants, caused a massive outcry in the following days.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” Hinchcliffe said to laughter at the rally. “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

Trump’s campaign tried to distance itself from Hinchliffe and Puerto Rican celebrities, including Aubrey Plaza, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Nicky Jam, blasted the set. Jam, who had previously appeared at a campaign rally alongside the now-president, said the episode pushed him to retract his earlier endorsement of Trump. Lopez attacked Trump for the set at a campaign rally for Kamala Harris in Las Vegas.

Hinchliffe did not apologize, though he did later acknowledge that “perhaps that venue at that time wasn’t the best fucking place to do this set at.”

© Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO

Former Vice President Kamala Harris is seriously considering a run for governor of California — and has given herself a deadline to decide.

At a pre-Oscars party last weekend, Harris was asked by another partygoer when she would make a decision about jumping into the California governor’s race. She gave a definitive answer, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation: the end of the summer.

And in calls to supporters, allies and trusted aides in recent weeks, Harris has made clear that she plans to make a decision in a few months.

Harris’ timeline, reported here first, is the clearest indication to date that she may enter the race to succeed the termed-out Gavin Newsom in the Golden State. And, allies said, a win would almost certainly take a 2028 presidential run — which Harris is still mulling — off the table.

Harris maintains significant leads in early national polls of the field of possible candidates, yet she’s had some frank conversations with advisers and confidants in Washington about how difficult they expect the presidential primary to be.

Harris aides note she has long been intrigued by the idea of being the chief executive of the fifth-largest economy in the world and the first Black woman to be governor in America.

Harris' public appearances since leaving office point to a politician who sees a future as a Democratic Party leader — from one coast or another.

Over the last few weeks, she made an appearance at the NAACP Image Awards to accept the Chairman’s prize. She is headed to Las Vegas, which is in an early primary state, this weekend for a moderated conversation about artificial intelligence and talking with advisers about other ways to keep her name in the national conversation.

Harris has also kept on some of her most senior and trusted aides under her newly formed organization Pioneer49, including chief of staff Sheila Nix and senior advisers Kirsten Allen and Ike Irby. Longtime advisers Brian Nelson and Minyon Moore as well as her White House chief of staff Lorraine Voles all remain key parts of her informal kitchen cabinet. Other top aides in California are waiting for the signal from Harris to engage. Since losing the election, Harris has told all her aides and allies to keep every possible path open.

“I am staying in this fight,” she repeated to allies in phone calls and at private gatherings.

Harris has yet to convene formal conversations about a run for governor.

For now, the mere prospect of her running for the top job in the state has already sent several California Democratic candidates in the 2026 field for governor looking for other options. State Attorney General Rob Bonta will seek reelection, telling POLITICO he won’t run for governor in part because Harris was likely to clear the field if she runs.

“I hope she does. I have already raised my hand to endorse her, if she does,” Bonta said, “but I think only Kamala Harris knows the answer.”

Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who is eyeing the race closely, has suggested she would not challenge Harris in the state’s primary where the leading two candidates, regardless of their party, advance to a November matchup.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a close Harris ally in California who shares some of the same top consultants, would also stand aside and likely slot into another statewide race if Harris runs. Others like former state Senate leader Toni Atkins, former state Controller Betty Yee and state schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond have long supported Harris. Only former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has suggested he will stay in the race, though even people close to him have shared doubts about those plans.

“Her name recognition, her favorables, her ability to run a successful campaign would have the impact of clearing the field on the Democratic side," Bonta said. “If anyone wants to stay in, will I tell them, ‘You should leave because she's clearing the field?’ Absolutely not. They can run. I think they'll lose, and I will support her.”

© Richard Shotwell/Invision via AP

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 an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

Gavin Newsom's provocative new position on trans athletes on Thursday reopened a rift in the Democratic Party that could serve as one of the earliest flash points in the party’s 2028 primary.

Within hours of the California governor condemning trans athletes playing in female sports — shocking his party in his home state — some Democrats unloaded on the likely presidential contender.

“It’s disgusting,” said Lori Lightfoot, the former Chicago mayor. “There are kids waking up today in California with this news thinking that their governor hates them, and rightly so.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged Democrats to “not take the bait and give in to their anti trans people rhetoric," though she hadn't seen Newsom's comments.

Major LGBTQ+ organizations immediately made clear they're looking at trans athletes as a litmus test for ambitious Democrats. "Our message to Gov. Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple: The path to 2028 isn't paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities —it's built on the courage to stand up for what's right and do the hard work to actually help the American people," said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

But to moderates, Newsom was offering a lifeline for a party plagued by the culture wars and the polarizing politics of trans women in sports. His comments were the latest from a field of potential contenders seeking to distance themselves from the identity politics of 2024. In recent weeks, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized some approaches to promoting diversity as responsible for how “Trump Republicans are made,” while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker cited a coming budget deficit for a proposal to cut a health care benefit for some noncitizen immigrants.

“The true story is that we’ve seen in opinion poll after opinion poll that a majority of the country (and Democrats!) agree with this idea," said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who got in hot water after saying that LGBTQ+ culture war issues were partially to blame for the party's election losses last year. "More and more are willing to say what they’ve probably always thought — and that’s a good thing.”

“We just stepped too far out of the bounds and let the far left drive the narrative,” said a Democratic strategist from a swing state, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “Our own voters don't agree with trans athletes in youth or college sports.”

The strategist said, “To have the governor of one of the bluest states come out and say this, saying our party has gone too far left, then it’s a permission structure for other Democrats to do this, too — to start saying publicly what people have been saying privately.”

Still, Newsom was staking out controversial ground — and potentially alienating whole swaths of activists ahead of 2028. In the hours after saying in a discussion with conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Newsom’s new podcast that it’s “deeply unfair” for trans athletes to play on female sports teams, no other Democrats with 2028 presidential ambitions were willing to back him publicly.

Trans rights has been a difficult subject for Democrats since Trump turned the issue into a potent weapon in his 2024 campaign, unloading millions of dollars in attack ads on Kamala Harris, including one with the tagline, “Kamala’s For They/Them. President Trump is for you.” In the aftermath, many moderates argued the Democratic Party had shifted too far into identity politics and ideological litmus tests.

Newsom, in the same interview with Kirk, said he considered those ads — going after Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners — to be Trump’s most effective political attack against the former vice president.

Some Republicans cast Newsom as craven for bucking most other Democrats. On X, Trump ally Richard Grennell said the California governor should be seen as having “Flip-Flopped on Trans Athletes in Sports after viewing the polling.”

Recent polling supports moderating on the issue. While the majority of American adults support policies protecting trans people from discrimination, 66 percent of those surveyed favor requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, and 56 percent support banning health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors, according to Pew Research.

On Capitol Hill, most Democrats said they hadn’t directly seen Newsom’s comments but greeted the revelation he had interviewing Kirk on his podcast with somewhat of an eye roll. They refrained from directly critiquing the governor even as they disagreed with the sentiment.

“I just saw the headline. I haven't read it but I know where I stand,” said Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.). “We don't mess with our young people, our young people, we got to bring them in, we don't want to exclude them.”

Democrats had almost unanimously voted against legislation earlier this year that would bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s or girls sports. Although some lawmakers leading up to the vote like Moulton generally said they opposed letting transgender athletes play girls sports, they ultimately chose to vote against the legislation and said it was overbroad.

“What’s unfair is the targeting of transgender kids and politicians abandoning them for political expediency,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), vice chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Asked Thursday about Newsom’s comments, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he hadn’t seen them but said Democrats opposed “unleashing sexual predators on girls throughout the United States of America.” Democratic leaders had dubbed the transgender sports bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act” and argued it would lead to adults inspecting childrens’ genitals to assess their eligibility for sports.

In California, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento described Newsom’s remarks ricocheting between their phones, trailed by incredulity and outrage at a governor who built his national political profile on recognizing same-sex marriage aligning himself with right-wing opposition to trans rights. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom defied federal and state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

“We woke up profoundly disappointed and sickened, when you have someone who has been thoughtful and has been a very unwavering ally release a statement like that,” said Assembly member Chris Ward, a gay San Diego Democrat who has sparred with conservatives over trans issues. “Look, this is playing into a lot of the conversation that Donald Trump is obsessing about in order to distract us.”

Mia McCarthy, Amanda Friedman and Jeremy White contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled the name of Rep. Sara Jacobs.

© Jeff Chiu/AP

Rep. Sylvester Turner has died, according to fellow House Democrats and his office.

The first-term Texas Democrat had been elected in 2024 to succeed the late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died in office last year.

Democrats announced his death to their colleagues in a closed-door leadership meeting Wednesday morning, according to three people familiar with the situation.

And in a statement released later Wednesday, his office announced his death "with profound sadness."

"Congressman Turner is survived by his loving family, devoted staff and numerous friends who cherished his wisdom, humor and steadfast dedication to public service," his office said.

Other Democrats publicly expressed condolences on X, with Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) writing: “He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of service as Mayor of Houston and the Representative for Texas’ 18th Congressional District. May he Rest in Peace.”

A spokesperson for Turner’s congressional office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under Texas law, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is in charge of calling a special election, although there is no deadline for doing so. If Abbott calls the special election, all candidates would be listed on the primary ballot, and the top two would go to a runoff if no one receives more than 50 percent of the vote.

Turner, 70, had revealed in 2022 he had undergone treatment for bone cancer, though he had declared himself “cancer free.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Political cartoons from the desk of Matt Wuerker.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin is promoting from within as he fills out his senior leadership team, taking a stay-the-course approach to staffing despite the party’s losses in November.

Roger Lau, who has been serving as the DNC’s deputy executive director since 2021, will be the DNC’s next executive director, committee officials shared first with POLITICO. He replaces Sam Cornale.

The appointment of Lau, a veteran campaign hand who managed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential bid, comes after Martin — himself a longtime party tactician and state party chair in Minnesota — was elected on Feb. 1 to lead the DNC. Their selections reflect the DNC’s post-election preference for experienced operatives over shaking up the party apparatus on South Capitol Street.

Libby Schneider will become deputy executive director after serving as chief of staff of the DNC, senior adviser and national rural political director. Jessica Wright joins the DNC as deputy executive director and chief of staff to the chair. She served as deputy chief of staff for operations at the State Department during President Joe Biden’s administration and is an Obama administration alum.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Washington State Democrats Chair Shasti Conrad and union chief Stuart Appelbaum, who leads the DNC’s Labor Council, will serve as associate chairs. They round out a diverse leadership team that follows a race for DNC chair that was defined by — and criticized for — its homogeneity.

“The DNC is thrilled to announce a new slate of leaders whose depth and breadth of experience will support the Democratic Party in holding the Trump administration accountable and fighting for working families,” Martin said in a statement. “At such a critical moment, we are excited to have experienced, aggressive operatives who are ready to roll up their sleeves and defend Democratic values up and down the ballot.”

Martin’s don’t-rock-the-boat approach to building out the apparatus that will guide the DNC through a difficult midterm election and into the next presidential cycle comes as top officials and strategists engage in a raging debate over Democrats’ branding and how the party out of power should be navigating President Donald Trump’s second term.

Democrats who struggled at the outset to settle on a cohesive opposition message have in recent days seized on Trump and Elon Musk’s mass firings of federal workers and Republicans’ possible cuts to Medicaid as rallying cries.

But many Democrats, including some governors and rank-and-file lawmakers, are urging congressional leaders to take even stronger stands against the president and his billionaire ally’s attempts to dismantle federal agencies and override legislative-branch authority — even though the party has next to no leverage in either chamber. The DNC is also still trying to find its footing there, with a staffer recently issuing a mea culpa on X after a 32-point list of what Democrats did in February — a play on the emails Musk has sent directing federal employees to detail five things they’ve done in the past week — was roundly mocked.

Meanwhile, some of the party’s more moderate lawmakers and consultants are using Democrats’ electoral shellacking as an opening to try to steer the party away from the more progressive messaging and ideological posturing that defined its response to Trump’s first term.

And still others are cautioning Democrats to wait until Trump steps in it himself — with veteran Democratic strategist James Carville recently urging the party to “roll over and play dead” until public opinion sours on the opposition.

But Martin and Lau say they are charging ahead.

Lau said in a statement that when Democrats are “in the opposition party, the work of the DNC is more important than ever” and that the committee “will leverage the vast infrastructure that we’ve built within the DNC and our state parties while meeting this moment by deepening our partnerships, strengthening grassroots organizing, and turbocharging messaging to win elections.”

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© Scott Olson/Getty Images

Before Elon Musk and his chainsaw, there was Mitch Daniels “the Blade.”

The former Indiana governor and Office of Management and Budget director under President George W. Bush, Daniels established a reputation in the early 2000s as a knife to government. As governor, he shrunk the size of his state's workforce by 18 percent and turned a $700 million deficit into a $2 billion surplus.

Daniels even doled out refund checks to Hoosier taxpayers on the backs of the cuts.

Now, he and a crop of like-minded former GOP governors are looking at Musk and President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency with a bit of nostalgia, uncertainty and — in Daniels’ case — caution.

“I certainly would have cautioned against throwing out a number that’s just preposterous,” Daniels told POLITICO of the $2 trillion Musk has set as a benchmark for DOGE savings. “There’s a real value in an effort like this because they illuminate the fact that the government does a lot of very silly or unnecessary or even counterproductive things, but I would have urged that they go achieve some real success first and then talk. Talk less, do more.”

It’s not just Daniels. Former governors of Illinois and New Jersey attempted similar, albeit less aggressive, moves to cut government, sometimes stymied by the same bureaucracy they tried to eliminate.

The Trump administration has suggested it’s not doing anything new, invoking President Bill Clinton’s “Reinventing Government” initiative headed by Vice President Al Gore as an example. Musk even gave a hat tip to the Clinton White House, recently posting “What @DOGE is doing is similar to Clinton/Gore Dem policies of the 1990s.”

Who can forget the time Gore promoted the effort on David Letterman’s late-night TV show by taking a hammer to a government ashtray.

In interviews, the former GOP governors outlined successes and pitfalls of their respective approaches. Former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said it was “very, very, very tough to shrink” the government in his state, while former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie acknowledged making some cuts to human services he quickly regretted — forcing him to backpedal.

“I did a bunch of line-item vetoing and by definition that's done more quickly because a bunch comes, and you have a certain period of time to do it. There were cuts to human services that wound up affecting kids in ways that I didn't anticipate they would, and so I went back and changed it,” recalled Christie, a longtime Trump critic and former presidential candidate. “I took some abuse for it when it happened and I deserved it. I made a mistake, so I think when that happens, you just have to go ‘OK. I made the mistake, now fix it.’ It’s not like the mistakes are never going to be made.”

Daniels once even put pennies on the tires of state-owned vehicles to see if they were used. When he came back a month later and the pennies were still there, Daniels himself served as auctioneer and sold the fleet of 1,000 of them. He even cut the state’s force of planes and helicopters from 22 to 6.

But none of those efforts were anywhere near as chaotic as Musk’s DOGE, which has come with multiple instances of employees being fired and then re-hired, most notably nuclear weapons program workers and workers responding to the spread of bird flu.

“Personnel costs are such a small part of the money federal government spends and wastes,” Daniels said. “I think they don't want to over emphasize that, because it hands the friends of the status quo a club: You know, you're hurting these innocent people.”

Daniels, like Trump, had a Republican legislature to back him up. Rauner and Christie weren’t so lucky, facing resistance to their efforts to reduce government from Democratic-led state legislatures. And then there are outside pressures, similar to the legal challenges facing Trump.

“There are all kinds of restrictions and union rules and regulatory rules for what you can do as an executive versus what needs legislative or other approvals, including union approvals and employee approvals,” Rauner said in an interview.

Rauner was a Daniels acolyte who “studied what he did” and even tried to poach some of the Indiana governor’s staff. One top lieutenant made the move. But if Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda was designed to overhaul state government, his proposals left him butting heads with the Democratic-led Illinois General Assembly, and resulted in a more than two-year budget impasse that saw social service programs drastically cut or eliminated.

He said Republicans believe the Trump administration “deserves credit for trying [to reduce government] because nobody else, literally nobody, has been willing to do it at the federal level in anything like this scale and speed.”

And he compared Trump’s sledge-hammer approach to how the corporate world operates — “move fast and break things that are broken. And most Republicans regard the federal bureaucracy as broken. So I think they’re trying to do what a lot of people would support.”

That’s except for one thing. Rauner acknowledged he wouldn’t cut education. “It’s the most important thing we do collectively as a community and as a society,” he said.

Like Rauner and Daniels, Christie, a former two-term governor of New Jersey, has been watching closely at how Trump’s team is trying to recreate government.

Christie argued a lack of transparency is the biggest problem with the current reinvention of government.

He pointed to the recent flub in which DOGE “accidentally canceled” efforts by the U.S. Agency for International Development to prevent the spread of Ebola. Musk said the initiative was restored, but those kinds of mistakes don’t sit well with the public.

“That’s why I think you should be going through a process where people know what you’re doing and that you’re doing it in a transparent way by examining it before you cut it,” said Christie. “Here, I think it’s the opposite process.”

Daniels, perhaps more than any national figure, has long argued that the U.S. faces a debt timebomb — a thread he referred to in a 2011 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference as the “new red menace.” (The speech received raucous applause: “times change!” he said.)

In the same speech, notably, Daniels trotted out the idea of a taxpayer refund — setting aside money for taxpayers “beyond a specified level of state reserves.” Today, he argued that a DOGE tax credit would be a “giveaway as crass as what Biden tried to do with student loans.” Daniels later signed into law the taxpayer refund, and taxpayers have benefited from it at least three times.

Back then, Daniels also argued for presidential impoundment authority, the ability to not spend money appropriated by Congress, an idea on which Trump also campaigned.

“Nothing radical about it,” Daniels said now.

Daniels isn’t opposed to Musk’s project. But he said it’s his native OMB that has the real “authority” to cut more deeply into the bone.

“I want to see them build the case for restraint by doing some things that are effective,” Daniels said. “The sky won't fall. I've always said you'd be amazed how much government you’d never miss.”

But the cuts he thinks Trump and Musk can achieve are incremental, Daniels said — doubtful Trump and Musk will find the kind of cuts they’re looking for.

“This president has taken off the table the only way you’d ever get close to such a number, and that’s entitlement reforms,” he said. “If they won't touch Medicaid, then they don't have a chance of doing much that's real.”

© Darron Cummings/AP

“Move fast and break things.” It’s an old motto from Silicon Valley. But these days, speed and disruption are also the coin of the realm in Washington. President Donald Trump is moving fast to redefine the government and America’s place in the world; and many of his critics have voiced their concerns that something might get broken in the process.

This past week, Trump entertained France and Britain’s heads of state, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer — both of them courting his favor; he took a bite out of restructuring our relationship with Ukraine; and he promised some added tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

In domestic policy, Speaker Mike Johnson finally advanced a budget resolution that is a crucial step to passing Trump’s agenda through reconciliation.

And coming next week, the growing crisis over a possible government shutdown. That is, once everyone digests the deluge of news that the President makes during his Joint Address to Congress on Tuesday.

On this episode of the Playbook Deep Dive podcast, host Eugene Daniels joins senior Congress editor, Mike DeBonis and West Wing Playbook co-author Sophia Cai, to help digest everything that has happened this week — and everything that is coming next week too.

© Chris Kleponis via CNP

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 an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

Democrats say sweeping government cuts led by Elon Musk have started to awaken a latent opposition to President Donald Trump — and they’re hoping it will motivate a slew of new down-ballot candidates to run in the years ahead.

Early interest in running for office is already beginning to rise — at least one major candidate recruitment organization saw a sharp spike of more than 2,000 new applications pouring in as Musk issued major actions pushing federal workers out. A lot of that web traffic came from Reddit threads of former federal employees considering runs for political office that sprang up last week.

Capitalizing off the influx, Run For Something will host an “Ask Me Anything” event to answer questions about running for political office on a Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-focused sub-Reddit thread on Friday.

While it’s still early, Democratic strategists said they hope fired federal workers could be potent recruits for next year’s midterms — and serve as powerful communicators on what the cuts from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency means for voters.

“I expect we will see some candidates this year and next year who will talk about how Donald Trump and Elon Musk fired them while they were working for the American people,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, a progressive group that recruits Democrats to run for office.

“It’s a pretty compelling campaign message,” she added.

About 20,000 people have joined Run For Something since Trump won reelection in November, Litman said, with 10 percent of that coming just in the last week. Democrats, still adrift after their 2024 losses, hope the fury over DOGE’s gutting of the federal government and House Republicans efforts to cut funding to Medicaid represent a turning point for the party, giving them tangible grassroots energy to tap into that so far hasn’t manifested at the same intensity as Trump's first term.

Backlash to the first Trump presidency fueled a wave of candidates with unconventional — and primarily non-political — backgrounds to run for office in 2018. That flood of first-time candidates included women like former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), people of color like New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado and former members of the military like Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.). They rode the wave of anti-Trump sentiment to retake control of the House. They’ve also deepened the party’s bench of talent, many of whom are now running for or already won statewide offices.

Now, Democratic groups hope that former federal workers will be among a coalition of non-traditional candidates who they plan to recruit for the midterms. Federal workers, who are “already inclined toward public service” but previously barred from politics, are now “liberated from that constraint, furious and looking for action, [running for office] is a really concrete step that people want to take,” Litman said.

House Republicans in several red districts have already begun to face angry constituents at town halls in recent days over the DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce. Clips of Republican House members being booed by constituents at town halls went viral on social media. Anti-Musk protesters gathered outside of congressional offices in swing districts in Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“The town halls, the tele-town halls, the activism from protests over the holiday weekend, it speaks for itself,” said Ben Ray, vice president for federal and gubernatorial campaigns at EMILY’s List, a liberal group that recruits abortion rights supporting women to run for office. “It’s early days, still, and it’s not going to be a 2017-level reaction, but I think folks are getting fired up for the fight.”

The fresh grassroots energy came after a wave of layoffs hit government workers in recent weeks, and a barrage of news coverage showed how DOGE cuts had upended scientific research funding and pushed veterans out of jobs. The agency’s officials also potentially gained access to private taxpayer data, triggering private panic for congressional Republicans. Even Democrats, who had initially expressed interest in working with Musk and DOGE, are now backing away from the effort. Several polls released last week found a majority of Americans disapprove of Elon Musk and DOGE’s actions.

Democrats are moving to harness the backlash, which is already “changing who we are talking to” to run for office and “what we’re talking about,” Ray added. He predicted that DOGE “is probably going to be a major feature in this election, and potentially a definitive one.”

Musk and Trump, for their part, aren’t backing down. Appearing alongside Trump in a Fox News interview last week, Musk called the criticism of DOGE an “antibody reaction from those who are receiving the wasteful and fraudulent money.”

The White House did not respond to an emailed request for comment. But when asked by reporters about constituent reaction to the “chainsaw approach” to federal job cuts, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said there was “overwhelming support” for it. “There should be no secret about the fact that this administration is committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse,” she said. “The president campaigned on that promise, Americans elected him on that promise and he’s actually delivering on it.”

The anger from voters may be a gift to Democrats, who have struggled to form a coherent message against Trump in his second administration.

“When it’s organic, when it’s grassroots anger, then it doesn’t need to be bottled and sold by a political party,” said Tim Hogan, a Democratic consultant.

“Democrats just need to point to that zeitgeist and show disenchanted voters that people refuse to be steamrolled by this administration,” Hogan said.

Internal Democratic polling, conducted by the leadership-aligned House Majority Forward, found a majority of voters in battleground districts view Musk negatively. An accompanying memo urged Democrats to not “chide Musk, Trump, and others for being rich,” but rather emphasize that Musk could undermine key safety net programs while enriching himself.

That’s why some Democrats see the “real-life stories” of federal workers and what the DOGE cuts mean as another way to connect these actions to voters: “When you’re able to put a face to a story, then people have much stronger feelings on it when they realize it’s their friends and neighbors being fired,” said C.J. Warnke, communications director for House Majority PAC, the Democratic super PAC closely aligned with House leadership. “We need to amplify these stories and make these cuts real for people.”

Indivisible, a progressive group formed during the first Trump administration, leaned into the DOGE cuts in a memo to its volunteers, called “Musk Or Us.” The memo urged them to attend congressional town halls during this week’s recess and ask questions about “the Trump-Musk budget power grab” and “Musk’s control over government spending.”

Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said that Democrats “didn’t have juice before the OMB freeze,” referring to the federal freeze Trump’s White House implemented then rescinded last month. “That was the flashpoint when it started to go mainstream and it’s been picking up ever since then.”

© John McDonnell/AP

An emboldened Elon Musk is once again directing federal employees to justify their existence in writing — or face dismissal.

Musk made his renewed demand in a social media post Monday after President Donald Trump seemed to contradict other senior administration officials and approve the directive that the billionaire initially sent out to workers over the weekend.

“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” Musk wrote on X. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”

The billionaire’s Department of Government Efficiency on Saturday sent an email to federal agencies with the subject line "What did you do last week.” It sowed confusion and fear among workers, especially after Musk posted on X that failure to respond would be “taken as a resignation.”

Several agency heads, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, told their staff that they did not need to reply, and the Office of Personnel Management later clarified that responding to the email was “voluntary.”

As the head of DOGE, Musk has sought to drastically shrink the federal workforce, laying off thousands of workers and threatening to cut entire agencies. It is unclear what legal authority, if any, he has to sack federal employees who refuse to comply with his demand.

Trump praised Musk’s approach on Monday. “I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government,” he said.

He also defended some of his agency heads’ decisions to urge their staff to ignore the email for reasons of confidentiality. “They’re just saying there are some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on last week,” Trump said.

Musk’s email quickly ignited a firestorm of criticism among lawmakers and unions over the weekend.

“Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday. “He has no legal authority to make his latest demands. We will block him in Congress and in the Courts. Again.”

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union which represents 800,000 federal workers, condemned Musk’s “chaotic and callous treatment of federal employees" and described the original directive as a "cynical attempt" to scare workers into quitting.

The latest version drew scorn from Brittany Holder, a spokesperson for AFGE.

"If we took the time to comment on each and every ridiculous thing that Elon Musk tweets out, we'd never get any work done," Holder said. "Our stance will forever remain the same, AFGE will challenge any unlawful discipline, termination or retaliation against our members and federal employees across the country."

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Elon Musk warned Monday that government employees who have not yet returned to working from their offices full time will be placed on administrative leave, escalating his effort from within the Trump administration to tighten the screws on the federal bureaucracy.

Musk’s threat follows an executive order from President Donald Trump last month ordering federal employees back to their offices and curtailing work-from-home practices.

“Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning,” Musk posted to X, replying to a Fox News clip from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

“Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.”

Forcing federal workers back to the office was one of many Day One executive orders signed by Trump. The return to in-person work order requires department heads to “as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

The Monday morning post underscores Musk’s view of the Department of Government Efficiency’s authority over the federal government — one that has seemingly breached the advisory role the Trump administration carved out for him in court filings last week which restricts the tech billionaire from making government decisions himself, said Mark Maxin, an attorney who specializes in federal sector employment law.

This order undercuts the return-to-office plans of many federal agencies like the General Services Administration and National Institutes of Health, which set in-person work deadlines for most staffers around March to May, according to three federal staffers familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak.

Many of those agencies don’t have fully developed office spaces to accommodate the complete return of their workforces yet. At the Department of Education, staffers are contending with a desk and computer monitor shortage that has limited in-person work productivity.

“Legally, only your supervisors can direct you when to come into work,” Maxin said about Musk’s administrative leave threat, though it’s unclear whether agencies or Musk will try to override this rule. If they do, the agencies can only issue administrative leave — or paid time off for work purposes — for a maximum of 10 workdays to investigate an employee's performance or conduct, according to rules established by the Office of Personnel Management.

“We are telling individual employees to consult their supervisors,” said Steve Lenkart, the executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees union. “That’s the simplest way to stay out of trouble. Send them an email and ask them what to do.”

White House DOGE adviser Katie Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By announcing that workers will be placed on leave this week, Musk, the de-facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is again placing himself in between workers and their normal chain of command.

Over the weekend, Musk’s team created mass confusion across agencies by sending an email asking workers “What did you do last week?” and requesting five bullet points of accomplishments. Immediately, a power struggle emerged, with Trump loyalists at departments across the government instructing their employees not to reply.

FBI Director Kash Patel instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” and an email to State Department employees made clear that “no employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command.”

Those directions were in conflict with Musk, who said that failure to reply would be “taken as a resignation.” (The resignation line was not in the email sent by OPM Saturday afternoon.)

Despite frustration and backlash from the agencies, many Republicans in Congress supported the email.

“I don’t think this is a request that is that difficult,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, though he encouraged “a little compassion and, quite frankly, dignity, in this as well.”

Agency heads at GSA and the Treasury have directed employees to respond to these emails.

At some federal agencies, Musk’s return-to-office directive has largely escaped scrutiny as staffers scramble to respond to the five bullets email.

“X is not an official organ of the government, and [Musk] is an adviser to Trump,” said one GSA manager who was granted anonymity to avoid retribution. “Why would I keep up with, or treat as official, what he posts on a … site I no longer use?”

Musk has already exerted immense influence over the federal government as thousands of government workers are being placed on leave or fired, though some efforts are being held up in court. On Friday, Trump administration officials told POLITICO that the break-neck pace may slow down following criticism over the speed and scope of the changes.

Trump himself continues to advocate for Musk’s work, and said over the weekend he hopes Musk will work even faster.

“ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” he posted to Truth Social. “REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE, BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MAKE GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAGA!”

Amanda Friedman contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated the network to which Sen. John Curtis gave an interview on Sunday. He appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation."
CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to clarify the circumstances under which an employee can be placed on administrative leave.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Mark Cuban, the billionaire business mogul and “Shark Tank” star, quashed speculation he will be making a White House run in 2028 — even as he has become a prominent voice against Donald Trump's agenda in Washington.

The Dallas Mavericks minority owner was asked if his name would be on a ballot in the near future at the Principles First convention, a gathering of conservatives who feel politically homeless in Trump's MAGA-fied version of the party.

“Hell no. It's not going to happen,” Cuban said, before joking to the crowd gathered at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C., roughly three blocks from the White House, then quipped: "Okay, if y'all write in and I don't have [a campaign].”

“No, I don't want to be President. I'd rather fuck up health care,” a nod to the Cost Plus drug company he recently launched.

Cuban has teased a presidential run in the past, exploring running as an Independent in 2020 and hiring a pollster to assess his prospects. He ultimately decided against it and threw his support behind Joe Biden. Some recent polling has even included his name in a list of 2028 candidates that had him notching some support in a crowded field.

Cuban served as a surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and stumped for her in key swing states like Nevada and Wisconsin.

“I mean, it's kind of fun, actually,” Cuban said. “I learned that the Democrats can’t sell shit.”

He later added that if Democrats want to learn how to sell their ideas to the American public, they should look to Trump as an example.

“It doesn't mean … he can execute on that,” Cuban said. “Right now, he's still in the salesmanship stage, and I think now people are starting to ask, alright, it's great to sell it now, can you execute on it?”

"Donald Trump puts PR over policy. He doesn't want to govern. He wants to sell," Cuban added.

Cuban doesn’t believe Trump will actually deliver on his litany of campaign promises, and that should be a boon for Democrats — if they can effectively make the case. He criticized Democrats for being “too reflexive” to Trump’s whims — a tactic they tried in 2024 when Harris emphasized Trump as a threat to democracy.

“I think there's too much reflexology. 'Trump sucks,'” Cuban said. “How'd that work in the campaign? It didn’t.”

© Abbie Parr/AP

OXON HILL, Maryland — A political backlash is sneaking up on billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump across America as they take an ax to the government.

But inside the gleeful halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the vanguard of the Republican Party couldn’t care less.

At the annual gathering of conservatives inaugurated by Ronald Reagan, attendees are buying up Musk-related merchandise and the tech mogul is being feted as a chainsaw-wielding warrior taking on the deep state on behalf of Trump. If that gets a little messy sometimes, it’s just part of the process.

“Childbirth isn't fun, but it's necessary for the perpetuation of the species, right? I love what he's doing. He's a smarter guy than I am,” said Mark McCloskey, the attorney who became a celebrity on the right after he and his wife brandished guns at protesters in St. Louis in 2020. “I can tell you this, that it's going to transform the country. He and Donald Trump are going to make all the difference in the world.”

That transformation has come at a cost. A survey by The Washington Postfound that only 34 percent of respondents approved of Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Fifty-four percent in a CNN poll said it was a negative that Trump gave Musk such a prominent position and 51 percent said the president had gone too far in cutting the government.

Mercedes Schlapp, the host of CPAC and former Trump aide, shrugged off the surveys in an interview.

“Elon Musk is delivering on behalf of President Trump and his mandate to remove waste and corruption and fraud out of the federal government,” she said. “For too long, the American taxpayers did not know how our money was being spent. And we're finding out that there's a chunk of this money that's been going to this leftist propaganda, not only here in America, but across the globe. And so you need to see significant changes in that.”

On Thursday, Musk received a hero’s welcome during his first appearance at CPAC. The crowd erupted in a standing ovation when he appeared onstage for a sit-down interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. Argentine President Javier Milei even bequeathed him a gilded chainsaw. Later, he was given a sci-fi-themed portrait of himself.

During an eccentric performance, Musk wore sunglasses and a gold chain, and declared “I am become meme.”

Sandy Schoepke, owner of a merchandise booth at CPAC, said a version of the black MAGA hat worn by Musk was “selling like hot cakes.” The salon Sovereign House is hosting an “appreciation party” in Washington for the Department of Government Efficiency on Saturday.

And Musk was a near-constant topic of conversation, with everyone from Attorney General Pam Bondi to former Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake to ex-British Prime Minister Liz Truss praising him in speeches and other events.

Bondi hailed “my buddy's great work.” Truss said “we want Elon Musk and his nerd army of Muskrats examining the British deep state.”

Even Steve Bannon, the former top Trump aide who has harshly criticized Musk in recent days, largely pulled punches against him in a CPAC talk on Thursday. He called Musk “Superman” — a stark difference from when he blasted him as a “parasitic illegal immigrant” days earlier.

But there are signs that Musk’s efforts could come back to haunt Trump and Republicans in the 2026 midterms. Battleground voters are jamming their congressional members’ phone lines and dressing them down in public over the slashing and burning of the bureaucracy.

Rep. Rich McCormick, a Republican representing a solidly red district in Georgia, faced constituents at a Thursday town hall who were incensed over Musk and Trump’s cuts.

In North Carolina, residents are calling their lawmakers in Washington to complain about Musk and DOGE, often receiving busy signals because so many people are trying to reach them.

At CPAC, Maurice Lapointe, co-creator of the Patriots Prayer Network — a collection of conservative podcasters — wasn’t worried about the pushback. LaPointe, who goes by “Native Patriot” online and was wearing a feathered MAGA headdress, said “it's inevitable that you're going to face it when you're exposing a lot of where our tax dollars have been going.”

But there was a hint of skepticism about Musk. Lapointe expressed anxiety about the CEO’s businesses amassing sensitive data.

“Centralization of data collection from Elon Musk, whether it be from Tesla, eventually Neuralink, and the way he wants to integrate X into the banking system, is a little worrying,” he said. “I'm not really worried about him knowing my Social Security number, but I'm more so worried about the centralization of power.”

Michael O'Neil, an attendee wearing a shirt with guns emblazoned on a map of America and the slogan "My rights don't end where your feelings begin," likewise felt some trepidation about Musk.

“I do believe there should be some parameters — a leash to make sure that the dog doesn't attack,” he said.

But, he added, “So far, I like what he's doing.”

Ben Jacobs contributed to this report.

© Jose Luis Magana/AP

Full interview with Richard Grenell | POLITICO at CPAC

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The Constitution expressly forbids presidents from running for a third term. But that hasn't stopped Donald Trump from raising it repeatedly — and this time from an official White House event.

“Should I run again? You tell me.” Trump said on Thursday before a crowded East Room filled with mostly Black supporters who were there for a Black History Month event held just a month into his second term.

The crowd, which included elected officials, like Republicans Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rep. John James of Michigan, as well as political appointees and athletes like famed golfer Tiger Woods, responded with chants of: “Four more years!”

Trump joked that the reaction from the crowd — and his mere floating of the idea, which he frequently does before friendly crowds but the first time he has done so in an official capacity — would draw “controversy.” The remarks were first reported by The Washington Post.

The scene took place amid a backdrop of growing concerns that Trump is wielding his presidential power in a way that the Constitution doesn’t permit. The Constitution’s 22 Amendment bars any president from being elected to more than two terms and was ratified some 74 years ago. But Trump's early actions in office have indicated he's willing to challenge constitutional law, by issuing spending freezes on funds allocated by Congress and issuing orders to shutter departments and take over independent federal agencies.

And there's no sign that the MAGA base is tiring of him.

Hours after Trump made remarks about a third term, former adviser Steve Bannon echoed similar sentiments before the gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee.

“The future of MAGA is Donald Trump,” Bannon said to a cheering crowd. “We want Trump in ‘28. That's what they can't stand. A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in the country’s history. We want Trump!”

Trump’s remarks about a third term, first reported by The Washington Post, comes as his administration’s official social media account on X, posted a photoshopped image of him posing on a magazine cover in the style of Time, with a caption that read: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!" Trump is known for hyperbole and boosting his own personal brand and image.

It was a reference to the Trump administration revoking federal approval for congestion pricing a day earlier in New York, legislation that aims to reduce traffic by charging certain sections of Manhattan to charge a $9 fee to enter.

© Pool photo

Steve Bannon replicates Elon Musk's controversial 'salute' at CPAC

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Few things are more authentically Washington than a fly-in. As in, the great capital tradition of getting people from all 50 states into town and unleashing them on the halls of Congress for a few days of lobbying.

This week, the group showing up to have their voices heard isn’t local farm bureaus, chambers of commerce or realtors associations. It’s the governors who are here for the National Governors Association’s winter meeting. And the Republicans and Democrats attending have a lot to talk about.

The man in charge of the NGA is Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who has taken more than a few unconventional stances on the issues in his two terms as governor, and during his Congressional career before that.

But Polis has some big fish to fry this week. He and his fellow governors are in the tough position of responding to the fast pace of policymaking coming from Trump, where issues like tariffs and immigration enforcement are about to have tangible effects on their constituents, and possible funding cuts from reconciliation may be around the corner.

Playbook’s Eugene Daniels taped an episode of the Deep Dive podcast with Polis at POLITICO’s Governor’s Summit on Thursday. They discussed Polis’ thoughts on all of these controversial issues as well as how he thinks Democrats should walk the line when it comes to working with Trump versus opposing him; how Polis thinks Trump is hurting himself; and what the first thing Elon Musk and DOGE should cut is.

© Eleanor Kaufman for POLITICO

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 an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

Elon Musk was hailed as a chainsaw-wielding slasher of the government at his debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Appearing on stage in a gold chain, black MAGA hat and sunglasses, the tech mogul on Thursday boasted about taking on the federal bureaucracy and dismissed the Democratic opposition as fake during a sit-down interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. Asked to give the audience a picture of the inside of his mind, he called it “a storm.”

“I am become meme,” he told the crowd outside Washington.

At one point, Argentine President Javier Milei delivered a gilded chainsaw to Musk on the stage. At another, Musk was handed a sci-fi-themed painting of himself.

The crowd ate up the eccentric appearance, giving Musk a standing ovation in some of the most raucous applause at the gathering.

In the month since President Donald Trump took office, Musk has energized Republicans as he’s worked to cut federal grants, reduce the size of the government workforce, and hobble agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The conservative base cheering on Musk at his first CPAC appearance marks a critical moment for the billionaire who previously voted for Democrats and even recently has come under fire from key leaders in the MAGA movement.

Steve Bannon, the former top Trump adviser, has called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant” who “wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values or traditions.” Musk has said Bannon is “a great talker, but not a great doer.”

On Wednesday, Bannon continued to press his case against Musk, saying “the oligarchs” will abandon the right.

Conservative activists also lit up Musk in December when he threw his weight behind H-1B visas, which are for workers who are deemed highly skilled, in a debate on his social media site X.

Bannon spoke immediately after Musk at CPAC, setting up the potential for a high-profile clash between two factions of the Republican Party at the annual gathering. But during his Thursday talk, Bannon largely pulled punches against Musk.

“How did I draw the card to follow Elon Musk? Come on, man,” he said, calling him “the world’s wealthiest guy” and “Superman.” In comparison, he added, “I’m just a crazy Irishman.”

Bannon only tweaked Musk somewhat, saying that when the history books are written about this age, “ain't gonna remember me or Elon Musk or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity — they're gonna remember two things, Donald Trump and MAGA, OK?”

Despite fiery attacks from Bannon in recent days outside of his CPAC speech, Musk has been a figure of near universal praise from other speakers of the conference.

Former Trump aide Ric Grenell hailed Musk at CPAC's international summit on Wednesday, saying, "Thank God he is saving my money and the world is going to benefit.”

International figures at the confab also praised Musk. Liz Truss, who was briefly the British prime minister in 2022, said, "We want Elon Musk and his nerd army of Muskrats examining the British deep state.” Mateusz Morawiecki, who was Polish prime minister from 2017 to 2023, told reporters "we have to really have our European DOGE initiative."

During the conversation with Schmitt, Musk dismissed Democratic protests as “fake rallies” and said “at this point, I’m not sure how much of the left is even real.” He also lamented the challenges of managing his own security, saying, “I'm open to ideas for improving security, I have to tell you.”

Musk talked about his political transformation, saying it took place “when I realized I was a fool.”

Musk also positioned himself as above being influenced by money.

Musk shrugged off critics who are concerned about the possibility of him accessing data for profit, joking, "If I steal some Social Security, I can finally buy nice things." Of those who say he’s an asset of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, laughing, “He can’t afford me.”

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Neera Tanden is reprising her role at the helm of the Center for American Progress, one of the Democratic Party’s most influential think tanks, as the party looks to regain its footing with voters and counter President Donald Trump.

It’s a homecoming for Tanden, who was named president and chief executive of CAP Thursday, resuming roles she held before serving in then-President Joe Biden’s administration.

Tanden’s return comes at an inflection point for the party, which has struggled to carve a lane after the 2024 presidential elections. Since Election Day, Democrats have conceded they should have campaigned harder on economic hardship and other issues, and that the party needs to reorient its messaging as Trump works to overhaul the government.

“It’s incumbent of us not to be defenders of the status quo, but to provide an alternative,” Tanden said in an interview with POLITICO. In her vision, the party should use moments like the recent House Republican push to cut Medicaid spending to demonstrate to voters the harmful real-world impact of these decisions, she said. Democrats can also use these moments to form alliances with on-the-fence congressional Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), she added, who said he had “concerns” about Medicaid cuts.

Tanden has worked as a domestic policy aide for the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations. She has since been dubbed a key architect of domestic policy, including the Affordable Care Act.

That hasn’t come without controversy. She was known for legendary spats with critics — including more progressive Democrats — on social media, and would colorfully insult Republicans. (She’s stated “vampires have more heart” than Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and referred to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell as “Voldemort.”)

Tanden left CAP to serve as a top aide for the Biden administration. She was originally nominated to be Biden’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, but withdrew with her confirmation sputtering in the Senate. She ultimately served in several senior roles in Biden’s White House.

In that time, CAP has struggled. The center recently terminated 8 percent of its workforce, The New York Times reported. The terminations came as Democratic donors said they would withhold funds for think tanks until the groups generate a coherent strategy for the party.

Still, it’s a particularly opportune time to unleash her new strategy to “oppose and counter” because Trump’s approval ratings are faltering, Tanden said.

“CAP was kind of born for moments like this, where you need both the critique and developing the alternative,” Tanden said. “Americans are waiting on that.”

© Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

Donald Trump returned to power exactly one month ago today, and it is hardly possible to overstate the magnitude of the changes he has brought and is seeking to bring to the federal government and to the workings of power in Washington.

The modern federal government — and much of the economy that gravitates around government in the nation’s capital — is overwhelmingly the product of a few big historical movements: the New Deal in the 1930s, World War II and the 45 years of Cold War that followed, and the burst of government social and regulatory activism in the 1960s and 1970s.

The policies and agencies of government that flowed from those movements shaped national life and the lives of many millions of people for decades. It seems certain that the disruption the Trump administration is promoting now — seeking to transform or eliminate vast sections of the executive branch, and to alter the balance of power emphatically toward the presidency — has equally large implications, for the present and for many years into the future.

Today, we're relaunching one of our signature products to capture this moment authoritatively for this audience: West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government.

POLITICO has the capital’s most talented reporters covering the White House, federal policy, legal and political beats. Our aim is to harness this expertise in a way that is most useful to the audience that is most interested in and affected by the unprecedented changes and confrontations that are underway.

The revamped newsletter will land in inboxes Monday through Friday afternoon to capture the latest news about President Trump’s effort to remake government: the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are driving the day. Our team will report on the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency being led by Elon Musk, the strategy being carried out by the Office of Management and Budget under Russ Vought, related interventions and the resulting outcomes and conflicts playing out in agencies, the courts and Capitol Hill.

We hope this newsletter will be useful to everyone around the country and even the world who is interested in this effort to remake Washington, but above all it must be indispensable to the people with the most at stake. This includes people in the federal workforce, and also the people carrying out President Trump’s directives. We need to know everything about their choices, the ideas and arguments behind those choices, and most importantly the real-life consequences of those choices.

We want the newsletter to reflect and drive the conversation at top levels, deep in the federal agencies, and in every private sector and nonprofit policy operation that is concerned with how government works and how it could work better.

The newsletter, of course, is just one of the ways that POLITICO is rising to meet this historical moment. Our entire publication, and especially our large roster of policy and political journalists in Washington, is in the midst of organizing itself to illuminate every aspect of this drama. The short-term surge underway is part of our long-term commitment to covering the work of the federal government with more reporting and more authority than any other news organization.

To be clear: POLITICO’s power flows from our reporting and our zeal to illuminate. We are curious and clear-eyed. We aren’t boosters or adversaries of any party or political movement. We are professionals who are devoted to answering important questions on behalf of our audience.

I’ll close with an observation about Washington reporting. When I first arrived here, in the 1980s, there was a very substantial body of journalists, from multiple publications, devoted to covering the workings of the federal government. For a variety of reasons, many news organizations have retreated from this task. A proliferation of old and new publications are focused, as we are, on the political dynamics of Washington, but there are fewer than ever that harness this reporting to the substantive policy choices of government.

This reality gives POLITICO special responsibilities, as well as a great opportunity to engage with and deepen our connection to a large audience of people who work on and care deeply about those choices.

Our newsroom is committed to meeting this moment with the best and most vital work of our careers.

John Harris

Editor-in-Chief

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