Third Term?

Before President Trump repeated he will not run for a third term in 2028, then donned a red “Trump 2028” hat, participants from the right and left, in Talking With, Not At … Debate & Donuts IV at The Allen Theatre last Wednesday argued that one way or another, the president will not give up power after 2028.

That is, Trump will not necessarily run himself in two years but will make sure his regime stays in power via his minions. Political analysts and pundits call this “competitive authoritarianism,” in which an authoritarian regime stays in power by running rigged elections against weak opponents, while taking control of the formerly free press.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the model. He remained in power for 16 years until his Fidesz party was trounced in last spring’s elections.

So what does the “Trump 2028” hat mean? Is it merely yet another revenue stream from the MAGA faithful, or is it a warning about our democracy’s future?

Join the conversation. Become a citizen pundit and email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news. Please indicate your political leanings (left or right, whether centrist or progressive-MAGA) in the subject line, irrespective of your position in the comments within, so we publish your thoughts in the proper column. (See today’s right column for good examples of how conservative opinion does not always mean pro-Trump opinion). –Editors

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WEDNESDAY 7/29/26

Iran War, Week 19

Services for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were held at the National Cathedral Tuesday [C-Span].

•Click The Gray Area for Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take on President Trump's speech to Michigan auto workers Monday.

Diplo-This – Yesterday we reported that President Trump told Axios he has decided to pause strikes on Iran to give diplomacy yet another chance.

Wednesday, Iran launched a “surprise” missile attack on American forces in Jordan, The Wall Street Journal reports citing a US official. All of Iran’s missiles were successfully intercepted.

•••

Funeral Diplomacy – The late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) unwavering support of Ukraine and Israel paid off for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who attended his state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Tuesday. Buoyed by a flip by former Putin supporters like far-right MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, who now is on Ukraine’s side, and by Ukraine’s air strike last weekend on an Iranian cargo ship travelling the Caspian Sea that Ukraine says was carrying arms between Iran and Russia, Zelenskyy had a productive White House meeting with President Trump before attending Graham’s funeral, according to The Kyiv Independent.

“The president and I discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production and several other ideas that could help,” Zelenskyy said. He also visited with US senators and representatives from Lockheed Martin.

Ukraine is running out of Patriots, which allows Russia more effective air strikes on the country. It will take some time for Ukraine to begin replenishing with their own interceptor missiles.

Meanwhile … Zelenskyy insists Ukraine has turned the tide against Russia. The country’s own very successful drone warfare has taken its toll on infrastructure well inside Russia, and dictator Vladimir Putin does not hold the upper hand in the war. Put another way, Putin does not hold the cards.

“Now, the initiative is not in the hands of Putin,” Zelenskyy told Sean Hannity on Fox News’ Hannity.

Graham also was an unwavering supporter of Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also attended the late senator’s funeral.

Trump criticized Netanyahu for going public with intelligence about Iranian activity at suspected nuclear site Pickaxe Mountain. Trump told Fox & Friends Tuesday morning he knew “exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe.” Netanyahu wants Trump to “stay involved,” he said.

Their meeting was to cover Iran, a framework deal the US and Israel signed with Lebanon and possible expansion of the Abraham Accords, a White House official said, per The Guardian. Protestors well outside the White House, where the Trump administration has installed fences to expand separation from the public, shouted; “Netanyahu, you’re a tyrant” and “Bibi, you’re not welcome here.”

Netanyahu had plans after Graham’s funeral to visit New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani has tried to get the Israeli prime minister arrested for his conduct of the war on Gaza.

“I’m going to speak the truth in front of this hate-spewing elected official who’s pitting one group of New Yorkers against the others,” Netanyahu told Hannity.

•••

Pricier Gas – National average of unleaded regular is $4.091 Wednesday, a savings of 1.9 cents from Monday’s price per gallon, according to AAA, and $1.289 costlier than February 27. Diesel is $5.329, up 3.3 cents over Monday and +$1.605 over late February. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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WEDNESDAY 7/29/26

What’s in a Hat?

(Scroll down this column to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take on the hat.)

From a reader – I do not believe there is any chance that President Trump will try to run for a third term as the named candidate on the presidential ballot.

It would be too clearly unconstitutional and counterproductive … even for him. Most states, even “red” states, would refuse to place him on their ballots.

He and his administration/regime believe they will win. So, in their minds it isn’t necessary for them to try it. Furthermore, Trump will outright refuse to cede power to anyone except his MAGA candidate.

Our Democracy is in grave danger. But it won’t be from Trump attempting to place his name on the presidential ballot for a third term. –John Santoni

The Hat -- Let’s face it: Donald Trump hasn’t done a whole lot positive for the American people?

Remember DOGE, that outfit that fired employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration, only to have to rehire them because who wants a nuclear catastrophe?

Some will say the One Big Beautiful Bill Act provides manifold benefits — but then there are the people who have had Medicaid, SNAP benefits, and ACA subsidies cut.

And then there’s the non-trivial issue of the $3.4 trillion that the Congressional Budget Office calculates the OBBBA will add to the national debt by 2034.

Yes, the administration has done a good job at the southern border. But its efforts have also resulted in 11 fatalities caused by federal immigration agents. And while Trump had claimed that the worst of the worst would be rounded up and deported, ABC News found “3% of individuals detained by ICE during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction.”

During his victory speech on November 6, 2024, he said, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”

While he has variously claimed to have ended anywhere from six to 10 wars, there is the war that he started in Iran that is still going.

During his campaign he said that on Day 1 in office, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down.”

How’s that going?

Isn’t he doffing a 2028 hat simply so people will divert attention from his meager accomplishments and his outright failures? (Bought a package of ground beef lately? It is 20% more expensive than it was when he took office. And I don’t need to talk about gas.)

Sure, let him wear his hat.

As he has managed to rip a hole in American’s pocketbooks — now and in the future. –Stephen Macaulay/Pundit-at-Large

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WEDNESDAY 7/29/26

Join the Debate

Last Wednesday, July 22, The Hustings and The Allen Theatre held its fourth Talking With, Not At … Debate & Donuts live discussion at the theater in Annville, Pennsylvania, where we discussed the state of American democracy and its future beyond the midterm elections.

The debate was as lively as it was civil.

But the state of American democracy is an ongoing issue, so it’s not too late to submit your comments for publication in this column or in the right column.

Watch this space for the topic of our next live discussion in the coming month. You may also submit your suggestions for future topics in our Talking With, Not At civil debate series with an email to the address below.

Become a Citizen Pundit. Email your COMMENTS on this or other recent political issues to editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings, whether moderate or hard left/hard right in the subject line so we publish your comments in the appropriate column. –Editors

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MONDAY 7/27/26

Iran War, Week 19

She’s My Daughter … She’s My Sister’ – It’s difficult to ignore the similarities between President Trump’s flipping back and forth between negotiating with Iran and bombing them back to the Stone Age, and the denouement of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, of Jack Nicholson’s J.J. Gittes trying to slap the truth out of Faye Dunaway’s Evelyn Mulwray.

Axios could not slap the truth out of the president when he told the publication Monday that he has decided to pause US strikes on Iran and give negotiations yet another chance.

Call this déjà vu or call it the Groundhog Day war. It’s safe to say Trump has, over the last 150 days or five months, depending on how you like to count, gone from threatening all-out war on Iran to negotiating with its most reasonable leaders and then back to ballistic Armageddon at least a few times over. In almost the same breath, Trump went on to tell Axios he could “return to expanded military operations if diplomacy fails.”

Those current negotiations, the online publication goes on to explain, are focused on yet another new deal that would reopen the historically always-open Strait of Hormuz and relaunch talks on a comprehensive nuclear deal.

•••

Slowing the Vote – The Trump administration’s US solicitor general, D. John Sauer, has called on the Supreme Court to allow the administration to fully implement President Trump’s executive order that seeks to restrict mail-in voting (per SCOTUSblog). US District Judge Indira Talwani has paused a portion of the EO in 23 states and the District of Columbia.

Sauer called the judge’s ruling “extraordinary” and said it “flouts settled” doctrines governing when courts can weigh in on a dispute. Sauer also asked SCOTUS to issue an immediate administrative stay that would put the court’s order on hold while the justices consider the administration’s request.

Meanwhile … The rift between President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) over how Thune hasn’t sacked the filibuster in order to get the SAVE America Act passed has come to this: Trump wants Thune to keep the Senate in session next week, when it’s supposed to begin its summer break and hit the midterm campaign trails (per Time magazine).

Thune isn’t having it, even after Trump Truth Socialed; “John Thune should NOT allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes the Save America Act or, better still, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the budget, and even the looming debt ceiling disaster, 1929!”–TL

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MONDAY 7/27/26

War-Free Weekend – It’s not the end of the US-Israeli war on Iran. It’s not a ceasefire. It’s a break.

President Trump over the weekend paused US strikes on Iran for the weekend following two straight weeks of attacks, according to Semafor. Trump had wanted a major escalation against Iran but held off because of concerns the US military has a dwindling supply of interceptor missiles, The New York Times has scooped.

It’s not that the US military is running short on interceptors, but rather that Iran is very interested in talks with the Trump administration, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News Sunday. He said the president is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room. We’ve had both Oman and Iran, and a number of our other negotiators, engaged at every level in the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days.”

Again.

Tuesday’s visitors … Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy both are scheduled to visit with President Trump at the White House Tuesday.

“Our key priorities are air defense, maritime security, and joint defense production – our cooperation that strengthens both countries,” Zelenskyy says (Kyiv Independent).

•••

Pricier Gas – National average of unleaded regular is $4.11 per gallon Monday according to AAA, unchanged from Sunday, but 1.9 cents higher than last Thursday and $1.308 costlier than February 27. Diesel is $5.296, up 8.7 cents per gallon over Thursday and +$1.572 over late February.

•••

Another Prog Dem – The Maine Democratic Party made it official Saturday morning and chose in a special convention former state Sen. Troy Jackson as its US Senate candidate to try and deny Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) a sixth term (per Politico). Jackson, a progressive fifth-generation logger replaces scandal-plagued progressive oyster farmer Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race over a former girlfriend’s allegations of sexual assault.

•••

Meanwhile, at the WHCD – President Trump presided over the White House Correspondents Dinner at the Washington Waldorf Astoria Friday night, rescheduled some three months after a gunman interrupted at the Washington Hilton, with the same sort of duality he displayed early in his celebrity real estate developer career, when he would call reporters posing as “John Barron” to praise Donald J. Trump.

“What do we do here? Is this supposed to be fun? Am I supposed to be serious? Am I supposed to be a comedian?” he began, according to The New York Times coverage Sunday.

He shook hands with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey as they crossed the stage to accept awards for their tough coverage of the White House.

Trump “mocked the appearance and careers of individual reporters, some of whom were in the room,” and gave Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rosie O’Donnell, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Cristie (R) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) the MAGA rally treatment.

And after he apparently lost the room completely by the end of his speech, the president pulled out a “Trump 2028” hat and placed it on his head. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 7/27/26

Dangerous Desires

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, certainly deserves some sort of acknowledgement for his spinning of the difficult-to-budge, or the rationale for the war in Iran.

On ABC’s This Week Martha Raddatz noted that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth said after Operation Midnight Hammer that the Iranian nuclear facilities had been obliterated.

Turner, creditably, acknowledged, “actually, they said it.”

That factual observation would have put them and him in a box.

If the nuclear material was now, in Trump’s term, “nuclear dust,” saying that almost as though it is as lethal as the sprinkles distributed by Tinker Bell (this, of course, was in the context of his claiming that the US has won the war which, months later, still seems to be, well, a war), then there would have been no reason for Operation Epic Fury, no reason to have lost brave service people, no reason to spend billions of dollars, no reason to make the homeland less safe by squandering munitions that seem to have done little beyond providing Hegseth with good optics for the press conferences he used to hold (the last one was March 31: seems like there must be some pent-up podium thumping in the high-T Hegseth).

Turner couldn’t leave it at that and hope that Raddatz asked him about something else — maybe LeBron James signing with the 76ers because James began his professional career in Ohio, with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

No, Turner said:

“But actually what they had said was that the actions that they had taken at their nuclear enrichment sites had been obliterated, certainly not their aspirations for nuclear weapons or the nuclear weapons program.”

Now while the pronouns are a bit bollixed up in that statement, the first two “theys” are the Trump administration, then the “theirs” the Iranians.

But here’s the thing about that rational that is unbelievable: “their nuclear enrichment sites had been obliterated, certainly not their aspirations for nuclear weapons.”

In other words, while they can’t make nuclear weapons because Operation Midnight Hammer put an end to that, they want to makenuclear weapons.

And just how is it that dropping bombs and firing cruise missiles will put an end to what some unidentified people want to do?

On June 4 the New York Post reported:

“President Trump on Thursday said the Space Force has ‘very powerful cameras’ trained on Iran’s destroyed nuclear sites, scouting for any attempts Iran may take to break out the enriched uranium still buried deep below.

“’Every inch of that land has cameras on it,’ he said. ‘We have about nine of them, and they’re on, and we cover it. So, if anybody even got near it, we would know what we had to.’”

So physically, the US has the matter under control.

The issue, apparently, at least according to Turner, is the psychological one: those desires to have a nuclear weapon.

On March 13 Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio that he would know when the war was over “when I feel it, feel it in my bones.”

So will he, or Hegseth or someone else in the administration know when the Iranians no longer have “aspirations for nuclear weapons?”

Does this mean the war will come to an end only when someone in the US thinks that Iranian leaders or scientists or engineers or whomever are no longer thinking about nuclear weapons?

How will they know? Will they feel it in their bones?

Macaulay is The Hustings’ pundit-at-large, writing primarily for the right (conservative) column.

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MONDAY 7/27/26

Candidates Should Talk Like Their Districts

Commentary by Hugh Hansen

I am convinced by any overarching direction, image, or strategy to achieve an elected majority anymore. I think the best current advice is to run people who mostly think and talk like their districts for House seats, while favoring a little more moderation for Senate candidates where national attention can make more of a difference in outside money.

Fear of/hope for that 51^st Senate seat will send a lot more out-of-state money to Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio than will Michigan's 7th District congressional race. The real future work needs to be finding ways to make the primaries look more like the general.

Hansen is a contributing pundit to The Hustings.

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Join the Discussion -- Become a Citizen Pundit. Email your COMMENTS on this or other recent political issues to editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings, whether moderate or hard left/hard right in the subject line so we publish your comments in the appropriate column. –Editors

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FRIDAY 7/24/26

Can Progs Help Dems Win the Midterms?

Darializa Avila Chevalier is the Democratic candidate for New York’s 13^th congressional district. This debate is flip-side of our Future of Conservatism discussion. Email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

By Todd Lassa

Conventional wisdom is that a president’s opposition party has a built-in advantage going into the midterms, as in this November’s elections. This reliable trend goes back at least as far as the Clinton administration, when Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) led a Republican takeover of the House after the 1994 midterms.

This year, the Democratic Party, infamous for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, are dealing with a very public internal struggle in which progressives and socialists are pushing for a radical answer to President Trump’s singular form of MAGA right-wing populism.

Last June, three democratic socialists endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won their primaries against more mainstream centrist Democrats: Darializa Avila Chevalier for New York’s 13^th congressional district, Brad Lander for New York’s 10^th and state Rep. Claire Valdez for New York’s 7^th. There’s also concern that Maine Democrats have thrown away an easy win against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins when they chose

Compounding mainstream Democrats’ anxiety is Trump’s open attack on election laws normally under the purview of the 50 states. The president is working hard to push his pet Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act through Congress, even though it would take Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) killing the Senate filibuster.

The theory is that if the Senate passes SAVE with but 51 votes, Republicans won’t have to worry about Democrats being in charge with a minimum 51-seat majority for the remainder of Trump’s current term. Trump told his audience at an Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore that if Congress passes the SAVE Act Republicans won’t lose another election for 100 years (Mediaite).

Ben Wikler, former head of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, agrees with Trump that the Senate filibuster must go. The author of the book, This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy told Jon Stewart on Monday’s The Daily Show he believes killing the Senate filibuster would be good for small-d American democracy as well as for Democrats.

Wikler believes his party should embrace its tradition of Big Tent politics and welcome progressives as well as centrists in fighting for Democratic majorities in the House and Senate – progressives can win a seat in a progressive district or city and work together with moderates from centrist districts, he says.

If Wikler’s right about all this, the Democratic Party ought to have a future after November 3. If he is wrong, Republicans could maintain a loss-free future for the next several election cycles, if not for 100 years.

-30-

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FRIDAY 7/24/26

Winning Through Work

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Among the things Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in the Michigan primary as a Democrat in a bid to take retiring Sen. Gary Peters’s seat, wants is Medicare for All and affordable housing.

Those are two good things. But there’s one thing about those two things that El-Sayed doesn’t address. Both cost money. Lots of money.

Where is the money going to come from? Some cockamamie “tax the Rich” scheme that won’t get passed and would be highly unlikely to generate enough to support either of those two?

His opponent is Haley Stevens, who is currently in the House, representing Oakland County. Oakland County is a suburban area north of Detroit that is the home to the headquarters of an array of companies including Stellantis North America, Penske Corporation, Kelly Services, and PulteGroup (yes, that Pulte).

While El-Sayed TV ads have him saying ICE needs to be abolished, Stevens’ ads show a clip of Barack Obama saying she was a key part of his Auto Rescue Task Force.

El-Sayed emphasizes the importance of getting dark money out of politics.

Stevens talks about investing in manufacturing.

So if we go back to what El-Sayed wants — Medicare for All and affordable housing — then it is probably the investment in manufacturing that is going to make that happen.

Rhetoric can be energizing. Paychecks pay the bills. And for many Americans, the latter is a hell of a lot more important than the former. El-Sayed has the endorsements of the trifecta of the Democratic progressive wing: Bernie Sanders (yes, he is technically an independent. . .who ran twice in an attempt to get the Democratic nomination for president), Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Stevens has Peters, Jim Clyburn, and Chuck Schumer, which is not exactly an advanced triumvirate.

The campaign the two are waging is considered one of the most expensive in Michigan history — and remember, this is a primary.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Mike Rogers — who was in the House from 2001 to 2015 -- is running unopposed in the primary.

In the 2024 election Rogers ran for Senate against Democrat Elissa Slotkin and lost by some 19,000 votes.

Rogers runs a TV ad in which his wife holds forth about the normalcy of the Rogers family, pointing out that she once worked at Burger King. Yes, plenty of people worked at places like that in their teens: she’s now 56, so this seems to have little relevance to anything. (I once worked in a factory as a janitor and I don’t know how that matters to my august role here at The Hustings.)

But Rogers can afford to say little.

The pitched battle between El-Sayid and Stevens is working to Rogers’s advantage.

It is thought the rancor between the two Dems will result in the cohort of voters whose candidate lost won’t vote in November and Rogers will win.

So, the question is whether the Dems should mount mainstream candidates or those who tilt way to the left.

If they want to win, then the out to opt for the mainstream.

Consider: about 45% of voters in the US identify as being independents.

Among the independents Donald Trump, who is certainly well out of the mainstream in his actions, statements, behaviors, and dance moves, has an approval rating of 26%.

Candidates who focus on things like jobs and bringing down prices are the ones who are going to win seats.

Legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act, passed by the Biden Administration in 2022 to strengthen the US semiconductor industry, something Stevens was a solid supporter of, may not be as appealing as Medicare for All, but consider this: The US debt is currently $39.5 trillion, up from $35.95 trillion when Trump went into office.

Democrats have to stand for making our industries competitively stronger (not protected by absurd tariffs that do nothing but make prices higher for American consumers) because the way things are going, the country is running out of money to pay for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Somehow adding more to the tab doesn’t seem to be a very good idea, and odds are voters who are struggling with rising grocery, gas, housing, and other prices understand that.

Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are agitated by what Donald Trump has done. But to undo it it will take some serious, hard work, not sloganeering.

The Democratic Party was originally built on blue collar workers, the men and women who do the jobs that many of us would prefer not even thinking about. Supporting that ethic once again is what matters if the Dems want to win.

Macaulay is The Hustings’ pundit-at-large.

-30-

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FRIDAY 7/24/26

More Commentary on Trump’s SAVE Address

Regurgitation -- I will be surprised if this changes senators' minds about SAVE. His address was some combination of laughably and pathetically tired, regurgitated tripe. It's faintly poetic this came on the day I renewed my election worker training, focused naturally on all the safeguards we employ around absentee ballots. --Hugh Hansen/Contributing Pundit

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Debate & Donuts IV Wednesday

Many on the center-right as well as the left are worried about President Trump’s efforts to tighten up voting restrictions in time for the November 3 midterm elections with his SAVE America Act.

The president’s MAGA supporters counter that it’s the left that has suppressed their voter rights by encouraging undocumented immigrants to vote and that a socialist democrat takeover of the Democratic Party will impose further suppression.

As this disagreement has evolved over the last year and a half of the second Trump administration, Benjamin Franklin’s remark that we have “a republic, if you can keep it,” at the Constitutional Convention in September 1787 has been repeated many times.

The Hustings in partnership with The Allen Theatre is ready to repeat Franklin’s words yet again at our next Talking With, Not At… Debate & Donuts IV beginning 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 22. The free audience discussion is again to be held at the Allen Theatre, 36 E. Main Street in Annville, Pennsylvania.

If you are anywhere near South-Central Pennsylvania this Wednesday, and count yourself as politically conservative, liberal or centrist, we encourage you to join our civil debate.

No matter where you live, you always are encouraged to become a Citizen Pundit. Email your COMMENTS on this or other recent political issues to editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings, whether moderate or hard left/hard right in the subject line so we publish your comments in the appropriate column. –Editors

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MONDAY 7/20/26

Iran War, Week 18

Labour Party Leader Andy Burnham Monday became the UK's seventh prime minister in 10 years.

THURSDAY 7/23/26

House Passes War Powers Resolution – Four Republicans joined House Democrats Thursday to pass a war powers resolution on President Trump’s war on Iran, The Hill reports. The 214-208 vote included Republican Reps. Tom Barrett (MI), Warren Davidson (OH), Thomas Massie (KY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA).

•••

House Passes $1.15 Trillion Defense Package – Meanwhile, on Wednesday four Democrats joined House Republicans to pass the $1.15-trillion National Defense Authorization Act (The Hill again). Democratic representatives on the 216-212 vote were Henry Cuellar (TX), Don Davis (NC), Jared Golden (ME), Vincent Gonzalez (TX), Adam Gray (CA) and Marie Glusenkamp Perez (WA).

•••

House Passes Reconciliation 3.0 – The House Wednesday passed a GOP-backed $95-billion budget resolution along party lines, 216-214, that includes up to $73 billion in defense and intelligence spending for the ongoing war in Iran. But the bill does not seem likely to go far in the Senate, CQ Roll Call reports.

Another $12 billion is for farm aid with $10 billion to advance President Trump’s voter identification crackdown.

It “puts congressional Republicans on a path to enacting fundamentally simple and crucial goals: Securing American elections and strengthening our homeland and providing supplemental funding requested by the administration to support our national defense and protect our nation’s food supply,” said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

While the House passed the resolution just before going on summer break at the end of this week, its fate is in doubt in the Senate, which has another week on Capitol Hill before taking its recess scheduled for July 31. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) remains skeptical of budget reconciliation 3.0, according to Roll Call, and prefers passing a bipartisan funding package to prevent a partial government shutdown after September 30.

•••

Pricier Gas – National average of unleaded regular is $4.091 Thursday, a 3.1-cent increase over Wednesday according to AAA and $1.289 costlier than February 27. Diesel is $5.209, up 2.8 cents over Tuesday and +$1.485 over late February. –TL

•••

Saudi Nuke Deal -- Read our analysis on the Trump administration's deal to allow US nuclear power companies to build in Saudi Arabia at our Substack.

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 7/22/26

Trade War Friday? – President Trump is expected to launch new tariffs on 60 or more countries as soon as Friday, Semafor reports. On Monday, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on myriad Canadian goods, including lumber and hockey sticks, that are set to take effect August 19. The president also has targeted Brazil, where his right-wing populist ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, faces trial on charges related to a planned 2024 coup after he lost re-election.

US trade representative Jamison Greer told CNBC Tuesday to “expect action soon.”

Trump’s new tariffs are expected to fall between 10% and 12.5%, according to the Financial Times.

The tariff threat comes after a July 1 deadline to review the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement negotiated in the first Trump administration.

“In a trade war, fighting back works,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters (per Semafor). He said he and Trump plan “to intensify negotiations” on the USMCA agreement.

The president’s usual allies on Capitol Hill are worried.

“I’m curious to know a little bit more about the rationale for it,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). “As you know, I’m not a huge fan of tariffs as a general rule.”

•••

Arizona Primaries – Trump-backed Republican candidates dominated the party’s primary races Tuesday in Turning Point USA home state Arizona, NPR reports. US Republican Rep. Andy Biggs took 71.5% of the GOP gubernatorial primary to face incumbent Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, according to the Arizona Daily Independent. Democrats believe they have an advantage running against President Trump’s most faithful MAGA followers in a purplish state with a large independent contingent, according to Morning Edition.

•••

Election Fraud Fodder – Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill revealed in a press conference Tuesday that a software error led to about 6,600 self-identified non-citizens being added erroneously to voter rolls in her state between June 2023 and June 2024, per Axios. This happened before Sherrill took office; fellow Democrat Phil Murphy was governor at the time.

Fewer than 400 of those who were erroneously registered actually voted, Sherrill said. She has ordered an investigation into the error, calling on New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission to begin the process of identifying a replacement for IDEMIA, the vendor that administered the system.

According to Sherrill, people applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards were asked whether they are US citizens and were automatically registered as voters even when they answered “no.” The non-citizens registered as Democrats, Republicans and independents, the governor said.

That didn’t stop the White House from claiming “voter fraud” – look for the New Jersey problem to become a central argument in the president’s push to get the Republican-majority Congress to pass the SAVE America Act in time for the midterms.

•••

Who Will Come to Ukraine’s Defense? – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal last week of drone warfare pioneer Mykhailo Federov as Ukraine’s defense minister led to mass protests across the country calling for removal of Federov’s nemesis, old-school, Soviet-trained military Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Zelenskyy did just that Tuesday, replacing Syrskyi with Mykhailo Drapatyi, the Ukraine military’s joint forces commander.

Protests over Federov’s firing have continued anyway, and organizers have announced a mass event Friday in Kyiv calling for his return, the Kyiv Independent reports.

•••

Pricier Gas – National average of unleaded regular is $4.06 Wednesday, a 4.1-cent increase over Tuesday according to AAA. That’s $1.258 higher than February 27. Diesel is $5.181, up 3.9 cents over Tuesday and +$1.457 over late February. –TL

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TUESDAY 7/21/26

More Defense Money – Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth is to brief House Republicans at the Pentagon Tuesday evening to request a $350 billion defense spending boost for the war with Iran, according to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). This dovetails with Republicans finalizing a framework for a budget reconciliation bill 3.0 of GOP priorities that can bypass a Senate Democratic filibuster, according to The Hill.

House Republicans hope to mark up the bill in the Budget Committee Thursday.

The $350 billion request is on top of President Trump’s request for an $87 billion defense supplemental that includes $67 billion for the Iran war. And all this is separate from the president’s budget for the coming fiscal year requesting $1.5 trillion in defense spending, a 40% increase over the current year.

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Tariff Canada – President Trump issued an executive order Monday to add a 50% tariff on certain goods from Canada, including wine, hockey sticks and cement, The Wall Street Journal reports. It does not include auto parts, though Canada’s import duty on US motor vehicles crossing north of the border is the impetus, according to the White House EO, which says it’s a response to “discriminatory treatment of American products.”

Those products, the EO says, are US vehicles that the White House says Canada is taxing at a higher rate than import vehicles from other countries.

Also expressly excluded, the WSJ reports, are energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals.

The new tariffs against Canada are to take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, August 19.

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Gas Up, Again – National average of unleaded regular is $4.019 per gallon Tuesday according to AAA, up 1.6 cents over Monday, and $1.217 higher than February 27. Diesel is $5.142, up 3.4 cents from Monday and +$1.418 over late February. –TL

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US Takes Casualties – At least three US military have been killed in the war – or ceased ceasefire – with Iran since Friday, The New York Times reports, and a fourth soldier is missing and feared dead.

The US attacked Iranian military sites overnight for the ninth consecutive day, while Iran has fired on Kuwait and Bahrain, both home to US forces, according to the report. Iranian authorities say at least 50 Iranians have been killed.

Meanwhile, another blockade … Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday conducted an armored blockade on Saudi ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Africa, the NYT says.

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Reconcile This – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has to the end of the week, when the House takes its summer recess, to pass additional defense spending to support the war on Iran as well as the President Trump’s pet SAVE America Act along with a stock trading ban for lawmakers, NPR’s Morning Edition notes Monday. With just a two-vote GOP margin in the House, the SAVE Act and defense spending increase – Trump requested $67 billion but the bill provides just $60 billion of that, according to Breaking Defense – might not be easy in a week.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Trump allies want to attach the SAVE Act to its reconciliation bill that would extend the federal budget past the fiscal year ending September 30. If and when Democrats impose the filibuster (which Trump wants killed), Senate Republicans can blame them for a government shutdown one month before the midterm elections.

“However we could pass it,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who is now in line to become Budget Committee chairman, replacing the late Lindsey Graham, said of SAVE, “I’d be in favor of. Exactly how we do that, we’ll see.”

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Trump Endorsed Graham – Speaking of the late Lindsey Graham, President Trump has endorsed his sister, Sen. Darline Graham, for the full Senate term that would end in January 2033. South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham to fill Sen. Graham’s seat for the remainder of his term ending January 3, 2027, after Lindsey Graham's sudden death from an aortic tear earlier this month, CQ Roll Call reports.

“I hope Darline does this, in that there would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother,” Trump Truth Socialed. “RUN, DARLINE, RUN!”

Semafor reported last Friday that she was considering a run for the full term.

If Sen. Graham so chooses, she would have to win a special Republican primary scheduled for August 11 before facing Democratic candidate Annie Andrews in November.

Meanwhile, in Maine … Progressive candidate Troy Jackson, Maine’s State Senate president from 2018 to 2024, a logger and son of a logger from rural Aroostook County in the northern part of the state has emerged as the lead candidate for Democratic nominee to challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins this November, according to Politico.

Maine Democrats were frustrated with the makeshift nomination process to replace the scandal-plagued Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race over sexual assault allegations, according to the report. But Jackson’s delegate count was so overwhelming that Jackson’s four top challengers dropped out of the race by Sunday evening, Politico reports.

State election law gives the Democratic Party to Monday, July 27, to name Platner’s replacement.

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Four Bucks at the Pump – National average of unleaded regular hit $4.003 per gallon Monday, according to AAA, up 2.2 cents over last Thursday, and $1.201 over the end of Week 0 of the US-Israeli war on Iran, February 27. Diesel is $5.108, up a dime from last Thursday and +$1.384 over late February. Adding to the diesel price pressure is Russia’s ban on exports of some refined products, Marketplace reports, and its need to import oil after Ukraine’s targeted drone hits on many of its refineries. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 7/20/26

You, Too, Can Get Voter Roles

Commentary By Stephen Macaulay

Odds are you have received multiple pieces of mail from individuals running for office or from organizations backing those candidates or ballot initiatives. You may wonder how your name and address got into play. Simple: That information (and more) is collected by states.

According to ballotpedia.org: “After the 2000 presidential election and the resulting Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. HAVA legislation created the US Election Assistance Commission. The legislation also directed every state to create “a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list defined, maintained, and administered at the State level that contains the name and registration information of every legally registered voter in the State …”

States make that information available either for a fee or for free.

During his July 16 speech one of Donald Trump’s bombshells was that China had acquired “220 million US voter files,” starting their collection in the 2020 election cycle.

Which is likely the case.

According to the Independent Voter Project, which has as a mission getting more people to sign up to vote so it is probably erring on the positive side, there are 217.8 million registered voters in the US, so quite possibly the Chinese got some duped names.

But the point is, you could get for $0 the “DOB, SSN, DL number, gender, phone number, email address, voting history, voter registration ID number, date of registration” for voters in Indiana, again according to Ballotpedia. (The state that really makes you pay some serious money is Alabama, which charges $37,000. But presumably the Chinese can manage.)

The point is, voter information is out there and only someone incredibly naïve would image that state actors from countries like China and Russia wouldn’t send out requests for these lists.

It is the “gambling in Casablanca” scenario, yet somehow Trump and his minions made this seem almost inconceivable if not incomprehensible.

(Speaking of Russia: on March 10, 2021 “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections,” drafted by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)— State Department, and the National Security Agency (NSA), wrote this: Key Judgment 2: We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.

How many times did Trump reference Russia in his speech? Once. Putin? Zero.)

Funny thing about Trump’s concern regarding the 2020 election — and it is not that he keeps trying to relitigate something that happened six years ago and which he has been unable to provide bona-fide evidence for any game-changing fraud in this period of time, a period that includes time that he was the President of the United States and can see whatever files he wants. That’s just sad.

No, the funny thing is that the 2020 election was held when he was the President of the United States and as such, were he as concerned about election integrity as he now proclaims to be, there would have been no monkey-business in that election.

There wasn’t. Yet for some reason he keeps thumping the podium claiming there was.

In other words, if the 2020 election was “rigged,” wouldn’t it have been his responsibility to untie the knots before the election occurred?

Back in 2020, perhaps to gin up new viewers and to satisfy existing ones, Fox News and its commentators made claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been rigged during the election, switching votes for Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

In March 2021 Dominion filed a $1.6-billion lawsuit against Fox for fraud.

In April 2023, just before the trial was to begin — and the jury was seated, so this is really at the final moment — it was announced that Fox would pay Dominion $787.5 million.

Does anyone think for a minute (outside of Trump and his acolytes) that Fox would pay that kind of money if it thought it would be able to show there was anything wrong with the Dominion equipment?

You’d think that case would have been enough to put the whole thing to rest.

Trump spent about five years (2011 to 2016) claiming that Barrack Obama wasn’t born in the US until he acknowledged that Obama was.

Six years after his defeat by Obama’s vice president, he’s still on the election lie.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right (conservative) column.

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MONDAY 7/20/26

The True Election Fraudster

Commentary by Bill McGuire

The problem with listening to anything Donald Trump has to say about election integrity is that he's done nothing but lie about if for the past five years. All his claims have been comprehensively debunked -- not to mention rejected in dozens of courtrooms across the country. We note that for Trump, every election he wins is a landslide, while every election he loses was rigged. That's his standing position on elections. Trump doesn't really believe them, nor in democratic rule. For him, just another system to be gamed.

In his most recent speech last night Trump asserted that his purpose "is not to weaken confidence in elections," when it's clear that has been the purpose all along. The January 6 riot in the Capitol, for example, was fueled by his lies about the 2020 election. Consistently making demonstrably false claims about election fraud is itself election fraud. Trump is the greatest election fraudster of our time.

McGuire is contributing pundit for The Hustings.

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What do you think about President Trump’s national address on election fraud? Join The Hustings as a citizen pundit with an email of your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings, whether moderate or hard left/hard right in the subject line so we publish your comments in the appropriate column. –Editors

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FRIDAY 7/17/26

Trump Won’t Give Up on 2020

President Trump addresses the nation on election fraud.

By Todd Lassa

In his address to the nation Thursday night, President Trump released old evidence to once again express his anger and frustration from having lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. This was all to reinforce his argument that Congress should pass his SAVE America Act (it won’t without the Senate quashing the filibuster, and even then Trump doesn’t have enough Republican votes) with its requirements for government-issued photo identification and documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to vote in the November midterms.

And then, when Congress fails to pass the SAVE Act, Trump will use the empty old evidence he presented Thursday to claim the midterms were stolen, if Democrats take the House and possibly the Senate.

Trump told Americans over nearly 30 minutes in his address that the Chinese government paid US journalists to write negative articles about him and that there were manufactured illegal ballots for Biden. The president also blamed the “deep state” for covering up such “voting irregularities.”

China wanted Trump to lose the 2020 election, the president said, “because they knew I was wise to them” and thus he has since charged the country “billions of dollars” in tariffs while building the world’s greatest military.

Beijing Friday morning accused Trump of “unfounded defamation” in his remarks, the BBC reports.

“Trump quoted years-old intelligence committee reports, including some that had been declassified or partially redacted, without noting a distinction between what China may have planned versus what analysts say it did,” reports the Poynter Institutes’ Politifact.

In his address, Trump claims his administration’s investigations have identified 279,000 non-citizens on voter rolls, Votebeatreports, but election officials said they “weren’t sure how the number was arrived at.”

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Burnham to PM – Minister of Parliament Andy Burnham took over as Labour Party leader from Kir Starmer Friday, on his way to taking over as the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, BBC reports. Burnham will become the seventh UK PM in 10 years Monday after Starmer meets King Charles to formally offer his resignation. Then the King meets Burnham and asks him to form a government.

Both meetings typically take place at Buckingham Palace.

Once he accepts Charles’ request to form a government, Burham officially becomes PM. This typically is followed by a speech by the new PM at Number 10 Downing Street, according to the BBC.

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Nearly $4 Again – National average of a gallon of unleaded regular is $3.981 Thursday, AAA reports, up 3.8 cents over Wednesday and $1.179 over February 27. Diesel is back up over five bucks, to $5.058, which is 5.3 cents higher than Wednesday and $1.284 over late February. –TL

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FRIDAY 7/17/26

Sour Dreams

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

While there is attention — including in this space — on the unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election from Donald Trump in his televised address, there is something that also happened on July 16 that goes to the point of the man not having a clear grasp of what makes America great, and that’s not putting fraudsters in office.

Trump endorsed Mike Lindell, a.k.a., the MyPillow Guy, for the governorship of Minnesota.

As you may recall, Lindell is an election denier. He made false claims about the election equipment produced by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic over Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

Lindell learned that you just can’t wave your arms and make false claims.

Dominion sued him in a $1.3 billion defamation case. There was a confidential settlement and the case was settled. You can’t be certain that (1) if Lindell had the goods on the company he wouldn’t have settled and (2) Dominion likely settled for a nontrivial amount of money.

Then there was a former Dominion executive, Eric Coomer, who sued Lindell for personal defamation. A jury found that was indeed the case and Lindell was ordered to pay Coomer $2.3 million. Not E. Jean Carroll money — there is the $5.6 million Trump paid to her and another $83.3 million judgment in her favor still being appealed — but a lot.

In the Smartmatic case Lindell had a summary judgment against him. While the amount he’ll pay hasn’t been announced, he does owe some $95,000 to Smartmatic for legal fees as well as for civil contempt — and the number goes up by $500 per day until he pays off the debt.

Yes, this is the sort of individual whom Donald Trump believes would make a good leader.

Trump’s claims can be considered in the same context.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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FRIDAY 7/17/26