Today’s notice: The president wins in Congress. Democrats get stuck in traffic. Massie takes an L. AOC tells us she’ll take as long as she wants to make a 2028 decision. Republicans lost a lot of culture-war fighters last week. Millennials insufferably celebrate their rise. Boomers insufferably mourn a loss.
THE LATEST
Donald Trump: Not as lame as you may have heard. The president wanted Republicans in the House to stand up for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — and they did, dispensing of Rep. Thomas Massie’s impeachment effort with a united front. The lame-duck Republican was left hanging out to dry with a bunch of Democrats who aren’t yet in charge.
White House sources told The Sun’s Jasmine Wright that Trump stood by his man on this, with the president’s team making calls and whipping votes on Hegseth’s behalf. It absolutely worked, and fairly spectacularly. “I think the Hegseth fight is a bright spot for the administration, honestly,” one prominent MAGA ally outside the administration said. “Clarifies our political enemies for the base after the weeklong circular firing squad we’ve experienced.”
Trending
But some in the president’s orbit wonder, is this really the 3D chess move being celebrated in the Oval and at the Pentagon today? Recall that the Democrats will, in fact, be in charge soon. “The White House just burned an enormous amount of political capital saving Pete Hegseth’s job, only to get politically clobbered two months from now,” a source familiar with the administration’s Save Pete effort told Jasmine. “That’s a hell of a price to pay to lose in the long run.”
Democrats: Lamer than you may have heard? Eleven House Democrats missed the Hegseth impeachment vote, potentially enough to change the final outcome and deal the president a major defeat around the issue of the Iran war (you know, like voters asked them to eight days ago). Some Democrats were stuck in traffic; some were out of town.
Those who made it to the vote were, to put it mildly, unamused. “We knew that this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-California) told reporters.
But a senior Democratic aide disputed that kind of talk, arguing that Republicans had only two members unavailable and closed the vote even though they knew members were en route — an explanation that will surely restore faith in the caucus’ ability to fight Trump and not cause any panic whatsoever among the Bluesky set.
Massie: No Re-Petes. The outgoing gentleman from Kentucky won’t be trying this again. “I’ve completed my effort,” he told reporters. “My analogy here is the Titanic hit the iceberg on Nov. 3 and I offered people a life raft, and they said, ‘No thanks, we’ll stick with the Titanic.’”
More: GOP Senators Demand Scrutiny of Nvidia as Fight Over Chip Exports to China Resurfaces • Democrats Plan to Carry On Epstein Probe as Republicans Clear Trump • Democrats Have a New Generation of Farm-Country Lawmakers
NEW ON THE SUN
AOC: Not running yet. The Sun’s Daniella Diaz reports on the effort from the left to draw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York into the 2028 race for the Democratic presidential nomination — a movement growing louder and more impatient with seemingly every passing hour. AOC’s response: Cool your jets. “I will be deliberating this privately, but I probably will not be sharing anything publicly for a little while,” she told Daniella.
Culture war: Republicans’ down-ballot setback. State attorneys general have been key allies in the conservative push to use the legal system to further cultural change. But last week’s blue wave took out many of the most powerful AGs in this effort. The Sun’s Emma Ruby looks at what comes next in places where the Trump administration lost allies in its fights over universities, immigration, reproductive rights and more. The biggest change may come to Texas. Democratic AG-elect Nathan Johnson told The Sun to expect a big change from outgoing Republican AG Ken Paxton, who Johnson said turned the office into “an ideological warfare machine.”
Millennials: Getting the last laugh. “You got to summit Cringe Mountain and get to the other side. It’s cringe to believe change is possible. I reject the premise that cringe is bad,” Run for Something’s millennial founder, Amanda Litman, told The Sun of her generation’s victories up and down the ballot last week. Our Manuela Silva and Christa Dutton (not millennials) report on what the avocado toast-munching, earnestly earnest balls of anxiety soon to be running large parts of your government plan to do with their power. (Spoiler: It will probably involve emojis.)
Boomers: As ever, On One. From The Sun’s Sam Fortier, a story about a massive Bruce Springsteen fan group that had a no-politics rule when discussing the singer’s work (somehow?) and was recently shut down after moderators were surprised (somehow???) that Springsteen issued a full-throated endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed, now the Democratic senator-elect from Michigan.
More: Gaza Flooding Renews a Push for Israel to Let in Humanitarian Aid • Kennedy Family Sues Trump Administration to Block Triumphal Arch Project • New Jersey Judiciary Agency Charges Alina Habba Mildon With Ethics Violations
NOT US
- The Blue Wave Washed Across Much of America. But Not Here. By Julie Bosman for The New York Times
- A Natural Gas Project Off Alaska’s Coast May Be a Russian Ploy for Intel on the Arctic, by Heather Vogell for ProPublica
- The Scapegals: Most of the top officials President Trump has pushed out have one thing in common. By Ashley Parker for The Atlantic
Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of The Washington Sun Newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please sign up — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@washsun.com. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@washsun.com.
The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.
Authors
