January 23, 2026 at 10:23 PM EST
GOP lawmakers increasingly 'jittery' about backing Trump: analysis

After a particularly turbulent week, Republicans on Capitol Hill are becoming more cautious in their support for President Donald Trump. That's according to a Friday analysis by the Atlantic's Russell Berman, who wrote that the president's chaotic appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland appeared to have rattled some of his Republican backers in Congress. It wasn't until NATO countries convinced Trump to back down from his threats to take Greenland by force that Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) relaxed in his calculated criticism of the administration.

January 23, 2026 at 10:07 PM EST
'He likes his name': Airport feature may be named after Trump to convince him to save it

The Washington Post reports designers of Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia are hoping President Donald Trump's administration will support a plan to salvage an airport transportation system -- if they stick the president's initials on it. "It's a name that fits," said Susan Saarinen, daughter of the engineer who designed the airport's beleaguered transport system. "Mr. Trump would like to name the airport after him, because he likes his name I guess, and he likes to name things. And if a 'DJT' happens to work for that, it works for me."

January 23, 2026 at 8:41 PM EST
Former GOP congressman warns his colleagues are 'in big, big trouble'

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) is offering advice to his Republican friends trying to hold their seats in the upcoming midterms: Get away from the Republican Party. "If I were a Republican candidate running in this cycle and I was in anything close to a competitive district, I would be making sure that I have a brand that is separate and distinct from the party," Dent said during a Friday panel discussion on MS NOW. "If my brand, in a year like this, is generic Republican, that might be fine in north Alabama, but it isn't going to work in Allentown, Pennsylvania, or suburban New Jersey or many other places where Republicans hold seats. And if they're not able to " find a brand separate and distinct from the party, they are going to be in big, big trouble."

January 23, 2026 at 8:28 PM EST
Director James Cameron says in Trump's America 'everybody's at each other's throats'

Acclaimed Hollywood director James Cameron recently elaborated on why he left the United States, and lamented that the U.S. has become paralyzed by political division under President Donald Trump. The Hill reported Friday that Cameron - who directed the "Avatar" series along with blockbuster films like "Titanic" and the first two installments of the "Terminator" series - gave frank criticism of the political climate in the United States during an interview with journalist Graham Bensinger.

January 23, 2026 at 7:54 PM EST
Red state court kills Republican law undermining ballot measures

The Missouri Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a state law deployed by Republicans to tamper with or adjust ballot measures to mislead voters. The Kansas City Star reports the law, which critics called the "Let Politicians Lie Act," provided the Republican Missouri Secretary of State's Office and the GOP Attorney General's Office powers to meddle with the language of ballot measures with which they disagree. Over the last year, the law allowed Secretary of State Denny Hoskins two opportunities to rephrase ballot questions and summaries to potentially mislead the public over the intent of measures set for a vote in 2026.

January 23, 2026 at 5:58 PM EST
Frantic Trump preparing to rig the 2026 midterms -- and beyond: report

I Paper columnist Simon Marks writes that European leaders are already convinced President Donald Trump will try to rig the U.S. midterms and probably the subsequent national election. "There is invariably a 'tell' that reveals unannounced ideas percolating away inside his mind," said Marks. "His daily, stream-of-consciousness engagements with White House visitors and members of the press corps often include throw-away lines that turn out to contain the germ of a notion taking root within his grey cells."

January 23, 2026 at 5:54 PM EST
What Putin really wants from Trump is painfully simple

Donald Trump went to Davos on Wednesday morning and gave the speech that Vladimir Putin wanted him to, lying and pissing off Europe and shaking the North Atlantic alliance to its core. Our president has refused to help Ukraine in any meaningful way for a year now, giving Russia the room to destroy much of that country's electric and heat infrastructure so badly that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to cancel his trip to Davos to deal with the crisis.

January 23, 2026 at 5:39 PM EST
Trump lost the one thing that was 'propping him up': GOP strategist

President Donald Trump's 2024 victory was largely due to voters trusting him more on the economy. But one longtime Republican strategist is now arguing that becayse prices for basic needs are continuing to rise, the president effectively has nothing to stand on. During a Friday interview on The Bulwark Podcast, Republican strategist Mike Murphy - who advised the campaigns of Republicans John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, among others -- argued that that the lone reason President Donald Trump secured a second term has been effectively debunked. Murphy told host Tim Miller (a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee) that Trump's 2024 electoral coalition has mostly soured on his administration just a year into his second presidency.

January 23, 2026 at 4:58 PM EST
'How do you trust the White House?' Anchor corners Republican lawmaker on doctored images

MS NOW anchor Katy Tur squeezed Republican lawmaker Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) regarding White House fabrications and shared click-bait targeting U.S. citizens and protestors. "How do you trust the White House when they're saying 'we're getting all the worst of the worst' " when the numbers don't back it up, and then also when they're putting out fake imagery," said Tur, referring to a White House shared image of a protester edited to transform her expressionless face into a wailing mess.

January 23, 2026 at 4:20 PM EST
Republicans accuse each other of violating civil liberties in new fight

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are reportedly at each other's throats following a contentious vote over a specific regulation for vehicles. The conservative Daily Caller reported Friday that a provision to ban a mandatory "kill-switch" in cars in the U.S. recently failed to pass with a majority vote in the House, after 57 Republicans voted with Democrats to block the provision's passage. Libertarian-leaning Republicans, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) argued that the rule -- which is meant to prevent impaired drivers from getting behind the wheel -- intruded on Americans' personal freedoms.

January 23, 2026 at 11:51 AM EST
Trump ramps up lawsuits against pollsters as approval numbers plummet

With the 2026 midterms nine and one-half months away, Democratic strategists are looking at President Donald Trump's weak approval ratings in a long list of polls and hoping that the midterms will become a referendum on his presidency. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted January 12-17 found his approval at 40 percent, but only 32 percent of respondents believe the U.S. is "better off than it was a year ago." Meanwhile, a YouGov/Economist poll released on January 20 found that only 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump's job performance either "strongly" or "somewhat."

January 23, 2026 at 11:33 AM EST
Trump's agenda a 'cry for help' as administration torpedoes public opinion: conservative

President Donald Trump's coalition is "falling apart," according to columnist Matt K. Lewis, who writes at The Hill that Trump's list of accomplishments seems more like "a cry for help." Pointing to Trump's rapid subject-changing, Lewis noted that the president kicked off the new year by invading Venezuela and capturing Nicola's Maduro.