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James Carville reacts to the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on "Politics War Room.""Well, he voted for impeachment a little bit more than that. Let's give him a ball of credit in the world. He was one of the impeachment managers," Carville said of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial."I remember the great moral titan, Henry Hyde, and that whole crowd," Carville continued. "And yeah, he was a little bit more than just for impeachment. He was the most aggressive. I knew him. He could be personal, but I don't think the man has had a... I'm sorry. I don't want anybody to get sick or die. That's not it. But I think his political career is mostly defined by duplicity."

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries dismissed anything President Trump may say tonight during a primetime address reportedly about Chinese interference in the 020 election:REPORTER: Some of my colleagues at CBS are reporting that the president made claims of Chinese meddling in U.S. elections.Obviously, I know there were some intelligence assessments around that a few years back, but is that anything you're aware of, or do you believe it has any merit?HOUSE MINORITY LEADER HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Based on the conversations that I've had with the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, who I believe published a very thoughtful opinion piece earlier today, none of the things that Donald Trump has said--or may say later on today--with respect to election interference have any merit.Donald Trump is the conspirator right now. He's the one fanning the flames of conspiracy theories, as opposed to being focused on making life better for the American people.For us, we're committed to making sure there's a free and fair election. And we will have the largest voter-protection effort in the history of the country, because Donald Trump and Republicans know they cannot win this election fairly, and we're not going to let them steal it.Here's the full briefing:

Thursday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Carl Cannon, Tom Bevan, and Andrew Walworth break down what to expect from President Trump's much-hyped primetime address tonight, how confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Todd Blanche have gone, and yesterday's Senate hearing on waste and fraud with Nick Shirley and James O'Keefe.RealClearPennsylvania editor Charles McElwee joins the show to talk about the future of Pennsylvania politics, Gov. Josh Shapiro's chances in 2028, and why the Keystone State is going to be more purple than ever.Plus, a look at the new platform published by the Democratic Socialists of America calling for abolishing the Senate.Listen live weekdays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern on SiriusXM's Megyn Kelly Channel 111, or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or other platforms.00:00 -- Opening: Trump's Big SpeechWalworth, Cannon, and Bevan look forward to tonight's televised address by President Donald Trump, where he reportedly will reveal new information about the 2020 elections, what it has to do with his months-long effort to pass the "SAVE Act," and Democrat Rep. Ocasio-Cortez saying the news shouldn't air Trump's remarks.Trump Expected To Allege Democrat Collusion And Coverup Of Chinese Interference In 2020 Election"What AOC said was, 'I don't think we should be contributing to any platforming of lies about our elections.' So when a president speaks, and you allow his speech to be covered by the news media, you are 'platforming.' I just hate that word; it makes me want to bulldoze our universities," Carl Cannon commented. "He's the president of the United States. He's going to give a speech. You cover it.""Who gets to decide what's lies and what's not? Joe Biden told tons of lies," Bevan added. "This idea that AOC is going to decide, or wants someone at the network to look at an advance copy of his speech, line by line and be like, 'Oh, this is a lie, so we're not going to cover it.' It's ridiculous."***13:30 -- Blanche Confirmation HearingsThe panel turns to Todd Blanche's two-day confirmation hearings for Attorney General before the U.S. Senate, and which Republican senators he needs to get on board to be confirmed.Sen. Whitehouse To Acting AG Blanche: "How Long Do You Intend To Put Up With That Kash Patel Character"?"It is an obnoxious question. That's what these hearings have become," Cannon said. "This is the kind of hyperpartisanship that has made so many Americans turn off politics,Acting AG Todd Blanche Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing"Jesus couldn't win over Democrats," Bevan joked.***21:1-0 -- Pennsylvania PoliticsRealClear Pennsylvania editor Charles McElwee joins the show to discuss Sen. John Fetterman drawing a line in the sand for the Democratic Party's support for Israel, Governor Josh Shapiro's chances in 2028, the politics of data centers, energy and land use in the 2026 Pennsylvania midterms, and why the Keystone State is going to be more purple than ever.Sen. John Fetterman Says He's Done With Democratic Party If They Become "Anti-Israel""Fetterman has favorable polling, especially among older Republican voters in Pennsylvania. That's his base: the 65-and-older Republicans, basically the conservative boomers," McElwee said. "He's not up until 2028, and he'll have opposition... The challenge for Fetterman is that he's not engaging Pennsylvania voters. So when he talks about issues, it's in the abstract, and his positions are not in alignment with Pennsylvanians right now, whether it's the Iran war or data centers.""He is for data centers. He said Democratic opposition to data centers is 'lunacy.' Meanwhile, three-quarters of Pennsylvanians oppose data centers," he said.Trump: Gov. Josh Shapiro Is Totally Overrated, "Does Not Have What It Takes""Gov. Shapiro is cautious; I think he knows his own limitations," McElwee said. "I don't think that his style would work well on the national stage, because Shapiro works well among suburbanites, among older voters, and Pennsylvania is an older state.""These regions have memories of extractive industries that were environmentally devastating," he said about the opposition to data centers. "It's a rare bipartisan consensus... Everyone is in agreement."***27:08 -- Fraud and Abuse HearingThe panel breaks down yesterday's Senate Homeland Security hearing on fraud and abuse featuring investigative journalists Nick Shirley and James O'Keefe.James O'Keefe and Nick Shirley Testify on "Fraud in America" at Governmental Affairs Committee"Nick Shirley is like 24. He's a young, young kid, and he has literally done more, single-handedly in the last nine months to uncover fraud in this country than the entire media complex," Bevan said."That's why he won two Pulitzer Prizes," Cannon joked."It's astonishing how effective he has been at doing this stuff. He obviously started in with the Somali daycares, but then he did some stuff in California. Now, apparently, he's uncovering it in New York," Bevan said. "Where's The New York Times?"***42:23 -- DSA PlatformThe episode ends with the release of the Democratic Socialists of America's platform, which includes abolishing the U.S. Senate, open borders, full voting rights for non-U.S. citizens, and public ownership of major industriesRead: Democratic Socialists of America 2026 ProgramThey want a 32-hour workweek, Medicaid for All, universal rent control, tuition-free public college, open borders, full voting rights for noncitizens and people with criminal records, and to abolish the House and Senate and replace it with what they call a single proportional federal legislature."This is the problem for Democrats, right? There will be 11 of them in the House of Representatives," Bevan said."These guys never say why they think their economic theories will work this time when they've failed every other time," Cannon said. "But I guess they don't know anything about economics, so maybe they can't talk about it."Listen to RealClearPolitics weekdays at 11 a.m. Eastern on SiriusXM's Megyn Kelly Channel 111, or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or other platforms.Subscribe for more RealClearPolitics analysis, interviews, and political commentary.

During a conversation with Malcolm Gladwell about "How Reconstruction Still Defines America," published today, former President Obama said Vice President Vance's "hypocrisy" on nativism exemplifies why he doesn't see Reconstruction as a complete failure."When you have the current vice president making a speech that is basically a blood-and-soil version of 'we the people,' that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here, despite being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself," Obama said. "That’s progress.""Hypocrisy is progress," Obama said. "It means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others. And that is better than not even thinking about the idea that maybe you’re doing something wrong."BARACK OBAMA: It’s impossible to spend a lot of time thinking about Reconstruction without reflecting on the present day, right? Because these issues are—well, they’re still there.If somebody is asking why it is relevant to talk about Reconstruction, I have to describe for them the degree to which we’re having the same arguments. The issues of: How are we going to help the freed people who’ve been enslaved? What are we going to give them to allow them to have a go at life? What does real freedom mean?You trace that debate of 40 acres and a mule and public education, and you can trace it all the way through to debates about welfare and debates about, now, DEI. Do we, as a society, have an obligation to address past injustices that have been institutionalized or left a legacy of poverty? So we’re having that argument.When you look at issues of state versus federal power, and how do we protect the rights of all citizens—both against states that may be abusing the people who live there, but also against the federal government that, at any point, might decide it wants to bully people around—those issues are still there.Obviously, more directly, we’re having debates now about voting, voting rights. And you’ve got a Supreme Court that has systematically weakened the possibilities of enforcing voting rights in our democracy. And we have a politics now that—at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that “we the people” means a certain kind of people.When you have the vice president—the current vice president—making a speech that is basically a blood-and-soil version of “we the people,” that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here, despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself, that echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions.So all these issues are still being debated, sometimes not as bluntly and explicitly as they have in the past, but they’re still there.And what I would say, though, is, in the same way that we were talking earlier about the Constitution, and you get that equal protection language in the Constitution, and it may not be observed, and we may be shocked and appalled by the gap between those words and the reality, and it may be frustrating that we have to file lawsuits to vindicate those words—but they still count.In that same way, I would argue that the progress that we’ve seen over your lifetime and mine in creating a multiracial democracy—that stuff sticks, and that’s progress. And so I don’t get cynical and look back. I don’t subscribe to the idea that, because this has always been a theme in America, because we will often be disappointed by how American society responds to racial discrimination and injustice, because at any moment that kind of caste thinking can flare up and be dangerous and violent and cruel, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have evidence of that better version of America. We have evidence of it. We’ve seen it.MALCOLM GLADWELL: The example you gave is actually a lovely illustration of this. A hundred years ago, a vice president could not stand up and make a nativist argument if he was married to the daughter of an Indian immigrant. But today he can. So we’ve moved from malice to hypocrisy. That’s progress.BARACK OBAMA: It is progress. That is progress. Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others. And that is better than not even thinking about the idea that maybe you’re doing something wrong.My mother, she used to always say, “I think guilt’s a highly underrated emotion.” And if I tell you to do something—you mentioned earlier the role of parenting—if I tell you to do something and you know it’s wrong, and you hide it and then you kind of try to do it anyway, well, at least I know I’ve planted the seed. You set the standard.And that’s part of the reason why I don’t deem Reconstruction this complete failure. And somebody like Eric Foner, a great historian who resuscitated and reevaluated this story that Reconstruction had been an utter failure—one of the important points he makes is all these seeds are planted, and not all of them grow. Some of them are dormant for a very long time, for decades.MALCOLM GLADWELL: Mm-hmm.BARACK OBAMA: But both you and I and our kids have benefited from the fruits of trees that were planted during Reconstruction.Here's the full conversation:

“A lot of the people here are gone now — they came and moved us out.”

Virginia Democrat Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member on the intelligence committee, responded to President Trump's address Thursday on MSNOW:SEN. MARK WARNER: I’m not saying this as a senator, or a Democrat, or whatever. As an American, I’m embarrassed.I’m embarrassed that the president of the United States tried to speak to the whole nation with a whole series of falsehoods and accusations, I believe, aimed at trying to undermine America’s confidence in our system—and probably as a prelude, because if we have a free and fair election in 2026, he and his allies will lose in a dramatic fashion.This is not the normal back-and-forth. Franklin said, “You’ve got a republic, if you can keep it.” We’re going to decide whether we can keep our republic.And if we simply blow this off as another Donald Trump rant, we do that at our own peril.For the last 10-plus years, I’ve been either chairman or vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee. We have investigated all of these allegations. Virtually everything he talked about tonight, we have reviewed in a bipartisan way.And if you take a half-sentence—the notion of intelligence is that you get thousands of inputs, and then the intelligence community comes together, analyzes them and decides what is true and not true.Donald Trump ignored all of that. And the irony of this is that, for most of the accusations he’s making about 2018 and 2020, Donald Trump’s appointees were in charge of the intelligence community.Why didn’t they find any of these so-called allegations?And then there’s just the plain ignorance and factual misrepresentations. When he says, “Oh, my gosh, countries get access to our voter files,” you know what? You can buy these voter files. There’s no need to hack.I buy the Virginia voter files on a regular basis. If you’re going to be a statewide candidate, they are open to any entity.And the fact that you accumulate all these voter files—which, in many states, if you pay the price, are public information—and that somehow leads to manipulation is so completely false.I just implore my Republican friends, if they’ve got any sense of dignity about our system, speak up and tell the truth.Because when you make these kinds of accusations about China, and he conveniently ignores Russia—you know, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, every election cycle, try to influence our elections.They put out false information. They promote stories. Russia did it on behalf of Trump in 2020. Iran did it against Trump. North Korea just wanted to screw with the whole system.China—we have various accounts of what they wanted to do. They have plenty of potential to try to amplify false narratives.But these documents he’s claiming—we’ve seen them. And the conclusion of the intelligence community, the conclusion of the Trump intelligence community, was no influence that changed any votes, no interference, no attempt to successfully change votes or hack systems.He was also briefed on this at the time. As a matter of fact, he was briefed on January 7.And the irony here—I don’t mean to be disrespectful—but John Ratcliffe, his current CIA director, was the director of national intelligence.So this bipartisan conclusion, most of which has been public, was signed off on by his current CIA director.So is he going to be on this hit list of victims? We’ll see.And then there’s the idea he put forward about the ability to hack. Every system has some ability to be hacked, and that’s why our system was so smart.The founders were so smart to say, “Keep it at the state level, the local level.” So there is no national system.Since he’s been reelected, he has single-handedly dismantled much of the election-protection security system that, candidly, was set up during the first Trump administration. I gave some of his people credit for that.He’s dismantled the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, gotten rid of the FBI efforts and the NSA efforts.There was even an obscure group called the Election Assistance Commission, where you train people on how to upgrade your systems.We actually have an annual hackathon where white-hat and black-hat hackers go in to see if they can hack a voting machine, so they can then learn.He recently fired the Democratic members and forced the Republican member to resign. He’s cut back on all the cybersecurity agency protections.One of the guys, after the 2020 election, said it was the safest election in American history. He got fired for telling the truth.We are on such unprecedented, dangerous ground that this has nothing to do with Democrat and Republican. This has to do with whether we want to maintain free and fair elections in our country.JEN PSAKI: I wanted to ask you—and our team is going to let me know if we have this shot ready to play. Okay, let’s play this for you, because I think the big question here, Senator, is what happens from here and what he does from here.Near the end of the speech, he said something that I found to be probably one of the most alarming things he said. But I want to play it for you and talk about it.DONALD TRUMP: My administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People’s Republic of China and many others.We will be working closely to mitigate any harm, and we are taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected, so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again.Tomorrow, the secretary of homeland security will hold a briefing to outline his department’s recent work confirming cyber vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems.JEN PSAKI: Senator, when I hear “mitigate any harm,” I think of him going to Fulton County or sending the DNI to Fulton County—not their role.SEN. MARK WARNER: Amen.JEN PSAKI: When I hear, “Ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected,” I hear, “Seize it.”We don’t know what he’s going to do, but what are you hearing through that, and what can be done about it?SEN. MARK WARNER: What I’m hearing is a president who is flailing and failing. His policies are roundly rejected by Americans, frankly, of all political stripes.And if we as Americans don’t push back and say, “No, we’re going to have a free and fair election”—we’re not going to turn—The safety of our system, uniquely, has been the fact that we have a distributed system. I don’t want to nerd out here, but it cannot be compromised at a national level.And we have so much documented evidence of this administration’s efforts to dismantle all the assistance to increase protections at an unprecedented level.And we have states like Idaho and others pushing back—Republican states saying, “Don’t try to nationalize these elections,” which could then be compromised at a national level.And I fear—and, Jen, I’ve been on your program many times talking about this for the last nine or 10 months—this guy will not win a free and fair election, so he will do anything to intervene, to corrupt our elections.For example, with the so-called SAVE Act, which is a voter-disenfranchisement law that would make Jim Crow look pale in comparison.You bring all these things together, and then you’re going to have the Department of Homeland Security check the voter files.Do you trust the same Department of Homeland Security that allows ICE to kill Americans, documented or not?Now is the time when we’ve got to stand up and step up. This is not the normal back-and-forth.I’m not only embarrassed, but if he is able to execute this without legal pushback, without the ability of fact-checkers—then, please, I welcome everything I’ve said tonight to be fact-checked.And I would also put forward that virtually every document he’s talked about that I’m aware of, we have seen in a bipartisan fashion.JEN PSAKI: And we’re going to—SEN. MARK WARNER: There is not—just the final thing. The conclusion was there was no vote-changing. There was no manipulation.That was the case. And if this was so bad and awful, and China was against him, then why did Donald Trump win in 2024? And why did he go there a couple of months ago and be so soft on them?JEN PSAKI: There’s that question, Senator.I know you’re going to look at these documents. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to talk with somebody who’s been poring through them as well.SEN. MARK WARNER: Jen, we’ve seen them.JEN PSAKI: Yes, you’ve seen them. That’s important for people out there to know.SEN. MARK WARNER: We have seen them.There may have been an internal memo from one analyst to another, and that’s their job—to disagree.But we have seen the conclusions. They have been made. They’ve been briefed to this president when he was still president, on January 7, 2021.And the amount of disgraceful presentation he made tonight—this is a man who has lost the faith of the American people, even among some of his hardest-core supporters.And I fear he will do virtually anything to retain power.JEN PSAKI: Senator Mark Warner, a pleasure as always. Thanks for talking to us and breaking it down.

Imagine a tight House race in a swing state. In the final weeks of the campaign, a new super PAC begins spending heavily against the incumbent. It runs ads on...

“Support for Israel around the world is declining,” former Chicago mayor and potential Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel declared in Israel...

Rep. Ro Khanna: I saw firsthand how apartheid works in the West Bank. I oppose selling weapons to Israel that are used to kill Palestinians or sending aid that furthers this status quo.

Caroline Sunshine on CNN called President Trump's address "boring:"You know, I look at President Trump. I think the way that he sees himself, which is the producer-in-chief, you know, and he's about creating great television. And I think tonight he committed the cardinal sin of TV, which is don't be boring...Well, I would have preferred, what would have been a great TV moment was good evening to the American people, I've just received word that we've been victorious in Iran, we're going home. That would have been a great moment. But instead, there wasn't really anything in the speech, I think, that created great TV.I think it's great that we're getting declassified information about foreign interference in an election. However, I think that the real interference that occurred in the 2020 election happened with, you know, big tech and some of the most powerful media apparatuses in our country suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. I'm thinking of people like Mark Zuckerberg at META who suppressed that story and now he's at, you know, the UFC fight and META gets to put their name on a ballroom.So I think if we want to see real election interference and we wanted to see really good TV, I would have loved to hear Mark Zuckerberg be called out instead of getting an invite to the People's House.