Politics
Goldberg: Trump turned politics into reality TV. Now Harris is the show to watch
Never has the GOP been more unified, and Donald Trump deserves all the credit. The issue uniting pundits, editorial boards, virtually all Republican politicians, GOP consultants, MAGA warriors and rallygoers: the need for Trump to lay aside personal gripes and grievances and to stick to the issues and attack Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz on their records.
The New York Times asked former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) what he made of Trump attacking Harris for inventing her Black identity only recently. He replied, “I would stick to the price of groceries.”
“All Trump has to do is talk about his positions, like he did in 2016,” insists columnist Ann Coulter.
“He’s more comfortable with personality-driven attacks, rather than issue-driven attacks,” Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, told The Times. “But given that Kamala’s a relative unknown, the policy- and issue-related attacks would get more traction right now.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro concurs: “All he has to do is focus the attack, to dump the war chest he’s accrued on this extremist ticket, to stick to a simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you are in 2024.”
Even Trump campaign honcho Chris LaCivita says as much. “At the end of the day, it’s really about demonstrating through her own words how dangerous, how weak and failed she really is, and it’s not hard to do when you have her doing the talking,” he told the Washington Post.
Obviously following this advice would be better than Trump’s current approach — race baiting, election denial, whining about Biden’s defenestration, attacking fellow Republicans, crowd size boasts, etc. — all of which is clearly ill-advised.
But “ill-advised” is the wrong word, because pretty much everybody advising Trump is telling him to stop. In other words, the conventional wisdom is well-advised, it’s just that Trump can’t or won’t follow it. This is not a new phenomenon. Expecting Trump to “pivot” or “act presidential” has been a political pastime for almost a decade. It’s like betting Godot will be punctual or Lucy won’t yank the football from Charlie Brown.
But what’s interesting to me is not the tiresome assumption that Trump can be anything other than who he is; rather it’s the assumption that if he ran the focused campaign his boosters favor, it would guarantee success. It would certainly improve his chances. But as a subscriber to the view that “vibes” have supplanted substantive issues and personal character as the decisive factors in elections, I’m not so sure.
Ever since Trump came down the escalator in 2015, I’ve been asking my pro-Trump friends some variant of the question, “What can the next Democratic president — or Democratic candidate — do that won’t make you a hypocrite for criticizing?” There are a few defensible answers to this question, but they miss the larger point. Trump has been inconsistent on so many issues — abortion, socialized medicine, transgender rights, debt, deficits, military interventions, criminal justice, etc. — that his supporters have largely given up on the idea that he should be held to a consistent position or principle. His personal character has been more consistent, but consistently wretched. The people who love his shtick like politics as a reality show. And those are the people he cares about because their adulation ratifies his own self-regard. Trump wants to believe that his awesome personality is the only thing that should matter, which is why he rejects the idea he needs to change.
The problem is he needs a majority.
Trump was narrowly beating Biden in the polls because the Biden reality show had worse vibes. His physical and mental deterioration amplified his political failings. Trump exuded strength and confidence, and that was enough, vibes-wise. At 78, by contrast with Biden, he managed to be both the “youthful” candidate and the “change” candidate.
The switch to Harris reversed all that. The vibe shift is real, as a stream of polling has shown. People were tired of the Biden show, and when the alternative was a rerun of the Trump show, they settled for that. But now a whole new series is on offer.
Trump and his enablers created the vibe petard, and now they’re being hoisted on it.
Now that Trumpworld is on the receiving end of the reality show politics they helped create, they want to pivot back to issues. But what if voters, at least the ones who will decide the election, think politics-as-vibes is the new normal, particularly as Harris helpfully walks away from her most controversial positions? Trump has always benefited from the fact the rules of normal politics applied to everyone but him. Perhaps he succeeded in liberating his opponent from those rules, too.
Politics
Warren tells Trump to ‘sign the damn bill’ as bipartisan housing package remains stalled in Washington
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., lashed out at President Donald Trump during a recent local television interview, labeling him a “man-child” throwing a “tantrum” over his refusal to sign a sweeping bipartisan housing package.
Appearing on WCVB’s “On the Record,” the left-wing senator did not hold back her frustration over the stalled legislation, delivering a blunt message to the president: “Sign the damn bill.”
“If he cared about the American people, he’d have already signed the damn thing,” Warren said during the interview, arguing that Trump “does not care about the economic survival of America’s working families.”
FILE – The Senate previously advanced the massive housing package geared toward lowering the costs of homes and supercharging the housing supply. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pitched it as legislation to prevent America from becoming a “nation of renters.” (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Protect Borrowers ; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
TRUMP-BACKED HOUSING BILL CLEARS HOUSE AFTER GOP DEFIES SENATE PRESSURE CAMPAIGN
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is an expansive bipartisan package that she said contains nearly 50 provisions designed to address the nationwide housing emergency.
Warren noted that decades of under-building have driven prices up, leaving the U.S. in need of millions of new units.
The primary focus of the bill is to lower the costs of construction and make it easier to build new homes.
FILE – President Donald Trump previously said lawmakers must first approve the SAVE America Act before he moves forward with the housing package. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg)
BIPARTISAN HOUSING PUSH ADVANCES, BUT TRUMP-BACKED INVESTOR BAN FACES RESISTANCE
The bill, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also includes a secondary focus aimed at blocking corporate consolidation of the housing market.
Warren explained that the legislation is designed to keep private equity firms from buying up local neighborhoods and turning America “into a nation of renters.”
According to Warren, the legislation had widespread support from both sides of the aisle before it was stalled.
TRUMP VOWS BLOCK ON SIGNING NEW LAWS UNTIL SAVE AMERICA ACT PASSES SENATE
She claimed the bill was “handed to the president on a silver platter” and that lawmakers from both parties were eagerly taking credit for the legislation.
“Republicans were all going online, saying, ‘well, I helped write that bill. This bill is terrific,’” Warren said. “So everybody’s out there saying, ‘my bill, I helped make this happen,’ right up until the man-child has a tantrum and announces he will not be signing it.”
FILE – Sen. Elizabeth Warren called President Donald Trump a “man-child” during the interview, describing his refusal to sign the bill as a “tantrum.” (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Critics of the legislation claim it does not allocate fresh federal funding, directly address rising costs of homeownership, or go far enough to address permitting issues.
The president previously canceled a scheduled signing event, insisting lawmakers must first approve the unrelated SAVE America Act, a voting-focused measure, before he moves forward.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.
Veteran MS NOW anchor Alex Witt is leaving the news network, which is moving away from live evening programming on weekends.
The new weekend programming strategy announced Friday is a cost-saving measure that will give parent company Versant more resources for a new direct-to-consumer streaming offering that makes MS NOW available to consumers without a pay-TV subscription. The company is also looking to expand its live event business.
According to a memo from MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler, “The Weekend: Primetime,” a live discussion program launched last year, will have its final airing Saturday.
One of the program’s co-hosts, Antonia Hylton, will take over Witt’s midday shifts later this year. Hylton’s co-hosts Ayman Mohyeldin, Catherine Rampell and Elise Jordan will remain with MS NOW and continue to appear on other programs.
Kutler said job losses from the moves are minimal and encouraged staffers who lose their current roles to apply for 40 current job openings at the company with more on the way. MS NOW has been staffing up its news operation since separating from NBC News last year.
MS NOW changed its name from MSNBC in November. The network, along with other Comcast-owned cable channels, were spun off into Versant in January.
Weekends have long been a ratings weak spot for MS NOW, which while a distant second to Fox News, has seen audience growth in 2026 and remains ahead of CNN. The network has started to rely on podcasts such as “Pod Save America,” from Crooked Media, to fill some hours. The episodes have performed strongly enough for MS NOW to try similar deals with outside podcast producers.
“Throughout the summer, we will expand our taped strategy and announce new content partnerships,” Kutler said in her memo.
With the changes, MS NOW will still have 20 hours of live programming each weekend and will be staffed to handle breaking news.
Witt joined the network formerly known as MSNBC in 1999, long before it began its strong tilt toward progressive political commentary. Over the years, Witt’s weekend newscast became one of the few programs on the network that delivered straight news without opinion.
Kutler called Witt “a beloved longtime member of our MS NOW family” and “a continued, trusted, and steady presence for our audiences.”
While Witt works through the summer, Hylton will anchor the 11 a.m. weekday time period, which will eventually be handled by former NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander.
Politics
McCarthy says Trump will use ‘everything he can’ to force Senate action on SAVE America Act
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As infighting over the SAVE America Act throws congressional Republicans into disarray, President Donald Trump’s bid to get the stalled election bill across the finish line gained one notable ally.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News Digital that he supports the election integrity measure and indicated that Trump should continue to use every available tool to pressure the Senate to pass it.
“He’s going to try everything he can to make sure he passes that through,” McCarthy said in a brief interview outside the U.S. Capitol.
The ex-speaker’s comments came after Trump abruptly called off a signing ceremony Wednesday for a bipartisan housing bill to pressure the Republican-controlled Senate to act on the SAVE America Act.
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs Reading Regional Airport in Reading, Pa., on June 23, 2026. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
IRATE REPUBLICANS ACCUSE TRUMP OF HANDING DEMOCRATS A WIN AFTER BLOWING UP HOUSING PACKAGE
The move surprised Republican lawmakers, some of whom were praising the bill’s passage at a press conference when Trump’s Truth Social post broke.
But Trump has repeatedly cast the election measure — requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and voter identification requirements — as his top legislative priority.
The legislation’s momentum, however, has slowed in the upper chamber, where Republican leadership insists the votes aren’t there amid widespread Democratic opposition. Senate Republicans have also been unwilling to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold to pass the legislation.
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks during a ceremony honoring President Ronald Reagan on the 115th anniversary of his birthday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2026. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group)
TRUMP CALLS MAIL IN VOTING CORRUPT AS SENATE BEGINS DEBATE ON SAVE ACT REQUIRING VOTER ID
Amid the SAVE standoff, a group of conservative lawmakers effectively shut down the House floor in an effort to force Senate action on the election bill.
But the Senate recessed Wednesday for two weeks over the July 4 holiday, leaving the measure in limbo until lawmakers return.
The conservative-led blockade sparked fierce backlash, with several members inside the GOP conference telling Fox News Digital the move risked torpedoing their own legislative agenda.
Meanwhile, the House has also yet to pass a version of the legislation incorporating several of the president’s priorities, including a mail-in voting crackdown and provisions banning men from competing in women’s sports and child sex change procedures.
Trump has not indicated whether he will sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, despite the likely existence of a veto-proof majority.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Thursday that the housing bill had been transmitted to the White House for Trump’s signature following a meeting with the president.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol on June 10, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Trump now has 10 days to sign the package or veto it. If he does nothing, the legislation automatically becomes law at the end of the 10-day period.
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