Mitch McConnell Explains His Sad Lone “No” Vote on Tulsi Gabbard

Mitch McConnell has gone from being one of the most powerful men in the GOP, the face of conservatism, to failing to convince a single Republican colleague to vote “no” with him on Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence.

The former Senate majority leader was the only Republican to vote “no” on Gabbard’s confirmation Wednesday, noting her support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, her support for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and her views on China as dealbreakers for him.

“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said in a statement after the vote. “Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge these facts is an unnecessary risk.”

McConnell’s logic wasn’t enough to convince any of his colleagues. McConnell being the only Republican to vote against Gabbard signals a long fall from power for the man who has long been seen as the last bastion of “normal” conservatism in the face of Trump’s MAGA conservatism (not that they’re all that different in practice). Those days are long gone.

Shocking: Republicans don’t care about fiscal conservatism very much when it comes to funding their—and their rich friends’—agendas.

Mike Johnson and House Republicans on Wednesday released their budget plan, which would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion in order to dole out $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy. They also threw in $2 trillion of compulsory cuts to Medicaid, which could make health care even more expensive and inaccessible for large swathes of America.

Adding $4 trillion to the national debt limit is a deeply ironic move for a party that is currently allowing the richest man in the world to destroy crucial federal institutions that he doesn’t like, in the name of “efficiency.” The programs that the Department of Government Efficiency is cutting are nowhere near as expensive as this blatantly pro-billionaire handout.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, costs the government about $40 billion a year. The GOP’s tax cuts will eclipse that yearly amount easily, but Republicans are justifying it with classic “trickle-down” economics.

“There will be a lot of economic growth. And if you think about what happened in 2017—dramatic economic growth, possibly even more this time,” Representative Steve Scalise said to HuffPost last Friday.

This appears to be a more shameless redux of the 2017 tax cuts, which crippled the country’s revenue base while lining the pockets of corporations and the wealthy.

The Department of Justice appears to be struggling to keep up with the torrent of lawsuits sparked by Donald Trump’s sweeping actions to freeze funding to federal agencies, and significant errors have cropped up in one of their cases.

In a court filing made Monday, prosecutors were forced to correct two factual mistakes they’d made during a court hearing, according to ABC News.

The lawyers had claimed that only 500 USAID employees had been put on administrative leave, and that only their future contracts had been frozen. In reality, more than 2,100 employees were out of a job, and all future and existing contracts had been paused, the lawyers revealed in the filing.

“Defendants sincerely regret these inadvertent misstatements based on information provided to counsel immediately prior to the hearing and have made every effort to provide reliable information in the declaration supporting their opposition to a preliminary injunction,” the filing said.

The errors had downplayed the scale of the Trump administration’s illegal efforts to dismantle USAID without the permission of Congress.

Last week, some USAID employees received letters telling them they’d been placed on administrative leave with pay “until further notice,” according to correspondence reviewed by The Hill. Some didn’t immediately receive a letter because they had been locked out of the agency’s system. The USAID website was taken down, and when it was eventually restored, it only included a note announcing that employees had been placed on “administrative leave globally.”

In a separate legal battle, in which 19 states are suing to rip Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency goons away from Americans’ taxpayer records at the Treasury, DOJ lawyers made another mistake.

They referred to Marko Elez, the 25-year-old DOGE goon who resigned and was then rehired after his racist social media posts were discovered, as a “special government employee” within the Treasury.

In a filing Monday, lawyers said that Elez was a “Special Advisor for Information Technology and Modernization” at the Treasury, meaning he is a full-fledged employee subject to certain ethics requirements from which a “special government employee” would be exempt, according to ABC News.

Last week, DOJ lawyers also fumbled when asked whether they could ensure that a list of FBI agents who had investigated January 6 rioters would be kept confidential. They later said they had no “intention” to release the names. But Trump said Friday that he intended to “fire some of” the FBI personnel who’d been involved in the investigation, alleging that they were corrupt.

The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm former Democratic Representative and current right-wing personality Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

The Senate voted 52–48 to confirm Gabbard, with Republicans falling mostly in line. The only Republican to join all Democrats in voting “no” was Mitch McConnell, a stunning rebuke from the former Senate majority leader.

Gabbard overcame Republican skepticism after previous concerns over her sympathy for authoritarian leaders, her pro-Russia stances, and her rough confirmation hearings. Gabbard’s nomination also raised national security concerns, considering she met with U.S. adversary and former Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad while she served in Congress. She was reportedly the subject of a conversation between two Hezbollah operatives while on that trip to the Middle East. In December, nearly 100 former national security officers warned Gabbard would become the “least experienced Director of National Intelligence since the position was created.”

Gabbard, who has ties to the Science of Identity Foundation, an extremist religious organization described as a cult, will now oversee some of America’s most sensitive information.

The Trump administration’s Ukraine policy is off to a poor start.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is visiting Europe, and met with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Wednesday in London, immediately telling U.S. allies that liberating all of Russia’s occupied Ukrainian territory “is an unrealistic objective.”

Then it got even worse, with Hegseth telling the alliance of 57 countries, including all 32 members of NATO, that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.

“Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” Hegseth added.

Hegseth seems to have given up two main points to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including a key piece of leverage in future negotiations to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. One of Putin’s major complaints about Ukraine has been the prospect of the country joining NATO along with the rest of Eastern Europe.

Coupled with Donald Trump’s comments on the release of American Marc Fogel from a Russian prison Tuesday, where he claimed “we were treated very nicely by Russia,” Hegseth’s remarks suggest the new administration will prioritize better relations with Putin over defending Ukrainian sovereignty. The deal to secure Fogel’s release raises questions too, as a suspected Russian cybercrime kingpin was part of the swap.

While campaigning for president, Trump boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine within “24 hours.” Shortly after Trump’s election, Russia shot down that idea, and even boosted its troop numbers days later. The president’s choice for special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has in the past suggested withholding aid for Ukraine in order to force negotiations with Russia, something Trump did just days into his presidency.

In the past few weeks, Trump has said he will use tariffs as leverage against Russia and shaken down Ukraine for its natural resources in exchange for continued support. All of this doesn’t bode well for the future of Ukraine, which seeks not only to end Russian occupation of its land but also better relations with the U.S. and Europe instead of a subservient relationship with Russia. Trump seems more concerned with keeping Putin happy and getting a payoff.

U.S. inflation was up in January, with Americans taking yet more hits from the rising costs of groceries, rent, and energy.

The consumer price index indicated that prices rose by 3 percent in January compared to a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday from the Labor Department.

Rent alone made up 30 percent of that increase, according to The Washington Post’s economic columnist Heather Long, who noted on X that the “core” consumer price index—which excludes the volatile prices of food and energy—had practically stalled since June.

But Americans were still feeling sticker shock for some key grocery staples in January, when the price of a dozen eggs soared by 13.8 percent and averaged $4.95 across the country—a price tag that’s still up by 53 percent from last year, according to The New York Times. Egg prices are only expected to increase amid a widening outbreak of avian flu, which has temporarily shuttered New York City’s poultry markets and skyrocketed the cost of a standard dozen eggs to more than $12 in Key Food and CTown supermarkets, amid a nationwide egg shortage.

But Donald Trump felt that there was only one person to blame. ““BIDEN INFLATION UP!” the president posted on Truth Social Wednesday morning.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly pledged to lower costs for American consumers on “day one.” But three weeks into his second administration, Trump has repeatedly avoided answering the hard questions on exactly how he’s going to provide relief for American’s wallets.

“You said that tariff is a beautiful word,” pressed Fox News’s Brett Baier in an interview with the president over the weekend. “There are some signs in the market, consumer confidence, that they’re a little jittery. So, if all goes to plan, when do you think families would be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy? Or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?”

But Trump quickly changed the topic, instead lumping the responsibility of rising inflation onto other countries.

“I think we’re going to become a rich—look, we’re not that rich right now,” Trump said. “We owe $36 trillion. That’s because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing, like 200 billion with Canada. We owe 300—we have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration doesn’t “have a timeline” for alleviating the nation’s critically high cost of living.

On Monday, U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General Paul K. Martin released a report noting that Trump’s dismantling of the agency will likely result in nearly $500 million worth of food going bad. On Tuesday, he was fired.

Martin’s initial searing report found that the uncertainty from Trump’s policies “put more than $489 million of food assistance at ports, in transit, and in warehouses at risk of spoilage, unanticipated storage needs, and diversion.” He also found that an additional 500,000 metric tons of food are currently at sea or ready to be shipped and that Trump was making it impossible to properly track the $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid.

This report—which pointed out a massive, wasteful inefficiency—was met with a swift termination.

“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Inspector General of the United States Agency for International Development is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse wrote in an email to Martin Tuesday evening.

“Look what happens when you write a report critical of this administration: They fire you the next day,” Michael Missal, another one of the 17 former inspectors general who was terminated by Trump last month, told The Washington Post. “This chills independent oversight, and that’s exactly what we need right now.”

Trump is looking to install staunch loyalists as inspectors general, as they provide critical oversight into the activities of federal agencies.

Both Trump and Martin have yet to comment.

More and more, the president appears to be a puppet of the world’s richest man.

During an Oval Office press conference on Monday, Donald Trump remained hunched over the Resolute Desk while Elon Musk took the reins, spending more time answering reporters’ questions than the president himself.

Trump had called journalists into his office to observe the signing of a new executive order, which effectively green-lighted Musk’s work to cull large swaths of the federal workforce through DOGE. But the jarring visual of a multibillionaire hovering over a U.S. president and answering questions for him stayed with and rattled political commentators.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called Trump’s “presidential subservience” to Musk the “most powerless image of a president of the United States ever created by a camera.”

Musk—who was not elected by anyone to systematically dismantle the federal government—did “everything he possibly can to tell the world, without saying a word, that ‘Donald Trump is not the boss of me,’” according to O’Donnell.

The Tesla CEO also violated Oval Office norms by appearing at the press conference in casual garb and with his son. By O’Donnell’s measure, Musk spoke 3,666 words at the executive order signing, whereas Trump spoke 2,487 words.

Compare that to the role that Trump’s vice presidents play in his political realm: Former Vice President Mike Pence never spoke more than Trump did at a Trump-centric event during his first term, and Vice President JD Vance likely never will, either. That discrepancy calls into question what power Musk, who donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign, really has in the administration.

And Americans at home were equally unnerved by the visual.

“The optics are wild with Trump hunched over the [desk] and [Musk] looming above him. Trump looks cowed and subservient, Elon triumphant. Incredible imagery,” posted one user on X.

“The least someone could have done was give Trump a coloring book and some crayons to keep busy while President Musk answered questions,” wrote Campaign for New York Health executive director Melanie D’Arrigo.

Donald Trump secured the transfer of Marc Fogel, an American detainee in Russia, back to the United States. A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News Wednesday that the president had made a deal to swap a Russian crypto-criminal to do it—even though Trump has railed against prisoner exchanges in the past.

Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz released a statement saying that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and other advisers had “negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.”

But the statement didn’t immediately say what the U.S. gave up in the “exchange.”

Trump has regularly bragged about how he doesn’t need to agree to prisoner swaps to free Americans detained overseas. In August, when Joe Biden secured the release of three American citizens who were wrongfully imprisoned in Russia, Trump demanded to know the details and threw a massive fit about how prisoner swaps were extortion.

“So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia?” Trump wrote on Truth Social in August—the first of his many questions. 

“How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash? Are they giving us cash (Please withdraw that question, because I’m sure the answer is NO)? Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?”

“Just curious because never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps. Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING—and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future,” Trump wrote.

“That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse. They are extorting the United States of America. They’re calling the trade ‘complex’—That’s so nobody can figure out how bad it is,” he added. 

At the time, it seemed like Trump was throwing a tantrum that he couldn’t claim to have rescued the American detainees he’d promised to free on the campaign trail. Now, that seems even more correct, because Trump may have struck the exact kind of deal he railed against six months ago. 

Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein wrote on X that it’s possible Trump had arranged to trade Fogel for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian national.  

Vinnik pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in May, for his involvement in operating BTC-e, a cryptocurrency exchange that allowed cybercriminals to launder and store the proceeds of their crimes, according to the Department of Justice. From 2011 to 2017, BTC-e processed more than $9 billion, and serviced one million users. The Justice Department has alleged that Vinnik himself is personally responsible for more than $120 million in losses. He  had yet to be sentenced. 

By comparison, in 2022, Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in Russian prison for carrying a small amount of marijuana that had been prescribed to him by his doctor in the U.S. 

Gerstein wrote on X that a federal judge “abruptly and hastily” scheduled a status conference for Vinnik’s case Tuesday. The conference was supposedly open to the public, but when Gerstein tried to join remotely, he said he was not able to access the meeting, and it did not appear on the judge’s schedule for the day. 

“I called the Alameda County Jail, where Vinnik has been held, and was told he was ‘picked up yesterday,’” Gerstein wrote in another post on X. 

Vinnik’s lawyer had previously requested that he be released from a protective order, so that he might be included in a prisoner swap. His lawyers did not respond to Gerstein’s request for comment, though a U.S. official revealed Wednesday that Vinnik was the prisoner involved in the exchange. 

Trump called the exchange “very fair, very reasonable,” and said that Russia got “not much” in return. It seems his administration may have been intending to keep up the farce that the trade hadn’t cost them anything: Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed Tuesday that Fogel’s freedom was “not in return for anything,” which is clearly not true. 

This story has been updated.

After American Marc Fogel was released Tuesday after more than three years in a Russian prison, Secretary of State Marco Rubio bragged that his freedom was “not in return for anything.”

“There wasn’t some deal here where we had to release, like, 10 spies. And I think it shows President Trump’s commitment to bringing home Americans,” Rubio told NewsNation Tuesday.

But Russia threw cold water on that assertion Wednesday, saying that Fogel’s release definitely was part of an exchange, with a Russian citizen being freed from a U.S. prison. Even Trump told reporters late Tuesday that Russia got “not much” in return for Fogel.

“We were treated very nicely by Russia,” Trump said. “Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war and millions of people can stop being killed.”

According to Trump, the deal with Russia was “very fair, very reasonable,” and that “somebody else is being released” Wednesday “that you will know of.”

Conservatives are keen to show a difference between how Biden and Trump negotiated for Americans to be released from overseas, with the right trashing American basketball player Brittney Griner’s release from Russia in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in 2022.

Trump continued to bash the Griner deal as recently as October on the campaign trail, and had an unhinged response to the release of four American citizens, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, from Russian captivity last year. It seems as though Trump wants his administration to reap praise for securing the release of Americans held captive overseas, while putting down Biden for the very same thing.