Progressives See Massive Gains in North Carolina Primary

More primaries, more gains for progressives candidates.

In North Carolina—a contentious swing state that Donald Trump won with 51 percent of the vote in 2024—a Democrat who has represented the state’s 106th district for over a decade was trounced by her progressive challenger on Tuesday.

State Representative Carla Cunningham saw her support base wither away after she was the only Democrat to vote in favor of a Republican bill that required local law enforcement to record inmates’ citizenship status and detain noncitizens for longer periods if requested by ICE.

She gave a fiery speech on the House floor at the time, quoting unnamed “social scientists” while arguing that “all cultures are not equal.” She added that noncitizens should “adapt to the culture of the country they wish to live in.”

Not too surprising that Cunningham was primaried after such comments, but her opponent, the Reverend Rodney Sadler’s immense margin of victory should give progressives hope and show the lack of support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement even within swing states. Sadler received 70 percent of the vote to Cunningham’s 22 percent.

In North Carolina’s 4th district, incumbent Democrat Valerie Foushee is locked in a dead heat with progressive challenger Nida Allam. Foushee was favored to win and continues to hold a slight advantage, leading Allam by about 1,000 votes with 99 percent of votes in, but Allam could request a recount if the vote remains close.

Allam is less than half Foushee’s age, and is running solidly to the left of the incumbent. She has called for abolishing ICE (Foushee has said she would rather defund the agency) and is frequently critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She has bashed Foushee for accepting donations from the notorious pro-Israel lobby AIPAC in past campaigns. The incumbent then changed her tune last summer, saying she would not accept AIPAC money during the current election cycle.

The race became the most expensive primary in state history, with $2.4 million from outside groups being spent on Foushee and $1.8 million on Allam. Foushee still attracted controversy over reports that AIPAC funneled money to her through third parties.

Democratic senators came out of a classified briefing about the Trump administration’s war with Iran Tuesday expressing grave concern.

Senator Chris Van Hollen said officials peddled the same words in private that they have said in public, calling it “complete incoherence” with “constantly shifting narratives” to try to justify the war.

Senator Ed Markey said the briefing “confirmed what we already knew: Donald Trump is waging an illegal war, and he has no plan to end it.”

“Trump is completely out of control, and Americans have already lost their lives because of his lies. The war in Iran must end now,” Markey added.

“It is so much worse than we thought. You are right to be worried,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said. “The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation.”

“I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters. “But I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be in the administration going forward.”

All of this is disturbing and confirms the lack of a plan, except for “death and destruction.” The administration is committed to sinking more and more bombs and military resources into the conflict, and ground troops seem more likely each day. Justifications keep shifting from regime change to ending Iran’s nuclear program, and inside the military, some leaders are trying to push the narrative of a holy war. If senators are worried, the American people should be too.

American forces might not be able to fend off Iran’s drones.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine admitted in a closed-door meeting with U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that Iran’s Shahed attack drones have become a bigger problem than initially predicted, reported CNN.

The drones are capable of flying low and slow, a facet of their design that has made them difficult targets for U.S. air defenses, particularly as the United States and its allies run low on interceptor munitions.

One source told CNN that the U.S. has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles over the last four days.

Nonetheless, Hegseth and Caine attempted to downplay concerns about the drone threat, noting that U.S. partners in the Gulf states had been stockpiling interceptors, a source familiar with the briefing told the broadcast network.

But U.S. requests for more interceptors have not yet been fulfilled.

“It’s not panic yet, but the sooner they get here the better,” a regional source told CNN.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a prominent member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, emerged from the meeting with Hegseth and Caine with a cold message: “We do not have an unlimited supply.”

“The Iranians do have the ability to make a lot of Shahed drones, ballistic missiles, medium-range, short-range, and they’ve got a huge stockpile,” Kelly told CNN. “So at some point … this becomes a math problem and how can we resupply air defense munitions. Where are they going to come from?”

Military officials have stressed since Sunday that fighting Iran has already drastically depleted America’s missile defense systems.

Yet Donald Trump and his officials have insisted, invariably, that American munitions are well stocked. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the president announced that “medium and upper medium” grade munition stocks had “never been higher or better,” though he noted that “at the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be.”

In the weeks leading up to the explosive hostilities, Caine—Trump’s top military adviser—warned the White House against such an attack, arguing that it could entangle America in a prolonged conflict. That is turning out to be true. The White House has thus far offered several possible timelines for the conflict, refusing to stick to just one.

Per Trump’s own estimates, the war could rage for a few days, or several weeks, or “forever.”

Meanwhile, Hegseth hasn’t informed the public of any such lapse in America’s defense systems. Instead, he suggested to reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday morning that the conflict was continuing without a hitch.

“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be,” Hegseth said.

He did let a clue about munitions stockpiles slip, though: Hegseth announced the military would begin using gravity bombs, “which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.”

Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, warned on X that “this means we are running out of precision munitions.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took time from his Wednesday briefing to complain about the media coverage of President Donald Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it—the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.”

In his remarks, Hegseth glossed over the reality that Trump and co. entered the conflict without congressional approval, can’t keep their war plans straight, and admitted that there was no evacuation plan for trapped civilians when bombing began. Hegseth refused to give details on the cruel acts that have already been committed by U.S.-Israeli forces, the most extreme being a strike on a girls’ school in Iran on Saturday that killed up to 168 people, many of them children.

But it was harder for Hegseth to ignore Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who stood next to the defense secretary to deliver the names of four U.S. Army Reserves who perished in Trump’s war on Sunday. The names of the four are Captain Cody Khork, Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, and Sergeant Declan Coady. Two more deceased American soldiers are yet to be identified.

Lawmakers are warning the public that more Americans are likely to die in Iran.

“This is as serious as it gets,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told reporters on Tuesday. “This is war and peace. They told us in that room that there are gonna be more Americans that are gonna die … that they’re not gonna be able to stop these drones flying into the Middle East. We have to have a debate in the United States Senate on authorization of military force.”

Murphy’s Connecticut counterpart, Senator Richard Blumenthal, echoed the warning. “I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground,” he told reporters.

Hegseth admitted as much in his Wednesday remarks.

“More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating,” he said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spoke unapologetically about causing “death and destruction from the sky all day long” in Iran at a press briefing Wednesday.

“We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it,” Hegseth said, attempting to speak menacingly. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Is Hegseth hinting at a planned U.S. takeover of the country? That would require ground troops and billions more tax dollars. The Trump administration hasn’t ruled it out, worrying some members of Congress. On top of that, Hegseth proudly crowed Monday that this war with Iran has “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” meaning that “playing for keeps” doesn’t mean a proper transition of power.

Through Hegseth, the Trump administration is saying that it doesn’t care about civilian casualties, war crimes, or any kind of well-being for the Iranian people. It’s more bravado and machismo, making the “shock and awe” of the Iraq War of the early 2000s seem quaint by comparison. In fact, Hegseth’s references to a quagmire suggest that the U.S. will not be treating Iran like Iraq—there’s no plan or regard for what Iran will look like after the bombing ends. Instead, the goal is to level Iran, human rights be damned.