Today in Politics, Bulletin 255. 11/21/25

… Zohran Mamdani visited Trump today at the WH, and it did not go the way most Republicans thought it would. Trump has always recognized and fawned over star power, and that is exactly the way he treated Mamdani. Fox reporter to Mamdani: “You referred to Trump as despot… Trump interrupts: I’ve been called much worse than a despot. So it’s not that insulting.”

… I was laughing hysterically during this entire meeting with Trump praising Mamdani. I was a one-way love fest from Trump to Mamdani, with Zohran playing it cool the entire time.

… Trump: “I tell you, the press has eaten this thing up. I have had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries, nobody cared. The biggest people come over from other countries and nobody cares but they did care about this meeting, and it was a great meeting.”

… Q to Trump - “Would you feel comfortable living in NYC under a Mamdani admin? Trump: Yeah, I would.”

… Republican campaign consultants built their entire midterm strategy around making Mamdani into the devil incarnate and the face of Democratic Party, then Trump slobbers all over him today in the Oval!

… Trump then proceeded to end Elise Stefanik’s campaign for governor: Q - “Stefanik has campaigned on calling Mamdani a jihadist. Do you think you’re standing next to a jihadist? Trump: No… but she’s out there campaigning. You say things sometimes in a campaign. You’d have to ask her about that. I met with a man who is a rational person.”

… I’m dying!!! I soooo wish I could see her face right now. (First time I’ve ever said that).

… Mamdani: “I told the president that, you know, so much of the focus of our campaign has been on the cost of living crisis and when we asked those New Yorkers who had voted for the president, when we saw an increase in his numbers in NYC, that came back to the same issue: Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. Trump: We have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates. Mamdani: Absolutely.”

… I just pissed my pants laughing. I’m crying!

… Trump: “He has a chance to do something great for NY and he does need the help from the fed govt. And we will be helping him. But he’s different than your average candidate. He came out of nowhere.”

… Love is love. There’s no point in fighting it.

… Q - “Do you consider yourself a leader of the Democrats? Mamdani: I consider myself the next mayor of NYC.”

… This guy is really good at this.

… Trump: “He said a lot of my voters voted for him and I’m ok with that.”

… Mamdani: “I appreciated in our private meeting seeing a portrait of FDR, and the incredible work that was done with the New Deal and in thinking about what it could look like when the fed govt and NYC govt to deliver on affordability it can be transformative. Trump: I found the picture in the vaults. I put it up.”

… After the meeting was done, Fox cut away to host Brian Kilmeade, who looked pretty stunned: “Wow, what we just watched. This was a love fest. I think JD Vance is jealous. I think the president wants to use Zohran as a running mate. They got along fantastic.”

… Trump fan Laura Loomer: “Why did Zelensky receive a harsher welcome at the WH than Mamdani? Interesting. If socialists are doing a good job, then I guess nobody needs to vote them out during the midterms. If you’re a Republican, why not just stay home in 2026 and 2028 since Mamdani’s policies are amazing? I’m confused. No need to oppose the left I guess. No need to vote for the GOP in 2026 is the message I’m getting from that. Am I missing something?”

… Politico: “Ghislaine Maxwell will refuse to answer questions in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein and DOJ ’s handling of the case, Oversight Chair James Comer said. Maxwell’s legal team said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights if she sat with congressional investigators. He also suggested it would be unlikely that his staff or lawmakers would sit down with Maxwell under the circumstances.”

… Dep AG Todd Blanche, who interviewed Maxwell in prison then transferred her to Club Fed with many special privileges, attempted to justify then that it was warranted based on Maxwell’s “cooperation.” It appears she will cooperate with Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers behind closed doors, but not anyone else.

… Trump was asked on Fox if he was threatening to execute Dem lawmakers who put out a video to troops reminding them they don’t have to follow unlawful orders: “I’m not threatening them, but I think they are in serious trouble. I would say they are in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they are in serious trouble. In the old days, if you said anything like that, that was punishable by death. In the old days it was death for seditious behavior. What they did is bad. The hatred is really strong.”

… “I think it’s a very serious violation of the law. Pete Hegseth is looking into it. I know they’re looking into it militarily. The military is looking into it, the military courts. I don’t know about the modern day things because, you know, modern day is a lot softer. In the old days it was death. Today’s a different world. It’s a softer, meeker, milder world.”

… Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO): “I’m a paratrooper. I’m used to being behind enemy lines. To lead in this moment requires us to be bold and unafraid. Trump can threaten to arrest and execute me, but he’ll never intimidate me.”

… Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) responded: “I am also a Paratrooper. You shit away your Troop card because of your TDS. Don’t try and victim your ass out of this. Very disappointed in you.”

… Crow: “Van Orden, you’re not such a bad guy when you’re sober. Which, unfortunately, is not that often…”

… CNN election analyst Harry Enten: “This is probably the worst 10 day period for the president in the polls his entire second term. The numbers are just atrocious. When your best poll has you 14 points underwater, you know it’s truly bad and it’s as bad as 26 points underwater. Look at this number - 43 points underwater with independents! They despise him.”

… Kobeissi Letter: “The Labor Dept announces that the Oct CPI inflation report has been CANCELLED. The Dept also announces that Nov CPI inflation data will be released on Dec 18th. The ‘employment situation’ data for Oct and Nov and CPI inflation data are BOTH coming after the Fed meeting. The Fed is in a data blackout still.”

… Zelensky gave a painful address to the Ukrainian people after it has been made clear that the US is about to sell them out to Putin: “We are now living through one of the most difficult moments in our history. Right now, Ukraine may face a very tough choice: either the loss of dignity, or the risk of losing a key partner. Either a difficult 28-point plan, or an extremely harsh winter - the harshest one - and further risks ahead. A life without freedom, dignity, and justice, and being forced to trust someone who has already attacked us twice.”

… Trump set a deadline of next Thursday for Ukraine to agree: “I’ve had a lot of deadlines, but if things are working well, you tend to extend the deadlines. But Thursday is it.”

… Guardian noted that sections of the plan exactly track syntax commonly used by the Russians: “The third point of the 28-point plan reads: ‘It is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries and NATO will not expand further.’ ‘It is expected’ is a clunky passive construction in English. The Russian version - ожидается or ozhidayetsya – makes more sense and is a familiar verb form.”

… “Other Russianisms that appear to have crept into the text include неоднозначности (ambiguities) and закрепить (to enshrine). The WH has acknowledged Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s envoy, wrote the proposal together with Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff. The pair hammered out the text during a meeting in Miami.”

… Fox host Stuart Varney asked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) about it: “This deal in my opinion would be a win for Putin. You happy with that? Mullin: I think it’s a win for both. Kyiv was never gonna be able to put back into Ukraine - not Kyiv, but uh, uh, uh, my mind has slipped me. Varney: Crimea. Mullin: Crimea. They kind of see themselves as more Russian anyways.”

… Straight Kremlin propaganda, repeated by a Republican senator on national TV. Just another day for the Putin Party.

… Wladimir Klitschko: “This isn’t a peace plan. It’s a surrender plan. Imperial Russia gets land for its crimes. Ukraine gets promises, like the security guarantees of 1994, written in disappearing ink. We don’t need 28 points. We need one point: Russia Go home!”

… Jimmy Kimmel last night after Trump posted (again) that he should be fired: “My wife comes out of the bathroom. She’s got her phone. She goes, ‘Trump tweeted, you should be fired again’. He posted this at 12:49 AM - 11 minutes after the show ended on the East Coast. Which is nice. He watches us live. Hi, Mr. President! I have honestly lost count of how many times the president has demanded I be pulled off the air. Talk about a snowflake, this guy. Every 5 weeks, he flips out and wants me fired.”

… “You’ve done this before. You tried to get me fired in Sept, it didn’t work, Mr. President. How about this: I’ll go when you go, okay? We’ll be a team. Let’s ride off into the sunset together like Butch Cassidy and the Suntan Kid. Until then, if I may borrow a phrase from you: quiet, piggy.”

… Guardian: “Senior WH officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount. Ellison often speaks to connections at the WH and in at least one phone call engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.”

… JD Vance at a Breitbart conference: “There was this big conversation at WaPo about, ‘How do we get in touch with the other half of America? How do we actually make our journalism more appealing to the half of the country that doesn’t agree with far-left politics?’ And I actually texted Jeff Bezos and I said if you’re really serious about this, you should just hire Matt Boyle and make him run your entire political reporting shop.”

… Boyle is a nutty far-right conspiracy theorist who now runs Breitbart.

… Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Stephen Colbert: “We don’t think one corporation or one man named David Ellison should be able to buy up all the shows and buy up all the sports and buy up all the news and decide who watches what and I’m gonna stay in that fight.”

… Body cam footage has just been released showing the violent arrest of 61 year old grandmother Jeana Gamble because she protested ICE wearing a penis costume. This exchange occurred while she was on the ground in handcuffs: Officer - “What’s your name? Gamble: Aunt Tiffa! Officer: Is a weiner costume really what you want your grandkids cheering you on in? Gamble: Yes, and they did.”

… Gamble was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in Fairhope, Alabama.

… Daily Beast: “A new report has leveled allegations of cronyism and corruption at the Kennedy Center. That includes the American Conservative Union receiving a half-price discount on renting a stage at the venue for their summit on ‘ending Christian persecution’ last month. The final rental cost was $20,007, down from what should have been nearly $42,000.”

… “FIFA got an even bigger discount when they rented the entire Kennedy Center to host the 2026 World Cup draw. FIFA has been granted 24/7 access to the venue for nearly 3 weeks starting Monday, forcing it to cancel or reschedule lucrative holiday programming. The cost of renting the entire venue should have been around $5 million. However, FIFA was given the Kennedy Center for free.”

… Here is the FIFA president giving Trump a gift two months ago.

… Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse launched an investigation into activities under Ric Grenell’s reign at the Kennedy Center, claiming the ‘nation’s premier arts center is being used as a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies.’ He said contracts, invoices, and agreements to use the facilities revealed that Grenell is operating the Kennedy Center ‘for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the president and his allies.”

… “The center is being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, canceled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels—an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.”

Reminder that Saturdays are my only day off so there is no Bulletin tomorrow, but I will be out with the Weekend Bulletin on Sunday night. Nothing too exciting planned for us this weekend - we are going down to Portsmouth, NH for a ‘History of Thanksgiving’ tour to get into the holiday spirit even more after our visit to Santa’s Village last weekend.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… Sen. Lindsey Graham was on the floor of the senate trying to defend his amendment to the CR that would allow him to fleece taxpayers: “I am really outraged that my private cell phone and my official phone were subpoenaed without cause, that a judge would suggest that I would destroy evidence or tamper with witnesses if I were told about what was going on. I’m going to sue Biden’s DOJ and Jack Smith, I’m going to sue Verizon, it’s going