Today in Politics, Bulletin 269. 12/12/25

… The fallout and recriminations from the Indiana Senate refusing to back down from Trump’s threats on redistricting have been reverberating throughout the Republican Party. As usual, Trump tried to save face after his defeat: Q - “The senate in Indiana voted against the redistricting effort. Trump: I wasn’t working on it very hard. I wasn’t very much involved.”

… Trump made 9 very lengthy posts over the past 3 weeks about it. They mostly included threats. He first started posting about it 6 weeks ago. He sent JD Vance there to lobby IN Republicans twice. Numerous henchmen did also. He made several public statements about it. But, despite losing thousands of contests over the last 70 years on everything from legal cases to football games, he has never admitted that he lost anything in his life and isn’t about to start now.

… CNN’s Manu Raju asked Mike Johnson if Trump’s iron grip on the GOP is starting to slip: “He is not a lame-duck. He’s the most powerful person of this generation. He did not put a major pressure campaign. He did not put a major pressure campaign for it. He let his opinion be known as he does on everything all the time, all day long.”

… IN Gov Mike Braun posted: “I am very disappointed that a small group of misguided state senators have partnered with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps and to reject the leadership of President Trump. Ultimately, decisions like this carry political consequences. I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”

… Braun’s post was hit with a fact-check Community Note on X: “A majority (21 out of 40) of Republican state senators voted against the bill, not ‘a small group’.”

… IN Lt. Gov Micah Beckwith, who was leading the charge to intimidate state senators to gerrymander, on Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding from his state if it didn’t pass: “The Trump admin was VERY clear about this. They told many lawmakers, cabinet members and the Gov and I that this would happen. The IN Senate made it clear to the Trump admin that they do not want to be partners with the WH. The WH made it clear to them that they’d oblige.”

… Beckwith later deleted the post. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to say that quiet part out loud.

… Tim Chapman on Heritage Foundation joining Trump’s threats: “I loved my time at Heritage and was proud to be a co-founder of what was such an important part of the conservative movement. So I say this with respect and sadness: There is nothing conservative about backing threats to a state’s fed funding because it declines to push a President’s own political agenda - that is unconstitutional and coercive to states. What would conservatives say if a Democrat threatened states federal funding to redraw congressional maps?”

… Shannon Watts with Moms Demand Action: “As a former Hoosier, I can promise you state senators voted against Trump because, A) They were getting calls from constituents telling them not to cave and, B) They’re still pissed about how Trump treated Pence. This is also more proof that Trump is a lame duck. Lawmakers, companies and universities will start to back away and then revolt.”

… Republican IN State Senator Jean Leising: “You wouldn’t change minds by being mean. Trump’s efforts were mean spirited from the get-go. If you were wanting to change votes, you would probably try to explain why we should be doing this in a positive way. That never happened, so they get what they get. I wish that President Trump would change his tone.”

… Stephen Miller: “The Democrat party has been engaged in a vast far-reaching scheme to displace and disenfranchise Republican voters and their families through mass voter importation. (He’s talking about immigrants). And yet there are Republican lawmakers who eagerly facilitate the disinheritance of their own children.”

… Pete Buttigieg on MS NOW on why it was a significant moment for so many Indiana state senators to stand up to Trump despite the threats: “The big part of how Trumpism works is to make you feel totally disempowered. To make him feel inevitable. And yet the clear takeaway from this is he is not unstoppable and you are not without power.”

… Buttigieg: “To be clear, they didn’t stop being Republicans. This is a conservative state. These are conservative legislators. But they figured out that the right thing to do and the smart thing to do was to say no to the WH, no to Trump, and not to JD Vance.”

… Bulwark Editor Sam Stein: “If Indiana Senate votes this down Pritzker should announce he’s taking redistricting off the table.”

… VA Senate President L. Louise Lucas said they are moving forward, and the IN vote is not going to slow them down: “We have to convene in January to pass the amendment a second time, then it goes to voters and after they pass it we will be able to create new maps. It will 10-1.”

… VA is currently 6-5 Democrat. They can very easily make it a 10-1 map where Dems pick up 4 more seats, and Lucas is full speed ahead.

… House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Democratic states should not stop doing redistricting just because IN Republicans refused to do it, because FL is trying to find a way to do it despite several legal obstacles: “All options definitively have to remain on the table because we can’t unilaterally disarm. And that’s been our position from the very beginning. And that will continue to be our position until this thing ends.”

… RNC Chair Joe Gruters has been making the rounds of right-wing podcasts warning that a blue wave is inevitable: “It’s not a secret. There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s a pending, looming disaster heading our way. We are facing almost certain defeat. The chances are Republicans will go down and will go down hard. This is an absolute disaster.”

… I can tell you what is going on here, because I knew Joe personally for 20 years and we were once friends. Trump installed him as RNC chair this year, which is a huge step up for him from FL state senator with no national profile. Since then, Gruters has been a bad losing streak because, as Trump likes to say, he inherited a mess. And he knows it’s only going to get worse in the midterms. So he is doing everything he can to lower expectations, hoping he won’t be the fall guy and lose his job.

… But most likely he will be the fall guy and lose his job.

… And even when you know you are going to lose - in sports or in politics or in anything - you don’t publicly admit that ahead of time. Unless you are trying to preemptively make excuses to save your job when failure happens. Which is what he is doing.

… Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to Gruters’ comments: “The last time House Republicans took health care away from millions of patients to fund a tax cut for the richest Americans, voters rose up and voted them out. Republicans are taking health care away again - that’s why they’ll lose again. And they know it!”

… DNC Chair Ken Martin: “We need 3 seats to win back the US House. The average swing in a congressional midterm election for the party out of power is 26 seats. And that spikes up to 38 seats when you’ve got a president sitting under 50% approval. Trump just hit an all-time low for any president going into the midterm election.”

… AOC to CNN: “We’re looking that there could be a cycle where R+10 seats flip to Democrats. And so if Republicans want to draw a map that makes them more vulnerable to that, that’s their decision to do that. Q - Do you think there will be a blue wave? AOC: I think so.”

… Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) was asked on Fox this morning when the Republican health care plan is going to be released: “Well, I think you are going to see some things in next week that we are going to be talking about and even putting on the floor.”

… Brutal new poll numbers for Trump on healthcare:

… Trump was asked about his historically low approval ratings in nearly every poll: “When the real pollsters start doing the polls I think you’re gonna see some really fantastic numbers.”

… The non-partisan Tax Foundation: “The Trump tariffs are the largest US tax increase as a percent of GDP in over 30 years.”

… CNN host Erin Burnett on Trump and Karoline Leavitt’s lies about inflation: “What Trump and the WH are saying is wrong. Prices were 3% higher in September than they were a year before, and the inflation rate has actually increased for 5 consecutive months. Grocery prices are up nearly 30%.”

… Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman: “6 weeks ago, Jack Posobiec asked me to comment on whether I have a ‘creepy fetish for Asian women.’ That was one of several false and wildly personal allegations that the far-right pundit and newly minted member of the Pentagon press corps said that he planned to include in ‘a story that I’m writing about you.’”

… “I immediately understood his Oct 28 email to be a threat, though it was not made explicit. The day before, I had sent the Pentagon press office a series of questions concerning Eric Geressy, a senior Pentagon adviser to Pete Hegseth. Geressy, who served with Hegseth during a tour in Iraq in the mid-2000s, is part of the Pentagon effort to instill a ‘warrior ethos’ within the US military. He now leads a team reviewing the role of women in the armed forces.”

… “I had discovered that Geressy’s email address was linked to a public Goodreads page with a ‘currently reading’ list that included various books featuring stories about ‘Asian wife sharing.’ These pornographic works, with titles such as ‘Asian Wife Went With Her Dad’s Friend: A Cuckold Story,’ appeared on the list alongside books by Hegseth and military histories. They contain detailed descriptions of cuckolding, group sex, and scenes involving ‘ladyboys’ - a term used to refer to Thai transgender women. The page, active since 2021, was taken down the day after I contacted the Pentagon and Geressy about it.”

… “I also asked about a 1997 domestic violence allegation against Geressy, about his dating habits, and past relationships with foreign women. I inquired if the Pentagon had assessed those relationships as part of Geressy’s security clearance process, and, more broadly, if his personal life might create concerns about his susceptibility to foreign influence operations.”

… PBS: “A newly released batch of images shows the rich and powerful people with whom convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein socialized, and other glimpses of his lifestyle. The undated photographs are from Epstein’s email account and computer, according to Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who published the photographs on Friday.”

… “One image shows Trump standing with 6 females, whose faces have been redacted, at a party wearing Hawaiian-inspired leis. Another photograph of the president, who was a real estate developer and friend of Epstein at the time, shows him speaking with a woman at a party . Epstein stands beside Trump. In a third photo, Trump appears seated next to a blonde woman whose face has been redacted.”

… “Epstein, who sexually abused underage women at his homes and one of his private islands in the Caribbean, also kept images of sex toys, according to the new release. One of the photographs shows novelty condoms with Trump’s likeness on them, spread out on a table. Behind the table reads a sign that says ‘Trump Condom $4.50.’”

… House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia: “It is time to end this WH cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. DOJ must release all the files, NOW.”

… Garcia: “Just last night we received about 95,000 photographs from the Epstein estate. We’ve gone through maybe about 25,000 of them so far. We will continue to put out more photos in the days and weeks ahead. Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing.”

… Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ): “Trump has got to be scared shitless. The deadline to release the DOJ’s files is in one week.”

… Arick Fudali, attorney for Epstein survivors, on MS NOW: “This admin has given the survivors no assurance that they are trustworthy when it comes to the Epstein files. As we sit here right now, Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, is in a minimum security resort-style prison playing with puppies and having special meals. There’s just no trust from the public.”

Reminder there is no Bulletin on Saturdays because that is my day off. We are in a deep freeze here in Maine, but are still going to try to go out to watch the Christmas Boat Parade in Portland before heading off to a hockey game. The Weekend Bulletin will be out on Sunday night.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here. As always, thank you so much for reading, sharing and subscribing to my work. Hopefully some of you are able to get some of these to persuadable people who actually read them with an open mind. It’s all facts direct from the sources, it just may be facts they have not been exposed to.

… Page Six: “Tom Cruise didn’t want to ask Trump for a favor to help his ambitious outer space movie blast off. It’s perhaps the latest instance of how Trump can get movies made these days, and how Cruise is allegedly reluctant to court the