It's difficult to fathom. But, we've got hard evidence on today's BradCast that Congress was actually in session today. Both chambers! Doing oversight. Holding votes and stuff! And, when it comes to the Republicans who control those chambers, natch, voting against the best interests of their own constituents. All of that, as Trump continued to lose one battle after another today --- in the courts and even in the state Senate of a very Republican state. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

There was also quite a bit of breaking news both right before and during today's hour. Among the stuff we covered...

• Just before airtime, news broke that yet another federal grand jury has, for a second time, rejected an attempt by the Trump Administration's corrupt Dept. of Justice to revenge indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. If you're keeping score at home, that's one indictment tossed out by a federal judge, followed by two attempted indictments rejected by two different grand juries, against the woman who successfully held Donald Trump to account actual fraud to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in both criminal and civil court last year.

• Also just before airtime, Republican lawmakers in the Indiana state Senate voted to reject a new U.S. House map that would have gerrymandered the Hoosier State's two remaining Democratic seats out of existence, defying Trump's orders, death threats from his supporters, threats to primary those Senators next year, and even his last minute message that he would cut off all federal funding to the state if they didn't obey! To their credit, the state Republicans did not!

• A federal judge on Thursday found that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was being held unlawfully held by ICE in immigration detention and ordered that he be freed immediately. Despite foot-stomping and promises by Trump's DoJ to appeal, Abrego Garcia was released before today's show ended. He is, of course, the Maryland resident, father and Salvadoran national who was wrongfully deported back to El Salvador earlier this year, before being ordered to be brought back to the U.S. by a federal judge. DoJ then indicted him on seemingly trumped-up charges, which he still faces, and ICE unlawfully tossed him into detention. Until today.

• Speaking of immigration, Dept. of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem embarrassed herself and the Administration under questioning from Democrats in the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday. We share some of the sharp questioning for DHS Barbie from Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman (NY) and Seth Magaziner (RI). Also testifying today was FBI Director of Operations Michael Glasheen who similarly embarrassed himself and the Administration when trying (and failing) to explain to the Committee's Democratic Ranking Member, Bennie Thompson (MS), why the non-existent "Antifa" organization is now absurdly regarded by the Bureau to be the nation's top domestic terror threat.

• Over in the U.S. Senate, Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to restore premium subsidies for more than 20 million Americans who receive access to health care via the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare). Monthly premiums are now almost certain to skyrocket for millions at years end, leaving many Americans without health care at all. Four Republicans joined the Democrats' attempt to restore the massive GOP cuts, but it wasn't enough to overcome a Republican filibuster. For their part, a ridiculous Republican bill to give Americans about $1,000 per year in a so-called Health Savings Account to somehow cover health care needs, went down in flames. Several pending discharge petitions in the House may force votes next week on the matter in the lower GOP-controlled chamber.

• "Catastrophic" flooding is forcing evacuations for as many as 100,000 residents in the Pacific Northwest over the next several days, following as much as 18 inches of rain over the past 72 hours in some areas. The Skagit River in Washington, which reaches major flood stage at 32 feet, is now expected to crest at a record 47 feet! All consequences of the climate change disaster which most Republicans pretend is not happening, and pretend to not be caused by the man-made burning of fossil fuels.

• With increasingly dangerous floods, droughts, storms, fires, etc., it is disappointing to learn that Zillow, the nation's largest real estate listing site, is removing a feature, added just last year, that allowed home buyers to learn about a property's exposure to the climate crisis. Making climate risk data more difficult to find and use, does not make its reality disappear, however. "The risk doesn’t go away,” says Matthew Eby, founder of the non-profit financial climate risk modeling site, First Street, which supplied the scientific data previously used for the Zillow feature. "It just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability." Good luck, home buyers!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker near Venezuela; the Trump EPA's deletion from their website of humanity's roll in climate change; Exxon Mobil pleads for help from the corrupted SCOTUS Six; And a U.S. court strikes down Trump's Executive Order blocking wind energy projects...

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Today on The BradCast: If Democrats don't put up a candidate for every goddamn contest on the ballot next year --- in every state, county, city, town, village and hamlet in the nation --- they are out of their flippin' minds. If things continue as are seeing week after week at year's end in 2025, they could well be in a position to win any race, almost anywhere in the country in 2026. (Though they may need to demand a few ballot hand-counts to ensure the correct winner, if a disturbing new report out today is any indication.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Following up on huge shifts toward Democrats by the electorate in Special Elections across the country all year; an outright Blue Wave in state after state during the November 4th off-year elections last month; and another Special Election in a deep-red GOP-gerrymandered U.S. House district last week; Democrats racked up more stunning victories on Tuesday night in several Presidential battleground states, as the American electorate continues a remarkable shift toward the Left, even in races that Dems don't win outright.

Among the unofficial election results from last night, what they all mean moving forward into the critical 2026 mid-terms, and one great big red flag that voters from all parties need to watch out for next year...

• A Democrat won the Miami, Florida Mayoral runoff for the first time in nearly 30 years, defeating a Republican candidate endorsed by both Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. She won by nearly 20 points in a city that narrowly went to Trump in the Presidential contest just last year. Eileen Higgins will also make history by becoming the city's first-ever female Mayor in a city not much more than an hour's drive from Mar-a-Lago. She ran on affordability agenda, vowed to protect the immigrant community threatened by Trump, and to take on many of the city's worsening climate change-related challenges ignored by both Trump and DeSantis in South Florida. She also promised, to roars from supporters during her Tuesday night victory speech, to build a city where "immigrants feel welcome and respected".

• There were also two Special Elections to fill vacancies in the Florida state House on Tuesday. One seat was previously held by a Democrat and the other by a Republican. While neither seat was flipped, the Democratic candidate improved on last year's results by about 11 percentage points in one case, and 15 points in the other. It was an incredibly good night for Dems in the Sunshine State, which had been moving farther and farther to the right over the past decade or more.

• In Georgia, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a GOP state House seat on Tuesday, in a Special Election in a district that went for Trump by more than 12 points last year. He defeated his Republican opponent by just under 2 points, according to the latest unofficial tally, notching a 14 or 15 point swing for Democrats in the previously "red" state House District. The victory comes after what the state's Democratic Party described as "22 years of failed Republican leadership."

• In Albuquerque, New Mexico, two-term Democratic incumbent Mayor Tim Keller became the first Mayor in city history to win a third consecutive term. As he vowed during his victory speech on Election Night: "We are not going to allow ICE in. We are not going to let Trump come into Albuquerque." Democratic wins also appear to have flipped the City Council.

• Even in Iowa, where a Democratic candidate lost her race last night in a landslide Special Election for a vacant state House seat by nearly 40 points, the electorate shifted about 11 points toward the Democrat in the otherwise extremely "red" state House District. It was the fifth Special Election for a state legislative seat in the Hawkeye State this year. In each of them, the electorate shifted to Dems by anywhere from 9 to 15 points.

• In all, as a Bolts Magazine analysis of all 2025 state legislative elections finds today, "Democrats gained 25 state Senate and House seats that were held by the GOP, out of the 118 that were resolved this year in regular or special elections." That number outpaces the party's wins in 2017, before 2018's mid-term Blue Wave during Trump's first Presidency. Republicans flipped exactly ZERO such races over the past year. Moreover, the outlet notes, "the GOP may have gotten lucky this year: Most of the legislative elections that occurred in 2025 were for seats that Democrats already held, which limited their opportunity for gains."

• With all of that in mind, Republicans should be terrified ahead of next year's mid-terms. Even --- and, perhaps, especially --- in GOP-controlled states that have recently gerrymandered their U.S. House map (at Trump's orders) in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" ones. To do that, they must make safe "red" seats a bit less safe. In Missouri, where Republicans recently adopted a new map designed to remove one of two remaining Democratic U.S. House seats, opponents are trying to block the new map by putting it on next year's ballot as a citizen's veto referendum. Yesterday, organizers of the effort let me know that they have "delivered over 300,000 signatures --- three times what was required" to MO's Sec. of State in order to force a referendum on the gerrymandering measure next November. "Under the Missouri Constitution," they said, "once those signatures are submitted, the map cannot take effect unless voters approve it." But, they are also warning that Republican state officials are "signaling they may ignore that constitutional requirement and attempt to implement the map anyway." The group, People Not Politicians, tells me they are ready to go to court immediately, if necessary, to file a challenge if, in fact, the state is "considering the nullification of its own constitutional check on legislative power."

• But here's something that Democrats and Republicans alike need to be aware of next year. The computer-tallied results from several ballot propositions in upstate New York's Rensselaer County appear to have gone sideways during last month's November 4th elections. Thanks to the tenacity of supporters of the Stephentown Memorial Library in tiny, rural Stephentown, just three miles from the state's border with Massachusetts, a hand recount of the county's hand-marked paper ballots was carried out. After a hand-recount, it was discovered that a measure to fund the town's library, initially reported as having lost 528 to 60, was actually found to have been adopted by voters 540 to 279! Several countywide measures were also mistallied as well by the County's optical scanners made by Clear Ballot. One of them, a measure that would have ended funding for a local volunteer rescue squad, was not adopted as originally reported by results of 517 to 505. In fact, the local measure was found to have been defeated --- 2,381 to 2,250 --- following the hand count! So, how could the original results have been so wildly wrong? We explain today, based on the few details we've been able to gather from local media reporting and some input from several longtime voting system and election integrity experts we reached out to.

• Finally, at the end of another very busy show, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as climate impacts accelerate in the Middle East; Repubs give another big gift to Big Oil; a MAGA v. MAHA feud breaks out over Trump's EPA rollback of toxic chemical rules; and as deployment of utility-scale solar operations sets a new record in the U.S., despite Trump's efforts to kill development of cheap, clean, reliable, renewable energy...

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Today on The BradCast: For years, we've called out the authoritarian petrostates working to block the fight against fossil fuels and our existential battle against climate change that has been exacerbated by them. Even as the U.S. has long been the world's worst per capita emitter, I think today, under this particular President, is the first time we've had to include the U.S. government itself as one of those "authoritarian petrostates." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... It's another win for New York Attorney General Letitia James against Donald Trump. As you know, she successfully oversaw several fraud cases (both civil and criminal), against him and his company in the Empire State last year. Since re-taking office, Trump has weaponized his Justice Dept. to try and exact his revenge against James. He continues to fail. Hilariously.

First he had to find someone willing to seek an indictment against James after his own U.S. Attorney in Virginia refused to do so. He appointed his personal insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, to the job. She was able to obtain a grand jury indictment related to supposed mortgage fraud. But two weeks ago, a judge tossed out the indictment after finding Halligan was unlawfully serving as U.S. Attorney. Last week, Trump found a federal prosecutor from Missouri who was willing to re-indict James. But the grand jury rejected the indictment! (In an amusing side note, yesterday ProPublica found that Trump himself appears to have committed the very same "crime" that he has been trying to indict James for!)

Then, on Monday night, a federal judge in Massachusetts found in favor of a group of some 18 state Attorneys General, led by James, who had sued to block Trump's "Day One" Executive Order shutting down virtually all wind farm projects on federal lands and waters. The EO was tossed out by the judge as "arbitrary and capricious" and a violation of U.S. law. James wins again! So do the residents of those states and all the rest of us who pay the price for dangerous, climate killing fossil fuel energy, rather than clean, cheap renewable energy like wind power.

SPEAKING OF PAYING THE PRICE FOR FOSSIL FUELS... The 30th annual U.N. Climate Summit (COP30) wrapped up in Brazil a couple of weeks ago. For the first time, the United States, under the Trump Administration, didn't even bother to send a delegation. Ultimately, progress toward the world's transition away from fossil fuels to meet the 10-year old Paris Climate Agreement targets --- to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times --- was stymied by fossil fuel industry lobbyists and authoritarian petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Russia and now, sadly, the U.S. The conference's final statement, which must be agreed upon by all parties, did not even mention fossil fuels.

Today, as the European Union's climate change service announced that 2025 would be either the second or third-hottest year ever recorded globally, after 2024 smashed all previous records, we are joined by one of the world's premier climate scientists.

Dr. MICHAEL E. MANN is the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science and Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the group awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Price, author of some 160 peer-reviewed and published papers, and of more than half a dozen books on climate science. His latest, with vaccine scientist Dr. Peter J. Hotez, is Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World.

Today, Mann joins us to share, among many related things, his thoughts on the disappointment of COP30 in Brazil, and how that "Bad COP" suggests that it may be time for a new format for the annual climate conferences. "The U.N. needs to show some backbone," he urges today.

As to the U.S. under Republican/Trump rule, he tells me: "The problem is that you have a small number of bad actors, authoritarian petrostates, leading among them, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and now the United States. We have to view the United States as part of what I sometimes call the 'Coalition of the Unwilling.' A small number of fossil fuel-driven countries that are doing everything they can to block a global agreement."

Mann warns, during our broad discussion, that the time for action to prevent the worst effects of climate change is now quickly running out. "It is sometimes said that 'Nature bats last,'" he quips today. "The Earth's system, the global climate, doesn't care about the politics of fossil fuel countries, and the bickering between the petrostates and the rest. The climate system doesn't care. It will continue to warm up as long as we burn fossil fuels. And all of these impacts will continue to get worse."

"We have a finite budget, a finite amount of carbon that we can burn and keep the planet below 1.5 Celsius --- for Americans, it's 3 degrees Fahrenheit, basically --- a level of warming beyond which we will see far worse consequences than we've already witnessed," Mann explains. "We can actually calculate, with some uncertainty, how much carbon is left in that budget. The calculations show that three years of business as usual --- if we don't begin to ramp down those carbon emissions dramatically, if we just continue with business as usual for three or more years --- then we burn through that budget."

"What's so tragic is if we had acted decades ago, if politicians around the world, governments around the world, had listened to the scientists decades ago, we could have fairly gently decarbonized our societal infrastructure. A fairly gentle reduction of carbon emissions, and a relatively slow, steady move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy. We could have afforded that, if we had started acting decades ago. We can't afford that now. We have got to undergo that transition in a matter of years. Right now, we are clearly not meeting the moment when it comes to these annual climate summits. Something's gotta change."

We also discuss his continuing feud with Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates, who Mann charges with now spreading climate disinformation at an alarming rate by suggesting that somehow a 'technological fix' will be found to solve these problems; how climate scientist Mann found common ground with virus scientist Hotez to co-write their new book, Science Under Siege on "the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World" (and what those forces now are); and how --- and if --- he remains optimistic that the world can overcome the quickly worsening climate challenges we now face with so little time left before impacts become irreversible.

"This is Tolkien-esque battle. It's a battle not for Middle Earth, but for Earth itself," he tells me, referencing the Lord of the Rings novels. "There are so clearly forces of good and evil that are involved. I think framing it in those terms can be helpful and clarifying. There's a line...'There's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.' It's about fighting the good fight. Even if the odds don't seem in your favor, and the forces against which you are fighting seem overwhelming, the only way you're going to prevail is if you fight the good fight. And that's what we've got to do."

Tune in for much more worth hearing from Mann today...

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Today on The BradCast: Don't let our ridiculous, sociopathic President's absurd antics and unspeakable corruption prevent you from losing sight of the relentless, damaging effects of his simple, terrible, policy-making decisions, and the increasingly high costs Americans are paying for them. Even regarding policy-making decisions that Trump previously vowed he would not make. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As you know, Donald Trump ran in 2024 on a promise to decrease costs for consumers on "day one", vowing to "make American affordable again." Now he claims the word "affordability" has been made up as part of another "Democrat hoax", and that his policies --- including massive tariffs which serve as a tax on every American --- are actually lowering prices. They aren't.

Similarly, he repeatedly vowed to never touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He is now gutting all three of them in various ways, as even Fox "News" pointed out today, believe it or not, noting that "Trump broke his promise to protect a lifeline for 71 million Americans." Not to mention his massive cuts to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) that go into effect on January 1, increasing the cost of health care for everyone, even those with employee health care plans.

Back in October, after Trump's tariffs pushed away the world's largest soybean customer, China, Trump claimed to have made a "deal" with them their purchase of 12 million metric by the world's largest customer by year's end. Instead, China has purchased a quarter of the amount that the Administration claimed the Great Deal Maker had secured. American farmers are now facing bankruptcy while consumers are paying more everything, including for beef, the price of which has spiked thanks, in no small part, to climate change-fueled drought. (Climate change, as Trump will tell you, is just another "Democrat hoax," of course.)

In hopes of mitigating the damage his policies have caused for farmers, on Monday, Trump announced another new bailout for the ag industry. (The Administration is, euphemistically, calling it a "bridge payment".) The latest aid package is for some $12 billion to farmers as overseas customers, especially China, have fled, while prices for fertilizer and seed are up (also thanks to Trump's tariff tantrum) and the labor market is scarce, thanks to Trump's immigration policy thuggery. The new aid package follows on two similar farmer bailouts during Trump's first term --- when he originally began his trade war against China --- for $22 billion in 2019 and a whopping $46 billion in 2020.

As if all of that isn't bad enough, last week Trump announced a new rule to reverse money- and life-saving fuel efficiency standards enacted by Joe Biden for cars and trucks. He claimed that encouraging the manufacture of more polluting cars and cutting $7,500 incentives for clean electronic vehicles would somehow make the purchase of new cars $1,000 cheaper in the U.S. than they would have been under the Biden rules.

All of that is nonsense. It is as absurd as Trump's years-long bluster about ending a "Biden EV mandate" that never actually existed, as explained by our guest today, DAN BECKER, Director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Climate Law Institute of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. Becker has worked for years at the Campaign, developing the strategy and fight for the biggest single step any nation has taken to fight global warming: The Barack Obama Administration’s ground-breaking program to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution in half from cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. Biden furthered that program with additional efficiency standards. And, last week, Trump announced he was doing away with them.

"In one stroke," Becker told AP, "Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming." Today, Becker joins us to dive into the details.

The previous CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard enacted by Obama and then Biden "saves gas. And by saving gas, you save money at the pump because you don't have to fill your tank with as much gas, or go as often. And when you burn less gas, you pollute less," Becker tells me today. "In fact, every gallon of gas burned pumps 25 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere. And we burn a lot of gallons. So this is a major source of global warming pollution. And the US, because we drive a lot more than other folks, we drive more gas guzzlers than other folks, and we drive them further. We are the biggest auto polluter on the planet. And Trump is only going to make that much worse."

The Obama/Biden rules "represent the biggest single step that any nation has ever taken to cut use of oil --- saving you money at the pump --- cut pollution that is a result of burning that gas in your car," Becker explains. "And it's really unjustifiable to watch the President of the United States tear up this very valuable protection for consumers, for the environment, cutting our dependence on foreign oil, and at the same time lie, and say 'Oh, it's actually a good thing for you because you will save money.' Because, in fact, it will cost you much more at the gas pump than you would save upfront with a dirtier car."

All the while, China is expanding their sale of Electric Vehicles around the world at a massive pace --- even while they, essentially, aren't allowed to be sold in the U.S. (unless you are willing to pay a 100% tariff). "They're selling like hotcakes in Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa. But we don't buy them here," says Becker. In the bargain, however, U.S. automakers --- including those who joined Trump at the White House last week for his announcement --- are, shooting themselves in the foot. "The reality is that the auto companies are working with Trump to create their own grave," warns Becker.

Why are they doing this? Tune in today for an explanation of that and much more, as Trump's policies --- never mind his bluster and daily sociopathy --- are costing Americans a fortune...and even their lives...

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Yikes. Quite a news day. We do our best to keep up on today's BradCast. But our conversation about the political fight to avoid falling over the GOP's massive health care funding cliff at year's end, may be the most immediately important news of all today for tens of millions of Americans. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Okay, we begin first with a few headlines. And there are a lot of them today, most still developing and several breaking just before and during the show. So, in short for the moment...

• The Dept. of Justice arrested and charged a long-sought suspect today in the case of the unexploded pipe bombs left near the Democratic and Republican Committee headquarter buildings on the eve of January 6, 2021. They gave no details yet on how the Virginia man identified today was caught, nor what his motive may have been.

• A Dept. of Defense Inspector General's report [PDF] was released today on DefSec Pete Hegseth's "Signalgate" scandal. Despite claims yesterday by Team Hegseth that the IG report offered him "TOTAL exoneration", it offers quite the opposite. It finds, among other things, that Hegseth "created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots" by detailing an attack on Yemen on the unsecured Signal app on his personal phone with high-level Cabinet members and an accidentally invited national security reporter. He also appears to have destroyed evidence in the matter.

• Following a classified briefing at the Capitol today, several high-ranking Democratic members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees said they were "deeply disturbed" after viewing "one of the most troubling things" they'd ever seen. They had just watched unreleased, still-classified, unedited footage from the September 2nd U.S. military rocket strike on two shipwrecked survivors of a previous strike on a supposed "drug boat" in the Caribbean. The unlawful order to carry out the second strike was previously reported to have been issued by Pete Hegseth. Such an attack is in strict violation of U.S. and International law, as well as the DoD's own Rules of War Manual. The Commander who reportedly carried out the double-tap strike, Admiral Mitch Bradley, is said to have claimed during today's briefing that the order to kill the survivors wasn't given by the SecDef. Still many unanswered questions here.

• BREAKING just before airtime: After a federal judge last week tossed out Donald Trump's revenge indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding Trump's personal insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed as U.S. Attorney, a new prosecutor --- said to have actual prosecutorial experience --- was brought in from Missouri to file a new grand jury indictment today. The grand jury, however, rejected the new indictment!

• BREAKING late in the show today: The corrupted, activist Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, as somewhat expected, overruled a lower appeals court ruling (written by a Trump-appointed judge) that had blocked the state of Texas' mid-decade Congressional gerrymander. State Republican lawmakers drew the map over the summer, at Trump's urging, in hopes of flipping five U.S. House seats in the Lone Star State from "blue" to "red" next year. The lower court found the new map to be an unlawful racial gerrymander and blocked its use. The SCOTUS majority, however, while offering little to no reason for their 6 to 3 "shadow docket" ruling, suggested the new TX map was only a partisan gerrymander --- which is now allowable since their horrible 2019 ruling in Rucho --- as opposed to an unlawful (for now) racial gerrymander. They are now allowing the new gerrymander to be used in the 2026 midterms.

• Thanks in no small part to the Trump Administration's shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year, the global child mortality is now on the rise for the first time in decades. Nearly a quarter of a million more kids under the age of 5 are expected to die in 2025 than in 2024, according to a new report.

NEXT... Speaking of health care and both children and adults unnecessarily dying...we're joined today by Politico's Senior Heath Care Reporter ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN as America heads toward a Republican-caused health care crisis cliff as of January 1.

Over the summer, Donald Trump and his Republicans in Congress passed their so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to give a trillion dollars in tax cuts mostly to the wealthy and added $2.4 trillion to the national debt, resulting in about half a trillion dollars in automatic cuts to Medicare. In the bargain, they also slashed a trillion dollars from Medicaid and hundreds of billions from the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare), which will subsequently spike monthly health care premiums for some 24 million Americans as of January 1.

This is why Democrats refused to vote with Republicans to keep the government open for a record 43 days in October and November. At least until seven rogue Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them in the Senate, undermined their own party to vote with Republicans to reopen the Government. The only thing they received in exchange was the promise of a vote in the Senate this month on restoring the GOP cuts to the Affordable Care Act subsidies. That vote is scheduled to happen next week, but will require 60 votes for passage in the 100-seat Senate. No vote is currently scheduled for the U.S. House on this, as premium bills will otherwise be doubling and tripling for millions next year.

Ollstein, a longtime Capitol Hill reporter lays out the political and policy landscape and stakes as we barrel toward what is now quite likely to be a very serious health care crisis in the U.S., unless Republicans come to terms with the electoral tidal wave that otherwise awaits them next year. Her reporting this week suggests that the bulk of the GOP Congressional caucus either doesn't yet understand the concerns or doesn't care about what is about to happen.

"There's nothing like a looming deadline to juice Congress into action," she quips. "Although that action may not lead anywhere --- especially this time."

"There are a bunch of Republicans who do want to cut a deal," she stresses. "They are very anxious, about both the concrete ramifications of letting the subsidies expire --- that millions of their constituents will have higher bills, become uninsured, etc. --- and they are worried about the political consequences, that this will backfire in the 2026 midterms." But, Ollstein also notes, for many in the party, the otherwise now very popular "Obamacare" is still a dirty word after years of the GOP trying and failing to kill it "root and branch" or even offer any alternative to it.

We've got lots to sift through here today, in trying to make sense of the current political lay of the land, with many Republicans "afraid of a primary challenge from the right attacking them for 'supporting Obamacare,'" even if millions of their own Republican constituents now rely on it for their health care.

Tune in for all the details on this one. Too many to cover in a quick summary here. But the fight in the weeks ahead is going to affect all of us, including your health care prices, even if you are not an ACA customer, as Ollstein also explains.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration rolls back fuel economy standards, which will increase the cost of everyone's gas; as the Administration's threats against Venezuela become more obviously about oil by the day; as youth climate activists sue to block new fossil fuel development in Utah; and as one boy from fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades here in Southern California rolls out a quickly blossoming idea to seed the area with wildflowers...and love...

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Not that I hope to tip off our degenerate authoritarian oligarchy on today's BradCast. But if the Republican Party still believes in math (and it's unclear if they do), there was more very bad news for them in Tuesday's elections this week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Unapologetically progressive Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn appears to have lost the Special Election race for the U.S. House in Tennessee's very "red", GOP-gerrymandered 7th Congressional District to stalwart Trump Republican Matt Van Epps on Tuesday. Unofficial numbers suggest she lost by about 9 points.

Sounds like a rout. But, in fact, it really wasn't. Trump won the district last year by 22 points, meaning there was a 13 point shift toward Democrats on Tuesday, precisely the average shift that we have seen toward Dems in all of the Special Elections for U.S. House this year. There are 14 counties in TN's 7th CD. Everyone of them shifted towards the left on Tuesday. That, after Republicans were forced to dump a lot of money into what should have been an easy contest on Tuesday.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended not to be concerned about any of this --- "They were really trying to set the scenario that there's some sort of wave going on. There's not. We just proved that there's not." --- actual math really does suggest trouble ahead for the GOP in next year's critical 2026 midterm cycle.

With that average 13 point shift toward Democrats in special elections this year, we do a little bit of mathing on today's show. For example, last year, in the 2024 U.S. House general elections...

• 28 Republicans won their races by 10 percent or less.
• 64 of them won by 12 points or less.
• And a whopping 92 Republicans won by just 15 percent or less last year.

With a razor-thin 3 vote advantage heading into the new year, no wonder several GOP-controlled states are attempting panicked mid-decade gerrymanders, and that the corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely to help them. But new maps may ultimately make their problems worse, not better, if this year's elections are any indication. Safe Republican districts made less safe with new gerrymanders to steal districts from Democratic voters may end up backfiring. Of course, I won't dismiss Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory between now and next year. But when Johnson says, "This doesn't concern me at all," he is either lying, in denial or incredibly stupid. And he's not all that stupid.

"This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we've seen yet for Republicans," a far more realistic GOP strategist observed last night. Much more on today's show.

As if that's not enough, in a stunning runoff election on Tuesday in Georgia, the Democratic candidate easily unseated the incumbent Republican Mayor in the suburban city of Roswell, outside of Atlanta. She will be the previously deep "red" city's first Democratic Mayor in nearly 30 years. But don't worry, Mike. All's well!

Also today, our disgusting racist President said a whole bunch of disgusting racist things at the White House on Tuesday about Somalia and the American Somali population in Minnesota and elsewhere, repeatedly describing them as "garbage", "people who don't work," and people who should "go back to where they came from." Where many of them came from is a war-torn nation in Africa, with thousands seeking refuge here in the 90s. Most of them are now American citizens, with many living in Minnesota, where Trump's degenerate federal jack-booted immigration thugs will reportedly be targeting them, specifically in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, with upcoming raids.

State Governor Tim Walz --- who Trump last week described as "retarded" --- as well as the Minneapolis Mayor, its Chief of Police and many other officials and immigration advocates are vowing not to roll over to Trump's racist immigration hooliganism. Similar raids are reportedly being launched this week in New Orleans, where residents are also hoping to push back against Trump's increasingly unpopular thuggery however they can.

Finally today, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report (after we had to preempt yesterday), with news on the end of disappointing U.N. climate talks in Brazil; the rising death toll following two simultaneous climate change-fueled typhoons in Southeast Asia; and the Trump Administration's latest plans to pollute your air and poison your drinking water...

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On today's BradCast: Things are now moving very quickly, it seems, in the story of our Defense Secretary reportedly ordering the murder of shipwrecked survivors in the Caribbean. Luckily, our guest today is able to help us make sense --- where sense is to be had --- of all of the different parts of this quickly spidering story. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

The Trump Administration has been citing their supposed War on Drugs or War on Terror --- or, as what they describe as a war on "narco-terrorists" --- as legal justification for more than 20 U.S. military attacks against small boats in international waters near the coast of Venezuela. The attacks by the U.S. military have, so far, according to the Pentagon, resulted in more than 80 deaths of supposed drug-traffickers. No evidence, however, has been given by the Administration to support their claims that either drugs or "narco-terrorists" were on the defenseless boats in question when they were destroyed by U.S. rocket fire. In previous years, alleged drug boats would have been interdicted, evidence collected, and those on board either tried or interrogated to further bust up international drug cartels like the one found to have been facilitated for years by the former President of Honduras.

So, it has raised concerns from both Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress that Donald Trump, today, formally issued a pardon to the former President of Honduras who was tried and convicted by the Dept. of Justice last year to 45 years in prison for his role in trafficking some 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.

All of that is contextual backstory to allegations, originally reported by Washington Post last week, that Trump's Defense Secretary, former Fox "News" weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, issued orders to "kill everyone" in the Pentagon's first attack on a supposed drug boat in early September. Two survivors of the attack, reportedly clinging to the remains of their boat, were subsequently murdered in a second kill shot, said to have been on the orders of Hegseth and carried out by Admiral Mitch Bradley. He currently leads the U.S. Special Operations Command. Before his October promotion, he served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command that carried out the attack in question on September 2nd.

Killing victims of a boat strike is wildly unlawful under both U.S. and international law. It is even cited specifically in the Department of Defense's Law of War Manual, Section 18.3.2.1, describing "Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations." The provision warns the "requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal." It goes on to cite, specifically: "For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal."

After previously boasting about having watched the September 2nd attack live via drone video, Hegseth today claimed that the second strike on the survivors happened amid the "fog of war" and that he "didn't stick around" for the rest of the mission after the first strike. Though he claims Bradley "made the right call" in killing the survivors. "He had complete authority to do it," said the man who theoretically gave him that authority, while now appearing to throw Admiral Bradley somewhat under the bus.

And all of that, of course, comes on the heels of feigned outrage from both Hegseth and Trump just about a week ago, after a video was released by six Democratic members of Congress --- all veterans of the U.S. armed forces or intelligence services --- reminding members of the military that they are required to "refuse illegal orders". The video resulted in outrageous claims by Trump that the Democratic officials had committed "sedition" which, as he also noted, is punishable by death. In response, Hegseth announced a Pentagon investigation of one of the members, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former Navy Colonel and astronaut who could theoretically be called back into active duty by a politicized Pentagon in order to be court-martialed for, apparently, reminding troops that it is unlawful to carry out unlawful orders.

As noted, there is a whole lot going on in these quickly developing stories, but we've got just the guest today to help us make sense of them. We're joined by CARRIE A. LEE, PhD, an expert on civil-military relations and, until her resignation in July, associate professor at the US Army War College, where she served as the Chair of the Department of National Security and Strategy. She is now Senior Fellow at the Democracy and Security Network for Strategic Democracy Initiatives at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Lee explains today both what a civil-military relations expert is, and why she regretfully decided to leave her post at the War College earlier this year, after determining, as she explained in a social media thread, "that the United States faces threats today that cannot be effectively fought from inside the walls" of the US Army War College. She explained at the time that "in order to speak, I had to leave."

"I very much saw the writing on the wall after the election," she tells me today in describing her thought process for resigning in July, including "a lot of the threats that then President-elect Trump had made about what euphemistically I would call the 'creative uses' of the military that he had planned."

"It became very clear that if I had spoken out, that was going to bring an entirely unhealthy level of scrutiny to the institution I worked for, an institution that I really loved, and that I feel does outstanding work in educating future senior officers of the United States Army."

Lee explains that she ultimately left "to fight against the politicization of the military and abuses of power using the military domestically in ways that undermine democracy and Constitutional rights."

Today, Lee is speaking freely, as we discuss, among other things...

• The Pentagon's (empty and/or ridiculous?) threat to reactivate Sen. Kelly for a possible court martial.
• The "politicization death spiral" underway at DoD.
• The Trump Administration becoming "enthusiastic about punishing dissent and finding ways to weaponize and use their institutions of power to punish political opponents."
• How service members are able to determine whether an order is unlawful, and whether someone like Admiral Bradley would have the needed legal advice to know if striking shipwreck survivors was lawful or not. ("The manual explicitly says 'patently unlawful orders'. When the manual literally gives the example that we're talking about ['orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal'] that's a pretty good indication that it is patently unlawful." She also notes: "The initial strike was probably unlawful, as well.")
• Whether "fog of war" serves as a justifiable defense for Hegseth.
• The difficult personal decisions that career military officials are now faced with in deciding whether to stay in their positions amid the Trump Administration's misuse of our armed forces. (See her paper published this week titled "The Soldier in the Illiberal State is a Professional Dead End")

"I think we are talking about two separate issues in the news cycle that is going on right now, as we eagerly await updates to figure out what new turn in the hall of mirrors we are about to take," Lee neatly summarizes our conversation. "There's the politicization of the military and the weaponization of the military justice system to try to punish political opponents. That's issue number one. Issue number two is what the heck is going on in the Caribbean, and are these orders lawful?; what is patently unlawful and therefore must be refused?; and what has the veneer of legal justification that would lead a military commander to go with it?"

As noted, lots to discuss on today's BradCast...

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It's no easy feat getting caught up on The BradCast after just one week off during the madness of the Trump Era. But, hey, nobody said fighting to save democracy amid an attempted authoritarian takeover by a crazy, brain-poisoned, power-mad, criminal cretin was going to be easy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With far more to cover than we had time to catch up with, we did our level best today and took a bunch of great callers to boot! But that requires focusing on the stuff that really matters and, well, putting off the rest for another day, if ever. And the stuff that really really counts right now, in my opinion, remains the fight for democracy and voting itself.

To that end --- and many others --- we covered quite a bit of ground in very short order today. Among the many stories we touched on before opening the phones to our first post-Thanksgiving callers...

• Today, a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling finding that Alina Habba, Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, was unlawfully appointed.

• That ruling follows on last week's court ruling that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's even more unqualified personal insurance lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in Virginia, was also illegally appointed. That ruling subsequently resulted in the dismissal of Halligan's absurdly corrupt criminal indictments against Trump's foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

• Trump's belligerent, unqualified Defense Secretary and former weekend Fox "News" host, Pete Hegseth, may be in very big trouble for reportedly issuing unlawful orders to "kill everyone" in the Administration's first unlawful attack on supposed drug runners in boats in international waters off of Venezuela in the Caribbean. (More on that, I suspect, in the days ahead.)

• A quick catch-up on the various battles in the Gerrymandering Wars since we left --- in Texas, Indiana and North Carolina.

• Following the shock resignation of former(?) MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene a week or so ago, Punchbowl News reported that a senior Congressional Republican is warning that the House GOP is "a tinder box." That "morale has never been lower" and that Republican House Speaker "Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out." We'll see about that. But it's anything but inconceivable, at this point.

• Speaking of, in tomorrow's Special Election for the U.S. House in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District, progressive Democrat Aftyn Behn was said to be within two points of Republican Matt Van Epps, according to new polling last week, in a District won last year by Trump by a whopping 22 points! I wonder why morale is so low among Republicans in the House these days.

• Never mind polling. Let's look at some actual numbers following Democrats' rout of Republicans in the November off-year elections last month. A deep dive by Politico into 268 county, town and village executive seat races last month in New York --- including in deep red counties, towns and villages --- found that Dems out-performed 2017's "blue wave" election in the state, flipping, for example, more than 50 executive seats from "red" to "blue" last month. That, compared to the GOP flipping just one (1!) seat from "blue" to "red" on the same day.

• Another appeals court panel ruling while we were off --- this one from judges nominated by both George W. Bush and Donald Trump --- upheld a lower court ruling finding that a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit filed by Trump and Habba against Hillary Clinton and James Comey, claiming they tried to steal the 2016 election (or something), will, in fact, result in a one million dollar fine against the pair.

And finally, we open up the phone lines to listeners, who are, apparently, in a very lively mood after a bit of rest over the holiday weekend. Enjoy!...

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We were in such a hurry to hit get out of Dodge for the holiday, that I haven't had a calm moment until now to mention our absence from both airwaves and blog this week (above and beyond a quick mention in my posting of our final BradCast last week before this week's break), or otherwise fully share my gratitude with all of the listeners, readers, donors, contributors, before-the-scenes helpers, broadcast affiliates, etc. that make whatever we do here possible as we speed to our 24th year, next year.

While there remains far too much to be concerned about amid the current, bleak state of our country and world, it is hard not to be spirited by noteworthy progress we have all collectively made toward correcting the course of this ship of state, particularly in recent weeks.

A fair recognition of the nightmares also demands appreciation and gratitude for the indefatigable perseverance of so many and the miles we have all collectively come since the darkest days of this Second Term of Trumpian torture began.

Longtime friend of this blog and its titular radio program, Lisa Graves, is a former senior official who served in all three branches of the federal government. She is author of the new book, WITHOUT PRECEDENT, detailing the dismantling of our Constitution and its enumerated rights by the Roberts Court. She paused for a reality check of her own Thanksgiving missive to readers of her newsletter this week in a post titled "Chief Justice John Roberts Walks Into Nuremberg, the Film…".

"Where are we on the timeline?," she asks rhetorically, before answering sensibly: "The good news, relatively, is that it's more like 1933 than 1938, but that's not great. However, we are pre-Holocaust and we are, at this moment, pre-invasion of other nations. The future is yet unwritten, and We the People still have the power to help write our destiny."

Her piece, as always, is worth a read in full. But her list of gratitudes mirrors so many of my own thoughts this year, that I figure it's better to share them as is, given I am always honored to associate with her on such things...

It's our last BradCast today before our Thanksgiving break. And, frankly, it was a very different show than the one I went to bed last night pondering for today. Blame the pathetic, desperate, criminal coward in the White House. Again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Today, in several posts to his failing social media site, an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump, the President of the United States, called for six Democratic members of Congress --- four House members and two Senators, all distinguished veterans of the U.S. armed forces or intelligence services --- to be killed.

Their "crime"? Advising U.S. service members, in a 90-second video on Tuesday, that they may --- indeed, they must --- "refuse illegal orders."

It's not particularly controversial. But today, Trump, who is floundering in virtually every aspect of his job, pretended to be outraged, repeatedly describing the comments from those Democrats as "SEDITIOUS", describing them as "TRAITORS" and calling for them to be put to "DEATH!" (That, even though he pardoned actual seditionists that he incited to try and overthrow the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021.)

In addition to his own words, Trump also elevated another wingnut loon on his social media site who declared: "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!"

Just two months ago, Republicans pretended to be furious about political violence and words that might lead to it following the murder of a far-right Republican activist. But, since Trump is now calling for the deaths of Democratic members of Congress, his lackeys and quislings at both the White House and in Congress are joining Dear Leader. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, pretending to be furious today, for example, falsely charged that those six elected officials and distinguished veterans "encourage[d] young troops to disobey orders". He forgot to mention that the orders in question are unlawful ones, as the Dems repeated over and again while reminding those "young troops" of their oath to defend and follow both the Constitution and rule of law, and encouraging them: "Don't give up the ship."

I had a word or two to say about all of this on today's program. So did a lot of other folks both in and out of Congress, some of which we share as well.

In not unrelated news on today's show...

• NBC News reports that the senior military attorney for the U.S. Southern Command, which has, so far, killed more than 80 people in boats off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts near Venezuela, determined that U.S. strikes on small boats said to be carrying supposed "narco-terrorists" (as the Administration describes them) were unlawful. His opinion, however, was overruled by Trump's political appointees in D.C. The service members who participated in those extrajudicial killings could, as the lawyer reportedly warned, eventually face accountability under U.S. and/or international law.

• TPM's Josh Kovensky reports that federal prosecutors in Chicago have dropped a whole bunch of supposed "domestic terrorism" cases against people who protested against Customs and ICE agents in Chicago in recent months. Among those who saw their charges dropped: A woman who was shot five times by a CBP officer who bragged to colleagues about it afterwards, and who falsely claimed the woman participated in a convoy of cars that "rammed" and "boxed" the federal agents in. And a 70-year old Air Force vet initially charged with felony assault, which was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and finally dropped all together by Trump prosecutors on Thursday.

• Last week, we told you about the Trump Administration's draft plan, reported by Washington Post, to open up off-shore oil drilling along the entire coast of California, off the West Coast of Florida (in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, not on the Atlantic side near Mar-a-Lago, of course), and off of Alaska in the pristine High Arctic region, where responding to a spill or a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster would be all but impossible. Today, the Administration officially unveiled the proposal and elected officials --- including both Democrats in California and Republicans in Florida --- vow to fight the effort.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as this year's U.N. climate summit wraps up in Brazil; as Iran faces an historic drought in Tehran that could result in the evacuation of some 10 million people; and as the developing world is now turning to China for billions of dollars of investment and development in clean, cheap, renewable energy, since the Trump Administration has taken the U.S. out of that increasingly lucrative industry.

As noted, we'll be taking some much-needed downtime in the week ahead. But, while we're "gone", please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving --- and remember the advice from those six Dems in their video yesterday: Don't give up the ship!

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As we head toward the holidays, some helpful advice on today's BradCast for how to deal (and even help) some of your MAGA friends and family members who may drive you crazy, even if you still love them. That, even as the very cult-like movement begins to show some serious signs in recent weeks of, just maybe, beginning to falter. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... It was a remarkable day in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday, as both the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case and others in the courtroom were reportedly "stunned into silence", after the interim U.S. Attorney who brought the case against James Comey, on behalf of Donald Trump, just before the statute of limitations was to time out, admitted that the grand jury never actually voted to approve the felony indictment filed in court against the former FBI Director!

There are a whole lot of reasons why the two felony charges against Comey, related to allegedly lying to Congress back in 2020, would likely be tossed out of court before ever reaching a jury. But today's courtroom revelation by Trump's insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan --- tapped as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (despite no prosecutorial experience), specifically to bring charges against Trump's perceived foes like Comey and New York A.G. Letitia James --- was one that few saw coming.

On Monday's show we were joined by Attorney Keith Barber to discuss that day's stunning ruling by a different judge working on a separate element of Comey's pre-trial motions. That judge's ruling was gobsmacking enough, finding a "disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps" in the prosecution's case that might "undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding". Responding to today's arguably even more gobsmacking revelations, Barber writes at Daily Kos: "Folks, on this alone the case must be dismissed. It’s over."

We should find out if he's right about that in fairly short order. U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff ordered the DOJ to respond with an explanation to this morning's admission by Halligan by end of business day today.

THEN... There are signs everywhere that things are quickly turning south for Donald Trump, from the drubbing his party took in elections earlier this month, to a faltering economy, to record-low approval ratings (even from Republicans), and this week's swift Congressional passage of a measure mandating the release of the Epstein Files within 30 days, effectively overcoming Trump's months-long attempted cover-up.

Just last week, top MAGA supporters were blowing their collective stacks after the President's insistence, during a Fox "News" interview regarding H1-B visa rules supported by Big Tech companies and now by Trump, that America doesn't have enough talented people.

All of which has resulted in recent headlines (from before yesterday's Epstein vote!), such as "MAGA's metastasizing mess" (Axios), "Trump faces a splintering GOP --- and rare dissent from his party" (WaPo), "7 signs Trump is losing his groove" (Politico), "Trump’s Grip on Republicans Shows First Signs of Slipping" (WSJ) and "The MAGA Crackup Might Finally Be Here" (NYT).

So is Trump really losing his MAGA base? Is a crackup finally here? Or, at least, getting closer?

We're joined today by former dyed-in-the-wool MAGA member and former GOP operative RICH LOGIS who, after supporting Trump in 2016 and 2020 --- with dozens of "Make America Great Hats" to prove it --- finally pulled himself out of what he now describes as Trump's MAGA cult. He went on to begin a long process of making amends to friends and family, and eventually formed the Leaving MAGA organization to help others do the same.

"One of the really difficult parts for me in my decision to leave MAGA was a recognition that Trump did not in fact care about me, when I thought he did," Logis tells me today, in response to my question about whether he believes we may finally be seeing the movement fade as it turns against itself. He cites the Epstein story as revealing so many flip-flops that his supporters may finally be closing in on an important truth. "With the Epstein story in particular," he says, "what it shows is that there is this burgeoning cognitive dissonance throughout the MAGA community. I think that people in MAGA are starting to ask themselves if Donald Trump has been lying to them for many, many years."

"Our epiphanies happen gradually, then suddenly all at once. I'm seeing that similarly with Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well," he asserts, even as he concedes there is still a long way for many to go. "I think there is still a lot of denial within the MAGA community. Trump's toxic superpower is lying. But I think with the Epstein story in particular, Trump has lied one too many times. I think that, for some in MAGA, they are starting to now stick."

We discuss much more with Logis, including why he believes Trump's Fox "News" interview on H1-B visas blew so many MAGA tops; whether the exodus from MAGA is yet being reflected in the number of folks turning to his Leaving MAGA organization; and how best to help your MAGA friends and loved ones out of the cult of misinformation, disinformation and outrage that has become "a kind of addiction" for so many of them. "The outrage creates dopamine hits. When someone has that kind of an addiction, facts and expertise don't tend to get people out of it."

So, how to deal with those folks over the holidays? He offers several tricks and tips today, along with pointers to Leaving MAGA's new, free, weekly online support group for friends and family members of those in MAGA (sign up here for more info here), and their free e-pamphlet titled Reaching Out as a "how-to guide" with "dos and don'ts" for "people who want to reach out to loved ones and friends in MAGA, but aren’t sure how."

"We don't want people to give up on their MAGA close ones," says Logis. "We are living proof that it is possible for people to change."

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