Overview
- Atlantic writer Jonathan Lemire argues the president has reached an unusually early lame-duck stage less than a year into his second term.
- Republicans are openly defying him while Democrats are outmaneuvering him, according to the analysis.
- An anonymous outside adviser told Lemire that talk of 2028 is beginning inside the GOP and warned that losing one’s own party is the fastest path to lame-duck status.
- A new tranche of Jeffrey Epstein material surfaced on Tuesday with embarrassing revelations, adding to the political drag described in the reports.
- Earlier refusal to release the Epstein files in full fractured parts of the MAGA base, drawing backlash from figures including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as polls slid on the economy and immigration and Republicans grew anxious about the midterms.