The Dictatorship
Sherrod Brown could stage a 2026 upset — but he’s going to have to change some things
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday that Sherrod Brown, a three-term U.S. senator who lost to Cleveland auto dealer Bernie Moreno in last year’s election, has decided to run for the Senate seat JD Vance had before he was elected vice president. The Plain Dealer quoted Ohio labor leaders who said Brown told them of his plan to run for the seat now occupied by former Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce his intentions within the next two weeks.
Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce within the next two weeks.
The news doesn’t come as a big surprise. When Brown lost to Moreno, few people in Ohio politics expected the populist Democrat to walk off into the sunset. And the signs of his potential return have been hard to miss. He and his wife relocated to Columbus from the Cleveland area this year, which added to speculation that he was biding his time for a political comeback. When he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were seen huddling in a Columbus restaurant in late July, it seemed clear to political insiders Schumer was part of a recruitment campaign to convince Brown to run in 2026.
The news that the 72-year-old Brown is running has been enthusiastically heralded by Ohio Democrats who see it as a recruitment coup for the party in its uphill battle to unseat Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine. Many Ohioans couldn’t tell you who Husted is, but almost everybody knows Brown. After some 50 years in public office, his wide name recognition in the state is undisputed. He’s a Democrat in a red state with a track record of winning against Republicans. Yes, Moreno, a Republican political newcomer, ended Brown’s winning streak last year when he won by about 3.5 percentage points. But President Donald Trump won the state by 11 pointswhich suggests that Brown appealed to a segment of voters who chose Trump. Clearly, Moreno benefited from Trump’s coattails.
Husted cast his lot with the top 10% over the welfare of working Ohioans when he voted for Trump’s debt-ballooning $4 trillion tax cut to the ultra-rich on the backs of the poor. So in 2026, without Trump leading the ticket, Husted could be vulnerable to a well-experienced challenger with a chip on his shoulder who can effectively energize an already highly motivated base to turn out in droves for the midterms. By the time voters go to the polls next year, who knows how much fallout there will have been from the anything but “beautiful bill” Husted supported? But a sufficient number of Ohioans is likely to be fighting mad about sky-high prices, shuttered factories, dropped health insurance, shredded safety nets, gutted public services and a reduction in vital veterans’ support. There’s also likely to be anger at armed military in the streets and sprawling detention centers for immigrants that simulate concentration camps.
Brown will work to make Husted own the pain caused to Ohio families who will lose their SNAP benefits, to Ohio veterans who will be denied care to due to mass staffing cuts and eliminated services, and to the strategically delayed (until after the midterms) Medicaid cuts and work requirements that could leave 440,000 Ohioans uninsured.
Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.
Expect Brown to lead the charge for human dignity over despair, justice over lawlessness, better outcomes for everyday Americans over what the Trumpian plutocracy offers in scraps to everyone but the favored wealthy. Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that will be paid for by hundreds of thousands of uninsured and hungry constituents.
But Brown cannot wage the same old-school, play-it-safe campaign he ran in 2024, when even challenger Moreno mocked him publicly for his timidity to make waves. He cannot pull punches. He cannot misread the moment or the mindset of rank-and-file Democrats, independents and Never-Trumpers who are screaming for bold, authentic, tell-it-like-it-is fighters to save the country. They have had it with play-by-the-book, norms-abiding, feckless politicians who talk like infuriating politicians. If Brown can make it personal with Ohio voters who feel betrayed by Husted and his party, who are drowning in the cost of living, struggling to afford tariff-inflated groceries, utilities, out-of-pocket medical care and ever rising rent on incomes stretched to the max, he can win.
If he can make it personal with Ohio farmers reeling from Trump’s funding cuts to promised subsidies and market-destroying tariffs slapped on key trading partners, he can broaden his appeal in rural communities. If he can make it personal about growing numbers of children and seniors denied food aid in the bill Husted endorsedhe can make empathy a call for action. If he can make it personal on immigrants Ohioans know and respect being treated like dogs as masked thugs raid farms and Home Depot parking lots to stuff them into unmarked vans to be disappeared, he can be a welcomed voice for humanity, decency and the rule of law to forcefully counter a lawless Trump regime Husted supports.
Ohio Demcorats haven’t cultivated a farm team of young, communications-savvy Democrats who can win a statewide election. Thus, Brown is the only real chance Democrats have against Husted. In addition to having to defend the big, awful bill to constituents on the losing end of unpaid-for giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, Husted, a former state lawmaker, will also have to defend himself from the stench of being associated with a bribery scandal that involved the utility company FirstEnergy spending $61 million for a $1 billion bailout and resulted in a former Republican Ohio House Speaker being sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Text messages between a FirstEnergy CEO and a vice president who have since been charged in an alleged federal racketeering conspiracy related to the bribery scandal include descriptions of phone conversations they say they had with Husted about the legislation— some he apparently initiated — and reveal that they considered him the lawmaker handling the details of the bailout legislation. Husted, who was never charged with a crime, has said he didn’t know about any bribes regarding the bailout legislation that he helped get passed.
If Brown taps into the growing movement demanding a course correction, raises enough money to compete with the ton of cash coming Husted’s way and reminds voters why they sent him to the U.S. Senate three times before, he could well return to the upper chamber on Capitol Hill in a blue-wave election. But “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Husted has to be considered the favorite. A Brown win would be an upset.
Marila Johanek
Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics in addition to early writing and producing stints at CBS News and BLN. The Ohio native has also analyzed policymaking and political players as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
The Dictatorship
President Trump spoke to Live Nation CEO before antitrust case was settled, company lawyers reveal
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump spoke personally with the chief executive of Live Nation in the weeks before the Justice Department abruptly settled its longstanding antitrust lawsuit against the entertainment giant and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, the company revealed in a court filing.
Lawyers for Live Nation told the court on Monday that Trump and the company’s CEO, Michael Rapino, spoke about the antitrust lawsuit in February, but didn’t discuss “substantive terms” of any potential settlement.
They also said that White House lawyers were involved in some of the numerous in-person meetings, videoconferences, telephone calls and written communications between the company and the Justice Department in February and March.
Just days into the March trial, the Justice Department announced a settlement that most states refused to join, saying it did not go far enough to curb the company’s dominance over concert venues and ticketing for live events though Ticketmaster.
The trial continued, and a jury concluded several weeks later that the company was a monopoly that cost concertgoers and sports fans.
The White House declined to comment on Live Nation’s disclosure, referring questions to the Justice Department, which didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The revelation comes as the Justice Department has faced criticism that its independence has been threatened by substantial oversight or interference from the White House and the president.
The Justice Department and dozens of states originally teamed up to bring the antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation.
Among other things, the jury in New York found Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive practices led to people in 22 states paying an extra $1.72 per ticket, which the judge could order the companies to pay back.
State attorneys general who sued Live Nation said the verdict could potentially lead to lower ticket prices for music fans.
The federal government’s settlement deal included a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters, plus some new ticket-selling options for promoters and venues — potentially allowing, but not requiring, them to open doors to Ticketmaster competitors such as SeatGeek or AXS.
In April, Live Nation said in a statement that the verdict “is not the last word on this matter.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that’s part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
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Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S. agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.
But it’s rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Wednesday marks four years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Dobbs decisionwhich effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. On “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski explained how the ruling set off a domino effect across the United States, affecting not just abortion-related care, but also altering “the state of women’s healthcare as a whole.”
As Brzezinski noted, states across the country have enacted harsher abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, with 13 outright banning the procedure with very limited exceptions. This has created a climate of fear among those who treat pregnant patients, with many healthcare providers worrying that any care involving an abortion could violate the law, even when the mother’s health is at risk.
“We are talking about people dying when they’re miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to intervene and save their lives,” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for The Nation, told MS NOW.
Brzezinski said the laws have effectively limited women’s “access to lifesaving healthcare.”
The MS NOW host reflected on some high-profile stories of pregnant women who faced delayed care in states with near-total abortion bans, noting “the numbers of cases that we’ve covered here on the show of women who have had their lives threatened, have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies, and then, by the way, denied the access to ever create life again, because they became sterilized in the process.”
“There’s an image I can’t get out of my head,” Brzezinski added, before sharing reporting from ProPublica about Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother who died in Texas in 2023 after not receiving timely care for a miscarriage.
“For months afterward, Porsha’s 3-year-old son would chase after women who looked like her on the street, shouting, ‘That’s Mommy!’” Brzezinski said. “That’s the detail I can’t forget. I can’t stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers on the street. And that story repeats itself.”
You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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