The Dictatorship
James Clyburn says Democrats are misreading their own base. Here’s his fix.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — If you ask James Clyburn why the Democratic Party has such low approval ratings, he won’t start with the platform. He won’t even start with the candidates. He’ll start with a critique of the chattering class.
“We pay too much attention to the consulting class and not enough attention to our constituents,” the 85-year-old congressman said in a wide-ranging interview ahead of his annual fish fry this weekend, which has become a rite of passage for every Democrat mulling a presidential run. “Our constituents know what they feel, and we have to pay attention to people’s feelings.”
For someone who has spent decades inside the machinery of Democratic politics, Clyburn’s prescription is striking. He was the majority whip who counted the votes for the Affordable Care Act, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and the man credited with reviving Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. He has been, in other words, the kind of power broker he’s now critiquing.
Maybe it’s all that experience that gives him the standing to say out loud what many Democrats only say behind closed doors. His diagnosis: The party is losing a fight over perception that it doesn’t fully understand it’s in — and that’s true despite Democratic overperformance in nearly every race since Vice President Kamala Harris lost to President Donald Trump.
The data isn’t on the party’s side, and Clyburn knows it. A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 70% of respondents were dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, including 54% of people who voted for Harris. Asked what he would say to Black voters — the party’s most dependable bloc — who feel their loyalty has gone unrewarded, Clyburn didn’t dispute the sentiment. Instead, he reframed it.
“People think that you’re making progress when you’re making headlines,” he said. “You make progress when you make headway. And we have been making headway all across the board, and then we get a lot of criticism because the headlines aren’t there.”
That instinct — do the work, let it stand on its own — is vintage Clyburn. But he also knows the communications failure that comes with it is real and costly. He said he has told colleagues, including Biden, that “there is no substitute for substance,” a line he credits to the Republican civic leader John Gardner.
The problem is that maxim no longer wins.
“That’s not quite true anymore,” he said, “because of the media ecosystem. Style trumps substance today.”
His prescription, nonetheless, is a return to the basics he believes the consultant class has quietly billed out of the party.
“We’ve got to listen to [the voters],” he said. And he offered a theory of the case for why the consultants don’t: “They don’t get their percentages out of ground operations; they get it off how much [is spent] on television.”
In his telling, Democrats keep trying to convert voters instead of turning out the ones already in their camp. Clyburn, the preacher’s son, went looking for a metaphor in the church he grew up in. His father preached every Sunday, he said, without expecting the entire congregation to come down to the mourner’s bench — the spot reserved for those ready to be saved. “I don’t think conversion therapy ought to be placed on voters. What you got to do is energize voters.”
A calendar fight
For Clyburn, you can’t energize a base you have misidentified. And right now, he believes his party is making that mistake: The consultant class often conflates the base of the Democratic Party with its louder, progressive wing rather than Black voters, who are often more moderate.
He sees that misidentification at work in the fight over which states should vote first in the presidential nominating process.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee elevated South Carolina to the first slot in the nation in the 2024 cycle. More recently, party leaders including DNC Chair Ken Martin have signaled the lineup is about to be reshuffled.
Clyburn is not asking for South Carolina to remain first; he’s asking for it to remain first in the South. His argument: It is four distinct political cultures crammed into one inexpensive media market, a place where a candidate can test-drive a message without going broke.
Demoting it, he said, would be “a slap in the face” and a betrayal of the Black voters the party keeps vowing to protect. He draws a direct line between Republican redistricting efforts across the country, which are set to gut Black political representation across the old Confederacy and his own party’s willingness to sideline South Carolina. He worries Democrats are undercutting Black political power even as they accuse Republicans of doing the same.
A map fight
The calendar battle is running parallel to a more immediate one. For several weeks this month, the future of Clyburn’s congressional district hung on whether a handful of Republican state senators would follow President Trump’s lead and eliminate his seat entirely. They didn’t … for now. A gerrymandered map, he acknowledges, is likely coming back. The process isn’t dead — it’s stalled.
“I don’t think you’ll stop the map from coming back, and I don’t know that we should,” he said. His plan is to fight it on the merits, arguing that a 45% Black district is a far smaller racial outlier than the 75% white districts the proposed map would create. He believes some Republican legislators may already see it that way.
The collapse, he said, came down to three converging forces: a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that the existing district passed constitutional muster, thousands of overseas and military ballots already cast in the 2026 cycle and early voting turnout that shattered records.
“Almost 100,000 people have voted” already in the state’s 2026 elections, he said. “What we’re supposed to do? Tell those people, ‘your votes don’t matter’?”
What plainly irritated him was the map’s origins. It was drawn with the help of artificial intelligence and pushed by people who don’t live in South Carolina.
“There’s a certain independent streak about them,” he said of his fellow South Carolinians, noting that the same streak made the state both the first to secede from the Union and the first to implement Reconstruction. A few Republicans broke ranks, including one he had never met who called to say his conscience wouldn’t let him vote for it.
It is, he said, a fight he intends to win. But even as he’s waging it, the phone keeps ringing with calls from people who want to know what comes next.
Looking toward 2028
It is impossible to sit across from Clyburn for long without 2028 entering the room. The fish fry, now in its 35th year, will be attended by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and California Rep. Ro Khanna — two Democrats openly flirting with runs for president. Clyburn’s blessing, as ever, would make any primary fight considerably easier.
He has worked the phones with a long list of potential contenders: Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, among others. He insists, the way kingmakers often do, that he hasn’t picked a favorite.
Pressed on whether he keeps a list of the possible candidates in order of preference, he offered nothing. “I may have, but I wouldn’t share them with you.”
What he says he’s hunting for is vision. He draws a careful distinction, lifted from his father’s sermons, between that and a dream. He name-checked former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as leaders who drew voters to something larger than just a policy sheet.
“Find that candidate who can articulate a vision that will appeal to the emotions in the Democratic voters,” he said. His other note for the eventual nominee amounted to a critique of the present: Stop letting Republicans set the terms. “You can’t play the other person’s game.”
One more term?
It’s a game Clyburn knows well. At 85, he is on a glide path to an 18th term in Congress, a fact that invites an obvious question: After the ACA, after electing a president, after everything, why run again? What else is there?
His former counterparts in House Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, have already announced they are stepping aside this year to make room for younger leaders. Clyburn said he considered doing that, too, then reversed course after sitting down with his three daughters and hearing from constituents terrified of losing the seat to a newcomer right as the redistricting fight loomed.
“The question was, ‘Who would be best to hold on to this seat: someone brand new, or you with your record and relationships?” Clyburn told MS NOW.
He bristled at the premise that he owes anyone a goodbye. He wasn’t elected to Congress until he was 52.
“I didn’t get there when Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer got there,” he said. “So why do I have to leave when they leave?”
He acknowledged a secondary motive that allies have floated privately: the chance to advise Hakeem Jeffries, who would become the first Black speaker if Democrats retake the House — a rise Clyburn helped engineer. A seat in Congress would make him a considerably more powerful kingmaker with a Democratic majority.
For now, Clyburn is doing what he has always done: counting votes, working the occasional Republican and watching November. If turnout holds, he believes, even the strategists in Washington will have to take the hint.
That, in the end, was the whole case he spent the conversation making: The voters were never the problem.
Eugene Daniels is an MS NOW senior Washington correspondent and co-host of “The Weekend,” which airs on Saturdays and Sundays from 7 to 10 a.m. ET on MS NOW.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a spokesperson said late Wednesday, as two retiring Republicans on the panel dug in over President Donald Trump’s personal “anti-weaponization” deal with the government he runs.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s decision to delay the committee vote that had been set for Thursday marks a setback for one of Trump’s highest-profile Cabinet nominees, at the hands of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a pair of Republicans set to leave the chamber next year.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” the committee spokesperson said.
Blanche’s nomination to permanently head the Department of Justice needs the support of either Cornyn or Tillis to make it out of the committee to a vote by the full Senate, assuming all Democrats remain opposed.
“Why don’t you call over the Department of Justice and tell them they have one hour and 50 minutes to get me what I asked for,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday afternoon amid the hardening standoff over his demand that Blanche and the DOJ put in writing a commitment never to pursue the president’s prized “anti-weaponization” fund, and to clarify the terms of Trump’s personal deal with the Internal Revenue Service.
Tillis told MS NOW that the conversations were complicated by the need for the Justice Department to get “several parties” to agree on the language of the statement Cornyn and Tillis are seeking.
“What I’ve advised the chair, and I would assume Senator Cornyn said something similar, is that we’re not prepared to vote yes yet,” he added.
“The Department has been in regular communication with Committee members for weeks, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Senators to address any concerns,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in response to the decision to postpone the committee vote.
Cornyn was set to meet with Blanche on Wednesday morning, but the meeting was called off after Blanche failed to meet the senator’s demand for written proposals to modify the controversial settlement agreement he brokered between Trump and the IRS. The Republican senator is set to leave Congress when his term ends in January after a bruising May primary loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump’s chosen candidate.
“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard (Blanche) is going through quite nicely.”
Cornyn made clear to Blanche during his confirmation hearing that he will not get his support until he agrees to reopen and modify the settlement. Due to the committee’s narrow Republican majority, one GOP “no” vote is enough to sink Blanche’s nomination.
The senator has asked Blanche to provide proof that the proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund established as part of the deal between Trump and the IRS is formally dead, and he has also demanded Blanche narrow the tax audit immunity provisions the settlement afforded to Trump and his family.
Blanche has publicly stated that his department has dropped the fund, but he and the DOJ have dodged requests from Cornyn and a federal judge to put that in writing.
After announcing his meeting with Blanche would not take place Wednesday morning, Cornyn told reporters that changes from Blanche “in a modified release form” would be acceptable, but that “for some reason … they simply refuse to do it,” referring to the DOJ.
Shortly after the meeting was called off, a Justice Department official told MS NOW that the department “provided a written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff yesterday following ongoing discussion with both the Committee and the Senator’s office.”
Cornyn said that proposal was “not responsive” to his demands because it did not address the tax audit immunity provisions in the settlement, one of his key demands.
In May, Blanche signed an addendum as part of the deal that granted Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from pending IRS tax audits. That agreement, which has been decried by former IRS officials and legal experts as unlawful self-dealing, is being contested in federal court.
Cornyn noted that Blanche testified under oath that he could meet the request during his confirmation hearing.
“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” Cornyn said when asked why he thinks the DOJ could be slow-walking his request.
Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived this week for his tour of Washington, he may have had a mission in mind.
Netanyahu needed to overcome his newly diminished stature and waning influence over his once close friend President Donald Trump as both leaders grapple with the unpopularity of a war they started together and is escaping their control.
His meeting at the White House with Trump on Tuesday, which was closed to the press, was the first face-to-face encounter between the two allies since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28.
Trump gave him a muted welcome and afterwards simply described the meeting as “very good.” “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Rather than an intimate one-on-one setting, the Oval Office was full of top U.S. officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
But Netanyahu continued the full court press on the Trump administration.
Over the course of two days, in addition to seeing Trump and attending Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral at the Capitol, Netanyahu also met separately with Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio, White House and Israeli officials confirmed to MS NOW.
The Israeli prime minister’s slate of meetings with key U.S. national security officials comes at a pivotal moment in the Iran conflict as tensions escalate in the region and Americans increasingly sour on the war. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 60% of American voters opposing U.S. military action against Iran and 74% against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Not only does Trump face pressure as Republicans face an uphill battle to retain congressional control in this fall’s midterms, Netanyahu’s fate as prime minister is at stake in Israel’s upcoming September elections – and he can’t afford to lose Trump’s favor.
The talks largely focused on what to do next as Iran continues to menace shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against American bases in the region and launch attacks on Gulf allies.
According to a senior Israeli official who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to a final decision after discussing three paths forward: get a “good deal” focused on Iran’s nuclear program and enriched material, have no deal and instead continue the blockade and economic pressure, or take escalated military action.
But Netanyahu did not tell Trump what he should do – nor did he express a preference.
The senior Israeli official noted Netanyahu has not ruled out diplomacy – as long as it is coupled with “very strong pressures,” calling the push to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program “a contest of will and a contest of force.”
“There are ways of squeezing them and squeezing them and squeezing them and negotiating at the same time,” the official said.
Netanyahu did not present President Trump with new intelligence regarding the underground Iranian nuclear facility Pickaxe Mountain, per the senior Israeli official, noting the U.S. and Israel already are constantly sharing intelligence – and know where Iran’s highly enriched material is. “We don’t think it’s moved, and I think we have a pretty good grasp on that,” the official said.
During their meeting on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed ways Israel and the U.S. can work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and get the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime trade, the senior Israeli official said.
The two leaders also discussed a third goal: to continue to undermine the Iranian regime and “possibly create future conditions for a change in that area.” U.S. officials have backed away from pursuing paths that would overthrow the current leadership, but Netanyahu still believes that could happen.
“The chasm that has been created between the people and the regime is not about to be closed,” the senior Israeli official said of Netanyahu’s thinking.
Netanyahu advised Trump in February that Israeli intelligence indicated launching strikes against Iran would lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic’s regime – and five months later, the slain ayatollah’s son retains power with a close circle of hardliners, calling into question the accuracy of Israel’s intelligence apparatus.
But the senior Israeli official said at the time, Netanyahu did not promise the Iranian people would take fate into their own hands following a coordinated attack. Rather, he chose his words carefully and said that an attack could create conditions to “advance the probability or the possibility that that would happen.”
The conditions needed for the Iranian regime to fall, “did not materialize,” the official told MS NOW, adding, “not for lack of insight, but for either operational failure or decisions that were made.”
Despite Netanyahu insisting Israel and the U.S. are on the same page, differences still remain: the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and the Saudi nuclear arrangement did not come up during Wednesday’s White House meeting, according to a second Israeli official granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spread, with an Iranian drone attacking a U.S. gas storage tanker off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday.
Trump indicated he would not let Iran’s latest action slide, telling reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran even as he leaves room for diplomatic talks to resume.
“It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point,” Trump said. “But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
As for what it would take for Israel to join the U.S. strikes, the senior Israeli official said that if Israel is attacked by Iran, “We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly. And I think Iran would make a great mistake.”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
International rage over FIFA’s close ties to President Donald Trump has reached a fever pitch after soccer’s governing body announced a plan to sell a significant stake to an investor group led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law.
The president and his family have all but turned the White House into their personal piggy bank. And FIFA — which has its own sordid history of corruption — seems to have made itself a party to Trump’s self-enrichment under Gianni Infantino’s leadership, such as by paying for space inside Trump Tower in New York. (The organization has defended the office rental as a World Cup outpost.)
Soccer is seen by many as a unifying game. But Trump’s incorporation of FIFA into his political dynasty is threatening that idea.
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
A press release from FIFA confirmed the plans and said Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, is expected to lead the investment group that would control FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA did not clarify why Thrive Eternal was selected, and Kushner was already dabbling in sports.
But Trump basically has already given son-in-law Jared Kushner carte blanche to dictate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East while simultaneously hatching business plans in the region. (Jared Kushner has denied any conflicts of interest.)
Joshua Kushner reportedly has been a major donor to Democrats. But, predictably, the idea of another Kushner becoming financially entwined with the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — and basically being dropped into a position of global significance isn’t going over well. Several other soccer governing bodies have expressed concerns, including Europe’s UEFA.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement about The Athletic’s report, adding: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rebuked the plan, writing on X: “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough — now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
FIFA, Donald Trump’s favorite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!
Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough—now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a… https://t.co/knSZibuMea
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 28, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has already launched an investigation into the FIFA leader’s relationship with the Trump administration, while dozens of European lawmakers — citing concerns about “potential breaches of political neutrality” — have called for the FIFA Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino. This new proposal seems unlikely to assuage those concerns.
But what it does seem likely to do is fuel global anger toward the U.S. — the kind that has been growing since Trump retook office.
And when you consider that, it’s truly remarkable how the same MAGA movement whose members whined for years about politics mixing with sports is now in lockstep with a president who seems dead-set on casting his shadow over every sports event he can.
This post on X basically sums up the foul stench around FIFA’s latest proposal.
Sepp Blatter was Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president and oversaw the organization amid some of its many scandals. When heof all people, is warning about how Trump and Infantino’s relationship is “deeply damaging” soccer, it’s a sign of how far FIFA has descended into the gutter.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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