Politics

Harris: ‘In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there’

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Harris: ‘In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there’

As most people know, the sitting president lives in the White House during his or her tenure, but where the sitting vice president lives might not be common knowledge: He or she lives at the U.S. Naval Observatory, which is only a few miles to the northwest of the White House.

Much of the public might not be aware of this, in large part because Americans generally don’t get to see the Naval Observatory. As a day-to-day matter, major political events simply don’t happen there.

But there are exceptions. Just as much of the country was starting to learn about former White House chief of staff John Kelly’s newest and most provocative accusations about Donald Trump, Kamala Harris’ aides announced that she would deliver remarks at the vice presidential residence — a rarity for both her and her predecessors.

Those who assumed the Democratic candidate would address Kelly’s comments were quickly proven correct. NBC News reported:

‘It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans,’ Harris said. ‘All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.’ Harris said Kelly’s comments furthered her belief that Trump is ‘unstable’ and unfit for office, adding that he has now surrounded himself with people who would allow him to operate with ‘unchecked power.’

“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable,” the vice president added. “And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to rein him in.

“So, the bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be: What do the American people want?”

Hours later, Harris participated in a BLN town hall and continued to keep the focus on Kelly’s assessment of his former boss: The Democrat not only endorsed the retired general’s description of Trump as a “fascist,” she also described the former White House chief of staff’s new comments as “a 911 call to the American people.”

Harris went on to say, in reference to Trump’s critics from his own inner circle, “We must take very seriously those folks who knew him best.”

But wait, there’s more. The Harris campaign also organized a press call with retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson, a former senior counselor to Kelly and a Republican, as well as retired Army Reserve Colonel Kevin Carroll.

“Let’s be clear, the dangers of a second Trump term don’t lie solely in his rhetoric, but in his actions,” Carroll told reporters. “The last time Donald Trump was in power, he did try to enlist the military into his attempts to overturn a free and fair election that he knew he lost. He tried to weaponize our military against American citizens, including peaceful protesters. Again, he floated ‘terminating,’ in his words, the U.S. Constitution that service members swear an oath to, that these actions are outrageous and unacceptable. They fly in the face of everything our country stands for.

“The only reason Trump was stopped the last time was because people like General Kelly stood in the breach and acted as a check to Trump’s worst impulses. A second time around, those guardrails won’t exist. … He’s surrounding himself with little loyalists and toadies who will greenlight every one of his wishes, letting him bulldoze the tenets of our democracy and lock up fellow Americans, including sitting members of Congress, whom he calls ‘the enemy within.’”

By all appearances, the point of these furious efforts was to drive home a relatively simple point: This is it. This is the moment that might very well change everything. This is the five-alarm fire. This is what the whole campaign might very well be about.

A retired four-star general, who served at the Republican candidate’s side for two years, desperately wants his fellow Americans to know that he heard Trump disparage veterans. He heard Trump offer private praise for “Hitler’s generals” and the “good things” the former president thought Hitler did. He saw Trump try to abuse his powers. He knows why Trump meets the “definition of ‘fascist.’” He understands as well as anyone in the country that Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government.” He explained that Trump wants a military that puts its loyalty to him over its loyalty to the Constitution.

Harris and her team see this as the front page, above-the-fold news that we’ve been waiting for — the news that should decide who the nation’s next president will be. It’s now up to the electorate to decide whether it agrees.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict

Published

2 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

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US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict

Published

3 hours ago

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Poll: Voter cynicism remains a potent threat to incumbents across the globe

Published

3 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters punished ruling parties across the globe in 2024. They are doing it again now.

The same voters who rejected their rulers without mercy on both sides of the Atlantic — throwing out Britain’s Conservatives after 14 years in power and humbling Democrats in the United States — are now poised to deliver resounding defeats to the very leaders they elected two years ago.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces the prospect of being ousted later this year if a key rival in Manchester can pull off a win in a special parliamentary vote next week. President Donald Trump, while locked into power until January 2029, appears to be barreling toward lame duck status with Democrats growing increasingly bullish about their midterm prospects in November — particularly in winning back the U.S. House.

And The POLITICO Poll suggests Western voters’ desire for political bloodletting hasn’t abated.

Building on previous work by Public First, the London-based firm that conducts the survey, a new analysis of May Blue Light News Poll results show large shares of voters in both the United Kingdom and United States express deep cynicism about politics and a constant desire for radical change — suggesting the forces behind the backlash may still be potent, and that power switching hands this year may not be enough to quell them.

In America, 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump. In the U.K., voters are similarly angry at politicians, who they blame for being unable to address a variety of issues, including cost of living and immigration. New results from The POLITICO Poll, conducted over the weekend, show a 56 percent majority of U.K. adults said the bigger problem with politics in the U.K. is the politicians who do not do the right thing, while just 15 percent blame the system itself.

That deep dissatisfaction has metastasized into a perpetual anti-incumbent frustration in recent years. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party had its worst result in a national election in several decades, and Canada’s Justin Trudeau stepped down amid growing voter frustration. Just since February of last year, the rulers of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have all been ejected at key elections.

Now the U.K. is watching the vote in Makerfield next week, which may determine whether Starmer gets to keep his job amid public outrage at his handling of fallout from the Epstein scandal, and voter concerns about immigration, the economy and law enforcement. If Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, succeeds in being elected back to Parliament next week, it will almost certainly trigger a series of events that could end in the removal of the deeply unpopular Starmer as the head of the Labour Party — and prime minister.

The result could ripple across the Atlantic as Republicans face their own political headwinds ahead of the crucial November midterms in the United States.

“What we’re seeing is a cross-Atlantic disconnect between voters and electeds,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist in Washington and senior partner at Penta, a consulting firm.

“Voters in the U.S. are squarely focused on at-home domestic priorities and kitchen-table concerns like food, health care and housing costs. So when the headlines are focused on foreign conflict and disruptions to global markets, those will reinforce the disconnect.”

Deep cynicism in the UK spells trouble for Starmer

In 2024, the rejection of incumbents came amid a growing frustration over the cost of living and broader economic anxieties. Whether that backlash was a temporary response — or reflects an engrained dissatisfaction with political institutions — is a question now confronting leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, as affordability concerns continue to spiral.

In the U.K., the analysis from Public First finds a deep sense of political disillusionment. The firm developed a series of measures to understand that feeling of “anti-politics”, and cynicism stood out: Voters who believe politicians are self-serving, that political talk rarely leads to real action and that the public has little influence over what politicians actually do.

Nearly half of British adults — 45 percent — scored high on Public First’s cynicism scale; so did 37 percent of U.S. adults.

The findings underscore the challenge facing Starmer. New results from The Blue Light News Poll conducted last weekend show nearly two-thirds of U.K. adults — 64 percent — said they don’t think Starmer will remain as prime minister until the next general election.

The center-left U.K. leader has suffered the most dramatic plunge in popularity of any prime minister in British history. Since winning a landslide victory just under two years ago, Starmer has seen his Labour Party fall to historic lows in opinion polls, while the nationalist right-wing Reform U.K. of Nigel Farage has stormed into the lead in polls and local elections, mirroring the success of insurgent populists across Europe.

Three-quarters of highly cynical voters in the U.K. hold an unfavorable view of Starmer, the Public First analysis of a May Blue Light News Poll found — far higher than the national average.

The Makerfield by-election on June 18 will determine whether Burnham, Starmer’s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour’s representative, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister. Burnham’s main rival in the by-election is the Reform U.K. candidate — whose victory would likely end Burnham’s leadership ambitions, plunge Labour into unprecedented turmoil and send the national government into fresh disarray.

But Makerfield looks likely to be terrible for Starmer, whoever wins. Either it will be Burnham, who will then go to London to try to oust the prime minister, or it will be Reform U.K. — fuelling claims that Starmer has toxified his own party beyond repair.

Why Trump should be watching closely

It’s a cautionary tale for Trump, the Public First research found.

As Starmer confronts dropping favorability ratings, Trump’s own numbers have also plummeted — and the segment of cynical Americans may be as dangerous for the president as their British cohort is for the prime minister.

Among this group, 57 percent hold an unfavorable view of Trump and his agenda, compared with 48 percent nationally.

That could pose a challenge for Republicans heading into the midterms. Elections in the U.S. historically punish the party in power, and many Republicans are bracing for an even more difficult than anticipated midterm landscape, fueled by the mounting economic concerns and an unpopular war in Iran.

“The biggest mood shift is taking place among voters in the big middle,” Madden said. “These are the same voters that migrated toward Trump and the GOP in 2024 because they were nostalgic for a Trump economy and they rallied around a message focused on tackling inflation.”.

Sizable shares of cynical Americans hold negative views about the economy. Among these respondents, 52 percent say their financial situation has worsened since Trump took office in 2025 and 59 percent say Trump has spent too much time focused on international affairs rather than domestic issues.

Trump, who rode to power in 2024 in large part over voter dissatisfaction to the economy during the Biden administration, is now confronting a similar challenge. Recent polling finds voters increasingly blaming Trump for their financial pressures, even as he continues to cast blame to his predecessor.

Part of the problem for incumbents is that many people blame politicians — not the broader system — for their dissatisfaction, underscoring the challenge for the leaders as voters begin to turn on them. Nearly half of British adults, 45 percent, say the country keeps changing prime ministers “because none of them are any good,” while just 26 percent blame “big problems that not even a good PM could solve.”

As soon as leaders are elected by a frustrated, dissatisfied electorate to turn things around — as both Starmer and Trump were in 2024 — the clock begins to tick.

“Elections are so often now about which candidate can channel the frustrations of a cynical electorate,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, Blue Light News’s polling partner.

“Republicans and Democratic candidates alike should pay attention to what is happening in the U.K.,” he said. “It is far harder to win over an antipolitical voter base when you represent the ‘politics,’ and given how fast Britain is working through Prime Ministers cynical voters seem to be getting more common and less patient.”