Politics

‘A world turned upside down’: MAGA faithful grapple with Trump’s Mamdani lovefest, MTG’s downfall

Published

9 months ago

November 22, 2025

Donald Trump has long claimed that he — and he alone — dictates the future of the MAGA movement. And a topsy-turvey Friday will put that to the test.

A weekend wellness check on the MAGA coalition: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Friday announced her resignation, is spurned by its leader. And incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, held up as a midterm Republican bogeyman, is now welcomed by him.

In the space of a whipsaw few hours from Friday and into Saturday morning, Trump — who has said he knows what “MAGA wants better than anybody else,” — celebrated the impending departure of “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” on Truth Social (“Marjorie went BAD,” he said) and fangirled over Mamdani (“a Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani”).

“A world turned upside down,” Steve Bannon, the onetime White House aide and MAGA media booster, said in a text.

MAGA’s Friday trip to The Upside Down all unfolded in a week during which Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another frequent intraparty Trump target, effectively cracked Trump’s hold on his congressional coalition with their Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Taken together, this week is the freshest reminder that the MAGA movement has always been defined more by id than ideology, the political shaped by the personal — presenting quite the challenge for whomever must hold the coalition together after Trump.

Trump and Mamdani’s Friday meeting ended worlds away from where most expected it to go. The get-together, which Fox News previewed as a “showdown with socialism,” ended as a friendly back-and-forth between the democratic socialist and president.

“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me,” Trump told reporters during the public portion of the get together.

For some of the president’s most ardent supporters, Trump’s praise of Mamdani — a man he previously warned would lead to ruin in New York City, and who some of Trump’s closest allies (like Elise Stefanik) spent months setting up as their personal campaign trail foil — was agonizing.

“What’s the purpose of people voting in 2026 if the Democrat policies are ‘rational?’” Trump whisperer Laura Loomer said in a interview, referencing Trump’s answer to an Oval question in which he said of Mamdani, “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.”

“I’m a little confused,” she continued, “because, like, I need to know for the sake of my own edification what the administration’s stance is on Mamdani.”

The White House dismissed any handwringing about the direction of the president’s movement.

“As the architect of the MAGA movement, President Trump will always put America First. He’s secured the border; tackled Biden’s inflation crisis; lowered drug prices; ended taxes on tips, overtime, and social security; deported criminal illegal aliens; implemented important reforms to put American workers first; and more,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.

“The fact that President Trump met with the newly elected mayor of New York City shows he is willing to talk to anyone to Make America Great Again,” she continued. “Only Blue Light News would try to spin bipartisanship as a bad thing.”

Political horseshoe moments in Trump’s Washington rarely last. But even some of Trump’s closest allies tried to separate themselves from Friday’s meeting. Stefanik — his onetime pick for United Nations ambassador who is now running for New York governor — has repeatedly called Mamdani a “jihadist,” a label Trump explicitly rejected on Friday.

“We all want NYC to succeed. But we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one,” Stefanik posted on social media on Friday, repeatedly invoking the pejorative despite Trump’s about-face.

Still, Democrats — particularly those close to the incoming mayor — were thrilled with how Friday went down. “Trump respects strength and winners,” said Rebecca Katz, founding partner at Fight Agency, whose firm made ads for Mamdani.

And some Democratic strategists focused on 2026 celebrated Trump undermining Republicans’ attempts to paint Mamdani as the midterm bogeyman he entered the day as. Did Speaker Mike Johnson’s entire 2026 strategy just crumble?

“Pour one out for the NRCC/NRSC staffers who saw their 2026 ads go up in smoke. Sad!” said the veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson.

Still, many are convinced that it is only a matter of when — not if — Trump’s embrace of the New Yorker will evaporate.

“Plenty of time for that to come if it does,” said GOP strategist Doug Heye. “Either of them coming out of that meeting on the attack would have been a mistake, especially given they’ve both tapped into voters who feel systems are broken and things cost too much.”

And some Democrats — particularly Mamdani’s intraparty critics — are convinced it all fades, and GOP messaging continues apace. Alex Hoffman, the Democratic strategist and donor adviser, said: “He will become the bogeyman as soon as he starts implementing policy and saying ‘socialist’ as the sitting mayor.”

But for Democrats, Friday’s friendly confab presented a possible path forward for handling the president.

In a year when Democrats have struggled with how to engage Trump, in which at least one of them hid behind a folder in a White House meeting and left the base wondering about her 2028 sauce, Mamdani just put on a masterclass, Katz and other Democratic strategists said.

Their theory of the case: In his meeting, he offered a template for handling Trump and Trumpism. Trump thinks Democrats are weak; Mamdani projected strength. His body language was neither embarrassed nor defensive. He did not moderate any of his positions. He didn’t grandstand, nor was he pugilistic.

“Some Democrats made the decision that they had to reject Zohran completely if they didn’t agree with all of his policies,” Katz said. “That was a mistake. Zohran doesn’t have all the answers, but he does have a way at looking at situations that is different from typical Democrats in Washington. We need a lot of wins in 2026. Let’s work together to figure out how to get them.”

Andrew Howard, Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta contributed to this report.

Politics

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

Published

2 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

lead image

Politics

Elon Musk unleashes first wave of spending on key races in the midterms

Published

3 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Elon Musk’s super PAC disclosed its first independent expenditures of the 2026 general election in a filing released late Wednesday, detailing roughly $800,000 across key House and Senate races.

Musk’s America PAC targeted several key Senate contests, including races in Texas, Maine, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan and Alaska.

The largest amount went to Texas — over $247,000 — where Republicans are expected to deploy a wave of party resources to bolster Attorney General Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.

Musk’s super PAC also put nearly $90,000 into eight House races:

Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin; Rep. Mike Lawler in New York; Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia; Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey; Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania; Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania; Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania; and Scott Singer in Florida.

The independent expenditures — Musk’s first of the general election — were disclosed days after he met with Speaker Mike Johnson in Texas last week.

Republicans already hold a significant fundraising advantage over Democrats, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s roughly $400 million in his MAGA Inc. super PAC. Trump is under growing pressure from Republicans to tap into that money as the midterms near. A major investment from Musk would further widen the GOP’s financial edge heading into November.

Musk has reportedly considered spending at least $100 million for the GOP through America PAC to help Republicans in this year’s midterms, but the full scope of that effort remains unclear.

A spokesperson for America PAC declined to comment.

Musk spent roughly $290 million to support Trump and the GOP during the 2024 cycle, predominantly through his super PAC, making him the largest individual donor to any political committee that cycle, before he took on a major role in the White House’s DOGE effort.

Politics

These mayors live along Lake America’s shores. But they won’t be calling it that.

Published

7 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Robert Corradino has never lived anywhere but Oswego, New York. As the only commercial port city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, everything bears the lake’s name — the streets, the convention center, the historic fort.

And in his first term as mayor, Corradino — a Republican who said he previously voted for President Donald Trump — said he worries that a distant political feud is threatening to erase part of his city’s history.

In the days following Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, Corradino and other mayors in upstate New York said Trump’s decision is “regrettable” and could upset voters in the region — and even further impact an economy so closely tied to the U.S.’s relationship with Canada.

“The water is part of our identity,” Corradino said. “Not only our identity, but the economy and the history of the lake is tied to the city.”

Oswego, a city of 17,000, is split between Democrats and Republicans, Corradino said. However, the larger Oswego County is one of the reddest in the state and 61 percent of its voters went for Trump in the 2024 election.

Yet on Monday, several Oswego County legislators from both parties approved a resolution rejecting the new name, out of concern for the cost of the rebrand on taxpayers and businesses. The resolution said it does not intend to diminish the authority of the federal government, rather it aims to “recognize the longstanding historical and regional significance of the name Lake Ontario.”

Last Thursday night, at Oswego’s weekly summer concert series, Corradino said everyone he interacted with said they didn’t support the name change and they weren’t sure why it was happening. The general sentiment, he said, was frustration.

Asked about the issues Oswego residents actually care about, Corradino said his constituents are concerned about less immigration enforcement and the war with Iran.

“In general the consensus I see is it just seems like the country is heading in a direction that we’re not all happy about,” Corradino said.

The pushback is not isolated to Oswego. Hours after Trump signed the executive order, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who runs the only state that borders Lake Ontario, said in a post to social media, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

And there’s been mixed adaptation nationally — similar to when Trump dictated that the Gulf of Mexico now go by Gulf of America.

Signs mark the entrance to the Lake Ontario State Parkway on Aug. 25, 2026, in Rochester, N.Y.

On Saturday, Google Maps, which uses the U.S. Geographic Names Information System that comes from official government sources, officially changed the name. Map users on the American side will see “Lake America” while users in Canada will see “Lake Ontario.” For users outside of both the U.S. and Canada, they will see both names. Apple Maps followed suit, using the same naming approach as Google.

But MapQuest — the once-dominant mapping service of the 1990s and early 2000s — rocketed up app stores after refusing to use Lake America.

Long before the lake was renamed, Alex Morgia — a Democrat and mayor of Sackets Harbor, N.Y. — said his community has been grappling with the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Sackets Harbor, located along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, is home to a number of Canadian residents. A village of 1,400 people, it was a major military outpost and naval command center during the War of 1812, when the U.S. clashed with British and Canadian forces.

Since 1971, the village has hosted the Can-Am festival to commemorate the village’s Canadian-American heritage.

The festival “reminds everyone that it’s not very nice to be at odds with your neighbor,” Morgia said. “Having good relationships with your international neighbors is important, particularly for people that live along the border on either side.”

Last year’s festival was the first time residents began making floats of maple leaves and Canadian flags to protest the Trump administration’s calls to make Canada the “51st state” and to remind Sackets Harbor residents that there were Canadian citizens among them, Morgia said.

This year, as Trump has continued to roll out tariffs against Canadian products, and relations with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney continued to worsen, Morgia joked that the theme for this year’s parade should’ve been “we’re sorry.”

The overall atmosphere at this year’s parade in July was “somber,” Morgia said.

“I kind of hoped that the Canadian issue had gone by the wayside, but you know [Trump] seems to bring it up when he needs to,” Morgia said.

Sackets Harbor is split between Democrats and Republicans, Morgia said. Jefferson County, which encompasses Sackets Harbor, overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election with 61 percent of its vote.

“It’s a three-hour drive to Montreal, a two-hour drive to Toronto and a six-hour drive to New York City,” Morgia said. “The biggest metropolitan cities near us are Canadian, and a lot of North Country businesses and people rely on the southern part of Canada. … I’m hopeful that voters will think about that at the polls in November and in 2028.”

In the village of Sodus Point, N.Y. — which is located along the southern border of the Great Lake — Republican Mayor Pat Nolan said he’s disappointed by the name-change as “Ontario” is rooted in the Indigenous history of the region.

The name Ontario, is largely believed to come from Iroquoian roots, meaning “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water,” according to the Canadian government. The Canadian province of Ontario, is named after the lake.

A village of 1,000 people, Sodus Point is located in Wayne County, where Trump received 61 percent of the vote in 2024. Nolan was elected in a write-in campaign last year.

“My hope is that, rather than allowing this decision to become another wedge that further divides people,” Nolan wrote in an email, “it can encourage a broader discussion about the history of this great body of water, the Indigenous people who first gave it its name and the generations of communities that have grown along its shores.”