The Dictatorship

Democratic socialists are winning. Their ambitions don’t stop at Capitol Hill.

Published

3 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Democratic socialists are winning. Their ambitions don’t stop at Capitol Hill.

Christmas. 1, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT

A year ago, the Democratic Socialists of America had two members in Congress. After Tuesday, they are on track to have at least five — and their leaders are aiming higher still.

The group’s newest triumph came in Denver, where Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, toppled Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, who has represented Colorado’s 1st Congressional District since 1997. It is the latest in a run of Democratic primary upsets that has the DSA eyeing further gains this fall — and, its leaders say, a competitive run at the White House in 2028.

Kiros is one of several DSA-backed insurgents to win Democratic primaries in the last several weeks — among them Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, who prevailed in two heavily Democratic seats in New York — enough to more than double the group’s presence in a chamber where Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are its only current members. The ranks could grow again Aug. 4, when former Rep. Cori Bush, also a democratic socialist, tries to reclaim the St. Louis-area seat she lost in 2024. Public polling in her rematch against Rep. Wesley Bell is scant.

Megan Romer, a national DSA co-chair, predicted the newcomers would change how the chamber operates.

“You’re going to see some real fighters in there who are really ready to go to bat for making sure that things are the best they can be, as opposed to jumping straight to sort of milquetoast compromise that benefits the ultrawealthy,” she told MS NOW.

The democratic socialist candidates on the ballot this year have campaigned on the priorities at the core of the DSA platform: Medicare for All, more affordable housing, higher taxes on wealthy Americans and a forthrightly pro-Palestinian foreign policy.

Establishment Democrats have bristled at the candidates’ combative posture and far-left positions, warning that an all-or-nothing commitment to those goals could produce gridlock in a Democratic-controlled House and weigh the party down in general elections.

“We need centrists to win nationally,” Democratic strategist Al Mottur told MS NOW. “I think that some of these positions are so extreme that they will be rejected when we head to a national climate, which is what 2028 will be.”

But DSA leaders say they don’t expect their members to break with fellow Democrats on every vote on Blue Light News.

“Probably they will be very safe [Democratic] votes on things that are serving the people,” Romer said.

Avila Chevalier, 32, who unseated Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th District, has drawn criticism from fellow Democrats over her far-left positions and a provocative social media history. She told MS NOW she believes she can work with anyone in the party.

“I think people are surprised when they hear from me and they don’t hear someone who’s ready to chew their head off, because that’s not who I’ve ever been,” Avila Chevalier said.

Since last Tuesday, she said, “old guard” congressional Democrats have reached out to offer their support, though she declined to name them.

The DSA’s reach now extends beyond Congress. In New York, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani captured the mayoralty, putting the movement in charge of the country’s largest city. But the group is seeking to use its aggressive groundwork apparatus to extend its reach beyond just a few big cities.

Romer described an around-the-clock effort to conduct “millions of one-on-one conversations trying to get people on board with this idea that they deserve more, that if we get folks together and move in a concerted effort in some direction, we’re able to win things for the working class.”

Across the country, the DSA partners with local movements focused on issues such as housing and public transit — and those movements are often where it finds candidates. One Buffalo-area contender for the New York State Assembly, Romer said, spent years with a DSA housing initiative before running.

The group, a frequent critic of corporate super PAC spending, is funded by dues from its more than 100,000 members nationwide; Romer said members are encouraged to contribute 1 percent of their income. The national organization employs only about 30 people, and volunteers do much of the work.

All those behind-the-scenes efforts amount to a platform grounded in affordability. Yet even as Avila Chevalier and Valdez leaned hard on that theme, precinct-level data shows New York’s DSA candidates struggling in many low-income areas while winning in high-income ones.

“That’s a challenge we are trying to overcome,” said Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of the New York City DSA. “I think with extremely low-income voters, the challenge is that apathy is kind of so profound in the most depoliticized sectors of society that it’s just a bigger hurdle, I think, to make the case that we can actually transform society and other parts of the working class.”

Mottur, the Democratic strategist, called the paradox “amusing.”

“The voter who’s in the place where they can’t afford something, to be honest, I think they’re more sensible voters,” he said. “If you live in a lower income area, you probably care more about crime than the person who lives on the Upper West Side, and a candidate who says ‘I don’t believe in prisons,’ that is crazy talk.”

DSA leaders are already looking to the next cycle, hoping to expand in Congress — and perhaps to contest the White House.

“We have an internal committee that’s working on that process right now already,” Romer said of the effort to recruit a candidate for president in 2028.

Mounting a socialist challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who may be the next speaker of the House, “has been discussed,” she said.

But the movement’s unity has limits — and the newest DSA winners are already declining to promise they will march in lockstep. Even the biggest names have kept their distance from one another: Ocasio-Cortez, the highest-profile democratic socialist in Congress, did not endorse Valdez or Avila Chevalier. And Avila Chevalier would not commit to backing future DSA-aligned challengers to sitting Democrats, telling MS NOW she would need to consult with allies and community leaders first.

“I think that’s a decision that each individual comes to on their own,” Avila Chevalier said, despite noting the importance of “moving in coordination with our movement.”

Asked directly if she was committed to endorsing future DSA-backed candidates, she said, “These are conversations that you come to your community when the time comes, and you come to decisions together.”

DSA leaders told MS NOW that the success of Valdez and Avila Chevalier without Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement shows the movement is strong enough that it doesn’t need that public support.

But, Gordillo said, “I do think that it’s important for our electeds to support democratic socialists running for office, and sometimes it does require many making a hard choice to endorse against your colleagues.”

Another question Romer said DSA leaders routinely discuss is whether to break from the Democratic Party and form their own separate bloc.

“I think we would love to have independence. The logistics of it, to me personally, I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze,” she said. “But I would like to see us build out the structures, so that the folks that we’re electing have the ability to caucus together, they have some support, they have some sort of connected network by which they can act like a party and we as members can act like that party as well.”

Avila Chevalier declined to engage on the question.

“I ran as a Democrat in the Democratic primary to represent a community that is heavily Democrat,” she said, calling the idea of a new party “a conversation for DSA to have down the line.”

Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

Published

3 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.

Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.

As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”

I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.

Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.

But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.

Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.

In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.

Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.

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

The Dictatorship

Trump made more than $1 billion in crypto ventures last year, financial disclosure shows

Published

3 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump made more than $1 billion in crypto ventures last year, financial disclosure shows

Christmas. 1, 2026, 9:10 AM EDT

President Donald Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency-related income in his latest annual financial disclosure released Tuesday, with digital assets emerging as the largest source of his personal earnings during his second term.

The 927-page disclosure, covering 2025 and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, shows Trump earned more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company he co-founded in 2024 with his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. He also reported another $635 million in income tied to sales of the $TRUMP meme coin.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday morning before leaving for events in North Dakota, Trump said that others choose his investments without his input.

“I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them,” he said. “So, I have many people… I don’t know what they call closed accounts or something. You put your money in, and that’s it. I don’t talk to them. They’re big institutions, and they run it.”

The president also earned hundreds of millions of dollars in income from several of his properties in 2025, including $122 million from Trump Doral, $77.5 million from Mar-a-Lago and $39 million from Trump Tower Chicago.

The filing lists more than $80 million in income from legal settlements with media companies including ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTube and X. Trump also reported at least $8.3 million in royalties from books and branded merchandise, including $4.7 million from Trump watches and more than $200,000 in royalties from the God Bless the USA Bible, a branded edition promoted in partnership with singer Lee Greenwood.

The disclosure illustrates a significant shift in Trump’s business portfolio. While his wealth has long centered on hotels, golf courses and commercial real estate, cryptocurrency has emerged as his largest revenue driver. Reuters previously estimated the Trump family has generated at least $2.3 billionin profits from crypto-related ventures since Trump returned to the presidency.

The report follows additional ethics disclosuresreleased in May showing hundreds of millions of dollars in securities transactions involving major U.S. companies and municipal bonds. At the time, the Trump Organization saidthose investments were managed by outside financial institutions through discretionary accounts and that neither Trump nor his family directed individual trading decisions.

Soorin Kim contributed to this report.

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.

Soorin Kim is a White House producer with MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

GOP officials eye restrictions on pregnant travelers following Supreme Court ruling

Published

3 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

GOP officials eye restrictions on pregnant travelers following Supreme Court ruling

The ruling wasn’t as lopsided as many legal observers expected, but in Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that a president can override the 14th Amendment to the Constitution with an executive order. Although the 5-4 ruling left in place a status quo that had existed for generations, much of the right did not respond well to the news.

Much of the outrage from conservatives was tiresome and predictable, but one element of the pushback to the high court’s ruling stood out, for unfortunate reasons.

A couple of hours after the decision was issued, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado argued by way of social media that the State Department “should immediately cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants.” Soon after, one of her colleagues went a step further by announcing plans for a legislative solution.

Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said Tuesday he’s moving forward with plans for legislation that he’s calling the Anchors Away Act, which would ban certain pregnant foreign women from entering the United States.

“So, I have a bill; it will be called ‘Anchors Away,’ which, look, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, if you’re not a green card holder and you have a child on U.S. soil, today, that child will be a U.S. citizen,” Ogles said in a video posted to social media. “Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that. … So in short, what this bill does is, if you are a pregnant woman, you can’t come into this country. You got to be a citizen, be here, you have to be a green card holder. So if you’re pregnant and you don’t have one of those statuses, no admittance allowed,” he continued.

As HuffPost noted“The ‘anchor’ part of Ogles’ bill refers to the pejorative term, ‘anchor babies,’ used by many conservatives to describe children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.”

The Tennessee Republican also took his pitch to Fox News. “Look, if you’re pregnant and you’re from a foreign nation, you know what?” Coal says. “It’s time for Congress to pass a law saying you can’t come here.”

And while Ogles and Boebert aren’t exactly known for their legislative prowess, even if the House were to pass such a measure, it would never clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

As the day progressed, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller also appeared on Fox News, and when asked whether the U.S. is prepared to start “banning pregnant women,” Miller didn’t say no, replying instead that there are “a lot of things” the Trump administration will take “a hard look” at.

On Wednesday morning, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin also said the administration is prepared to “look at” restrictions on pregnant travelers to the U.S.

I won’t pretend to know what, if anything, will come of this, but I do have a question for proponents of these restrictions: How exactly would U.S. officials go about determining whether someone entering the country is pregnant?