Remembering Veterans Day

 

"He doesn’t care if he kills us all": Psychologist warns Trump is about to "act out"

Following the midterm blowout for the Republican Party that has been viewed as a referendum on Donald Trump’s second term, the president has entered the “third act” of his political career and is more dangerous than ever.

That’s the warning from Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist, former Johns Hopkins University professor and frequent Trump critic, who told the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles that the president likely took the GOP’s defeat personally.

“Hell, hath no fury like a malignant narcissist scorned,” Gartner said. “I think we’re now in the third act of the tragedy, and I think we’re in more danger now than we’ve ever been.”

According to the Daily Beast, Gartner believes the 80-year-old president may now be even more inclined to wreak havoc. “He’s going to act out in the ways that are destructive—to show his power and dominance, and to gain the sadistic sense of pleasure that he gets from destruction,” Gartner said.

He compared the moment to a dangerous stage in an abusive relationship.

“I feel like we’re at the stage where a woman who’s been abused goes, ‘Thank God. I kicked him out of the house, I have a restraining order, I’m finally safe,’” he said. “And that’s often the time when the really destructive abusers say, ‘Okay, now I’m gonna kill the b---h.’ I think that he is that guy, and we are the b---h. And he doesn’t care if he kills us all.”

Gartner admitted he doesn’t have much advice to offer on how to deal with the impulsive president because he doesn’t believe “anyone can contain him.”

“I don’t think there is a strategy that will work,” he told Coles. “I think that he is going to do what he is going to do, and he’s going to reap maximum chaos, maximum destruction, maximum confusion.”

He warned that Democrats’ victory celebrations may be short-lived. “We’re so elated that Democrats have taken both houses of Congress, but I think he’s going to be successful over the next two years at stymying virtually every effort that they make,” he said.

Gartner argued Democrats will have little leverage because Trump has no agenda he needs them for. “Any bill that they pass that could help America is a bill he wants to thwart. That’s how his psychology works,” he said. “He doesn’t care if shutting down the government hurts the country. Look, he didn’t care that his actions hurt his party, right? He could care less.”

“At no point did he ever think maybe I should change my behavior because it’s gonna hurt my party,” Gartner concluded. “He doesn’t care about his party or his country or anyone else.”

-Tom Boggioni, NewsBreak

Trump plans imperial final act to his presidency

 

Donald Trump, with the clock ticking and congressional investigators closing in, plans to govern even more imperially, hell-bent on stretching executive power, targeting those on his enemies list, pardoning allies, and daring the courts and Congress to slow him down.

Why it matters: Trump and his allies are exploring executive action on new tariffs and immigration restrictions and asserting greater control over spending. 

On X over the weekend, Trump discussed targeting and perhaps jailing Democrats who investigate administration officials. He claimed politically motivated harassment.

Trump is retooling his White House by elevating the one official who's synonymous with his all-gas-no-brakes style: Stephen Miller, who took over for Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff on Monday.

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Watch Miller and Russ Vought, the White House budget director, to understand how this approach will unfold. Both are architects and advocates of vastly expanding presidential power, believing there are virtually no restraints on what Trump can do as president.

The Swamp can expect tougher sledding: Miller, unlike most of his predecessors, is driven more by ideology than by meetings with lobbyists or industry groups. "Stephen gives zero f*cks what K Street thinks," a Trump confidant told us.

Between the lines: Midterm losses pushed Presidents Clinton and Obama to the center. Trump's instincts are the opposite: Assert maximal power. 

The playbook:

Restore MAGA. Two years ago, MAGA — mostly its network of podcasts, YouTubers and online activists — was a powerful, united force in media and politics. Today it's a hot, divided mess. Trump's attention to his base drifted. Now Vice President Vance and Miller desperately want to rebuild and rev up MAGA. That's why ending the Iran war, curtailing aid to Israel and pushing harder on RFK Jr.'s MAHA agenda are suddenly top-tier topics.

Rule by pen. Miller, Vought and White House lawyers have been drafting executive actions to govern without Congress, with Justice Department opinions ready to defend them, Reuters reported just before the election. 

Remember: Vought was an architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for maximizing executive power in Trump II.

Target enemies. Before, it was pure payback. Now, it's also a preemptive warning that the Trump administration will target anyone, including elected members of Congress who target them. Trump ally Roger Stone told us: "Many Democrat lawmakers are going to find themselves under indictment and fighting conviction. Watch."

Purge the "deep state." The Supreme Court's ruling in a case about independent agencies, Trump v. Slaughter, widened the president's power to remove officials. 

"The Slaughter case gives the president tremendous powers," Trump said in an Election Day phone interview with CBS News' Robert Costa. The June ruling handed Trump the power to fire the heads of the FTC and other independent regulators (like FERC) for any reason or no reason.

More monuments. Trump's pharaonic need to gild the White House, build a ballroom, erect a triumphal arch and slap his name on buildings is also an exercise in raw power. 

He told New York Magazine's Ben Terris why he's honoring himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will." No one can stop him.

The Republican resistance: Expect very little inside the new Congress. 

The reason: Most of Trump's Capitol Hill critics are gone. What's left is a much smaller, but more Trumpian, band of middle-aged and older white Republicans with margins too small to matter much.

The Trump bet: Congressional Republicans will quickly feel Democrats are overreaching and unify in solidarity with Trump, even if it's forced or begrudging.

Yes, but: One of Trump's most predictable attributes is his unpredictability. He said on election night that he'll "work together" with Democrats. What that may look like (with a heavy emphasis on "may"), based on reporting by Axios' Marc Caputo:

-Soften aspects of immigration enforcement, particularly regarding masked agents harassing U.S. citizens.

-Find common ground with MAHA's healthy food agenda, which has become the subject of vicious post-election infighting among Trump insiders.

-Sign legislation from the new Congress that would undo massive Medicaid cuts in his "One Big Beautiful Bill."

The bottom line: Trump is still Trump. He's 80 and it shows. But he meets force with force, and he'll go down swinging the more Democrats attack him. "Trump and his team are at our best when our backs are against the wall," one adviser told Caputo. "Trump comes out fighting. We're full-throated and full throttle."

-NewsBreak

Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen 

Trump sparks outrage with "wildly disrespectful" claim about troop casualties

 

Donald Trump outraged some political analysts on Sunday after he blurted out a false claim about military casualties in the Iran conflict. Speaking to reporters at the airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump claimed no soldiers have been killed in the conflict, a claim that his own Department of Defense has refuted. In October, the Pentagon raised the official death toll in the Iran war to 23, Stars and Stripes reported.

"We won in Iran," Trump said. "It's just a matter of closing it out now. Maybe we'll wait. Some of their neighbors would prefer that we keep it the way that it is. Again, we haven't lost anybody. No soldiers," he added, comparing America's casualties in Iran with larger conflicts like the war of Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Vietnam War.

Trump's comments sparked a firestorm of criticism online. Nick Field, a politics writer, described the president's comments as "f------ horrible" in a post on X, reiterating the number of casualties that have been reported. Quentin Ocama, state outreach officer for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, posted on X that Trump's claim was also "wildly disrespectful" to service members. 

"Wildly disrespectful of the service members who have been killed or injured in this clusterfuck of a conflict," he wrote. "Our crisis with a lack of serious and competent leadership continues…." Journalist Aaron Rupar described Trump's claims in a post on X as "lies."

-Robert Davis, NewsBreak

 

Key Developments This Week in Ukraine

 

🕯️ A community mourns people who came for humanitarian aid. On November 2, Russian aerial bombs struck a former school serving as a humanitarian aid distribution point in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. By November 7, the reported death toll had reached 55, with search operations continuing beneath the rubble.

⚡ Fresh attacks leave Kyiv struggling with electricity, water, and heat. Russia launched a major missile and drone attack overnight into November 7, damaging energy infrastructure, residential buildings, and Kyiv’s Northern Bridge. Substations connecting nuclear power generation in western Ukraine to Kyiv and central regions were hit. With colder weather arriving, the damage threatens more than lighting—it disrupts heating, water supplies, and everyday life for families already enduring repeated blackouts.

🛡️ Faster Russian drones are changing the battle in the skies. Ukraine’s Air Force reported that 137 of the 172 attack drones launched overnight into November 7 were jet powered. Ukrainian defenses intercepted 117 of those faster drones, according to the military. The figures show both the growing threat and the work being done to counter it.

🇺🇦 Ukrainian defenders push back near Lyman and Kostyantynivka. Fighting continued around the eastern cities Russia is trying to capture. In its November 6 assessment, the Institute for the Study of War reported Ukrainian counterattacks southeast of Lyman and a recent Ukrainian advance in northwestern Kostyantynivka, supported by geolocated footage.

🎯 Ukraine targets the weapons used against its cities. Ukraine’s General Staff reported strikes on two Russian Iskander missile launchers and a Pantsir-S1 air-defense system in Bryansk Oblast between November 6 and 7. Separately, the military confirmed a Neptune missile strike on the Proton-Electrotex plant in Oryol, which it says produces components used in Russian missile systems.

💔 Children under occupation face pressure to surrender their identity. A November 5 report published by EU NEIGHBOURS east highlighted the growing militarization and assimilation of Ukrainian children in occupied territories. Drawing on testimony and the work of The Reckoning Project, it described schooling shaped around Russian state narratives, obedience, and hostility toward Ukrainian identity. The struggle to protect Ukraine’s future also means protecting children’s language, culture, and connection to their home.

Thank you for standing with Ukraine and for continuing to support our community. Behind every headline are people trying to keep their families safe, help their neighbors, and hold on to hope. Your solidarity helps keep their stories visible and reminds Ukrainians that they are not alone.

With Love, 💙💛
— Ukrainian Apparel

 

Neil Young sues Trump campaign again for playing "Rockin' in the Free World" at rally

 

Rock veteran Neil Young has filed a $10m lawsuit against a fundraising committee that supports US President Donald Trump, citing "unauthorised" use of his 1989 song "Rockin' in the Free World."

The Canadian-American star alleges that the Trump 47 Committee infringed on his copyright when it played the song before Trump took the stage at a 12 October rally in Ohio. Playing the song amounts to an "unauthorised public performance", the lawsuit states. The singer-songwriter sued the Trump re-election campaign in 2020 over its use of the same song and "Devil's Sidewalk." Young said the parties settled the matter shortly thereafter.

The White House referred to the Republican National Committee, who the BBC has contacted for comment. Through his company Silver Fiddle Music, Young alleges that the song was played without a licence or Young's permission at a political event in Youngstown, Ohio on 12 October. In the US, music used at campaign rallies often requires a public performance licence for it to be played for an audience, even if a campaign has already purchased a legal copy of the recording.

According to US Congress, because sound recordings do not have a general public-performance right, permission is only needed from the musical-work copyright holders, which can be obtained directly from the copyright holders themselves or through performing rights organisations.

The five-page federal lawsuit says that Trump "was personally aware that a licence would be required to play the Song at rallies," and that Young "has not, and would not, grant the required licence." It also says the song has been played "numerous times at other rallies."

The Grammy Award winner, who has strongly opposed Trump's politics, characterises the song as "a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten." Young says that the song is "the opposite of everything that Donald J Trump stands for."

In 2020, Young sued Trump's re-election campaign for copyright infringement over the same song, as well as "Devil's Sidewalk." The new lawsuit claims that the campaign, at the time, "asserted no defence and immediately settled shortly after it was served," promising to never use the song without permission again.

Young posted about the lawsuit on his website on Tuesday, thanking Trump for coming to so many of his shows in the 1980s and 1990s, but stopped short of allowing him to play his music. "I am sorry it came to this, but money and transactions are something you understand," he wrote.

Young, The Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Adele, REM and the estate of Prince have previously criticised Trump for using their music at campaign events.

-Nardine Saad, BBC

It's Time for New Democratic Leadership in the Senate

 

To say this election was a rebuke of Trump is, technically, accurate. But it massively understates the case. This was a hard reset. A grassroots-powered overturning of entrenched power unseen for decades. People took this country, turned it upside down, and shook corrupt politicians and spineless enablers of fascism out of every legislative body from the US Senate down to county councils and everywhere in between. 

Americans rejected officials who allowed communities to be brutalized by ICE. They jettisoned corporate-backed politicians who stuck data centers in their backyards. They wiped out Members of Congress who defunded healthcare and then used the money to launch illegal wars and enrich the wealthiest people on earth. 

And across the country, they backed candidates who rejected corporate money and promised to usher in a new era of people-centered politics -- candidates who showed they were ready to take the fight to the Trump regime and the rotting systems that propelled its rise. 

Now Democrats must choose a Senate leader who can meet this moment and lead that fight. It’s hard to fathom the Chuck Schumer of the past two years being the man for the job.

Indivisible has not been shy about voicing our concerns about Schumer’s leadership over these past two years. As millions of Americans were in the streets standing up to Trump, Schumer bent the knee, funding the authoritarian agenda voters just rejected in historic numbers. 

Whatever his intentions, Schumer repeatedly failed to rein in Trump or even marshal his own caucus against some of Trump’s most destructive cabinet members. Now, he is treating his leadership as pre-ordained, telling reporters, “I will be re-elected as majority leader.” 

We say: Not so fast. The people voted for a new kind of politics, not for old guard politicians to anoint themselves with titles just because they’ve held power for so long. With the stakes this high for our democracy -- and for the future of the Democratic Party -- Democrats need to read the room and hold an open, transparent election to determine who will lead the Senate. 

Email your Democratic senator(s) now and demand they oppose a Schumer coronation.

Join us in urging Senate Democrats to demand new leadership and refuse to go along with a Schumer coronation >>

In solidarity,
Indivisible Team