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Veterans are organizing to stop Donald Trump’s massive new arch near Arlington National Cemetery. A prominent election expert says Republicans are officially staring down what may be their worst midterm scenario in decades. A new documentary reveals Elon Musk is actively preparing for a civil war. And Illinois Governor JB Pritzker just launched a $20 million PAC to give Democrats the best chance of flipping Republican House seats.
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Veterans groups are increasing the pressure to stop construction of Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot arch right next to Arlington National Cemetery. VoteVets released a new video this week hoping to at get more veterans to oppose the project, warning that years of construction work on Trump’s newest pet project could disrupt military burials.
The arch would also include an observation deck, meaning tourists would be able to stand up there and look out over the cemetery while funerals take place. Gold Star mother Karen Meredith, whose son is buried at Arlington, said she’s appalled at the idea of tourists. gawking at grieving families.
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine urged him to the project before ground gets broken, since Congress never appropriated money or granted authority for this under the Commemorative Works Act. But Trump is building it anyway, betting the Republican-controlled Congress won’t do anything to stop him.
The White House is likely feeling particularly emboldened, since the Supreme Court recently ruled in a 5-4 decision to allow construction of Trump’s massive ballroom to move forward after deciding that plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. Attorneys for Trump’s Justice Department are now pointing to that same ruling to convince a judge to throw out a separate lawsuit over the arch.
But legal experts say that strategy is unlikely to bear fruit. Greg Werkheiser, who co-founded a firm that advises historical preservation groups, noted that the Supreme Court merely settled one specific question tied to one plaintiff and a single project. The ruling was never meant to serve as blanket approval for all of Trump’s construction projects.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced excavation work on the arch would begin in the next two weeks. However, a federal judge is ordering the administration to give 48 hours notice before doing anything outside the scope of basic information gathering.
Retired two-star General Paul Eaton, whose own father is buried at Arlington, said the fight to stop the arch isn’t partisan, telling the Washington Post there are several Republican veterans who are also against the project. Eaton said it’s more important for veterans to be remembered properly rather than one president’s legacy.
Sponsored Kalshi Question: Will Trump create a $250 bill featuring himself?
Charlie Cook has covered American elections for nearly five decades, and he’s now saying what he’s watching Republicans go through right now would have sounded absurd to him just a few months ago.
Cook laid out three scenarios for Republicans in the upcoming midterms: a “bad” in which where they lose 15 to 25 House seats but keep their majority in the Senate; a “really bad” one where they lose control of both chambers of Congress and a “horrible” one with catastrophic losses in both the House and Senate.
The longtime political forecaster now thinks the “really bad” scenario is the most likely outcome for Republicans, calling it a “perfect storm” of circumstances that will almost certainly lead to widespread losses across the board.
Cook said Trump’s approval ratings are still sitting at historic lows, and state-by-state polling from various outlets including both the New York Times to Fox News all have running anywhere from six to 14 points behind his 2024 numbers in multiple battleground states.
In most midterm cycles, the sitting president’s own party is battle-weary and not motivated to turn out, while the opposition’s voters are fired up and eager to take back one or both chambers of Congress. But Cook argues Trump’s specific policy choices, like imposing costly tariffs, increasing fertilizer costs and waging war with Iran, are alienating massive segments of his own base never seen before during the tenures of past American presidents. He said the 2026 midterm cycle is similar to Bill Clinton before the 1994 elections, George W. Bush before the 2006 midterms and Barack Obama before 2010. However, he said none of those presidents faced conditions anywhere close to what he’s seeing now.
According to Cook, even states viewed as safe Republican strongholds like Alaska, Iowa, and Texas are suddenly competitive, which Cook emphasized he had never seen in almost 50 years of following American elections.
A new documentary from filmmaker Alex Gibney includes explosive quotes from Ashley St. Clair, who is the mother of one of centbillionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s 14 confirmed children. St. Clair — who was once a conservative social media influencer — said Musk once texted her saying he wanted to have a child with her because he needed a “legion” of children before a coming “civil war.”
St. Clair says Musk’s team eventually offered her $40 million in addition to payments of $100,000 every month if she agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When she refused, the offer disappeared. And now St. Clair is risking the anger of the world’s richest man to tell her story.
At the film’s premiere in Venice, St. Clair, who said she now regrets her past right-wing activism, warned that what Musk is doing with the social media platform X could be catastrophic if left unregulated. She warned that the South African billionaire is stoking divisions that don’t actually exist in the real world and creating real-world consequences by normalizing extreme rhetoric on the platform.
Gibney, who directed the film, suggested Musk’s obsession on societal collapse likely traces back to a traumatic childhood growing up in apartheid-era South Africa. He described the film’s real subject as an old story wearing new clothes, which features an aggressive stock promoter whose wealth comes from inflating share prices rather than actually building anything real.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is launching a new PAC called Ready for the Fight, and he’s committing to back it with at least $20 million dollars to help Democratic House candidates flip Republican seats in the November midterms.
The PAC plans to target races some might overlook, including spending against embattled Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller and Texas Republican candidate Brandon Herrera. Both districts lean Republican, but Pritzker’s team sees weak candidates paired with a national climate that’s turning against the GOP.
Pritzker has spent the last few years positioning himself as one of Trump’s sharpest critics, and this PAC extends that fight well beyond Illinois. He’s also widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, and building relationships with candidates in other states now could pay dividends later.
He joins a growing club of Democratic governors doing the same thing, including Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, and Gretchen Whitmer, all building out national PACs of their own.
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