Category: Uncategorized

President Donald Trump has a Texas-sized conundrum on his hands as Republicans prepare for a Senate primary in the state, with GOP Sen. John Cornyn making his case for the White House to get involved as he tries to fend off a challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

But, so far, Trump is staying on the sidelines.

“I’ve talked to him about it a number of times. He is not ready to make that endorsement,” Cornyn told NBC News on Tuesday. “I think as we start advertising and closing the gap in the polls, hopefully he’ll see fit to make that endorsement, but we can’t wait.”

“I pointed out to him, and he knows this, that if he endorsed me, the race would be over,” Cornyn later added.

But Cornyn is struggling in recent primary polling, as Paxton has pitched himself as the true exemplar of the party’s MAGA wing. Some Republicans are concerned that Paxton — a conservative firebrand with no shortage of personal controversies, including some that led to an impeachment push by a number of fellow Republicans in 2023 — could be a problematic general election candidate who would force national Republicans to spend millions to defend the longtime red seat.

Those concerns won’t let up with the latest round of fundraising figures, released Tuesday night. Paxton lapped the senator in direct fundraising to their campaigns, though Cornyn’s entire political operation raised a significant sum.

The race came up at a White House meeting last week between Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, staffers with the Thune-aligned super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, and other former Trump campaign staffers. A source with knowledge of the meeting said the group agreed that Cornyn and allies need to focus over the summer on improving the incumbent’s poll numbers. Thune told NBC News that the meeting “covered a whole range of races around the country” but declined to go into detail.

Paxton’s team has also been in touch with the White House political team and sharing polling data, according to a source close to his campaign.

In public surveys, the University of Texas at Tyler found Paxton leading Cornyn by a margin of 44%-34%, while Texas Southern University found Paxton leading 43%-34%. Both polls found about a quarter of voters undecided. Other private polls by outside groups with skin in the game have shown Paxton with an even larger lead.

This is far from the first time Cornyn, a 40-year veteran of elected politics in the state, has faced issues on his right flank. His most recent challenge came in 2014, when he won 59% of the GOP primary vote.

But it may be the most serious danger of his Senate career. Cornyn finds himself not only in a changed national party remade by Trump but in the middle of a civil war in his state between the establishment and the conservative forces that fueled the rise of Sen. Ted Cruz and other tea party Republicans, led to turmoil in the state legislature and contributed to the impeachment push against and subsequent acquittal of Paxton.

“We’re in the day and age of: The Republican Party is Trump’s party. And Paxton has done a very good job of being very outfront, being very vocal, being a strong defender of Trump, which voters — that’s the lens that they look through and evaluate candidates by,” said Matt Langston, a Republican strategist in the state who is not involved in the race.

Primary picks up

Paxton was quick to question Cornyn’s Trump connections and his conservative chops when he launched his campaign.

In 2023, Cornyn responded to the allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents by telling a local news reporter that “he’s created a circumstance for himself which is, I think, very serious.” That same year, Cornyn responded to the civil verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse by saying “I do not think he could win the presidency” because “electability is … the sole criterion.”

Cornyn’s opponents have also criticized his past votes on some gun control and immigration bills.

It’s why Cornyn has spent the months portraying himself as a staunch supporter of Trump. In March, he posted a photo of him reading Trump’s book on social media. His pinned image on X is a photo of him with Trump. And his campaign regularly touts his record of voting for Trump’s priorities in the Senate. Cornyn co-chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month delving into questions about former President Joe Biden’s fitness for office.

“I think we need to remind people of my support for President Trump and his agenda, which is about a 99.2% voting record with his first term and now in his second term,” Cornyn told NBC News, referencing a memo from his Senate office that detailed more than 600 of Cornyn’s votes since 2017. That memo also touted Cornyn’s work to support Trump’s Supreme Court and other judicial nominees, the 2017 tax cuts and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

On Wednesday, a pro-Cornyn super PAC, Texans for a Conservative Majority, launched a television ad campaign across the state, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

“Meet the man who votes with President Trump over 99% of the time,” a narrator says in the group’s first TV ad, which also features footage of Trump praising Cornyn at a rally.

Chris LaCivita, a former top Trump campaign official, is working with the super PAC as its senior adviser, according to three people familiar with Cornyn’s campaign. Tony Fabrizio, a top Trump pollster, is working directly with Cornyn’s campaign.

Paxton’s vulnerabilities

While Paxton has been trying to lob bombs at Cornyn from his right flank, Cornyn and his team are ready to exploit the attorney general’s multiple controversies.

“The baggage that my opponent would bring into the election would make it likely that we would lose that seat to a Democrat if he were the nominee. So I’m not going to let that happen,” Cornyn said.

Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015 and eventually reached a deal to avoid a trial. But related allegations — plus accusations including bribery and misuse of his office — led the GOP-controlled state House to impeach him in 2023, though the state Senate acquitted him.

Prosecuting Paxton on ethical grounds will be a centerpiece of Cornyn’s campaign. He blasted Paxton’s bid as a “con man’s vanity project” and launched a “Crooked Ken” website detailing the impeachment and allegations of adultery that stemmed from that investigation.

Paxton’s pending divorce from wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, brought those allegations back into the spotlight. Angela Paxton posted on X last week that she “filed for divorce on biblical grounds…in light of recent discoveries.”

The day of Paxton’s divorce announcement was his campaign’s second-largest small-dollar fundraising day since his launch, according to a person close to the Paxton campaign.

But Paxton’s allies see those controversies as fueling his reputation as a fighter among grassroots Republicans.

“Ken has a strong 40, 45% of MAGA voters that won’t leave him,” said Paxton adviser Nick Maddux. “They’ve seen him fight, they’ve seen him in the trials and they like what he’s done. And Cornyn’s never done that. He doesn’t have a hard base of support.”

Paxton’s campaign also raised $2.9 million from April through June, ending the quarter with $2.5 million in its campaign account. Cornyn’s campaign raised $804,000 and ended the quarter with $5.9 million on hand, while his joint fundraising committee raised $3.1 million and had $2.7 million on hand.

The Cornyn campaign’s haul marked its second-worst quarter over the senator’s past two election cycles on the ballot (2020 and 2014). But the campaign dismissed any concerns about his fundraising.

“Senator Cornyn is a very strong fundraiser, always has been and will continue to be,” said Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiack, who said focusing on the joint fundraising committee was a “strategic” move to be able to access lower television ad rates.

A growing field?

While Cornyn and Paxton battle, it is possible the primary field could grow.

Rep. Wesley Hunt told NBC News late last month he still hasn’t made a decision about whether to run for Senate, but the two-term Republican notes he hasn’t seen a poll showing Cornyn can beat Paxton in a primary.

Asked if that’s a concern in Texas, he told NBC News: “It should be.”

Hunt’s House campaign committee recently launched a cable ad buy that reaches beyond his Houston-area district, into the Dallas and San Antonio media markets, according AdImpact. Hunt also shared a minute-long spot that features Trump praising him, and a pro-Hunt outside group, Standing for Texas, has also spent more than $2 million so far on ads boosting him around the state.

GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson also told NBC News this week that he has not ruled out running for Senate and he is going to “keep my powder dry right now.”

“A lot of people think Ken Paxton might have trouble in the general,” Jackson said, noting there are concerns among Republicans that a competitive Texas race would pull resources from other battleground states.

That concern is partly why Senate Republican leaders, including Thune and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott, are backing Cornyn.

“We need an electable candidate that can win not just a primary, but a general, and we believe there’s a path there for Cornyn to win both,” Thune recently told NBC News.

Democrats have long sought to turn Texas blue, but they have not been able to build on a narrow loss to Cruz in 2018. Trump won Texas by 8 percentage points last year, while Cruz defeated former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred nearly 9 points. Allred recently launched another run for Senate.

Langston, the GOP strategist, didn’t buy the argument that Paxton would put the seat at risk if he is the nominee, given the state’s red hue.

“You would have to have almost 100% of registered Democrats coming out to vote, plus a good 10 or 12% of Republicans crossing over,” he said. “It’s just never going to happen.”

The iconic video game series “The Legend of Zelda” is coming to the big screen, and the beloved characters Princess Zelda and her trusty ally Link have been cast, Nintendo’s game director Shigeru Miyamoto announced Wednesday morning.

Bo Bragason will play Zelda and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth will depict Link, Miyamoto said on the official Nintendo social media accounts.

Miyamoto, who created the original Nintendo games and is producing the film, shared two photos that appear to show the actors in costume for the film.

The live-action film is scheduled to be released in theaters on May 7, 2027.

“I am very much looking forward to seeing both of them on the big screen,” he added.

Bragason is known for playing Roxy in the 2024 Disney+ TV series “Renegade Nell,”as well as appearing in the 2024 film “The Radleys” and the 2017 BBC One mini series “Three Girls,” according to her IMDb profile.

Meanwhile, Ainsworth appeared in the 2025 film “Everything’s Going to be Great” alongside Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney, the Canadian comedy TV series “Son of a Critch” and Disney’s 2022 film “Pinocchio” as the voice of “Pinocchio,” according to IMDb.

The film, directed by “The Maze Runner” trilogy helmer Wes Ball, will be co-produced by Sony and Nintendo. The adaptation follows the record-setting success of 2023’s “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” another Nintendo franchise which was produced by the gaming company and Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures. Universal Pictures is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday disowned his supporters who have called for the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, chiding them as “weaklings” who “bought into this bulls—.”

The lengthy post on Truth Social represents the clearest split from the faction of his MAGA base that has questioned the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

My “PAST supporters have bought into this “bulls—” hook, line, and sinker,” he said in the post, adding, “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

This month, the Justice Department published a memo determining that there was no evidence of an “incriminating ‘client list,’” prompting renewed consternation in MAGA world.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in particular has faced criticism over her handling of the case. Asked in a February Fox News interview about a potential client list, Bondi said that “it’s sitting on my desk right now to review.” During a cabinet meeting last week, Bondi clarified she had been referring to a file related to Epstein.

Trump has strongly defended Bondi from that criticism, saying on Saturday, “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!”

The White House did not return a request for comment. In recent days, several Republican members of Congress and other prominent Trump supporters have pushed for more transparency over files related to Epstein.

“I’m for transparency,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said during an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson. “It’s a very delicate subject but we should put everything out there and let the people decide.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said last week in an all-caps post on X that the DOJ should “release the Epstein client list.”

Greene and Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Minutes after Trump’s Truth Social post Wednesday, Greene posted on X, “My blind loyalty and faith is ONLY in God and Jesus Christ my savior. That is what will guide my decisions, actions, and votes.”

Debate over Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose death was ruled a suicide, has emerged as a fault line in the MAGA world. Trump and his allies have for years peddled theories about Epstein, only for the president in recent days to question why the case “would be of interest to anybody.”

“It’s pretty boring stuff. It’s sordid, but it’s boring, and I don’t understand why it keeps going,” Trump told reporters Tuesday evening.

The president was acquainted with Epstein, and he told New York Magazine in 2002 that Epstein was a “terrific guy.” After Epstein was arrested, Trump said he had a falling out with him “a long time ago.”

Epstein’s 2019 death in jail was ruled a suicide, and conspiracy theories quickly spread after that he was murdered as part of a plot to protect his wealthy and powerful inner circle.

Influencer Emilie Kiser’s husband could face a charge of felony child abuse in the drowning death of their 3-year-old son Trigg in a backyard pool in Arizona.

The Chandler Police Department said in a Tuesday post on X that it had completed its investigation into Trigg’s May 18 death and “following a thorough review of the evidence, investigators have recommended a Class 4 felony charge of child abuse against Brady Kiser.”

The case has been submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review.

Police and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Trigg died six days after he was found unconscious in a backyard pool. NBC affiliate KPNX of Phoenix reported that the drowning occurred at Kiser’s home, and Trigg was hospitalized in critical condition until his death.

Brady Kiser told police that he was distracted by the couple’s infant son when Trigg went outside to play, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by KPNX. He said he lost sight of Trigg for a few minutes and then went outside to check on him, and that’s when he found the boy unconscious in the pool.

Brady Kiser, who said his wife was out with friends at the time, called 911.

Emilie Kiser, who has built millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram with mom and wife content, has not publicly commented on the death of her son. In May, she filed a lawsuit against multiple Maricopa County public offices to keep records of her son’s death private. A judge temporarily blocked the release of records last month.

Her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

NBC News is looking to speak with recent college, technical school and high school graduates about how their job search has been going.

Despite relatively low unemployment, hiring data indicates that younger, entry-level workers have been increasingly struggling to get their foot in the door as employers put off hiring plans amid wider economic uncertainty and some industries, like government and tech, having slashed workers.

If you’ve entered the job market after graduating in 2025, we’re interested in hearing about your experience.

Seemingly unfazed by President Donald Trump’s 50-day ultimatum to end the fighting, Russia launched hundreds of drones and missile strike on six Ukrainian regions overnight, officials in the country said.

A child was among at least two people were killed and 25 people were injured in the strikes on six regions in northern, central and southern Ukraine, according to a statement on Telegram from the country’s air force and data collated by regional military administrations.

The large-scale long-range attacks targeted energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X. Power was cut for 80,000 families in his hometown of Kryvyi Rih and other locations in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK said on the Telegram app.

The attacks came hours after Trump told his Ukrainian counterpart not to target Moscow. It followed a report by the Financial Times citing two people familiar with the conversation that he had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up attacks deep inside Russia.

NBC News has not independently confirmed the Financial Times’ reporting, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said that Trump “was merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing.”

Trump, who has previously lavished praise on Putin while scorning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Monday gave the Russian president 50 days to agree to a peace deal. During a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House, he also said that he would slap 100% tariffs on any country that buys Russian goods.

At the same time, he said, the United States would sell “top-of-the-line weapons” including Patriot air defense missiles to NATO allies — including the much-demanded Patriot missiles — so that they can be used in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Trump said that the U.S. had already shipped some of the vaunted missile systems to Ukraine. “They’re coming in from Germany,” he said, adding that NATO members would “pay us back for everything.”

However, the 50-day window has been criticized by some European officials and experts, who have asked why Trump is giving additional time to Putin, who has repeatedly stated his desire to subjugate Ukraine.

And there was no let up in Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight as it bombarded several cities with around 400 drones and an Iskander ballistic missile, Ukraine’s air force said.

“Russia does not change its strategy,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday in a post on Telegram, a day after a strike in his hometown in central Ukraine. “In order to effectively counteract this terror, we need a systematic strengthening of protection: more aircraft, more interceptors, more determination to make Russia feel our answer.”

The Department of Homeland Security resumed third country deportation flights on Tuesday by deporting five immigrant detainees, all from different countries, to the small nation of Eswatini in Southern Africa.

The five men from Vietnam, Laos, Jamaica, Cuba and Yemen have criminal backgrounds ranging from murder to sexual assault, according to a social media post by the DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

“This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” McLaughlin wrote.

It’s not clear if the men are in law enforcement custody in Eswatini. Mclaughlin told NBC News, “That’s up to Eswatini.”

The landlocked country is located between South Africa and Mozambique and occupies an area slightly smaller than New Jersey.

Representatives for the government of Eswatini and their embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

The resumption of third country deportations comes as ICE put out new guidance that its employees are allowed in certain circumstances to deport migrants to countries that are not their own in as little as six hours — and without assurances from the third country that they “will not be persecuted or tortured.”

In other cases, according to the new guidance, ICE must serve the immigrant with a notice of removal that lists what country the federal government intends to deport them to in a language that the immigrant understands.

ICE officers will not affirmatively ask whether the person is afraid of being sent to that country, according to the memo, but those who voice such a fear will be referred for screening for possible protection within 24 hours. ICE could still attempt to send the person to a different country other than the one they said they were fearful of being sent to.

The Supreme Court paved the way for DHS to resume swift deportation of migrants to countries that are not their own in late June.

The decision came after a deportation flight with eight migrants left Texas reportedly intended for South Sudan in late May, sparking a legal battle that resulted in the men being held in Djibouti.

In a filing at the Supreme Court, the Trump administration said it had received assurances from South Sudan that the men “will not be subject to torture” under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The Israel Defense Forces said Friday it was aware of reports of a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of Palestinians injured and it said the matter was being looked into by Israeli authorities.

Police told NBC News that several people from “both sides” had been detained at the scene on suspicion of involvement in acts of violence that a joint investigation had been launched by the Israel Police and IDF Military Police.

Asked for an update on the probe on Wednesday, the IDF repeated that an investigation had been launched by the Israel Police and the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division. The Israel Police did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

A spokesperson for the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musallet’s killing comes amid a deadly rise in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. A United Nations report in March warned that violence had “increased in a climate of continuing impunity.”

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live in sweeping settlements across the West Bank that the international community widely considers to be illegal.

More than 960 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Hamas led attacks on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, according to a database maintained by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), marking a sharp increase from previous years.

In the year leading up to the Hamas attacks, just over 250 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank according to OCHA’s data.

Settlers rarely face legal consequences for violence against Palestinians, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, with more than 93% of investigations between 2005 and 2023 closed without an indictment and only 3% leading to a conviction, according to a report it published last year.

The Trump administration wants to make millions of immigrants who entered the United States without legal authorization ineligible for bond hearings. This means they would need to remain in immigration detention as they fight deportation proceedings in court, which can take months and in some cases years.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told NBC News in an email Tuesday that the recently issued guidance “closes a loophole” in immigration law that had long been applied mostly to detain those who had recently arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“All aliens seeking to enter our country in an unlawful manner or for illicit purposes shall be treated equally under the law, while still receiving due process,” the ICE spokesperson wrote. “It is aligned with the nation’s long-standing immigration law.”

The Washington Post first reported about the new ICE memo instructing immigration officials to keep immigrants detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings.”

“I don’t think it’s beyond anyone’s notice that we are starting to see policies to keep people detained and keep people detained longer,” Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NBC News.

“We’re seeing the administration’s goal of detaining and deporting more people grow,” Dojaquez-Torres added.

The new guidance seems to give immigration authorities broader discretion to detain other types of immigrants — such as those who have lived in the U.S. for decades and have U.S. citizen children, and may potentially have legal pathways to remain in the country.

Bond hearings help detainees show to immigration judges that they “are not a flight risk or a public safety risk,” Dojaquez-Torres.

Under the new policy guidance, “the judge doesn’t even have the power to hear your bond case,” Dojaquez-Torres said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the best person in the world, a judge won’t be able to hear your case… If they are agreeing with DHS’ view.”

In a Tuesday post on X, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said President Donald Trump and his administration plan on “keeping these criminals and lawbreakers off American streets.”

“Now thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill,” which set aside $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, “we will have plenty of bed space to do so,” DHS wrote on social media.

Rebekah Wolf, director of immigration justice campaign at the American Immigration Council, told NBC News the organization has already received reports from across the nation of some immigration judges who are already “accepting the argument” from DHS and ICE.

“And because the memo isn’t public, we don’t even know what law the government is relying on to make the claim that everyone who has ever entered without inspection is subject to mandatory detention,” Wolf said.

There have also been reports of other immigration judges who have disagreed with the new guidance and have granted a bond hearing since the policy went into effect last week, Dojaquez-Torres said. In these cases, “ICE has appealed and refused to release people in the interim until the appeal has been finalized.”

In the memo, ICE acting Director Todd M. Lyons, who oversees the nation’s immigration detention facilities, wrote that the new policy will likely face legal challenges, The Washington Post reported.

Former Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison is stepping back into the political arena with a new podcast as he — and his party — look to bounce back from losing the White House last year.

In a wide-ranging conversation with NBC News ahead of the launch of the podcast, Harrison framed himself as unshackled from the “straitjacket” of the sensitivities of leading the national party and argued that one way Democrats can rebuild trust with Americans is by embracing their more authentic selves.

“We need more voices that are anchored in the Democratic Party, because some of the podcasts that are out there are more often criticizing the Democratic Party instead of really promoting the assets and the leaders that we have,” he said.

The early episodes of “At Our Table” feature interviews with three well-known party leaders: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. But the roster of Harrison’s first guests also includes Hunter Biden — the son of President Joe Biden whose business dealings, drug addiction and legal woes were part of the political attacks on the former president. The then-president’s decision to pardon his son after he was found guilty on three felony gun charges also drew condemnation across the political spectrum.

Asked why he wanted to interview Biden, who many Democrats saw as a political vulnerability for the then-president and his party, Harrison told NBC News that he wanted to push back on the “caricature” of the ex-president’s son. The episode will come out next week.

“When I look at Hunter and the conversations I’ve had with him over the last four years, this guy is really bright, he’s smart, he’s very passionate about the things about service and helping people,” Harrison said. “But you know, I only got a chance to see it because of my interactions with him. When you ask most people, they have no clue. All they know is what [Georgia GOP Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Green would say about Hunter or or what either his political allies or his political opponents would say.”

“He’s been made into probably one of the biggest caricatures in politics today,” Harrison continued. “And I thought it’d be interesting for folks to get a real understanding of who Hunter Biden is, or what makes him tick.”

While Harrison said he was proud of his work leading the national party, he hopes that he will be “an even better post-chair than I was chair.”

“When President Carter passed away, you do a lot of reflecting, and the one thing that I learned from his years is that I think he saw himself as a better post-president than he was a president,” he said.

“And as I reflect on my time as chair, I hope I can be an even better post-chair than I was chair, and to really do the things that I’m very passionate about, which is to see a reemergence of a new South, to see the Democratic Party reinstitute its foothold in the southern states,” Harrison continued.

One way Harrison plans to work toward that goal is through jumpstarting the efforts of his Dirt Road Democrats PAC, his political group that still retains the fundraising list that powered his 2020 Senate bid, which set fundraising records at the time.

Loyalty to Biden

The decision to host Hunter Biden on one of his inaugural podcast episodes speaks to the loyalty Harrison continues to show toward the former president. In an excerpt from Hunter Biden’s interview, he tells Harrison that Democrats “lost the [2024] election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party.”

Asked whether he agreed with Biden’s son, Harrison criticized Democrats for being so quick to kick the then-president to the curb after his widely panned debate performance last June, comparing them to how Republicans continued to rally around President Donald Trump even when he was convicted on felony charges.

“If the waters get a little choppy some of the folks in our party are the fastest to abandon ship, get off in a hurry and then torch the damn ship when they get off,” Harrison said.

“Not to say that it’s always the right thing that Republicans have done but sometimes Democrats need to sit back and pause and think about the long-term ramifications of that early abandonment because I can tell you, it did not sit well with the base of the party, particularly Black voters,” Harrison continued. “I remember a rally in Georgia right after the debate and people were pissed off. These are middle-aged, older Black men and women who were so upset the party was almost shivving Joe Biden, stabbing him in the back.”

Harrison didn’t directly say whether he agreed with Hunter Biden that Democrats lost “because” of the lack of loyalty to Biden. But as he repeatedly praised former Vice President Kamala Harris both as a candidate (comparing her to basketball megastar Michael Jordan) and a loyal vice president, he also gave a passionate defense of Biden’s legacy amid the decision by many top Democrats to call for him to step aside.

“We saw probably the greatest legislative president we had since LBJ, and that’s just objectively speaking,” Harrison said, adding that Biden was more focused on “rebuilding the Democratic Party” than any president in a “long time.”

He added: “There was a reason that we needed to be loyal to the president. Sure, was he old? Hell yeah, he was old, and he knew he was old like we all knew he was old. But you don’t elect a president because they are young or they look good in a suit or what have you. You elect them to get shit done.”

The state of the party

Harrison is one of the many Democratic politicians who have started podcasts in the wake of the 2024 election, at a time when the party’s image has dropped to a historic low and when Democrats have lamented their party’s inability to gain traction in the podcast sphere, particularly young men.

Harrison told NBC News that he believes the party needs more voices in new media spaces “anchored in the Democratic Party because some of the podcasts that are out there are more often criticizing the Democratic Party instead of really promoting the assets and the leaders we have.”

But he also admitted that the Democratic Party can be overly reliant on “talking points that aren’t grounded in any emotion,” a strategy that can lead to voters feeling disconnected from them.

He connected that discussion to his “frustration” with Harris’ campaign’s media strategy, framing the decision not to have her sit for more interviews in the early weeks of her presidential candidacy as “political malpractice” and lamenting the decision to put “handcuffs” on Walz after he joined the ticket.

“We are so scared of our shadows sometimes in our party that we lose that, we get into our own heads, we get so academic and cerebral,” Harrison said, arguing Democrats should strive to level with voters and be “real.”

“That makes you more relatable in spaces that you may not have been relatable to, right? Because people see a side of you that they normally don’t get an opportunity to see. They see your passion, they see the things that give you joy, they see the things that frustrate you. And that’s really important, that you aren’t just some caricature.”