DEMOCRATIC DIVISIONS over the future of the party are simmering, as liberals seek new leaders and a path back to power in President Trump’s second term.

The progressive left is having a moment after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s wildly successful “anti-oligarchy” tour wrapped Wednesday night with a 7,000-strong rally in Missoula, Mont.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez pulled huge numbers in surprising places as they ventured into traditionally red parts of the country, showing there’s a market for the populist left.

Sanders adviser Faiz Shakir said 13 of the 16 stops on the tour were in GOP-held Congressional districts, turning out more than 250,000 people. About one-third of new signees to Sanders’s list are not registered Democrats, Shakir said.

The Hill’s Carolina Vakil crunched the numbers and found that populist Democrats are raking in big bucks, led by Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Sanders, who is 83, is unlikely to run for president again. But pollster Nate Silver named Ocasio-Cortez, who is 35, as his early favorite to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028.

Those developments are alarming to centrist Democrats, who view progressives as unelectable in national contests.

“Bernie has run for president twice, he’s lost twice,” Democratic strategist James Carville said on NewsNation’s “CUOMO.” “AOC and her kind … they want to run against other Democrats. They don’t want to run against Republicans. When you beat a Republican, come back and see me and I’ll be impressed.”

Carville, a strategist for former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, emerged as a top voice in the media opposing Sanders during the 2020 primaries when it appeared the Vermont senator was on a path to winning the nomination.

It’s not all easy-going for progressives at the moment.

Former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the former chair of the House Progressive Caucus, is in an unexpectedly tight special election contest against moderate former City Council member Loren Taylor to be the next mayor of Oakland.

Lee was expected to win handily, but the race is too close to call with the next batch of results coming on Friday.

The special election was called after the former progressive mayor Sheng Thao was recalled from office over voter frustrations with crime, homelessness and quality of life. Thao has since been indicted for bribery and corruption.

It’s very early, but Democrats are starting to discuss their potential field of presidential candidates.

Actor George Clooney, who played a part in pushing President Biden out of the 2024 campaign, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday he likes Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, calling him a “proper leader.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) got a bump in polls of a hypothetical Democratic primary field after his record-breaking Senate speech.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has hit turbulence since the viral photo of her hiding her face during an Oval Office meeting with  Trump.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro are also seen as having presidential mettle.

Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, a straight-talking outsider, has been teasing a potential run and raising his profile in interviews on national political talk shows.

There’s another fight brewing at the district level.

Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg made a splash this week when his group announced it would launch primary challenges against House Democrats in safe seats in the hopes of electing a new generation of leaders.

In particular, Hogg’s group will target older lawmakers and those they believe aren’t pushing back hard enough against Trump.

“Earlier somebody said to me, ‘Oh, you’re here to replace the old with new’,” Hogg told The Hill in an interview. “I would say we’re here to replace the ineffective with the new and effective.”

💡Perspectives:

• Newsweek: The left pays a high price for getting men wrong.

• New York Post: AOC is a legit White House contender.

• Washington Monthly: The next frontier of plutocracy.

• The Wall Street Journal: Letitia James and the lawfare boomerang.

• The Hill: Team Trump is slouching toward Armageddon.

Read more: 

• Schumer losing favorability in second Trump term: Poll

• Schumer calls for probe into possible hate crime against Shapiro.

• Stefanik eyeing New York governor’s bid.

• Abdul El-Sayed launches Michigan Senate campaign.

• The Supreme Court scheduled a rare May oral argument on the administration’s emergency request to narrow a series of nationwide blocks on President Trump’s executive order that would restrict birthright citizenship.

• The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift a judge’s order that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, admonishing the Justice Department in the ruling. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he and a lawyer for the Abrego Garcia famiily were stopped at a security checkpoint in El Salvador when they tried to visit him at the CECOT prison.

• A federal judge ruled that Google illegally acquired and maintained a monopoly over advertising technology, the second time in less than a year that the tech giant has been found in violation of antitrust laws. 

©  AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Trump lashed out Thursday at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who a day earlier warned the economy could be facing inflation and slower growth due to the administration’s sweeping tariffs.

Trump said Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough,” as he derided the Fed chief for refusing to cut interest rates further amid the economic uncertainty of the global trade war.

The president pointed to the European Central Bank, which cut interest rates Thursday as it warned of a “deteriorated” growth outlook over trade tensions.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Powell would end his term early if the president asked him to.

“Oh, he’ll leave,” Trump said. “If I ask him to, he’ll be out of there. I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late. Always too late. A little slow. And I’m not happy with him. I let him know it.”

Powell has delayed further interest rate cuts over fears of a potential price shock from the trade wars.

Powell, whose term is up next year, was cheered at the Economic Club of Chicago on Wednesday when he declared the Fed’s independence from political pressure.

“We’re never going to be influenced by any political pressure,” he said. “People can say whatever they want. That’s fine. That’s not a problem. But we will do what we do. Strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.”

Trump says he expects the U.S. will reach a trade deal with the European Union and other countries before the expiration of a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs.

“There will be a trade deal 100 percent,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that included Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni, who has a good relationship with Trump, is the first European leader to meet with the president since the trade wars began in earnest.

“I’m here to find the best way to make us both stronger on the two shores of the Atlantic,” Meloni said.

The administration hasn’t announced any new trade deals yet, but Trump says he’s had “productive” talks with Mexico, Japan and other countries he says are eager to bring an end to the tariffs.

💡Perspectives:

• The Hill: Trump wants to deport Americans to El Salvador.

• The Hill: Why Trump’s supporters trust him on tariffs — for now.

• L.A. Times: Under Trump, U.S. no longer stands for rule of law.

• New York Post: Why a soak-the-rich tax hike is a disaster.

• Washington Examiner: Due process is not a one-way open borders ratchet.

Read more: 

• Republicans consider increasing taxes on the rich.

• Trump’s potential semiconductor tariffs spook tech industry.

• Trump faces obstacles, steeper costs with manufacturing jobs push.

• Japan reports a $63 billion trade surplus with the US.

• America’s housing shortage by the numbers.

©  Jacquelyn Martin, Associated Press pool

The Trump administration is following through on its threats against Harvard University after the school rejected the government’s demands for an overhaul.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the cancellation of more than $2.7 million spread across two different grants, which comes after the administration froze an estimated $2 billion in grants and contracts.

The Trump administration asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status after President Trump posted on social media that the university should be “taxed as a political entity.”

The administration also threatened to withdraw Harvard from a federal program that administers student visas, with Noem requesting “detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities.”

Last week, the Trump administration demanded a leadership overhaul and changes to university policies pertaining to protests, hiring, masks and diversity programs.

The Trump administration is cracking down on pro-Palestinian campus protests, which disrupted learning and led to some Jewish students being targeted for harassment.

Harvard acknowledged that some of the administration’s proposals were aimed at combating antisemitism.

However, the university said it would not comply with the administration’s overall demands, while accusing the government of stifling speech and seeking intellectual control over the institution.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the closure of a State Department division aimed at countering foreign disinformation, which Republicans have criticized for censoring conservative voices.

Rubio explained his reasoning in an op-ed at The Federalist, which was at one point labeled as one of the Internet’s “riskiest online news outlets” by a government-funded disinformation group.

“The entire ‘disinformation’ industry, from its very beginnings, has existed to protect the American establishment from the voices of forgotten Americans,” Rubio wrote.

“This travesty has gone on long enough,” he added.

Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr blasted Comcast over its coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose deportation case has consumed Washington.

Carr appeared to threaten Comcast’s broadcasting license, saying it was too sympathetic to Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland with his wife and three children before he was sent to a prison in El Salvador.

“Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest,” Carr posted on X. “News distortion doesn’t cut it.”

The Trump administration initially acknowledged that Garcia should not have been deported back to his home country because an immigration judge had deemed it unsafe for him to return.

However, the administration has since dug in, alleging Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13 and insisting he will not return to the U.S.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say he’s not in a gang, although he did enter the U.S. illegally.

Read The Hill’s Niall Stanage here to understand all of the nuance in the case.

Carr’s remarks follow Trump’s threats against Comcast. The parent company of NBC and MSNBC has plans to spin-off its cable assets.

“Comcast, which also has the ailing network known as NBC, is trying to stay away from lawsuits by disassociating NBC from MSNBC, but it won’t work,” Trump wrote in a social media post this week. “Comcast, the owner of both, and it’s Chairman, Brian Roberts, are a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!”

Some Republicans are pushing back at what they see as punitive measures taken by the Trump administration against its political enemies.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) told a group of nonprofit leaders in her home state this week that she worries about potential retaliation for criticizing the president.

“I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real,” she said in comments reported by Anchorage Daily News. “And that’s not right.”

💡Perspectives:

• The Free Press: Trump admin dismantles ‘disinformation’ complex.

• The Guardian: Finally, the Trump administration has met its match.

• The Guardian: To Trump, ‘defending free speech’ means submission.

• Marco Rubio: The censorship-industrial complex must be dismantled.

• The New York Times: What Harvard has set the stage for.

Read more: 

• White House embraces Abrego Garcia fight.

• House Democrat requests delegation visit to Salvadorian prison.

• Trump orders on regulatory shortcuts could expand presidential power.

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