House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Sunday dismissed the idea that socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani represents the future of the Democratic Party, instead positioning himself as the party’s strongest path forward.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Jeffries argued that his leadership of the House Democratic caucus makes him best suited to guide Democrats toward electoral success in the years ahead.
“No, I think the future of the Democratic Party is going to fall – as far as we’re concerned – relative to the House Democratic Caucus and members who are doing a great work all across the country, as it relates to our need to both take back control of the House, but, in doing so, make sure that we’re communicating to the American people, like, we understand, you deserve better than the country that you have received,” he said in response to a question about Mamdani’s meteoric rise.
Jeffries only recently endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral campaign after months of hesitation. His late backing came alongside endorsements from New York Governor Kathy Hochul and several other state and national Democratic leaders.
Meanwhile, members of the party’s left-wing faction — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — have long rallied behind Mamdani, actively campaigning for him in the lead-up to the election.
“I asked you if Mamdani was the future of the party, and you didn’t answer the question,” host Jake Tapper followed up with Jeffries, who essentially deferred to a rambling list of boilerplate talking points bashing President Trump.
“Donald Trump and Republicans have gone way too far and have failed to deliver anything meaningful for the American people, and, as Democrats, we’re going to focus on lowering the high cost of living, on fixing our broken healthcare system that Republicans continue to make worse with their toxic policies, and, of course, on cleaning up corruption in the Congress, in the courts, and within the administration with Donald Trump running the largest pay-to-play scheme in the history of the country,” he said.
Democrats under President Biden presided over some of the highest inflation in decades. Also, the party is hyper-focused on “woke” issues like transgenderism, climate change, and pronouns – all of which has been rejected by a majority of Americans.
Tapper continued to press the issue, mentioning that the House Democratic leader took a considerable amount of time to endorse. “[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] still has not endorsed him. Are you concerned about Republicans using him as a lightning rod so as to hurt your ability to win back the House in 2026?” he asked.
But the Democratic leader simply dodged again.
“No, the lightning rod in terms of what’s going to impact the ability of either side to win control of the House or hold control of the House in 2026 is going to be the failure of Republicans to actually deliver on the promises that they have made and to actively make life worse for everyday Americans,” Jeffries said.
“The country knows that we’re heading in the wrong direction. We see it repeatedly.”
Jeffries’ remarks come less than 48 hours before Tuesday’s state and municipal elections, which feature high-profile races in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City.
In the Big Apple, socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani is widely expected to win comfortably in a three-way contest against perennial Republican contender Curtis Sliwa and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is mounting an independent bid after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary earlier this year.
That said, Mamdani’s lead over Cuomo in the race has narrowed to just 6.6 points — the tightest margin since July — according to a new AtlasIntel poll released Saturday.
The survey shows Mamdani leading with 40.6% of the vote, while Cuomo, running as an independent, has climbed to 34% just days before Tuesday’s election, The New York Post reported.
New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani (D) has shifted his stance on the controversial phrase “globalize the intifada,” saying he would now “discourage” its use. Speaking on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, Mamdani said his change of heart came after a conversation with a rabbi who associated the phrase with past terrorist attacks in Israel.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist and leading candidate to replace Mayor Eric Adams, acknowledged a “gap in intent” between how the phrase is used by some to protest Israeli occupation and how it is received by many in the Jewish community as a violent threat. He emphasized the importance of representing all New Yorkers, saying his role as mayor would be to understand and bridge differing perspectives.
The American Jewish Committee has defined the phrase as a call for “aggressive resistance against Israel.” Mamdani’s comments Sunday mark a departure from June, when he told NBC’s Meet the Press the phrase was “not language that I use,” but also said it wasn’t his role to “police” speech.
Mamdani’s updated position was first reported in July by The New York Times after a private meeting. Since then, he has tried to balance progressive support with broader electoral appeal, especially in a city with large and politically diverse Jewish and Arab communities.
Over the weekend, Mamdani campaigned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who criticized billionaire Elon Musk’s wealth during a Brooklyn town hall. Mamdani has also promoted a plan for city-run grocery stores, which he defended in a CNN interview on Friday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), typically known for his calm, measured demeanor, erupted in frustration on the Senate floor Wednesday, accusing Democrats of prolonging the government shutdown and using social welfare programs as political leverage.
Thune’s rare display of anger came during a heated exchange over legislation to temporarily fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food aid to low-income families.
Democrats, led by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), pushed for a standalone bill to keep SNAP benefits flowing as the shutdown approached its 30th day.
Thune fired back, noting that Republicans had already voted 13 times to reopen the government, only to be blocked by Senate Democrats.
“Let me just point out, if I might, that we are 29 days into a Democrat shutdown,” Thune said, his voice rising. “SNAP recipients shouldn’t go without food. People should be getting paid in this country. And we’ve tried to do that 13 times. You voted no 13 times.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer walked away from a Republican colleague on the floor of the chamber on Saturday after he was cornered over a so-called “fix” he offered for Obamacare subsidies as the government shutdown he is leading entered its 39th day.
Schumer was engaging with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) after the Democratic leader offered a proposal to reopen the government: A one-year funding extension of taxpayer-funded subsidies for Americans who buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
During the exchange, Schumer admitted to Moreno that he did not yet have a written proposal.
“We can’t give you a counter in writing, but it’s very simple,” Schumer said. “Because we have two sentences we would add to any proposal which would extend the ACA benefits for one year.”
Moreno the revealed that the Schumer proposal did not seem to contain income caps, meaning people who make millions of dollars a year can obtain taxpayer-subsidized health care.
“It does still have no income caps, so people who make $1, $2, $3 million a year,” Moreno said before Schumer interrupted him.
“Once we pass the one-year fixed so people right now aren’t in difficulty, we would sit and negotiate that,” Schumer said. “[Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.)]has said that he won’t negotiate before. We’re willing to negotiate once the credits are extended, plain and simple.”
The Ohio Republican then responded, “So for one year, people making millions of dollars would still receive these COVID-era subsidies?”
At that, Schumer accused Moreno of caring more about billionaires before disengaging and leaving the chamber, according to reports.
“I was going to ask him before he stormed out of the room because evidently he doesn‘t want to hear any opposing views or actually engage in meaningful negotiation … Would he continue 0 dollar premiums, which we know for a FACT, have enormous levels of fraud,” Moreno said.
“If he had stayed, I would have asked him a third question: Does he want these monies to go directly to insurance companies?”
President Donald Trump appeared to gain some leverage in the ongoing government funding standoff Thursday after Senate Democrats sought to link a funding deal to an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
What began as an effort by Democrats to pressure Republicans during the shutdown negotiations has shifted in Trump’s favor, following a new proposal he unveiled on Truth Social.
In his post, the president announced a plan to redirect hundreds of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidy payments from insurance companies to direct payments for American citizens.
“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” Trump wrote.
“In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare. Unrelated, we must still terminate the Filibuster!” he added.
Conservative commentators lauded the proposal as “genius,” noting that the former president has effectively recast himself as an advocate for direct-to-consumer healthcare freedom. They said the plan reframes the debate as “healthcare for the people” versus the Democrats’ defense of “big insurance.”
Shortly after Trump’s post, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) announced that he was working on legislation to turn the proposal into reality.
“Totally agree, @POTUS! I’m writing the bill right now,” Scott said. “We must stop taxpayer money from going to insurance companies and instead give it directly to Americans in HSA-style accounts and let them buy the health care they want. This will increase competition & drive down costs.”
The U.S. Senate has approved President Donald Trump’s first and only nominee to the Boston-based federal appeals court. Until recently, most of the justices on this court were chosen by Democrats and often rejected his policy proposals.
The Republican-led Senate voted 52-46 along party lines to make Joshua Dunlap, a conservative lawyer from Maine who often worked on conservative legal cases, a life-tenured judge on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As of Thursday, that court was the only one of the 13 appeals courts without any active judges appointed by Republican presidents. That has helped make district courts in New England a popular place for Democratic state attorneys general and advocacy groups to file cases against Trump’s agenda.
In his first term, Trump didn’t name any judges to the 1st Circuit. At the start of his second term, he almost lost the chance to choose one when his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, put forth a nomination to fill a seat that U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta had held.
But Biden couldn’t get Julia Lipez confirmed as his candidate before he departed office. Kayatta, who Democratic President Barack Obama appointed, formally became a senior in October 2024, just days before the presidential election that delivered Trump back to the White House.
In July, Trump chose Dunlap, a partner at the legal firm Pierce Atwood, to fill the open position. He said that if the Senate confirmed him, he would “fearlessly defend our Constitution.”
Dunlap got his bachelor’s degree from Pensacola Christian College and then went to Notre Dame Law School, where he graduated in 2008. During law school, he worked as an intern with what is now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal rights nonprofit.
As a lawyer, he has worked on cases that have challenged Maine’s paid family and medical leave program, the state’s campaign finance rules, and the use of ranked-choice voting to run the state’s elections.
This is the second judge approved this week.
The U.S. Senate also confirmed a former clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and the late Antonin Scalia to be a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52 to 45 in favor of Eric Tung, a partner at Jones Day. This made him the first judge President Donald Trump selected for the San Francisco-based appeals court during his second administration.
His confirmation brings the total number of judges Trump appointed to the 9th Circuit from 2017 to 2020 during his first term to 10. This weakens the power of Democratic appointees, who have long held sway on a court that was previously
thought to be the most liberal of all the federal appellate courts.
There are currently 16 Democratic appointees and 13 Republican appointees on the 9th Circuit, including Tung. In July, Trump nominated Tung to fill the seat that U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta had held. She stated in March that she would step down when a successor was named.
When Trump announced Tung’s nomination, he called him a “Tough Patriot” on social media and said he would preserve the Rule of Law in the “most RADICAL, Leftist States” like California, Oregon, and Washington. These are three of the nine states that the 9th Circuit has jurisdiction over.
Tung is a partner at the law firm Jones Day in Los Angeles. Before that, he was a federal prosecutor and worked for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Tung worked as a clerk for Gorsuch twice: once when he was on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and again after Trump confirmed him to the Supreme Court in 2017. He had also worked for Scalia, who passed away in 2016.
A recently declassified U.S. intelligence document has resurfaced debates about the 2016 presidential election, revealing that Russia allegedly obtained sensitive information suggesting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was taking “heavy tranquilizers” during her campaign. The report claims that senior Democratic leaders, including then-President Barack Obama, considered Clinton’s health to be “extraordinarily alarming” at the time, raising questions about both foreign intelligence operations and domestic political transparency.
The revelation comes as the U.S. intelligence community faces renewed scrutiny over its handling of Russian interference claims. While early assessments asserted that the Kremlin sought to boost Donald Trump’s election chances, newly released findings suggest that conclusion may have rested on intelligence later described as “biased” or “implausible.”
Origins of the Report
The information stems from a classified investigation conducted by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) under then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in 2020. Although the report was finalized in September of that year, it was not made public and remained stored in a restricted-access vault at CIA headquarters.
Only this year, under the direction of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was the report declassified. Fox News Digital obtained the documents, acknowledging that certain passages remain redacted for national security reasons.
Alleged Russian Intelligence Findings
According to the declassified report, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) obtained internal communications from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 campaign. These communications reportedly revealed serious concerns within Democratic leadership about Clinton’s health.
“As of September 2016, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service had DNC information that President Obama and Party leaders found the state of Secretary Clinton’s health to be ‘extraordinarily alarming,’ and felt it could have ‘serious negative impact’ on her election prospects,” one section of the report stated.
The report further alleges that Clinton was placed on a strict medical regimen involving “heavy tranquilizers” to manage what were described as “intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.”
Additionally, Russian intelligence reportedly held information suggesting Clinton suffered from several chronic conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, deep vein thrombosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Obama Administration’s Concerns
If accurate, the revelation points to deep unease within the Obama White House and Democratic Party leadership during the height of the 2016 campaign. The report claims that Clinton’s health issues were kept under “strictest secrecy,” with even some of her closest advisors allegedly left in the dark.
For Russia, the acquisition of such sensitive information would have represented a significant intelligence advantage. Beyond campaign strategy, it could have allowed the Kremlin to assess the stability of a potential U.S. president and exploit vulnerabilities in American politics.
Clinton’s Health as a Campaign Flashpoint
Questions about Hillary Clinton’s health were not new in 2016. The issue drew widespread media attention after she collapsed at a 9/11 memorial service in New York City, later attributed to pneumonia. Her campaign initially downplayed the incident, fueling speculation and conspiracy theories.
At the time, Clinton’s opponents frequently raised doubts about her stamina and fitness for office. While most medical experts dismissed claims of severe illness as politically motivated, the newly declassified report suggests that behind closed doors, Democratic leaders may have shared some of the concerns publicly pushed by critics.
Intelligence Community Divisions
The timing of the report’s release has reignited debate over how the U.S. intelligence community handled evidence regarding Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election. The declassified documents indicate that intelligence officials under President Obama placed unusual emphasis on claims that Russia was working directly to elect Trump.
Yet, according to the HPSCI report, the intelligence linking Putin’s government to a pro-Trump operation was often “implausible” or “potentially biased.” Critics argue that the emphasis on Trump overshadowed other critical findings — such as Russia’s possible possession of damaging information about Clinton.
Political Reactions
Reactions to the report’s release have split along predictable partisan lines. Republican lawmakers argue that the findings confirm longstanding suspicions that the intelligence community downplayed damaging details about Clinton while amplifying narratives harmful to Trump.
“This shows what many of us have been saying for years — that the intelligence process in 2016 was politicized from the top down,” one GOP senator remarked.
Democrats, meanwhile, caution that the report must be viewed skeptically, emphasizing that much of the information allegedly held by Russia could not be independently verified. Some argue that releasing such details now risks amplifying unsubstantiated claims and disinformation originally circulated by Moscow.
Implications for U.S. Politics
If Russia did indeed obtain internal DNC communications about Clinton’s health, it raises several important questions. First, it underscores the extent of foreign penetration into U.S. political organizations during the 2016 campaign. Second, it highlights how foreign intelligence can shape — or distort — domestic political narratives.
Perhaps most significantly, the episode forces a reconsideration of how much American voters were told about Clinton’s health at the time, and whether Democratic leaders deliberately withheld information that might have changed the course of the election.
Looking Ahead
The declassification of this report will likely continue to fuel political battles heading into 2026. For Republicans, it represents an opportunity to question Democratic transparency and to revive critiques of Clinton and Obama. For Democrats, it is a reminder of how Russian intelligence operations sought to manipulate American democracy by seeding distrust and division.
Director Gabbard has stated that further declassifications may follow, potentially shedding more light on the intelligence community’s internal debates over 2016. What remains unclear, however, is whether the new information will meaningfully reshape public perceptions of an election that continues to cast a long shadow nearly a decade later.
Conclusion
The claim that Russia possessed sensitive information on Hillary Clinton’s alleged health struggles and tranquilizer use adds another layer of complexity to the 2016 election narrative. While the full truth may never be known, the report underscores two enduring realities: foreign adversaries actively target American politics, and the management — or mismanagement — of intelligence can have profound consequences for democracy.
For now, the revelations raise more questions than answers. But one message is clear: the battles over 2016 are far from finished.