Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Tulsi Gabbard has resigned. In her resignation statement she says it’s because her husband has a very rare form of bone cancer. This sounds horrendous, and I wish them both well. Gabbard is only 45 years old, and I thought perhaps her husband was an older man. But no; he’s actually seven years younger than she.

(2) The DNC “autopsy” of the 2024 election is out, and it’s quite a document. The Ruthless podcast guys make very humorous mincemeat of it here (if you have trouble with the occasional obscenity I suggest you skip it, but I think they’re both insightful and funny):

(3) Tucker Carlson is not a happy camper about Massie’s political defeat. Yesterday I predicted that Massie would go on the interview circuit and probably land one with Carlson, and Carlson’s remarks about the election only deepen that possibility in my mind. From the link:

For [Carlson], [Massie’s loss] means that the Republican Party is dead, MAGA is dead, and America is a conquered nation controlled by evil Jews in Israel. …

Taqiyya Qatarlson also claims the election was stolen by “mail in” ballots. He says he has no evidence of this, but invites the Nazi losers who watch him to do their own “sleuthing” and prove his conspiracy for him.

Plus, Carlson now has no idea what Islamic Jihad is:

The entire “woke right” anti-Israel wing of the right (or supposed right; I really don’t think they’re on the right) is extremely upset at Massie’s loss, as is the left.

(4) Why is Wisconsin trying to avoid federal scrutiny of its voting rolls? I think that’s mostly a rhetorical question:

The [Wisconsin] judge ruled that Wisconsin’s “voter registration lists are not documents subject to production under [federal law]. That makes it unnecessary to decide whether the government has complied with the other statutory requirements to demand records.”

Gov. Tony Evers cheered the ruling.

“The Trump Administration only wants this info so they can prevent eligible Wisconsinites from voting, sow doubt in our secure elections, make it harder for our clerks and administrators to do their jobs, and claim there’s fraud when they lose elections,” Evers wrote in a post on X. “This is great news.”

Sure thing, they want to prevent eligible voters from voting, and they want to “sow doubt” in elections. Nothing spreads trust in the validity of elections like secret voter rolls.

But Dan Lennington with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty said the Trump Administration is not “sowing doubt.” Instead, he said the Trump Administration simply wants to make sure Wisconsin is doing what it has promised it would do for years.

“The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received about $77 million over the last two decades from the federal government to maintain its computer systems, which includes the statewide voter registration database. The feds now just want the opportunity to inspect what they are largely paying for,” Lennington told The Center Square. “They do this all the time in other areas like Medicaid, unemployment, and other federally funded areas.”

(5) Crime has gone down under this administration’s watch:

The FBI released preliminary crime data for 2025, and the numbers are stunning. Violent crime fell at a rate not seen in nearly a century, and the man overseeing the bureau is the same one the left has been trying to torch for months.

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped more than 18% nationwide last year. Aggravated assault fell more than 7%. Rape declined nearly 8%. Robbery cratered by about 18.5%. All told, violent crime dropped about 9.3% overall; there were roughly 1.1 million fewer violent crimes than in 2024.

“The 2025 crime data in this report shows the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937 — as well as huge decreases across the board in terms of aggravated assault, rape, and robbery,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.

Property crime wasn’t far behind. It dropped by about 12.4%, translating to approximately 5.2 million fewer property offenses than the year before. The data comes from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which pulled information from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies — covering roughly 96% of policing across the country.

Could be that the FBI has gotten tougher on crime. Could also be that Trump intervened in DC, as well. And could be something about the deportation of illegal alien violent criminals.

41-year sentence for Minnesota fraud perp, and more arrests

The New Neo Posted on by

The linchpin of the “Feeding Our Future” fraud in Minnesota, Aimee Bock, has received a 41-year sentence:

Aimee Bock, 45, was handed the stiff sentence on Tuesday after being convicted of all counts last March – prosecutors describing her as the “ringleader” of the biggest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country.

Most of the other defendants in the case are Somali immigrants, and the recipients of the aid were meant to be members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

Bock and her convicted co-defendant, Salim Said, falsely claimed to have served 91 million meals, and used the quarter-billion dollars in federal funds to bankroll their lavish lifestyles, Acting US Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick said at the time of their convictions.

Bock used the ill-gotten funds to buy opulent cars, including a Porsche Panamera, which range in price from around $110,000 to over $230,000, as well as some 60 laptops, iPads and iPhones, a diamond necklace, bracelet and earrings and designer handbags.

I originally wrote about the case in March of 2025. As far as I can determine, Salim Said has yet to be sentenced.

In related news, fifteen more people are charged with fraud in Minnesota:

Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said:

“… Our cases today involve seven different state managed Medicaid programs that have been systematically pilfered by fraudsters who treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggy bank.

“One of the programs has been completely shut down because there’s no money left. It’s all gone. That was Minnesota state-run housing stabilization services program designed to help the homeless find and maintain housing. It was estimated in 2020 that it would cost only about $2.5 million a year to fund this program, but it ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million by 2024 due to fraud. And because of all the fraud, Minnesota had to shut the program ,,,”

Fifty times as much as expected, and it took them all this time to indict the culprits despite the obvious nature of the fraud.

None of the articles I found listed more than a few names of those charged (for example, this), but the ones listed seemed to be of Somalis. This is in accord with earlier reports, which stated that Somalis were very heavily represented among the fraudsters.

[NOTE: Before her sentencing, Bock said of Ilhan Omar:

“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known.”

I consider that fairly cryptic and I take it to mean she had nothing specific to implicate Omar, and if she did have it she would have revealed it. She went on to say more:

Bock has consistently denied knowingly participating in the fraud and insisted she tried to warn state officials. Her group would review the reimbursement paperwork sent by the local restaurants supposed to provide meals, send them out and then distribute the federal funds to them.

“The notion that I’m personally responsible for all of it . . . is so frustrating. I’m the only white person out of 80 or 90 individuals [charged in the fraud]. I’m the only one that doesn’t speak the language,” she added.

Omar was instrumental in loosening the laws that set the stage for the scheme — first by introducing the MEALS Act to Congress in March 2020, which allowed the US Department of Agriculture to issue waivers of school-meal requirements during the pandemic.

I don’t know the details of the evidence against Bock, but my guess is that it was pretty strong, including the luxury items she purchased.

The Massie/Gallrein race and the youth vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I heard a discussion of the Massie defeat in Kentucky’s 4th, and I was alarmed to hear that the only age group Massie didn’t win was those over 65, who turned out in great numbers. I also heard that the young voted overwhelmingly for Massie to the tune of +30.

Usually numbers about age groups rest on exit polling. But today, when I tried to document the age-group results, I couldn’t find any exit polls at all. I did find this Daily Caller post on Facebook entitled, “Ed Gallrein Has Boomers To Thank For Defeating Thomas Massie.”

It began like this:

The Baby Boomer generation overwhelmingly voted for Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein, who ousted seven-term incumbent Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in a GOP primary Tuesday night.

Seventy-two percent of voters between the ages of 26 and 35 supported Massie, while 16.2% backed Gallrein, according to a Quantus Insight poll from May 13. A majority of voters ages 66 to 75, 61.8%, supported Gallrein and 27.1% of that age group supported Massie.

What’s wrong with this picture? The poll’s date was May 13, not an exit poll at all and perhaps not reflecting the actual vote. The piece went on to state:

KY-04 GOP Primary: Results by Age Group

Age 17-25: Massie +25
Age 26-35: Massie +56
Age 36-45: Massie +38
Age 46-55: Massie +17
——
Age 56-65: Gallrein +18
Age 66-75: Gallrein +35
Age 76+: Gallrein +33@QuantusInsights | 5/11-12 | 908 LV https://t.co/H7juBRgxXr pic.twitter.com/pjcRguiF4a

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 13, 2026

Those younger age groups look disturbing, considering that it could reflect an anti-Israel antisemitic turn among young voters on the right. But when you look more carefully at the samples, the youngest groups are small – in some cases extremely small, so small that it makes the results meaningless or nearly so.

For example, there were 4 people in the 17-25 age group., In the 26-35 age group, the sample was bigger but still quite small: 67 people. In the 36-45 age group there were 125 people and in the 46-55 group there were 136. Those numbers over 100 increase the validity but still have a fairly large margin of error (couldn’t find that figure, though). And in the 46-55 group there were also 12.5% undecided, which could have nearly evened the vote if all of the undecideds went for Gallrein. In addition, in general, “undecideds” in the poll leaned toward Gallrein.

In the older age groups of 56-65 and 66-75 the samples were decent-sized: in the 240s. And those groups went strongly for Gallrein.

So it’s difficult to tell what it all means. Not only are the numbers flawed but they don’t say what actually happened in the voting booths (I assume there are still voting booths in Kentucky?). You might ask why I pay attention to polls, but my answer is that they’re pretty much all we have to go on in trying to understand election results, despite their many flaws.

Massie himself is claiming that despite his win, he’s the wave of the future:

The Kentucky congressman claimed in his speech after his defeat that young voters were still on his side.

“People that want somebody that will go along to get along, I’ve never heard of that strategy but that seems to be what the voters want,” Massie said. “But not the young voters.”

The crowd was still energetic despite Massie’s loss, and started a chant of “No more wars!” that the congressman joined in on. Massie’s speech meandered through different topics and touched on other politicians before another chant started of “America First!”

I think Massie’s future will involve a lot of talk show and podcast appearances, bragging about his success with youth. Maybe he’ll even score an appearance with Tucker Carlson, so they can rant about Jewish influence and the new wink/wink term for Jews, the “Epstein class.”

And then there’s Raffensperger

The New Neo Posted on by

Raffensperger lost his Georgia primary for the governorship:

Raffensperger, who is well known for rebuking the president’s push to overturn the 2020 election, came in dead last in a field of three candidates vying for the GOP nomination for Georgia governor, earning less than 15 percent of voter support.

Trump endorsed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who led the crowded primary with 38.78 percent of votes, while billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson gathered 32.85 percent of voter support.

Neither met the 50 percent threshold to win the party nomination outright, so the two are projected to advance to a runoff in the Republican primary for governor in the Peach State, according to Decision Desk HQ.

The articles I’ve seen about this defeat – and other primary defeats – emphasize the “Trump foe” or “Trump revenge” aspects. But Raffensperger, like the others, was defeated not because Trump dictated it and the voters follow like lemmings. It’s because of what Raffensperger himself actually did. I’m not in Georgia and yet, because I followed events there, I know I would not have voted for him no matter what Trump said or didn’t say about the race.

I’ve written about Raffensperger many, many times before. You can find those posts here. I refer you in particular to this one.

Can we call Democrat Maureen Galindo a Nazi yet?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m just “asking questions.”

But the question originates with this news about Galindo, running for Congress is Texas’ 35th District, and the current Democrat frontrunner although she faces a runnoff:

Controversy-tarred congressional candidate Maureen Galindo this week pledged to transform a site south of San Antonio now used by the Trump administration to detain migrants into an internment camp for “American Zionists.”

“She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” Galindo wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, referring to herself in the third person. “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists.”

As you might expect, Galindo accuses her opponent in the runoff, Johnny Garcia, “of participating in a human trafficking conspiracy orchestrated by billionaire zionist Jews. She also pledged during a Texas Public Radio interview to put Garcia on trial for treason.”

Well, of course she has. In addition, she claims – another common defense of those promoting this sort of approach – that she’s not an antisemite, and she doesn’t hate Jews, just is against “Zionists.” Funny thing, that’s a group which happens to include a great many Jews (and others) who support the only country in the world that is the historical and ancestral (and Biblical) Jewish homeland, a tiny tiny country that was formed legally by UN partition of former colonial possessions and has had to fight for its existence every step of the way against vicious enemies that would obliterate it.

Maureen Galindo received 29.2% of the Democrat votes in her primary, to Garcia’s 27%. Two other candidates received 20% or more, so the race was split four ways relatively evenly. Nevertheless, that Galindo is the frontrunner is very disturbing. Whether you care about Israel or not, her “solution” is astoundingly alarming.

Galindo is so exceedingly extreme that even Democrats have condemned her – for now, when the district still has other viable Democrat candidates that could be the nominee. Democrat leadership would prefer that one of her Democrat opponents wins, because otherwise not only might Galindo lose the election to the Republican, but she would become the poster child for Democrat Jew-hatred. But I wonder if, in the event that she wins the runoff and becomes the Democrat nominee, whether they will rally behind her as they have with the abominable Platner.

I think I know the answer.

NOTE: It’s not easy to find a lot of background on Galindo, but I did locate this:

Maureen Galindo, 38, is a marriage and family therapist who has a master’s in community psychology from Concordia University in Portland, Ore. She’s also a housing advocate who fought the razing of her old downtown apartment complex to build a baseball stadium, and ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2025.

I’ve also read elsewhere that she’s a sex therapist. At any rate, she’s young (as expected), but her degree – “community psychology” – is in a field with which I’m unfamiliar, although I do know a lot about degrees in the general area of psychology and specifically marriage and family therapy. Turns out that, curiously enough, “community psychology” doesn’t seem to be a clinical degree so I don’t see how it would ordinarily qualify a person to be a therapist, and it’s basically a leftist thing (no surprise there either), a sort of glorified community organizer:

Community psychology goes beyond an individual focus and integrates social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and international influences to promote positive change, health, and empowerment at individual and systemic levels.

Depending on one’s training, experiences, and preferences, community psychologists can work as educators, professors, program directors, consultants, policy developers, evaluators, and researchers in community organizations, universities, or government agencies to promote mental health and community well-being. …

We seek to expand “helping” beyond traditional psychotherapy to promote wellness.

We engage in action-oriented research to develop, implement, and evaluate programs.

We base our work on a scientific foundation to better understand the multiple influences of the social environment on health and wellness

We build collaborative relationships with community members, groups, and organizations to solve social problems.

We consult with and provide tools to organizations to build capacity to address social problems such as exploitation and victimization.

We analyze government, civic life, and workplace settings in order to understand and improve fair and diverse participation.

We fight oppression, work to reduce social inequalities, and work with marginalized people toward their empowerment.

.

This article also adds a bit of background to Galindo’s views on Israel and Jews. Although it’s written by someone who is not especially happy with Israel, it nevertheless recognizes how far Galindo goes towards Jew-hating. She seems to be somewhat in the Candace Owens mode:

Galindo often gestures toward a conspiracy theory, common in the Nation of Islam, that the people who identify as Jews today are not the Jews of the Bible but impostors. In response to two questions I emailed her, she pointed me to Revelation 3:9: “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.” In Congress, she said, she would write legislation decreeing “that any support of Zionism is antisemitic, since it’s the Zionists literally killing the Semites of the Middle East.”

Tucker Carlson also leans towards that notion. It’s the reason he suggested, in the course of his Huckabee interview, that the Jews of Israel should be DNA-tested to see if they’re actually descended from Abraham. I wonder where he intends to get Abraham’s DNA for comparison.

US aid to Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

From commenter “Keith”:

All it takes to be an antisemite these days is to question why we give Israel so much money.

Of course that’s not all it takes. In fact, it’s a question I’ve asked, too: why so much aid? But when I researched it, I found that the answer made perfect sense.

Before I give the answer, I’ll mention Keith’s second comment today on the subject, after various people responded negatively:

How to prove a point without really trying. Israel firsters are in the room. And your wrong ,we should not give any money to any country. If Israel can have free education and health care, they can pay their own way. ,,flame away

Now, if Keith had led with “we should not give any money to any country,” that would have been a different point and a different argument or discussion. That discussion could be on the purpose of foreign aid, whether it fulfills its purpose, and the merits and/or flaws of the financially isolationist approach (does this include no bases anywhere outside the US, for example?). But that would be switching the argument and is quite different from focusing on US aid to Israel. Plus, of course, one can favor foreign aid for Israel without being an “Israel Firster”: one can believe, for example, that giving aid to Israel is extremely helpful to the US itself.

Any discussion of actual dollar amounts without background about how the aid is given and what is done with it is to leave out almost everything important. So let’s fill in those blanks.

First, a very short summary version:

Next, a longer version. Some excerpts:

Israel is America’s strongest ally in the Middle East. The two nations are bound together not only by interests, but also by the deeply held values they share.

Israel provides a cost-effective alternative to stationing American troops in the region. …

Israel is a major economic and technological ally. Many American companies including Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Intel operate major research facilities in Israel, and Israel creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in America through trade, investment, and other cooperation. U.S. aid helps Israel defend itself so it can remain a valuable contributor to the American economy.

By 2028, Israel must spend 100% of American aid money on American defense contractors. This spending supports well over 20,000 jobs according to recent estimates.

Israel is talking about phasing out US military aid, so perhaps that 2028 benchmark won’t be reached and the amount of aid will be minuscule or zero. But Israel already gives back a great deal of its aid anyway. Here’s how it works:

In the 2000s, as Israel became more economically self-sufficient, economic aid has dropped off to zero in recent years. Military assistance, meanwhile, has steadily risen to levels of typically over $4 billion annually over the past year.

Most U.S. security assistance to Israel falls under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.

Israel is a recipient of U.S. FMF, which functions as a grant that a foreign country then must use to purchase weapons and other military platforms manufactured in the United States. …

While Israel uses FMF to make most arms purchases from the U.S., it often buys additional defense articles using its own funds. As of April 2025 Israel had over 750 active FMS cases, valued at $39.2 billion. …

The United States has recognized Israel as a major non-NATO ally since 1987, and bilateral defense cooperation also includes an array of strategic agreements, joint research and development programs, intelligence sharing, and frequent combined training exercises. …

The emphasis on maintaining Israel’s QME [Qualitative Military Edge] is an acknowledgment that—notwithstanding its impressive military and technological capabilities—Israel has several strategic disadvantages vis-à-vis its adversaries, including its limited size and manpower.

Israel does more than give back its aid for the purpose of buying US armaments – which means the money flows back to the US – and it does more than fight US enemies in the Middle East (terrorist entities controlled by Iran, for the most part). Israel also develops weapons and shares these gains with the US:

From tank protection systems to artificial intelligence-powered warfare solutions, Israeli defense firms and research institutions have consistently delivered cutting-edge innovations that have found their way into the American military. Many of these technologies were born out of Israel’s unique security challenges and its need for rapid innovation in urban and asymmetric warfare. The US military has adopted many of Israel’s systems and integrated them into combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and various counterterrorism operations worldwide.

While Israeli innovations have shaped military doctrine and force structures, they have also had a direct impact on individual warfighters, as seen in battlefield medical advancements. The Emergency Bandage—a simple yet highly effective hemorrhage control dressing developed by an Israeli military medic—has saved countless American lives. First introduced in the 1990s, the bandage features a built-in pressure applicator that allows soldiers to treat severe wounds with one hand. …

The Israeli military’s adaptation of the D9 bulldozer into a heavily armored combat bulldozer offered a battlefield-tested model that directly influenced American operations in Iraq. …

Israeli advancements in force protection have dramatically increased the survivability of armored platforms in combat. The Trophy Active Protection System (APS) is one of the most significant Israeli contributions to armored warfare. …

Recognizing the increasing threat of modern anti-tank weapons, the US Army integrated the Trophy APS onto M1 Abrams main battle tanks beginning in 2018. …

Furthermore, as unmanned aerial threats evolve, the Trophy APS is now being adapted to counter drone-based attacks. …

Having faced IED threats for years from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations, Israel’s counter-IED capability far exceeded that of the United States. Israel shared these technologies with the United States, providing it with vehicle-mounted microwave devices called Dragon Spike and Dragon Spike II to test in Iraq and Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. These devices were not a silver bullet to the IED problem, but they did help jump-start the United States’ counter-IED efforts.

I’ve already quoted a lot from that site, so I’ll stop here because I believe I’ve made my point. But there’s plenty more at the link and I suggest you take a look. Suffice to say that I don’t think there’s a country on earth that helps the US more, militarily. I don’t think any other country is even close.

[ADDENDUM: And by the way, since Keith’s comments were originally on the Massie thread, I thought this would be a good place for a link to a post from Ace today on the topic of Massie’s “principles.”]

Massie’s out

The New Neo Posted on by

In Kentucky’s Fourth District:

Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein defeated longtime Rep. Thomas Massie in what turned out to be the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, one which pitted some prominent Republican figures against each other. …

Gallrein, who served as a Navy SEAL for 30 years and who is a 5th-generation farmer, had a simple yet effective message from the start of his campaign, entering the race in October with Trump’s endorsement already in hand:

“This is Trump country. It’s time we had a congressman who acts like it.”

Our brilliant and knowledgeable journalists

The New Neo Posted on by

Katy Tur of MSNOW:

Katy Tur: What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government? They come from you, our creator and heavenly father. Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?

McKay Coppins: I actually think that that idea is not wholly uncommon. I mean, the idea that we have certain inalienable rights that come from god can be read in a fairly benign way, which is basically that we have innate human rights, that our constitution and our government, our democratic government are meant to codify. Right. That idea is not totally abnormal.

Good to know it’s not “totally abnormal” (Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic). Tur is 42 years old and Coppins is 39. Do they know anything about the text of the Declaration of Independence? Back in the ancient times of my own youthful education, we were required to memorize a couple of paragraphs, including the relevant passage “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

It reminds me that it was often Obama;s habit to leave out the “Creator” part (from 2010):

At a Democratic fundraiser on Monday night, President Obama once again misquoted the Declaration of Independence’s most famous sentence and once again omitted its reference to our “Creator.” According to the text of his remarks published on the official White House website, he said: “[W]hat makes this place [America] special is not something physical. It has to do with this idea that was started by 13 colonies that decided to throw off the yoke of an empire, and said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”

The first time that something happens and is met with publicity and criticism, it could well be an accident or part of the learning curve — like the first time one bows down to foreign royalty when other U.S. presidents haven’t; or the first time one issues a public apology abroad for past (real or imagined) American sins in a way that other presidents haven’t. But the second time, the assumption must be that it’s probably deliberate — and that makes it all the more appalling. Other presidents didn’t deliberately misquote the Declaration, and they didn’t leave out (or rewrite) the words about our rights being endowed by our Creator.

NOTE Some of what is going on with Tur et al. is that she suffers from a lack of cultural literacy (see this).

NOTE II: I know I’ve already written a lot about the abominable Kristof article, but here’s a link to a good essay about it, by Judge Roy K. Altman.

Trump endorses Ken Paxton for Texas senator

The New Neo Posted on by

CNN characterizes the endorsement as “upending Senate GOP plans”:

Cornyn has spent over a year courting Trump’s support, while Paxton has run to Cornyn’s right and pitched himself as a stronger ally of the president. Cornyn and Senate GOP leaders argued that he is a stronger general-election candidate as Democrats look to win statewide office in Texas for the first time since 1994.

The runoff is a week away, and early voting began Monday.

True that Cornyn would be stronger in the general? False? I am no expert on Texas politics, but it seems to me a tossup: Paxton appeals more to the base and Cornyn to the middle and is disliked by the base as a RINO. But Paxton is described as “scandal-plagued.” Then again, Lisa Murkowski supports Cornyn and says “she was ‘supremely disappointed’ and echoed leadership concerns that Paxton could have a harder time keeping the seat in GOP hands.” I suppose “leadership” means Thune? And of course, it’s Murkowski saying this, and I do not trust her to act in the GOP’s best interests..

The whole things seems like a mess:

Despite promising to intervene quickly after March 3, when Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton, Trump kept both campaigns on edge for months. He initially said he would ask his non-endorsed candidate to drop out, but his neutral stance meant the opportunity to do so came and went.

Instead, the two camps and their allies have spent nearly $25 million on advertising in the runoff, much of it used for the two candidates to bash each other in intensely personal terms. It brings the total ad cost of the Republican primary to nearly $125 million, most of which has come from the pro-Cornyn side.

Apparently Trump thinks that Talarico, the Democrat opponent, will be a weak candidate. I hope he’s correct. For what it’s worth (probably not all that much), polls indicate that both Republicans are more or less tied with Talarico at present.