Jefferson Griffin (R) surrendered in his six-month-long battle to steal a North Carolina Supreme Court election from Allison Riggs (D) on Wednesday, the same day that North Carolina Republicans’ other ratfuckery — trying to strip power from the state’s elected Democrats to seize control of election administration in the state — became official.
As my colleague Khaya Himmelman has been reporting, continuously, for months, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a piece of legislation in December 2024, just before it lost its supermajority. The legislation was a power grab disguised as a hurricane relief bill.
The bill contained a provision that gave the then-newly elected Republican state auditor Dave Boliek authority over the state’s five-member election board. The responsibility previously was held by the governor’s office. After the 2024 election, when Democrats held onto the governor’s mansion and the attorney general’s office, North Carolina Republicans moved to strip some power from the newly elected Democrats. No other state auditor in the nation holds power over the state election board.
The bill passed the state legislature, the-then Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed it, the North Carolina House voted to override the veto in the waning days of the supermajority and the bill became law. Both Cooper and now-Gov. Josh Stein (D), the then-governor elect who previously served as the state’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit against the GOP-controlled state legislature’s leadership.
In a 2-1 decision last month, North Carolina Superior Court judges sided with Stein and Cooper, finding the legislation was unconstitutional. That brings us to last week, when a North Carolina Appeals court panel ruled the law could take effect, handing control of the state’s election board — the very body embroiled in Griffin’s six-month-long effort to steal the election from Riggs — to Boliek, the Republican state auditor.
Stein appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court and Boliek, within hours of the law taking effect, appointed three Republicans to the North Carolina Elections Board, shifting the majority to Republicans. The new executive director was appointed today. Griffin also conceded today, a surprising move given the fact that a Republican majority on the state election board could, seemingly, have reversed its position on his various efforts to reverse his defeat. (The board under Democratic control has objected to Griffin’s efforts to throw out tens of thousands of ballots to steal Riggs’ victory.)
“I hope we return [to] a time when those who lose elections concede defeat rather than trying to tear down the entire election system and erode voter confidence,” outgoing state elections board director Karen Brinson Bell said in a statement Wednesday.
MAGA Remembers That Trump’s Base Uses Medicaid, Too
Vulnerable House Republicans have been queasy but relatively quiet about their conference’s planned slashing of Medicaid for months. In the past two weeks, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have been going to work trying to figure out how to make sweeping cuts to Medicaid happen without too many Americans figuring out what they’re doing.
Some of that obfuscation work has hit a rough patch this week, however. Self-imposed deadlines for the text of the targeted cuts coming out of the House E&C and Agriculture Committees have been pushed, as Republicans on the panels struggle to come to an agreement about how exactly they’ll make billions in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. A contingent of right-wing members of the House are pushing for even deeper cuts and are considering scaling back the scope of their tax cut extension in order to make that happen.
Now MAGA influencers — remembering that members of Trump’s voting base are low-income and use Medicaid — are making a scene, claiming Trump never wanted to cut Medicaid and also suggesting that those who support the extreme cuts are sabotaging Republicans’ prospects in the midterms. Laura Loomer went on a Twitter tirade on Monday evening.
NEW:
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) May 6, 2025
🚨 Trump’s Medicaid Promise Under Siege by RINO Saboteurs Like Paragon Health CEO Brian Blase @brian_blase 🚨
In a shocking betrayal of President Donald Trump’s unwavering commitment to America’s working-class families, and his promise to protect Medicaid, Paragon Health… pic.twitter.com/1iuLrM5LUv
New CBO Estimate: Medicaid Cuts Would Affect Millions
A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office — a nonpartisan, federal agency that provides budget and economic information to Congress — indicates millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage if Republicans follow through on the Medicaid cuts they are currently discussing how to pull off.
The report, which analyzes five different options of possible cuts to the social safety net program, estimates that reducing the current 90% federal matching rate for the Medicaid expansion population would lead to 5.5 million people losing coverage.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Tuesday night that Republicans are no longer considering that option. Meanwhile, capping federal spending for the expansion population, which is reportedly still on the table, would lead to 3.3 million people being kicked off their coverage, CBO estimates.
”This non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Republicans’ Medicaid proposals result in millions of people losing their health care,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said in a Wednesday statement. “Trump has repeatedly claimed Republicans are not cutting health care, but CBO’s independent analysis confirms the proposals under consideration will result in catastrophic benefit cuts and people losing their health care. It’s time for Republicans to stop lying to the American people about what they’re plotting behind closed doors in order to give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.”
— Emine Yücel
‘They Have To Follow Their Heart’
Even Donald Trump is toning down his typically-boisterous support for Ed Martin, his pick to run the D.C. USA’s office, who has used his post as acting head of the office to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) who is up for reelection next year, has made it clear he’s a “no” on moving Martin’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, likely tanking his prospects of getting confirmed.
Her are Trump’s remarks to reporters regarding Martin’s nomination in the Oval Office today:
“That’s really up to the senators; if they feel that way, they have to vote the way they vote. They have to follow their heart and they have to follow their mind.”
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Whatever happens, if it’s ‘good’ it’s Trump’s will, and if it’s not ‘good,’ it’s: (a) not his fault, or (b) it really didn’t happen, or (c) he was betrayed by unbelievers; it’s like the venal MF’er is the second coming to MAGA. Actually not inappropriate now that I think of it.
Those folks are going to have to be dragged out.
HI! We’re the Republicans. And we will do anything to avoid passing legislation or rendering judicial decisions or issuing executive orders or doing anything else that would actually help members of the American public generally. That is not our job, man.
Our job is to pass legislation or render judicial decisions or issue executive orders or do anything else that will make it easier for us – the Republicans – to hold onto our jobs forever,without ever ever doing that thing we mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Capiche?
Republicans: Medicaid cuts, what Medicaid cuts?