Scott Brown is back with a fourth Senate campaign, the latest in his circuitous career
Now, maybe it's time for a Tesla Cybertruck.
On Tuesday, the 65-year-old Republican launched his fourth bid for the US Senate, and his second in New Hampshire, vying for the seat being vacated by three-term Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. If he were to win the nomination, he'd likely face Representative Chris Pappas, 45, who appears to have a clear path to the Democratic nomination. And Brown didn't waste any time signaling how he would attack him.
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'Chris Pappas wants a better title,' Brown said in
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Brown, of course, knows a thing or two about titles. He was 'Downtown Scottie Brown,' a high school basketball standout. He was a Cosmopolitan centerfold. He became a lawyer, a colonel in the National Guard, a Massachusetts state representative, and then a state senator before pulling off that Senate win in 2010. He
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After he lost reelection to Democrat Elizabeth Warren in 2012, Brown's resume grew even more eclectic. He became a Fox News commentator, a
His career has been driven as much by ambition as by a willingness to embrace whatever challenge comes next and a healthy attitude that he wasn't too good for any role.
Politically, Brown has evolved with the times — and the terrain. In Massachusetts, he positioned himself as a moderate, independent-minded Republican, a posture that resonated in the state's deep-blue political culture. But when he moved to New Hampshire and ran in the 2014 Republican Senate primary, he found himself pressured to tack to the right. He won a multicandidate GOP primary but lost the general election to Shaheen.
Since then, Brown has embraced his party's populist turn. He was an early endorser of Trump's first run for president and has remained a staunch supporter ever since. When his wife, former television reporter Gail Huff Brown, ran for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022, she ran praising Trump. (She lost the nomination to Karoline Leavitt, the current White House press secretary.)
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Heading into this contest, it is less clear whether Trump will return the favor for Brown, who is not exactly beloved among the New Hampshire MAGA base. While Pappas has basically cleared the primary, other Republicans, including state Senator Dan Innis, tell the Globe they are seriously considering getting in.
The biggest challenge that Brown, Innis, or any Republican may have is getting national donors to simply pay attention. The New Hampshire contest is currently listed as a 'lean Democrat' contest by the Cook Political Report, and historically, the party in the White House, currently the Republicans, face challenges in the midterm elections. Add to that that Trump has never won a general election in the state. There hasn't been any recent public polling for the contest.
The path for Brown to return to the Senate is indeed hard. But Brown has been open to changing his stripes and his path.
Should Brown win, he would be only the third person ever to represent two different states in the Senate, both in the immediate post-Civil War era as the nation was expanding.
And if it doesn't work out in 2026, he will be the first person since Allen Keyes to run and lose three US Senate races as a majority party nominee. Like Brown, he also lost in two different states, Maryland and Illinois.
Both would be other titles to add to his list.
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.
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Atlantic
6 minutes ago
- Atlantic
‘We Want God Writing the Laws of the Land'
After wildfires erupted in Los Angeles County earlier this year, a team from the Department of Housing and Urban Development descended on the wreckage. Led by HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the entourage walked through the rubble in Altadena, reassuring victims that the Trump administration had their back. At Turner's request, a Christian-nationalist musician named Sean Feucht tagged along. 'I can't overemphasize how amazing this opportunity is,' Feucht had posted on Instagram the day before. 'I'm bringing my guitar. We're going to worship. We're going to pray.' Feucht has recently become a MAGA superstar. He tours the country holding rallies that blend upbeat Christian-rock songs with sermons that tie in his right-wing political views. Between praising President Donald Trump as God's chosen one and suggesting that abortion supporters are 'demons,' Feucht has repeatedly advocated for the fusion of Church and state. During a performance in front of the Wisconsin statehouse in 2023, Feucht paused after a song to make a proclamation: 'Yeah, we want God in control of government,' he said. 'We want God writing the laws of the land.' He has held rallies at all 50 state capitols, spreading similar theocratic messages. Feucht did not respond to multiple requests for comment. At times, he has denied being a Christian nationalist, but it can be hard to take that perspective seriously. Last year, he overtly embraced the term at a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 'That's why we get called, Well, you're Christian nationalists. You want the kingdom to be the government? Yes! You want God to come and overtake the government? Yes! You want Christians to be the only ones? Yes, we do,' Feucht said. 'We want God to be in control of everything,' he continued. 'We want believers to be the ones writing the laws.' Feucht has the ear of many top Republicans. After he held a prayer gathering on the National Mall a week before the 2024 presidential election, Trump personally congratulated him for 'the incredible job' he was doing defending 'religious liberty.' Feucht then attended Trump's inauguration prayer service at the National Cathedral in January, where he embraced Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The very next week, he posted that House Speaker Mike Johnson had invited him to hold a worship event in the Capitol. Then, in April, Feucht performed at the White House. Given his rallies and political connections, Feucht is 'maybe the most effective evangelical figure on the far right,' Matthew D. Taylor, the senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, told me. He is a big reason Christian nationalism has more purchase now than at any other point in recent history. According to a February poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, a majority of Republicans support or sympathize with Christian nationalism. They agreed with a variety of statements provided by PRRI, such as 'If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.' Last month, the Appeal to Heaven flag —a symbol popular among Christian nationalists—was spotted flying above a D.C. government building. Feucht is pushing to bring religion and government into even closer alignment. Feucht comes from a subset of evangelical Christianity known as the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR. As my colleague Stephanie McCrummen has written, 'The movement has never been about policies or changes to the law; it's always been about the larger goal of dismantling the institutions of secular government to clear the way for the Kingdom. It is about God's total victory.' Many NAR adherents believe in the 'seven-mountain mandate,' a framework that seeks to go beyond ending the separation between Church and state. The goal is to eventually control the 'seven mountains' of contemporary culture: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. Feucht has endorsed the fundamental concept. 'Why shouldn't we be the ones leading the way in all spheres of society?' he said in a 2022 sermon. In a conversation that same year, Feucht referenced his desire for Christian representation in 'the seven spheres of society.' NAR has several high-profile leaders, but Feucht has been especially adept at drawing outside attention to the movement's goals. After rising to prominence during the early days of the pandemic by throwing Christian-rock concerts in violation of lockdown orders, Feucht has built a massive audience of devotees. His constant stream of worship events across the country makes Christian nationalism more accessible for the religious masses, as does his prolific social-media presence (he has half a million followers between Instagram and X). Feucht is connected to just about every faction of the modern right, even the grassroots fringe: On one occasion, he enlisted a member o f the Proud Bo ys, the sometimes-violent far-right group, as part of his security detail. (Feucht later claimed that he wasn't familiar with the group.) With Feucht's help, a version of the seven-mountain mandate is coming true. The Trump administration is cracking down on 'anti-Christian bias' in the federal government, and the president has hired a number of advisers who are linked to Christian nationalism. Under pressure from parents and lawmakers, schools have banned lesson plans and library books related to LGBTQ themes. Feucht is not single-handedly responsible for these wins for Christian nationalists, but his influence is undeniable. Feucht and Hegseth discussed holding a prayer service inside the Pentagon months before the secretary of defense actually did it. Or consider Charlie Kirk, the MAGA power broker who helped run the Trump campaign's youth-vote operation, and then vetted potential White House hires. In 2020, Feucht unsuccessfully ran for Congress and was endorsed by Kirk. Within a week of the endorsement, Kirk invoked the seven-mountain mandate at CPAC, the conservative conference. With Trump, he said, 'finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.' But not everything has been going well for Feucht. In June, six staffers and volunteers who worked for Feucht's published a long and detailed report accusing him of engaging in financial malfeasance. Feucht's former employees claim that he withheld promised expense reimbursements from ministry volunteers, engaged in donor and payroll fraud, and embezzled nonprofit funds for personal use. The allegations track with earlier reporting by Rolling Stone and Ministry Watch, the nonprofit Christian watchdog. Both have reported on opaque financial dealings involving his nonprofits. Citing a lack of transparency and efficiency, Ministry Watch currently gives Sean Feuch Ministries a 'Donor Confidence Score' of 19 out of 100, and encourages potential donors to 'withhold giving' to the organization. Feucht hasn't been charged with any crimes stemming from the allegations, and has denied wrongdoing. 'None of those allegations are true,' Feucht said in a video he recently posted to YouTube. 'We're in great standing with the IRS. We're in great standing with our accountants.' He later added, 'We are taking ground for Jesus and we are not apologizing for that.' It's possible Feucht's audience will take him at his word. The NAR movement is insular and unwavering in its worldview: Allegations are evidence of persecution for success. Still, a large part of Feucht's power is derived from his donors. At some point, some people might get fed up with giving him money. 'He could lose traction at the follower level,' Taylor said. So far, that seems unlikely. Scandals can take down people, but ideas are more resilient. Kirk has continued to advocate for Christian-nationalist positions; last year, he argued that 'the separation of Church and state is nowhere in the Constitution.' (It is, in fact, in the Constitution—right there in the First Amendment.) Even the formerly staunchly secular world of tech is becoming more open to Christian nationalism. In October, Elon Musk held a town hall at Feucht's former church in Pennsylvania, and has called himself a ' cultural Christian.' Marc Andreessen and other investors have backed a tech enclav e in rural Kentucky closely affiliated with Ch ristian nationalists. Regardless of what happens to Feucht, many of the world's most powerful people seem to be inching closer to what he wants.
The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
Senate passes Trump tax bill
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USA Today
11 minutes ago
- USA Today
Fed Chair Powell resists Trump pressure, will wait on rate cuts amid tariff uncertainty
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday reiterated the U.S. central bank plans to "wait and learn more" about the impact of tariffs on inflation before lowering interest rates, again setting aside President Donald Trump's demands for immediate and deep rate cuts. "We're simply taking some time," Powell said at a central bank gathering in Portugal, a day after Trump sent him a handwritten missive noting how low other central banks had cut rates and suggesting the U.S. needed to move. "As long as the U.S. economy is in solid shape, we think that the prudent thing to do is to wait and learn more and see what those effects might be." Yet Powell also declined to rule out a possible rate cut at the Fed's upcoming July 29-30 meeting, prompting investors to slightly boost the possibility of a reduction at that session and shifting focus to a jobs report to be issued on Thursday and new inflation data coming in two weeks, both covering the month of June. Powell noted that a majority of Fed officials in recent projections do expect to lower the benchmark interest rate later this year, and are closely attuned to whether inflation increases this summer as policymakers and many economists expect. "It's going to depend on the are going meeting by meeting," Powell said. "I wouldn't take any meeting off the table or put it directly on the table. It's going to depend on how the data evolve.' July 9, in addition, is the deadline for the possible imposition of higher global tariffs. In case you missed it: Trump says he's already considering '3 or 4 people' to replace Powell at Fed The Fed is facing a complicated moment, weighing sometimes conflicting data that could leave officials faced with both rising unemployment and rising inflation, the worst of both worlds for a central bank tasked with maintaining both stable prices and maximum employment. Uncertainty over trade and other administration policies has left businesses also unsure of what to do, and the Fed's decision-making has been under virtually daily assault from a president eager to install his own chair when Powell leaves the Fed's top job next May. At the Sintra gathering, an annual forum sponsored by the European Central Bank and akin to the Fed's own yearly gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell got at least a momentary reprieve. Asked about Trump's barrage of insults, Powell's comment that the Fed was focused "100%" on its inflation and jobs target drew applause from the audience and from the heads of the ECB, the Bank of England and other central banks who joined him onstage for a panel discussion. Central bank independence from the lobbying of elected officials, at least in the setting of interest rates, is considered key to keeping inflation under control. Powell said his message to whomever Trump chooses to succeed him in a little over 10 months would be "we're trying to deliver macro stability, financial stability, economic stability for the benefit of all the people. If we're going to do that successfully, we need to do it in a completely non-political way, which means we don't take sides. We don't play one side against the other." It remains unclear how long the Fed may have to wait to gain the clarity it needs to resume reducing interest rates. The central bank cut steadily last year beginning in September - something Trump alleges was politically motivated - but stopped in December after lowering the benchmark rate a full percentage point to the current 4.25% to 4.5% range. Powell has made no secret of why. "In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence," Powell said. The central bank targets inflation of 2%, and recent readings remain above that level now for the fourth year running following a spike in prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. While officials are open to lowering rates if inflation proves lower than expected or the job market weakens, Powell said there is nothing in the data so far indicating a need to move fast or soon. Investors had increased the estimated probability of a July rate cut to about one in four after Powell didn't explicitly rule it out, then drove chances back down to close to one in five after data on U.S. job openings came in stronger than expected. "If you look at the economy, growth has been solid, the labor market is solid and still at historically low levels of unemployment," Powell said. "It's not an economy that feels like it's suffering from very tight monetary policy." Reporting by Howard Schneider and Francesco Canepa; Additional reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci
