Leah McElrath
Social Media Director
Human rights activist and communications strategist, formerly Managing Partner of Renna Communications. Follow her on Twitter @leahmcelrath.
With the White House and both chambers of Congress all under Republican control, the latest Gallup polling results show Americans — including Republicans — are growing more concerned about the direction the country is heading. A precipitous 17 percent drop in Republican satisfaction in just one month contributed to overall satisfaction reaching its lowest point since before the 2016 election. […]
By Leah McElrath - June 15, 2017A progressive political advocacy group in Louisiana responded to the shooting of their Republican congressman, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, with clarity and compassion on Wednesday. Scalise and four others were shot and injured in Alexandria, Virginia, during practice for the annual congressional baseball game. After news broke, Metairie Indivisible — an Indivisible Project chapter that covers Scalise’s district — quickly realigned its […]
By Leah McElrath - June 14, 2017The head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) has been making the rounds on television news shows calling for “an end” to all of the investigations into Donald Trump’s possible collusion with the Russian government. During her latest appearance, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel went so far to claim that the entire concern should be wiped […]
By Leah McElrath - June 13, 2017A recently surfaced recording of Donald Trump’s appearance on the Charlie Rose show in 1992 shows that Trump has been obsessed with loyalty and revenge for a very long time. Trump explicitly divides people into two groups: Those who are loyal to him and those who are disloyal. And he chillingly declares that he “loves getting […]
By Leah McElrath - June 12, 2017The last time Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate, when he was still a senator from Alabama seeking to lead the Department of Justice, he lied under oath. And now he might do it again. Sessions has agreed to testify publicly Tuesday afternoon before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Whether his testimony will be under oath has […]
By Leah McElrath - June 12, 2017Donald Trump has engaged in a great deal of “saber-rattling” about North Korea, including his claim of “sending an armada” to the region, but his administration’s recent actions suggest they could be preparing for much more than tough talk. The Trump administration took the highly unusual step of inviting the entire U.S. Senate to the White […]
By Leah McElrath - April 26, 2017In a desperate attempt to delegitimize the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russian government, Donald Trump’s team and media surrogates are engaging in a coordinated smear campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller. In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Jay Sekulow, an attorney who is part of Trump’s personal legal team, denied Trump […]
By Leah McElrath - June 12, 2017Following former FBI director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, both MoveOn.org and the Indivisible Project joined the calls to demand Congress begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Both groups expressed the belief that the standards for obstruction of justice and abuse of power had been met by Trump in his attempts to coerce […]
By Leah McElrath - June 09, 2017Three months after launching an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is refusing to do his job. If you watched the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in March on Russian interference in the presidential election, you would have seen what appeared to be reassuring […]
By Leah McElrath - April 24, 2017Only one week after the Guardian quoted British sources as saying there was “specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, United States government officials are now being cited reporting U.S. intelligence supports the likelihood that “Russian operatives tried to use Trump advisers…to infiltrate the Trump campaign.” Much of the […]
By Leah McElrath - April 21, 2017The House Select Committee on Intelligence has sent letters inviting multiple pivotal figures — including former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates — to testify before the committee about links between Donald Trump and Russian active measures. In March, the White House attempted to block Yates from testifying by exerting executive privilege. However, Yates did not back […]
By Leah McElrath - April 21, 2017Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, recently spoke with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show to explain the stakes involved in investigating Russian interference in not only the 2016 presidential election, but in democracies around the world. While the full six-minute clip is worth watching, below is a […]
By Leah McElrath - April 20, 2017In yet another early morning rant, Donald Trump appeared to announce an entirely new policy toward Qatar, potentially endangering thousands of United States military personnel in the Middle East as a result. On Monday, Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab states cut off diplomatic ties and took other aggressive measures to isolate Qatar due […]
By Leah McElrath - June 06, 2017The shocking British dossier about Donald Trump’s ties with Russia was used by the FBI to obtain a surveillance warrant of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, according to a new CNN report. The FBI corroborated certain elements of the report prepared by former spy Christopher Steele to obtain the secret warrant, under the Foreign […]
By Leah McElrath - April 19, 2017As part of a multiple-topic rant lasting several hours, Donald Trump blamed Democrats for allegedly “taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors”: .@foxandfriends Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors. They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017 The problem with Trump’s false argument […]
By Leah McElrath - June 05, 2017As part of an hours long rage-fest on Twitter beginning at dawn, Donald Trump doubled down on his earlier attacks on Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor. On Sunday, Trump mischaracterized Khan’s comments to his city, accusing the mayor of being insufficiently alarmed by the attack. On Monday morning, Trump amped up his attacks on the […]
By Leah McElrath - June 05, 2017The White House Easter Egg Roll is a 139-year-old tradition. Making the arrangements and hosting the public onto the White House grounds are part of the job for all presidential administrations and first families. Nonetheless, like with so many things, the members of Donald Trump’s administration appear to see the event as something for which […]
By Leah McElrath - April 17, 2017From the coasts to the heartland, Americans demonstrated across the nation under the banner of “March for Truth” to demand answers about Donald Trump’s possible collusion with the Russian government. The objectives of the protests are straightforward and nonpartisan: establish an independent commission to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia; ensure the independent commission operates with transparency; […]
By Leah McElrath - June 03, 2017According to a recent report, the White House has privately directed federal agencies not to comply with oversight requests from Democratic members of the House and Senate. At best, such a directive is not merely an extension of partisanship but rather a frontal assault on the federal government’s system of checks and balances. In addition, such direction […]
By Leah McElrath - June 03, 2017In a political environment where it can be challenging to maintain a sense of hope and optimism about the future, French President Emmanuel Macron offered a soothing balm of rationality and compassion. After Donald Trump proclaimed he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change, political and corporate leaders both within the U.S. […]
By Leah McElrath - June 02, 2017Just as the investigation into Donald Trump’s possible collusion with the Russian government heats up, he is reportedly taking the shockingly brazen step of beginning to dismantle sanctions against Russia. And the sanctions he is targeting for removal first? They are directly related to the very Russian activities involving Trump and the 2016 United States […]
By Leah McElrath - June 01, 2017Bypassing the need for Senate confirmation, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has reportedly accepted a “secretarial appointment” to serve as assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke is most infamous for running a jail in which a mentally vulnerable man died of “profound dehydration” after the water in his cell was turned off […]
By Leah McElrath - May 17, 2017Breaking out of “red” and “blue” boxes, the March for Truth movement continues to grow across the nation. On June 3rd, Americans from more than 40 states will take to the streets to demand answers about the possibility of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election. Marches are now scheduled in […]
By Leah McElrath - June 01, 2017Donald Trump’s infamously short attention span and self-obsession is becoming a matter of national security. According to Reuters, officials on the National Security Council who are preparing Trump for his upcoming trip to the Middle East are struggling to figure out how to brief the president in a way that will capture and hold his attention: […]
By Leah McElrath - May 17, 2017In a striking display of unity, the majority of voters from virtually every demographic currently believe the United States is “on the wrong track” under Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll. The poll also showed that in just one week, support for Trump’s impeachment rose 5 percent. Defying the common […]
By Leah McElrath - May 31, 2017House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is forcing her Republican colleagues to take a public stand on an independent investigation of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. In a letter to the Democratic caucus, she announced that she will be filing a “discharge petition” Wednesday to force a vote on the Swalwell-Cummings bill – also known as the “Protecting Our Democracy Act” or […]
By Leah McElrath - May 17, 2017The former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service went on the record saying Donald Trump owes money to Russia, putting Trump in a compromised position that “lingers” over him as president. Richard Dearlove, who led the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly referred to as MI6, from 1999-2004, stated in an interview with Prospect Magazine: What lingers […]
By Leah McElrath - April 13, 2017Following the White House meeting with Turkey’s autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Donald Trump spoke about the “great honor” of Erdogan’s visit, and Erdogan called Trump a “dear friend” and congratulated him on a “legendary triumph” in the 2016 elections: In the Oval Office, Pres Trump calls it a "great honor" to have meeting […]
By Leah McElrath - May 16, 2017Despite Donald Trump’s efforts, Americans are not backing down from demanding answers regarding Trump’s ties to Russia and that country’s meddling in our presidential election. And the shocking revelation that Trump gave classified information to Russia only adds to the urgency and raises even more questions about his relationship with that country. The March for […]
By Leah McElrath - May 15, 2017As part of his effort to delegitimize the press, Donald Trump has a long history of railing against the news media’s use of anonymous sources and leaks from within government — but only if the resulting reports are critical of him, his family, or his administration. He praises Fox News propaganda that supports his agenda […]
By Leah McElrath - May 30, 2017