Liberal wins Wisconsin Supreme Court race as GOP holds House specials; Cory Booker sets Senate speech record

The Senate confirmed Matt Whitaker as the U.S. ambassador to NATO in a 52-45 vote.

Whitaker eased some senators' concerns when he said during his confirmation hearing that U.S. commitment to the military alliance should be "ironclad." Trump is considering a major change to U.S. involvement in NATO.

Whitaker served in the first Trump administration as a top official at the Justice Department.

Susan Crawford has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, allowing liberals to maintain their narrow majority on the battleground state’s highest court — and defying Elon Musk after he spent millions of dollars to oppose her.

Crawford, a Dane County circuit judge who was backed by Democrats, secured a 10-year term on the court over Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit judge and a former Republican attorney general. As the first major battleground state election of Trump’s second term, the technically nonpartisan contest drew national attention and became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history.

The outcome is a setback for Trump and Musk, his billionaire adviser. Trump endorsed Schimel in the final stretch of the race, while Musk injected himself into the center of it, spending huge sums of money, visiting Wisconsin days out from Election Day and frequently posting about the race on his X feed. In turn, Democrats and progressive groups made Musk their primary villain, attacking his influence on the race and his efforts to slash federal jobs and the government through the Department of Government Efficiency.

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As NBC News projects victory for liberal judge Susan Crawford in Wisconsin's Supreme Court case, the results in counties with most of the vote in show why: She is running well ahead of Kamala Harris' vote shares in the state, which Harris narrowly lost.

In Fond du Lac County, conservative judge Brad Schimel holds the lead with about 60% to Crawford’s 40%. Trump carried the county in November with 64%, while Harris got 35%.

And looking to La Crosse County, Crawford leads with 64% to Schimel's 36%. In 2024, Harris took the county with 54%, while Trump had 45%.

Wisconsin voters today approved a proposed amendment to enshrine an existing voter ID law in the state Constitution, NBC News projects.

The measure will add language to the state Constitution identical to a 2011 law requiring voters to provide photo ID when they vote or when they are requesting absentee ballots.

Conservatives have said they sought to enshrine it in the state Constitution because doing so would make it far more difficult to strike it down if a liberal-majority state Supreme Court were to invalidate it with a ruling. However, strategists in the state, including Republicans, have acknowledged another motivation for adding the question to the ballot: to try to increase conservative turnout in today's Supreme Court race.

The White House’s firing of a career federal prosecutor last week was one in a series of Trump administration moves that have undermined the post-Watergate separation between the White House and the Justice Department — and spread fears about political interference in ongoing criminal cases.

A White House official told Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Schleifer, based in Los Angeles, in an email Friday that he was being terminated. The email came from Saurabh Sharma of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, two sources said.

The office handles roughly 4,000 political appointees within the executive branch, but it isn’t involved in hiring career employees.

Presidents appoint the 93 U.S. attorneys who serve as top federal prosecutors in jurisdictions around the country, but not the thousands of career prosecutors, known as assistant U.S. attorneys.

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This afternoon, a small group of federal workers staked out the Senate basement to talk to senators about federal workforce cuts. In a striking interaction, a fired HHS worker, Mack Schroeder, approached Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who told him he “deserved” to be fired because he seemed like a “clown.” The interaction was captured in a video Schroeder posted on Instagram.

In the video, Schroeder can be heard saying: "Hi, I was a worker at HHS. I was fired illegally on Feb. 14th. There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities. Are you going to do anything to stop what’s happening?"

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., placed a hold today on the nomination of Ed Martin, the “stop the steal” organizer and advocate for Jan. 6 defendants whom Trump nominated to be Washington, D.C.’s chief federal prosecutor on a permanent basis.

Trump named Martin, a Trump loyalist, as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on Inauguration Day, and Martin quickly used the power of his office in a highly political fashion: launching investigations into prominent Democrats and demoting federal prosecutors who supervised the prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom Martin himself represented.

“In every way he can, Ed Martin has demolished the firewalls between the White House and his own office within the Department of Justice,” Schiff said in a statement. “Confirming him to serve permanently in the role he has already abused in his interim capacity would cross the prosecutorial Rubicon that every single Senator would come to regret and that would threaten the rights of Americans from all walks of life.”

Placing a hold on a nominee prevents unanimous consent to proceed with votes on the Senate floor. The majority party can still schedule a roll call vote for the nominee, though that eats up more floor time.

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Now that Republicans are projected to win both House special elections today, the House Republican majority will be at 220-213 once the two new lawmakers are sworn in.

That means Republicans can afford to lose three Republicans and still pass legislation along party lines, assuming every sitting member votes.

Patronis and Fine will head to Congress when Republicans are trying to piece together a sweeping budget proposal to tackle Trump’s top priorities, including extending his 2017 tax cuts.

There are two remaining vacant seats in the House, both previously held by Democrats in districts the party is expected to hold in special elections. While the special election to replace the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona is in September, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, hasn't scheduled a special election to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris praised Booker for his 25-hour speech, which broke the record for the longest remarks on the Senate floor.

“The true measure of a leader is not based on who you beat down but on who you lift up. For over 24 hours, my friend @CoryBooker stood on the floor of the Senate and lifted up the voices of the American people harmed by the current administration,” Harris wrote on X.

“We must continue to fight for the best of who we are as Americans. Thank you, Cory, for your leadership,” she added.

When Booker took the floor last night, he said he intended to disrupt “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”