Senate Confirms Trump Nominee Anne-Leigh Moe As U.S. District Judge
The United States Senate on Tuesday advanced the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee Anne-Leigh Moe to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. The vote was 53–46.
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Trump celebrated the confirmation with a post on his Truth Social account.
“I am pleased to announce the nomination of Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe to serve as Judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida,” Trump wrote.
“Anne-Leigh has fiercely advocated for Sunshine State residents as a Judge on Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals, and as Trial Judge on Florida’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court. Anne-Leigh will prioritize LAW AND ORDER unlike other activist Judges who put the safety of Illegal Criminals over the safety of AMERICANS. Congratulations Anne-Leigh!” Trump added.
Moe has served as a judge on Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal since 2022. Before that, she spent nearly a decade as a circuit judge in the state’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, which includes Hillsborough County. She previously worked as an assistant state attorney in Tampa.
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Her confirmation marks another major judicial win for the Trump administration as it continues to fill vacancies across the federal courts.
President Trump appears to be in no hurry to resolve the ongoing government shutdown, according to analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten.
That’s because, according to the CNN data analyst, it doesn’t seem to be hurting him politically as much as it is hurting Democrats. In fact, Enten says, Trump’s faring well.
Enten compared Trump’s current net approval rating to his standing during the 2018–2019 shutdown, noting that at a similar point in that earlier standoff, Trump’s approval had already declined by three percentage points and “would fall considerably more.”
In contrast, Enten said the current shutdown has so far had no measurable impact on Trump’s overall support and in fact, he’s even up by a point.
“This shutdown hasn’t eaten into Donald Trump support at all. His net approval rating is actually up a point in terms of his popular support,” Enten said. “So the bottom line is this: the first shutdown during Trump’s first term, 2018-2019, was hurting Donald Trump. This one is not hurting him at all. There’s no real reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, ‘I want to get out of this shutdown.’”
Enten said Trump’s approval ratings have remained stable because fewer Americans hold him responsible for the current government shutdown than during his first term. During the 2018–2019 shutdown, 61 percent of respondents blamed Trump for the impasse, compared with 48 percent now, according to Enten.
“Again, it’s no real wonder that Donald Trump, at this point, looking at the shutdown, says, ‘You know what? It’s not actually harming me politically,’ in large part, because he’s getting less of the blame,” Enten said.
It also needs to be noted that Congress is responsible for passing funding bills — not the president. So it’s unclear why he would ever get the blame.
Democrats have pledged to block any spending legislation that fails to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at year’s end, while Republicans have so far declined to negotiate a bipartisan agreement to end the shutdown.
With only slim majorities in Congress, Republicans would need support from several Senate Democrats to pass a short-term funding measure to reopen the government — meaning they, not Republicans, are now responsible for the ongoing shutdown.
With only slim majorities in Congress, Republicans would need support from several Senate Democrats to pass a short-term funding measure to reopen the government — meaning they, not Republicans, are now responsible for the ongoing shutdown.
Obama Accuses JD Vance Of Promoting ‘Blood And Soil’ Politics
Former President Barack Obama rarely mentions Vice President JD Vance by name, but that changed this week with one of his sharpest public attacks since Vance took office.
The comments immediately fueled speculation that Democrats are beginning to focus more attention on the vice president as Republicans look ahead to the post-Trump era.
Speaking Thursday during a conversation with author Malcolm Gladwell, Obama accused Vance of promoting what he described as a “blood and soil” vision of America, despite being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Obama made the remarks while discussing the Reconstruction era and arguing that many of the same debates over citizenship, voting rights and national identity continue today.
“We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that ‘We the people’ means a certain kind of people,” Obama said.
“When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of ‘We the people,’ that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself.”
The phrase “blood and soil” is historically associated with Nazi Germany and white nationalist ideology.
Obama went on to argue that debates over who belongs in America remain central to the nation’s politics.
“That echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions,” he said.
Gladwell followed by accusing Vance of hypocrisy, arguing that the vice president was making what he called a nativist argument despite his own family’s immigrant background.
Obama agreed.
“That is progress,” Obama said.
“Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others.”
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
Obama did not identify the specific speech he was criticizing, but Vance’s most recent nationally televised remarks came during Independence Day celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
In that speech, Vance encouraged Americans to reject what he called a “two-dimensional view” of the country focused only on its historical failures.
“So what I’d ask you to do, my fellow Americans, on our 250th birthday, is to reject the two-dimensional view of your fellow citizens and reject the two-dimensional view of your country,” Vance said.
“Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins, but not its grace and its greatness.”
He also emphasized that America’s accomplishments were achieved by “a common people working towards a common future.”
Obama has generally avoided making Vance a regular target since the vice president took office.
One notable exception came during the 2024 presidential campaign when then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Without naming Vance directly, Obama contrasted Harris’ choice with the Republican ticket.
“When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they’ll be,” Obama said at the time, Fox News reported.
Political observers have increasingly discussed Vance as a potential frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, though he has not announced any plans to run.
Against that backdrop, Obama’s unusually direct criticism is likely to fuel speculation that some Democrats are beginning to sharpen their message against a politician they view as a likely future standard-bearer for the Republican Party. While no Democratic leaders have publicly described their strategy in those terms, prominent figures often begin drawing contrasts with potential future rivals well before a presidential campaign officially begins.
Whether that proves to be the case remains to be seen, but Obama’s remarks marked one of his most pointed critiques of Vance to date and ensured the vice president once again found himself at the center of the national political conversation.
