“What bothers me about James Carville’s remarks is that he’s glib about the fight for racial equality or full equality for all our citizens. I understand what James is trying to say, but I think it’s just a false equation. But he did win some elections back in the ’90s.”

— Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), quoted by the New York Times, pushing back on Carville’s claim that “stupid wokeness” is to blame for Democratic losses in last week’s elections.

James Carville told PBS Newshour that he blamed his party’s recent losses and weak performance in state elections on “stupid wokeness.”

Said Carville: “What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Wash. I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools. I mean that — people see that.”

He added: “It’s just really — has a suppressive effect all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a ‘woke’ detox center or something. They’re expressing a language that people just don’t use, and there’s backlash and a frustration at that.”

“A prominent Washington lobbyist close to Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, is warning Republican political consultants that they must choose between working for Rep. Liz Cheney or Mr. McCarthy, an ultimatum that marks the full rupture between the two House Republicans,” the New York Times reports.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was a frequent visitor to Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion, Rolling Stone reports.

“Although Epstein’s reputation was badly damaged after he spent 13 months in a Florida jail for soliciting sex from a teen, the conviction didn’t stop the flow of wealthy and famous people who flocked to his $77 million Upper East Side mansion. Behind the 15-foot oak front doors, Epstein played host to old friends like Wall Street billionaire Leon Black, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and new ones like Steve Bannon.”

Roger Stone was served with papers relating to a Capitol riot lawsuit while live on radio and answering a question about why Donald Trump should run in 2024.

Kate Coyne McCoy, a top Democratic strategist from Rhode Island, is under fire for tweeting “It’s wrong to hope he dies from COVID, right? Asking for a friend” — about Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, the Boston Globe reports.

McCoy has since pulled down the tweet and issued an apology.

Democratic consultant Joe Trippi announced in a USA Today op-ed that he’s joining the Lincoln Project to make sure Republicans don’t win control of Congress in 2022.

South Carolina GOP consultant Richard Quinn Sr. is accused of lying to a state grand jury over being paid by Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) for drafting press statements and other documents, the Columbia State reports.

The new 38-page indictment accuses Quinn of 12 different counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice.

Federal Election Commission filings show that the leadership PAC controlled by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — Majority Committee PAC, or McPAC — paid one of GOP pollster Frank Luntz’s companies nearly $40,000 in late 2020, just before McCarthy began renting what he described as a “room” in the recently renovated apartment, the Washington Post reports.

“The New York attorney general’s office has partnered with Manhattan’s district attorney to investigate Stephen Bannon for the alleged fundraising scam that prompted his federal pardon in the waning hours of Donald Trump’s presidency,” the Washington Post reports.

“The move adds prosecutorial firepower to a criminal case widely seen as an attempted end-run around the former president’s bid to protect a political ally.”