Frontpage news and politics

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is realizing that anything legislative might be shut down for the rest of the summer.

Politico reported on Monday that Johnson's leadership circle has realized there's no chance of passing anything immigration related. Politico's Meredith Lee Hill reported that sources told them, "A handful of House GOP hardliners tell us they will tank the rule this week without a plan on [immigration] and more as Johnson struggles to regain control of the House floor."

Johnson already sent the House members home early ahead of the July 4th recess after "the last GOP floor meltdown," Hill added.

On Monday, Johnson was at Camp David with White House officials and legislative affairs staff as they worked through what was next. All Johnson would say, however, is "further specifics will be provided later in the week."

Hill said that "moderates and even some hardliners still need to be convinced."

So, the first step is to stop the internal revolt in the GOP, reported Politico.

Some, like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), are following President Donald Trump's orders that anything passed must include his voting-related "SAVE America Act." She was responsible for bills being blocked from votes before the July 4 break, leading to the GOP frustration and early exit.

Trump's "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America Act" has become his red line, meaning the Republican agenda is stalled out until Trump backs down or Republicans force vote in the bill.

Speaking in an interview last week, Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Texas) said, “Not one member can understand the thought behind it. The hope is that when we come back, we start moving legislation again.”

Another issue is that hard-line conservatives wanted a strong immigration bill, and they got a handshake agreement on it from Johnson. However, the speaker hasn't delivered. So, those Republicans are threatening their own blockade of the House floor, too. Most Republicans have agreed that they can't sign off on the bill that the far-right members are demanding.

The House leadership is so concerned that they're calling the White House to beg for help, the report said. Vice President JD Vance is being dispatched to the caucus lunch on Tuesday to lean on those who refuse to play ball. Most of those GOP members, however, are in safe seats and have already advanced through GOP primaries. It gives the White House zero leverage over them, whereas Trump could persuade GOP lawmakers ahead of their primaries by threatening to pick their opponents for endorsements.

One way the leadership has tried to convince the members is by passing a number of toothless bills critical of things like the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship or condemning sanctuary cities. They aren't laws, however, and serve little purpose other than congressional finger-wagging.

On the Senate side, the spending battles are “as dead as Woodrow Wilson,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), according to Politico.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is facing heated protests for her support of a policy that critics say led to a wrongful death on Monday.

“Protestors descended on Sen. Susan Collins’ Biddeford office Monday following a deadly shooting that authorities said involved federal immigration agents,” reported Portland Press Herald's Rachel Ohm on Monday. “Dozens of people crowded the entryway of the Main St. office Monday afternoon shouting ‘Vote her out!’ On the street, others carried signs reading, ‘NO ICE’ and ‘Melt ICE.’”

On Monday morning, a 26-year-old man from Colombia was killed by ICE agents at a shooting in the Maine community of Biddleford. Collins is being held partially responsible for his death because the five-term incumbent voted in June to support a $70 billion funding bill for Border Patrol and ICE agents.

“The protest outside Collins’ office was part of a larger demonstration about the shooting,” Ohm reported. “Around noon, about two dozen protestors marched into Collins’ office, but were shooed out minutes later as police arrived.” They reported shouted accusations such as saying Collins was at fault for the shooting and that the officers blocking the protesters were fascists.

Collins has in general been the focus of much criticism for her attempts to depict herself as a moderate while working in lockstep with much of the Trump administration’s agenda. Last month civil rights attorney Azaleea Carlea wrote in the Portland Press Herald about Collins vouching for future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that “Mainers cannot and will not forget Sen. Susan Collins’ critical role in dismantling the nearly half-century-old constitutional right, causing cruelty and chaos to ensue. Either she was foolish or a hypocritical [sic]. Either way, she is not fit to serve another term in the U.S. Senate.”

Similarly, Collins was harshly criticized in June for saying she had not read the roughly two-page memorandum of understanding that Trump was touting as having ended his ongoing war against Iran. Collins serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee and yet insisted she had “not yet had a chance to read it." The X account Collins Watch, which regularly criticizes the senator, wrote that “you can't just wait for the elevator doors to close when you get an uncomfortable question in the middle of a town hall...which is probably why Susan Collins hasn't held one since the 1990s."

Collins is also harshly criticized for relying heavily on billionaires in her reelection big. At least 79 billionaires donated to Collins’ fundraising network between January 2025 and May 20, 2026, a number that rises to 97 if one includes billionaires’ spouses as well. Overall they had donated $9.8 million to Collins’ campaign overall since 2025, comprising roughly one-third of what groups supporting Collins have raised from all donors.

President Donald Trump went on an incoherent rant on Monday that once again put on display his apparent difficulty staying focused on a single subject.

While speaking on the TV program “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Trump meandered away from discussing the two-year anniversary of the assassination attempt against him in Butler, PA in order to talk about co-host Ainsley Earhardt being engaged to his longtime friend, Fox News personality Sean Hannity.

“Well, let’s put it this way. So I’ve known Ainsley longer than the two of you. I’ve known her through a great gentleman, a very handsome man named Sean Hannity,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” “She seemed to be attracted to him for whatever the hell reason, right?”

He continued, “So I’ve known her for a long time. And I once told her a long time ago, I said, ‘This is a very dangerous—being president is a very dangerous profession.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that, Ainsley? I wouldn’t have run.’”

The Daily Beast called the president's answer "bizarre." In the past, Trump himself has characterized his meandering style in interviews as "the weave," while critical journalists have accused the mainstream media of "sanewashing" Trump by refusing to emphasize the unusual way he answers questions.

"As applied to Trump," Columbia Journalism Review's Jon Allsop wrote in 2024, "the idea is that major mainstream news outlets are routinely taking his incoherent, highly abnormal rants — be they on social media or at in-person events — and selectively quoting from them to emphasize lines that, in isolation, might sound coherent or normal, thus giving a misleading impression of the whole for people who didn't read or watch the entire thing. ... If journalists are sometimes sanewashing Trump, why are they doing it?"

This is not the first time in recent days that Trump has made gaffes which raise questions about the 80-year-old politician’s fitness for office. Speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO summit last week, Trump referred to Iran as “the Islamic Republic of Japan” and mistook Zelensky for Russian President Vladimir “Putin.”

“There was absolutely and utterly no awareness that he had said the wrong country's name… You can even see him emphasizing this fact,” psychologist and body language expert Dr. John Paul Garrison said at the time. “He does that when he feels very strongly about something. You can see he's raising his eyebrows right here — he wants everybody to hear what he's saying. And there's no attempt to correct this. He has no idea based on everything I'm seeing that he just said the wrong country's name.”

Speaking with AlterNet in May, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham (formerly of Tufts University) elaborated on the traits Trump has displayed which suggest he may be declining. Abraham co-signed a May letter from a group of 36 top physicians and mental health experts urging Congress to investigate Trump’s health and remove him from power through the 25th Amendment if necessary.

“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Abraham told AlterNet. “These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say ‘Yikes!’”

This Wednesday, July 15 and Thursday, July 16, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will have a chance to grill Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche — who President Donald Trump has nominated to take over the position permanently. Blanche's nomination is complicated by the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Kentucky) illness, and former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade is saying that Democrats have a long list of tough questions they can ask Blanche. But according to The Bulwark's Bill Kristol, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal may be Blanche's greatest vulnerability of all during his Senate confirmation hearing.

"This week, Blanche will be appearing before the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, making the case for his confirmation as attorney general," the Never Trump conservative explains in The Bulwark. "There are, needless to say, many important issues to raise with Blanche, who has been shameless in turning the United States Justice Department into Trump's personal law firm. But if Democratic senators want to stop him — or if, failing that, they at least want to weaken him and the Trump administration's assault on the rule of law — the Epstein coverup should be their focus.

As we saw after the failed attempt to stonewall the Epstein case, and as we have seen since in the none-too-successful coverup, the Epstein case matters to the public. And the public isn't pleased with what they've seen from the Trump administration."

During Blanche's confirmation hearing, Kristol notes, Democrats will have an opportunity to highlight Blanche's role in an Epstein-related meeting with Trump officials.

"A year ago, on July 17, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche hurried to an emergency evening meeting in the White House Situation Room with his fellow Trump administration apparatchiks," Kristol writes. "Its location might suggest it had to do with national security. It didn't. It was about the political security of Donald Trump. Ten days earlier, the Trump administration had tried to close the door on the Jeffrey Epstein matter. The Justice Department and the FBI had announced that the Epstein investigation was complete, that nothing further could or should be done, and no new documents would be made public. But that effort to stonewall was already falling apart. Now, it had to be replaced with a more elaborate coverup."

Kristol continues, "Orchestrating that coverup was the point of the Situation Room meeting. A week later, Blanche flew to Florida to meet with Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and ensure she continued not to talk. A week after that, Maxwell was transferred to a cushy federal prison."

If survivors of Epstein's crimes are present during Wednesday's hearing, Kristol emphasizes, it will be a bad look for Blanche.

"It's also likely that when Blanche testifies on Wednesday, Epstein survivors will be present," Kristol observes. "Will Blanche, who has refused to meet with them, acknowledge them? Will he apologize for the botched redaction process over which he presided that exposed them to further pain and harassment? Will he repudiate Trump’s dismissal of them? On Thursday, Democrats intend to use their limited ability to call witnesses to have at least one courageous Epstein survivor appear. That testimony could be the highlight of the hearing."

Federal agents have shot and killed another person, this time in Maine.

According to the Bangor Daily News, agents working for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed a man in Biddeford, which is a little over 15 miles south of Portland. Thus far only one person has been pronounced dead.

Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, who represents Biddeford, released a statement after the incident detailing everything he knew thus far and noting that he expects the FBI to take over the investigation, as they have with all shootings involving federal agents.

“These are the details that I have at this time. I will provide further updates, as they are relayed to me,” Fecteau said.

It's the second person killed by ICE in less than a week. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who has lived in the U.S. for decades, was driving his construction crew to a site in Houston, Texas, when he was killed.

According to a PBS report, Salgado Araujo's family noted he was inches from getting his full status after living in the U.S. for 35 years. He was well aware of what to do when approached by ICE agents, and his son said he was worried that his father could have been scared if he was approached by unmarked vehicles or officers who weren't in uniform, because the men were going to steal his tools.

The deaths are only the latest in the violent immigrant crackdown since President Donald Trump entered office and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin took over the department. Trump had campaigned on getting "criminals" out of the U.S. The Bangor Daily News said that of the nearly 200 detainees in the state, only 11 had criminal convictions. They said it "[undercuts] the Trump administration’s claim that it was targeting the 'worst of the worst.'"

This equals nine people who have died under Mullin's leadership, an AP report cited. At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 alone. So far, 19 have in 2026, Axios cited.

President Donald Trump has touted a new initiative to try and address a major economic pain point for midterm voters, but as a new piece from MS NOW argued, it is a "half-hearted" and "flimsy stunt" that perfectly encapsulates the collapse of his presidency.

Earlier this week, Trump took to Truth Social to tout "Freedom Fuel," a network of 25 gas stations in Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey that would be "lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President." As reporter James Downie noted in a Sunday piece for MS NOW, the post and an accompanying video were meant to give viewers "the impression that the administration, whether through subsidy or takeover, was directly intervening to lower gas prices."

It remains unclear at this time who is actually behind the Freedom Fuel locations and how they are managing to lower prices at their pumps. The only information available about its incorporation, per materials from the Delaware Department of State, shows that it was set up on June 23, and nothing else. The situation also drew some criticism that Trump was engaging in precisely the sort of "communist" government intervention policies that he has recently been railing against Democrats for supposedly espousing.

"But whoever is behind Freedom Fuel, Trump’s praise is emblematic of his second year back in the White House: a half-hearted, poorly thought-out stunt," Downie wrote about the whole affair. "Trump is apparently hoping for copycats. For days, he has complained that gas prices are not as low as they were before he recklessly started a war with Iran. Now he is lobbying for other retailers to do what Freedom Fuel has done. 'This Retailer is taking the lead,'” he wrote in that social media post praising the mystery retailer. 'And others should follow.'”

He continued: "Trump, in other words, is asking for volunteers to ease the economic pain that his own policies have caused. Such presidential requests have a checkered history. Herbert Hoover, the president with whom Trump most fears comparisons, declared more than a year into the Great Depression that the 'local communities through their voluntary agencies have assumed the duty of relieving individual distress and are being generously supported by the public.' He said, 'The result of magnificent cooperation throughout the country has been that actual suffering has been kept to a minimum during the past 12 months.' The suffering was in fact far from minimal, and the economy would find salvation not in private enterprise or individual fortitude, but in government spending and relief."

Downie called Trump's Freedom Fuel post a "particularly poor attempt" at his usual tactic of trying to "claim credit" whenever a company lowers prices. The attempt also "reminds drivers how much prices have jumped since Trump launched the Iran war," as $3.47 is still around $0.50 above what the national average was for gas prices before Trump's Iran war.

President Donald Trump is "stuck" in a conflict that appears doomed to swallow up his presidency, and according to his one-time biographer, it is all because he has run up against an enemy who knows precisely "how to play him."

Michael Wolff is a longtime reporter and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political histories, including a series of books about the chaos of his first term. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he touched on the disintegration of Trump's Iran ceasefire deal, making a bold proclamation about where the ordeal ranks across his entire political career.

“This is the worst mistake he has made," Wolff said, adding that the Iranians have been able to play Trump by way of "trolling," later adding. "These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them."

Wolff argued that Trump now finds himself trapped in the sort of foreign conflict that can "bring presidencies down," something that Iran is keenly aware of.

"These presidents get into these forever wars, and they can’t get out of them," he added.

Wolff further claimed that Trump had effectively told Iran, "I’ll give you any kind of agreement you want if you just stop this war," even going so far as to offer to pay them, something he had relentlessly attacked former President Barack Obama for supposedly doing with his Iran deal.

“They keep coming back,” Wolff said of Iran. “This is a whole process of trolling Donald Trump.”

Trump has now threatened to attack Iran with "1000 Missiles" if they attempt to assassinate him, even reportedly laying out instructions for Vice President JD Vance on how to approach the situation if he is killed. Wolff suggested, however, that "the death thing is probably more clearly related to his polling numbers than it is to whatever threats the Iranians are making."

Wolff also noted that the notion of threats against his life "does get under [Trump's] skin, and he is somewhat paranoid about this."

Veteran journalist Simon Marks made similar arguments last week, suggesting that Trump "fundamentally lacks the skills and temperament to successfully manage a diplomatic deal with" a country that operates like Iran, which does not operate anything like the world of New York real estate dealing that he is used to, and is not interested in giving him something he can tout as a victory.

The abrupt passing of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham took almost everyone by surprise, but as one doctor pointed out on Fox News, his family medical history may have put him at a much higher risk of a major medical episode, especially considering his recent excursion to Ukraine.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, built a reputation over the last decade as a staunch political ally of President Donald Trump, especially when it came to his recent war with Iran. This marked a shift from earlier in his career, when he was notably opposed to Trump's 20216 presidential run, and considered himself a close ally of the late Sen. John McCain, one of Trump's most hated Republicans.

On Saturday evening, reports emerged that Graham had passed away following a "brief and sudden illness," with later reports indicating that he died from cardiac arrest. During a Sunday appearance on Fox News, Dr. Marc Siegel, a senior medical analyst for the conservative network, revealed that the senator had a close family history of heart disease, with his father dying from a heart attack when Graham was just 20.

Given that Graham had completed a trip to Ukraine immediately prior to his sudden passing, Siegel said that he was at an elevated risk of cardiac arrest, given his family history and advanced age.

"A long plane flight from Ukraine increases his risk of blood clotting,” Siegel said. “There’s 350,000 per year out-of-the hospital cardiac arrests. Only 10 percent of them make it because, as you can imagine, you can’t get there fast enough to restart the heart right away.”

He added: “The vast majority don’t make it, and most of the time it’s heart disease that causes this... Now, none of that is known, and I'm not suggesting that's the cause, I'm giving you the statistics of what's likely. Especially at his age, you start to see sudden heart disease occurring, and sudden heart attacks occurring right around that age.”

Graham, 71, was only three years older than his father was at the time of passing from a heart attack.

President Donald Trump's alienation of key allies is creating a world in which the world views the U.S. as a major threat to be avoided and prepared for, one former White House deputy warned for The New York Times, and the situation is leaving the country at risk of a "fundamental rupture" under future presidents.

Jon Finer is a journalist and diplomat who previously served as deputy national security adviser during the Biden administration, and currently serves as a "distinguished senior fellow" at Yale Law School and the Center for American Progress. In a new opinion piece published by the Times on Sunday, he sounded the alarm about how Trump's treatment of global allies is "already costing us" in the near term, and about how it will leave us weakened in the years to come. Whereas three years ago, he explained, Europe navigated the threats posed to it by China, now it must do so for the U.S. instead.

"Three years later, de-risking from predatory superpowers remains the fundamental challenge facing European leaders, but China is no longer the main country of concern: The United States is," Finer explained. "As they publicly seek to mollify a vindictive American president, policymakers across Europe are quietly working to reduce their decades-long dependence on the United States by increasing their own defense, energy and technology industries and diversifying their relationships with other nations. That dynamic was on display last week at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where President Trump renewed his threats against the U.S. allies Denmark and Spain."

He continued: "It’s not just Europe backing away from the United States. Leaders of America’s partners in Asia and the Middle East are quietly doing the same. The second Trump administration’s ostentatious corruption, trade conflicts, military adventurism and mercurial artificial intelligence regulation have produced a new moment in international affairs: a nearly global grand strategy of countries distancing themselves from the world’s most powerful nation."

This "sea change" for the U.S. is costing it the benefits to the "economy and national security" that came with being an ally that other nations relied on for military protection and technology. As these allies now move away from the U.S., Finer warned that it is "limiting our ability to respond to China’s industrial advantages."

"One doesn’t have to look far to see the costs," Finer argued. "The lost war against Iran, the first in which we didn’t have diplomatic or military alignment with our closest allies in Europe and Asia, caused a spike in gas and fertilizer prices that contributed to a $132 billion hit to American consumers, according to Moody’s. Even as Europe increased its military spending by 14 percent, to $864 billion, in 2025, its military purchases from American companies actually fell by almost half. Mr. Trump’s immigration policies are also driving countries away. Four million fewer visitors came to the United States in 2025 than in 2024, at an estimated cost of more than $8 billion. America is hemorrhaging future skilled labor as enrollment by international university students dropped 17 percent last fall from the prior year, already costing universities at least an estimated $1 billion, and potentially costing the country hundreds of billions in future revenue."

He concluded: "As our partners enhance their own resiliency to us, future American administrations must prepare plans for avoiding a more fundamental rupture. Whoever succeeds Mr. Trump will be the first to take office with countries around the world asking not what America can do for them, but rather seeking to do as much as possible without us. The first step to coping with the fallout is realizing just how much — and how permanently — the world has changed."

Republicans in North Carolina are begging the national party to dump more money into its Senate race, according to Politico, as Democratic candidate Roy Cooper looks increasingly unstoppable in the state that was once seen as reliably red.

Cooper is currently running to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Trump critic Sen. Thom Tillis, who has opted to retire after his current term. He will face former RNC Chair Michael Whatley in the general election, with polls recently shifting the race to "lean Democrat" amid the GOP's increasingly brutal midterm headwinds.

Cooper has long been considered the Democratic Party's best hope for flipping a Senate seat this cycle, given his popularity in the state as its former governor. His potential win would mark a major coup for the party in the state, given that it swung for Trump in the last three presidential races and has not gone for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2008, which also marked the last time a Democrat won a Senate race in the Tarheel State.

In a Sunday report, Politico revealed that the North Carolina GOP is hoping that they can avert a Cooper win if Washington sends in the "cavalry," in the form of more spending, which they believe could help turn around his polling and fundraising deficits, as well as his biggest overall problem against Cooper. To date, Cooper has raised north of $13 million, compared to Whatley's much more modest $5 million haul.

"Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists," Politico detailed. "A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID."

“He has an uphill climb,” Tuesday Sauer, chair of the Bertie County GOP, told the outlet. “Even though he was the RNC chair, a lot of people who aren’t politically involved really don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”

Some Republicans told Politico that Whatley's campaign has, so far, been too "generic" to compete with Cooper, who the outlet described as a "blue-chip opponent" from the left. This mediocre approach, the party worries, just "won’t cut it" given the brutal national environment for Republicans amid voter revolt against Trump's failures.

“That money needs to be brought to North Carolina, so the people of North Carolina can be reminded of what a crappy Governor Roy Cooper was,” GOP state Sen. Amy Galey told Politico, referring to the "massive $350 million warchest" of fundraising hauls held by Trump's MAGA Inc. PAC.

“Getting his name, face recognition in 100 counties is tough, especially in North Carolina, with just plain geographics of going from Manteo to Murphy,” another GOP state lawmaker, Rep. Donnie Loftis, added. “It comes down to funding. That money drives your message, and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your message out there.”

“Whatley and his allies have been caught lying time and again, but the truth is Roy Cooper spent his career locking up criminals while Whatley pushed for prisoners to be released during COVID,” Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart said in a statement to Politico.

“The reality of all of it is that between Republican super PACs and the RNC, they just have way more money,” Morgan Jackson, a veteran North Carolina Democratic strategist and adviser to Cooper, added. “There’s no white horse coming, the way that Republicans are waiting on their savior to come.”

President Donald Trump has recently taken to accusing his foes of being communists, so much so that social activist Ralph Nader described the Republican leader as "Senator Joe McCarthy on steroids, who in the 1950s smeared political opponents, activists, and others, falsely accusing them of being communists.”

Yet according to The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Trump ally Jeff Bezos, the president himself is acting quite a bit like a communist — at least when it comes to the government taking charge of private businesses.

“President Donald Trump is warning of a ‘resurgence of the communist menace’ as the Democratic Party shifts to the left, invoking historical memories of terror, collectivization and poverty in a bid to regain voter support ahead of the November congressional elections,” wrote The Washington Post’s David J. Lynch on Sunday. From there, Lynch went into detail through the right-winger’s presidency to point out a contradiction in his argument.

“Trump’s aversion to the heavy hand of the state has not kept him from wielding it himself,” the reporter explained. “The president has had the federal government take partial ownership of nearly two dozen companies since he returned to the White House, including chipmaker Intel and MP Materials, a leading producer of rare earth minerals.”

He added, “Outside of war or financial crisis, Washington has never been so eager to buy stakes in private companies. Critics warn that state capitalism is a recipe for cronyism, waste and inefficiency. But some businesses are volunteering to partner with the government. OpenAI, which is eyeing an initial stock offering later this year, this month offered to give Washington a 5 percent stake when it lists.”

Lynch also quoted Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“Far from being a bulwark against creeping American communism, Trump is laying the groundwork for more of this in the future,” Lincicome told Lynch. “The president himself has said that he thinks it’s very American to take these government equity stakes based on what the country needs. It’s almost comical how much that sounds like ‘seizing the means of production’ [or] ‘to each according to his needs.’”

As one example of Trump’s socializing private businesses, Lincicome wrote that the president “obtained a 10 percent share of chipmaker Intel after the president publicly criticized Lip-Bu Tan, the company’s CEO, and suggested he be fired. Tan emerged from a private White House meeting a few days later having agreed to surrender a minority stake to the government as the president crowed on social media: ‘I PAID ZERO FOR INTEL.’”

He added, “To critics, it looked as if the president had made the company an offer it couldn’t refuse. In March, Richard D. Paisner, an Intel shareholder, sued the company, its board of directors and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, alleging that the company had given the government ‘$11 billion worth of Intel stock for no meaningful consideration in response to extortionary threats by the government.’”

Speaking with AlterNet earlier this month, Ed Gresser, the Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the liberal-leaning think tank Progressive Policy Institute, also argued that there is an irony in Trump denouncing communists while meddling so much in private businesses.

“I don't think of it as communism, although the Trump administration is actually a very big-government presidency — taking stakes in big companies and trying to manage them in a fairly inappropriate way,” Gresser told AlterNet. “So it's a bit odd to see them drumming up fears of socialism, since that's very much in the background of a lot of what they've done."

A large number of President Donald Trump’s supporters began wearing masks in mid-2020 after their leader urged them to do so — and now, a scientific paper explains the psychology behind why they did so, per PsyPost.

“Political leaders play a potentially important role shaping behaviors and beliefs during crises. In the pandemic, a number of high-status politicians, notably leaders of populist parties, were seen to diminish compliance with institutional recommendations by casting doubt on COVID guidelines,” proclaimed the abstract of a recent study by Bartholomew A. Konechni, a sociologist at Sciences Po Paris, published in the journal American Sociological Review. “But what happens when such leaders change position and endorse previously discouraged behaviors?”

Konechni analyzed data of more than 5,000 patients from the Understanding Coronavirus in America panel to study how millions of Trump’s supporters switched from refusing to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic to embracing them, entirely because of Trump saying on July 1, 2020, that he started wearing them because he thought doing so made him look like the Lone Ranger. He learned that when Trump made his announcement that he would wear masks, it closed the gap between Republican and Democratic compliance by roughly 40 percent, particularly among individuals who were more exposed to the early-summer spikes in COVID-19. Yet this did not mean that they necessarily abandoned their original anti-mask views.

“In contrast to expectations from most dominant theoretical models of behavioral change, especially the health belief model, no corresponding shift in beliefs about facemasks can be detected,” Konechni wrote. “These results have important theoretical implications for understanding how pivots can shape behaviors during crises, the validity of existing models in public health, pandemic populism’s causes, and directions of future research.”

PsyPost’s Karina Petrova elaborated on what exactly happened.

“Such a disconnect might seem unusual, but sociologists have documented similar patterns in everyday life,” Petrova wrote. “College students often drink heavily in public to fit in with peers, even if they privately disapprove of binge drinking. Parents sometimes refuse childhood vaccinations based on suspicion, but they will accept a vaccine for themselves under intense workplace pressure. Social expectations frequently push people into actions they do not intellectually endorse.”

Konechni found that Trump’s “Lone Ranger” comment worked because many of Trump’s supporters were “living in states where the outbreak was spiking the hardest. This suggests that the severity of the crisis acted as a catalyst. When people are navigating immediate danger, they may look to their preferred leaders for survival cues. They might follow those cues for group solidarity or out of plain anxiety, bypassing the need to logically validate the underlying science.”

Petrova added, “There are limitations to this analysis that warrant attention. The study used self-reported data. Survey participants might have altered their answers simply to project loyalty to their political camp instead of accurately reporting their habits. The focus on a single political figure during a rare global disaster also restricts how broadly these lessons can be applied.”

Yet the science journalist continued, “Face masks were highly visible and novel, which might separate them from more private medical choices like taking a pill. Trump also commands a decidedly unique relationship with his base. The results from this specific historical moment may not translate seamlessly to a standard politician asking their constituents to eat less sugar or exercise more frequently. Future studies might explore how strong social networks shape these reactions, or how long such unanchored behaviors can be realistically maintained.”

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2021, Dr. Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, said that “when we’re engaging [in] motivated reasoning, we tend to hold evidence to a lower threshold of quality before we believe it’s true. A person trying to justify a belief they have might ask themselves ‘can I’ believe this to be true, while a person trying to refute a belief they’d rather not have holds evidence to a higher standard, asking themselves ‘must I’ believe this to be true. Both are motivated approaches to evaluating evidence. The first can lead us to accept weak evidence in support of a belief, while the latter can lead us to be overly skeptical of good evidence.”

President Donald Trump's Board of Peace initiative was hyped up to the stars upon its launch, with some suggesting it could possibly replace the United Nations, but as two legal scholars argued for The Hill this week, all it has really done is expose the "all hat, no cattle" trend that has summed up his entire presidency so far.

Initially pitched as an entity that would manage the reconstruction of the Gaza region, by the time it was officially launched in January at the World Economic Forum, Trump's Board of Peace had evolved into a more wide-ranging peacekeeping organization. Despite its ambitions, the board's invitations were turned down by most major Western democracies, with its starting line-up heavily comprised of countries led by dictators or which have a noted history of human rights abuses. Critics have alleged that the initiative — which requires a steep fee for entry and which Trump will lead as chairman even after leaving office — has been nothing more than another way to funnel money to the president.

In a Sunday piece for The Hill, David Wippman, the emeritus president of Hamilton College, and Glenn C. Altschuler, the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, wrote that, in its five months of existence, the Board of Peace has "produced little beyond a charter and a few security personnel." This, they argued further, exposes a common theme across much of what Trump has done since returning to the White House: talk big, dominate headlines, deliver little.

"The gap between rhetoric and reality illustrates a key feature of Trump’s presidency," the duo explained. "Although he claimed he would 'govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept,' in his administration, a promise is often the achievement. It grabs headlines, dominates the news cycle, distracts from setbacks elsewhere, and allows Trump to promote himself. By the time it’s clear how little has changed, Trump, the media and most Americans have moved on."

Of the $17 billion promised for Gaza reconstruction at the inaugural board meeting, "only $23 million has materialized," the duo noted, "and no major reconstruction or security contracts have been awarded." Similarly, "a 20,000-strong International Stabilization Force" announced as a way to provide security during reconstruction efforts currently "consists of a commander and four Moroccan officers," with the original plans withering "in the face of concerns over the U.S.-Iran war, rules of engagement, legal authority and financing, as well as Trump’s insistence that no American troops would enter Gaza."

"The Board of Peace, then, is best understood as a paradigmatic example of a grandiose, self-serving, bait-and-switch public relations strategy that wastes time, energy and money, leaves urgent domestic problems unaddressed, and undermines America’s credibility abroad," Wippman and Altschuler concluded. "Let the buyer beware."

The late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who unexpectedly died of a brief and sudden illness on Saturday, once took pride in standing up to extremism within the Republican Party — at least, before he decided to hitch his political cart to President Donald Trump’s wagon.

In a 2014 Politico article that the website recently began recirculating in light of Graham’s death, reporter Manu Raju wrote that “Graham’s deft maneuvering shows why he’s become the dominant political figure in this deeply red state and is skating to another six years even as he’s angered the base on immigration and other hot-button issues. Far from pandering to the party’s tea party wing in order to get reelected, he’s challenging it head-on: Graham warns that the GOP is caught in a ‘death spiral’ with minorities, says it needs to get real about climate change and defends his move to open debate on gun control legislation after a school massacre.”

On one occasion, as Politico reported at the time, Graham chastised many of his fellow Republicans for demanding ideological purity tests, saying that instead they should be open to a diverse range of opinions.

“What I want is a party that can grow,” Graham said at the time. “What’s my big sin: 1-in-10 [votes defecting from the party line]? If we’re going to build the party around universal agreement, we become a club.”

He also expressed pride in getting lambasted by his own party for supporting immigration reform, even though South Carolina’s Latino population in 2014 was only 5 percent, and warned that the GOP was in a “death spiral” with nonwhite voters that would not end unless they did more to advocate for policies that could help minority Americans. He also argued that a conservative message could sell well with racial minorities if the party would stop taking such a hard-line stance on issues like immigration.

Similarly, Graham expressed a willingness to advocate for issues that he believed involved Americans’ existential futures, even if doing so was unpopular with the GOP base.

“Graham, in the interview, was unapologetic about his unsuccessful attempt to cut a deal with Democrats on controlling climate change,” Politico reported in 2014. “Humans, he said, ‘to some extent, absolutely’ are contributing to global warming and the GOP needs a rational environmental policy, with a heavy emphasis on nuclear power.”

By the time Trump became president, however, Graham had flip-flopped on key issues like immigration, climate change and reaching out to minority voters, instead transitioning from a moderate Republican to a staunch MAGA adherent. In return for this evolution, Graham became an influence within the administration, most notably playing a key role in convincing Trump to wage his controversial ongoing war against Iran.

Despite describing Trump as a “jack---” during the 2016 presidential election (in which Graham ran against him in the GOP primaries), saying “if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it” and describing him as "the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican party,” Graham subsequently became a diehard backer of the president and his agenda. Yet after successfully pushing Trump to invade Iran, many in his own party’s base turned against him.

“Lindsey Graham needs to be removed from the Situation Room. I don’t want to hear one word from a guy with no kids, desperately sending our sons and daughters into war on the ground in Iran,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) recently wrote on social media regarding Graham’s ongoing support of the Iran war.

President Donald Trump may think he’s found a Trojan horse to seize the midterms, but security expert Miles Taylor says that horse isn’t riding off anytime soon.

Trump fired all three remaining members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, abruptly disabling the only federal agency devoted to election administration at a moment when the president is working to warp federal voting rules. And Taylor said a captured EAC could conceivably begin Trump’s dirty work under the direction of anti-democratic loyalists the White House plans to parachute into the commission.

“What’s more, they could rewrite state-specific instructions on the voter forms to create registration traps and onerous requirements, confusing instructions, translation issues, and on and on,” Taylor reasoned. “Surely, the sycophants in Trump’s orbit are thinking of other evil ways to manipulate the EAC’s powers to steer the elections in Trump’s favor.”

“[But] here’s where I get to tell you why their plan is doomed,” Taylor added. “And it isn’t because I’m a cock-eyed optimist. It’s because a lot of very good lawyers out there are prepared to tear Trump’s plan to shreds.”

Taylor, who worked in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security in his first administration before becoming a whistleblower to the administration abuse, said Trump must get the replacements confirmed by the Senate or install legally dubious “acting” appointments. And lawsuits are waiting for him as soon as he tries to circumvent requirements.

Furthermore, whatever changes Trump makes to the EAC doesn’t mean they can just start tampering with voter registration forms because the forms are protected by law. When former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach attempted to force citizenship documents onto the form a decade ago, Taylor said the Tenth Circuit shut him down, and the Supreme Court backed that decision up.

“Third, agencies can’t just flip on a dime,” said Taylor. “Under the Administrative Procedure Act, an abrupt reversal of decades of an agency’s position — especially with no clear evidence of the ‘voter fraud’ it purports to solve — is the textbook definition of ‘arbitrary and capricious. Courts have thrown out far less blatant reversals.”

Courts have already rejected Trump’s other bids to unilaterally implement new restrictions. A federal judge in Washington permanently blocked Trump’s 2025 executive order and its proof-of-citizenship mandate. And just two weeks ago, another federal court destroyed it in a suit brought by nineteen states. The judiciary, said Taylor, isn’t “rolling over to let Trump hijack voting in America.”

“Also, for what it’s worth, the plaintiffs are ready,” said Taylor. “I suspect lawsuits are being drafted as I write this. … groups … are probably preparing legal briefs this very morning. I know state attorneys general are gearing up, too. When I say that we’re better prepared for these types of anti-democratic shenanigans than we were the last time, this is what I mean.”

“Trump may think he found a Trojan horse. What he actually found is a trap of his own making. Every action he tries to take to abuse the EAC will be met with resistance and tie him up in litigation as the clock ticks to November,” Taylor added.

“Several days later and I can’t help it. It’s too funny,” said comedian John Fugelsang of white supremacist militia group, the "Patriot Front," marching through the streets of Capitol Hill on the 250th birthday of the United States. Videos showed that a few hundred men showed up with face coverings, waving Confederate flags along with American flags, including some that were inverted.

But Fugelsang couldn’t get over other aspects of their appearance, calling them the “Dockers Reich; aka March of the Masked Mediocrities; aka The League of Extraordinary Virgins.”

“Did you catch it? Day of the Living Incels?” asked Fugelsang on his substack. “A quarter-millennium after the US declared that all men are created equal, a few hundred masked white nationalists decided the best way to celebrate was to march through Washington, D.C., hiding their faces and waving Confederate flags. And what could be more MAGA than celebrating America’s birthday with participation trophies from the losing side of the Civil War, while dressing like you’re all headed to the same outlet mall. All of them in Khakis, all of them wearing masks.”

“These guys always say, ‘We’re defending Western civilization.’ Yeah, Skip? Then why do y’all always look like you’re trying to avoid being recognized by your manager at Best Buy?” Fugelsang demanded. “It’s hard to square ‘take our country back’ with ‘please don’t tag me in the photos.’”

The comedian acknowledged that he’s supposed to be shaking his head in anguish about the normalization of racism and the “big victory goose-step” after all the cultural erasure and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. But the scenery was just too funny. “Instead, beautifully, it was more of a White Supremacy Cowardice flash mob; sponsored by Dockers and parental disappointment,” said the host of progressive talk show "Tell Me Everything.”

“Let’s briefly discuss the Klan Bake wardrobe choices: All khakis, all blue shirts. It’s the world’s most aggressively beige fascist movement,” he said. “Every single one of these tough guy patriots looked like they were headed to an assistant manager orientation at Kohl’s. I mean, I know they’re the Fourth Reich and all, but I kept expecting them to ask pedestrians if they’d ever considered opening a store credit card.”

"The John Fugelsang Podcast" host also blasted the absurdity of a group claiming to be “patriots” while carrying flags of the Confederacy, which literally tried to destroy America.

“The Confederacy only lasted four years, bros. Costco memberships last longer,” said Fugelsang. “You’re still the only team in history whose fans get more enthusiastic every century after losing.”

But that’s what you get from a group of folks dressed like they’re “robbing a Hobby Lobby” despite being proud of their beliefs.

“If your movement is destined to save America, it’s curious that nobody in it wants their boss to know they attended,” Fugelsang chided. “… Imagine believing you’re the superior race, while literally covering up your face more than Batman.”

Only Batman was worried about crooks hurting his loved ones,” he added. These guys are afraid of “an email” identifying them to their boss.

The movement calls itself “patriotic heritage enthusiasts,” but Fugelsang said they’re just “unmanly racist twits.”

“You’re Nazis; with better graphic designers and pleats in your chinos,” Fugelsang howled. “Patriot Front is a racist pyramid scheme, wrapped in Old Navy. But calling themselves ‘America’s Masked Chickens—— Ethnostate Appreciation Society’ apparently tested poorly with focus groups.”

Critics on social media had a meltdown over images of a contractor leaving Sen. Mitch McConnell’s house with carpet and tile samples.

“Our intrepid TMZ DC producer Charlie Cotton paid a visit to the Senator's home Friday to see if he could get any answers on Mitch's health ... and he saw something interesting leaving the house,” reported TMZ.

Mitch has been hospitalized since June 14 after paramedics responded to a report of an unconscious person in his Washington, D.C. home. Footage obtained by CNN shows paramedics piling the stricken Kentucky senator.

TMZ reports paramedics appeared to be “showing absolutely no sense of urgency” — suggesting the senator was about as stable as dead can get.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene told us Mitch is a vegetable and his "Communist Chinese spy" wife is meeting with Chinese leaders instead of rushing home to be by his bedside,” TMZ added. “Meanwhile, Scott Jennings says the 84-year-old politician was lucid enough to have a conversation for ‘just shy of 20 minutes’ about current events.

But critics on X exploded at the images of carpet samples.

“Ah yeah … you know when your husband is in hospital, it’s the perfect time to book that contractor to come sell carpet samples,” said professor Adam Cochran on X. “This is all so weird.”

“He’s so dead,” quipped another critic.

“Hollywood will make a movie about this someday,” announced another X heckler. “Just watch.

Other online comedians quickly hopped on the suggestion of post-mortem floor stains.

“Blood is hard to get out of carpets,” said one X user.

“Does he have burgundy?” asked another.

TMZ reports even President Trump has "no idea" how Sen. Mitch McConnell is doing, at least as of a couple of days ago.

“Whatever Mitch's status is, seems new flooring are a top priority,” TMZ reports.

President Donald Trump is a consummate liar, says Intelligencer writer Ed Kilgore, so you can tell how much something bothers him by the magnitude of lies he unloads to bury it.

Such is the case with the sheer magnitude of whoppers he’s been dumping on the internet to counter his hideous poll numbers.

“… [E]lection denialism isn’t an isolated vice in MAGA-land,” said Kilgore. “Trump has championed poll denialism, too. … Occasionally Trump is able to cherry-pick outlier polls that show wide public approbation of his performance as president. Here he is at a February 2025 CPAC conference bragging about his numbers”

“Our approval rating is now the highest ever across all demographics. Rasmussen just came out at 56 percent; InsiderAdvantage, 56; RMG Research, 57 percent. And we have many polls in the mid-60s. One at 71 percent—we like that, 71,” Trump told the crowd with a ghastly talent for denying historic unpopularity.

But the exaggeration was far more egregious in November 2025, when Trump made this claim at Truth Social:

“I HAVE JUST GOTTEN THE HIGHEST POLL NUMBERS OF MY “POLITICAL CAREER.” While my great work on the Economy has not yet been fully appreciated, it will be! Things are really Rockin’. Stopping WARS and Foreign Relations seems to be a strong suit. Also great, The Border and Stopping Crime. I predict that the Economy, with the already HIGHEST STOCK MARKET, EVER, and prices coming sharply down from the Biden disaster, will soon be at the top of the list. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump howled.

Of course, the president didn’t bother to offer any documentation, notes Kilgore, because that would’ve been problematic. His job-approval numbers were actually plunging at that point, wth Silver Bulletin reporting his disapproval at 55 percent. But the worse it gets the bigger lies keep coming.

“Highest Poll Numbers Ever. Even Higher than Election Day, November 5th. This despite the fact that, IRAN WILL NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump posted on June 29. But he was actually at 39.5 percent per Silver Bulletin.

However, Trump’s colossal lies are bigger than just a failing president desperately self-soothing his pain, said Kilgore. This is an act of paving the way for new election denialism.

“… [R]elentlessly misstating his popularity conditions his followers to believe any adverse election results must be fake,” said Kilgore. “How could a man this popular lose? How could his party lose? The Democrats — or ‘Dumocrats,’ as he’s taken to calling them — must be cheating again!”

But this is what you can expect from a guy who’s already engaged in heavy election denialism, said Kilgore.

“Trump [even] got into the habit of election denialism on behalf of other losing Republican candidates. By 2024, his obsessive focus on the evils of immigration led him to embrace the basics of the Great Replacement Theory, which claims Democrats deliberately herd millions of illegal immigrants to the polls to steal elections at every level. And so now Trump sees fraud behind every Republican defeat in states like California, and shows every indication that he likely won’t accept a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterms. The effect on rank-and-file Republicans’ faith in free and fair elections is predictably dire.”