News & Politics

Zeteo reports sources in the White House have revealed exactly what led President Donald Trump to re-escalate the Iran war to even more dangerous and expensive levels than before. These new risks also threaten to further nail Trump’s Republican Party in November as they fight for their political lives to hang onto the House and Senate in November.

Zeteo reports the reason behind the president’s headlong dive back into a career-killing war in the Middle East is just as “simplistic and crude” as suspected.

“Trump desperately wanted out of his self-made war. After all, he’s a warmonger, but he’s also a “lazy warmonger,” reports Zeteo writers Prem Thakker and Asawin Suebsaeng. “As we reported mid-June, Trump really was furious at the Israelis, screeching privately to advisers about how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheming to pull him back into a full-scale war that Trump knew threatened to tear his administration apart.”

“But as we noted, the real risk was, and is, that Trump is stupid enough to pull himself back in,” they added.

And in recent days, that’s exactly what has happened,” they said.

“Several administration officials and others close to the White House tell us Trump’s desire to move on from this war has been for the moment quashed by his bloodlust and bruised ego,” report Thakker and Suebsaeng. “The president, the sources say, spent too much time consuming media reports and internal government briefings about how the Iranians weren’t taking his latest apocalyptic-sounding threats seriously, and that Tehran believed it had beaten Trump and had all the leverage. The president grew livid at the idea that his bluster was being brushed off, here and abroad, as, well … bluster. So, he decided, he needed to blow s—— up again.”

“They p—— him off,” a senior Trump official told Zeteo. “So here we go again.”

“That sounds simplistic and crude, but it’s where the world is at: to soothe his hurt feelings, Trump is forcing yet more Iranians and Americans to pay with their lives, in a war with no clear mission and no end in sight,” said Thakker and Suebsaeng. “But at least the American commander-in-chief got to celebrate at a soccer game.”

Meanwhile, Iran is showing little interest as long as Trump keeps throwing around threats to commit war crimes. But to make matters worse, Zeteo reports the Houthis are moving to close the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait to Saudi tankers — an additional blockade that could knock an additional 7 percent off the global oil supply, potentially doubling the oil currently reduced by Trump’s self-created Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. And thanks to Trump’s buddy invading Ukraine, Ukraine has been forced to dismantle Russia’s refinery capacity.

“All to say, the likelihood of global oil shortages has spiked,” said Zeteo.

At least 17 U.S. soldiers have been killed and hundreds injured, reported Zeteo, which contacted Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn (R-Texas) — whose state saw one soldier killed this weekend. They also contacted and Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd (R-N.C.), where another soldier was stationed at Fort Bragg, to ask what their message “might be to Trump, or to the victims’ families, or to the broader U.S. public, as the war’s unpopularity continues to soar.”

None responded, said Thakker and Suebsaeng.

Describing MAGA’s revolt over goofy culture war issues like non-white people playing roles in historical dramas and Christopher Nolan’s the Odessey, former GOP lawmaker and conservative MS NOW host Joe Scarborough said President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are destined to misunderstand the true nature of America.

“The Odyssey, it was an extraordinary movie, and there's nothing I love reading more than MAGA Tears,” Scarborough told Bulwark editor Sam Stein.

“Have you been reading all of it? It's unbelievable,” said Stein, describing MAGA outcry at the movie for depicting Helen of Troy as a Black woman and hiring trans man actor Elliot Page to play the Greek soldier Sinon.

“Oh, my God, it is unbelievable,” confirmed Scarborough. “You have Ben Shapiro and other people, they're saying, ‘no, this is a great movie.’ And people are like, ‘you're a traitor to the cause out there. How dare you?’ Which goes back, … to where we began with Pat Buchanan. You know, Pat looked at America, I think, as a white America and an America of the 1950s. You can even say the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was first elected, I think 86 percent of Americans were white. It was still a pretty big number. And what I always thought Pat didn't get, and I told him this, what Donald Trump has never gotten, what [Trump advisor] Stephen Miller will never get, is America is not about blood and soil. America is not about race. America is about a creed: America at its best.”

“My family's lived in this country across the Deep South for about 400 years,” Scarborough continued. “We go back a long, long way, from being poor in Georgia to being poor in South Carolina. What I love about this country is that my family's been here for 400 years, and yet today, somewhere in America, somebody will raise their hand, they will take that oath, they will agree with that creed, and they will become every bit as much of an American as me and members of my family. I think that is something not only to celebrate, but to thank God for, that we live in that country.”

MAGA, however, appears happy to demonize the movie, even though a growing sector of social media appears to be reluctantly admitting Nolan’s blockbuster is actually good and features great pacing and solid acting and story.

“Just saw The Odyssey. Despite what you may have heard, literally all of the criticisms by conservatives were entirely correct,” ranted right-wing political podcaster and anti-democracy pundit Martt Walsh on X. The movie is just as woke as you fear, if not more so. The DEI casting is atrocious. Completely takes you out of the story right from the beginning.

Critics, however, blasted Walsh and others for “dying” on a dumb hill -- as well as encouraging movie viewership by adopting a public stance in the first place.

“Every ‘conservative’ is sharing their lengthy dissents … after giving their money to see it,” said one critic on X under Walsh’s post. “This is why we lose.”

President Donald Trump likes to pick winners, not losers. And when he picks a ‘loser’ in a primary or general election he tends to get irritated. And nobody wants to be Trump’s advisor when he’s irritated, said Intelligencer political columnist Ed Kilgore.

That’s why advisors may be getting anxious about Trump’s endorsement in South Carolina’s Republican primary.

“One of the crosses Donald Trump has had to bear recently is a less-than-perfect record in endorsing Republican primary candidates,” said Kilgore on Tuesday. “His choices in high-profile gubernatorial nominating contests in Iowa and Georgia both lost to rivals who claimed to adore the 47th president despite their manifest willingness to rebel against his wishes. Trump’s fury at his advisers for steering him wrong peaked in South Carolina, where his gubernatorial endorsee, Pamela Evette, was struggling in a GOP runoff against yet another more-MAGA-than-thou rival, Alan Wilson, leading Trump in a panic to endorse Wilson as well, guaranteeing Evette’s demise.”

Now Trump is having fresh endorsement-obedience problems in the Palmetto State,” said Kilgore, where “absolutely every Republican pledges allegiance to him incessantly.”

When Lindsey Graham died without warning on July 11, the president and ally Gov. Henry McMaster quickly agreed to appoint Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to the seat for the remainder of the late senator’s current term. At first, no one expected her to run for the coveted full term, but when Trump endorsed her for the GOP nomination in the special primary, she announced she was in the race for real.

“But it turned out her Trump-blessed march to nearly seven years in the U.S. Senate (pretty good for someone who had never run for office) wasn’t a cakewalk after all,” said Kilgore.

Lame duck lame-duck S.C. congressman Ralph Norman hopped into the race before Trump’s endorsement — but he didn’t jump out after Trump’s endorsement. And then Norman’s colleague Russell Fry announced his own run.

Fry is no lame duck, and he may be endangering a potentially tiny 2017 GOP House majority because he would have to resign his House seat in January to assume the Senate spot if he wins.

“But more to the point, Fry is disrespecting President Trump right now,” said Kilgore. “His more-MAGA-than-the-official-MAGA-candidate posture isn’t unprecedented; it’s exactly what Iowa gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn and Georgia gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson have claimed. But neither of those worthies was challenging a Trump endorsement so soon after it was issued.”

Worse, other Republicans are also defying Trump and already in the race including far-right candidate Mark Lynch. Now that Norman and Fry have broken the seal, Kilgore said other GOP contenders might jump in as well.

“Polls will soon start popping up, and you have to wonder if Trump will again hedge his Palmetto State bets, particularly if his old buddy Fry is doing well against his new favorite, Darline Graham,” said Kilgore. “The contest could easily extend to an August 25 runoff if nobody wins a majority on August 11.”

“The days and weeks ahead may be painful for White House political advisers, whose lives could take a turn for the worse if Trump flubs another endorsement and looks like a loser,” Kilgore added.

Former Trump attorney Ty Cobb said states need to be ready to fight Trump’s upcoming scheme to throw the midterm elections because nobody in the White House will be filling the crucial role of Trump’s sanity — and that’s a terrible thing for a man with access to so much power.

“I expect that [AG nominee and Trump’s personal attorney Todd Blanche] will be confirmed. I don't think we've seen sufficient character from the Republican senators during the confirmation process or anybody on the hill that would give us any cause for optimism, that they'll stand up and do the right thing for America,” said Cobb, who served at Trump’s attorney in his first administration.

That’s a pity, said Cobb, because Blanche is an enabler, not a sober mind. And sober minds is what the woefully unchained Trump desperately needs to keep him from indulging crazy election-tampering schemes.

“I'm very concerned. … [W]e should all be very worried about the elections and the likelihood that Trump and Blanche will see to it that ICE and the national guard are mobilized for the purpose of trying to interfere with the vote on the day it occurs and the days before and after, but also to seize the voting machines and ballots.”

Cobb pointed out that in 2020, Trump wanted to seize voting machines and ballots, and then AG Bill Barr had to explain to him that there was no basis to do so and no evidence of fraud. But this term is different. Now, Banche and Trump ally Steve Bannon have made public statements making plain that they expect ICE to be on the on the streets, at or about the time of the election.

“Blanche was the central actor in a $2 billion scam on the American public in connection with the alleged slush fund,” Cobb told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur. “You know, that was a scheme that [had] … no case or controversy in the underlying case. And they used the existence of Trump's complaints against the IRS just to try to siphon off $2 billion, or $1.8 billion from the American taxpayers for the president's use.”

“In the first administration, fortunately, there were people there [former White House Chief of Staff John F.] Kelly foremost among them, who tried to keep the president between the navigational beacons of normalcy and propriety. But there's nobody there now. I mean, there is nobody in the White House and certainly nobody in administration at this stage of the game,” Cobb added. “When they go up on the hill and they can't even acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, I think that tells you a lot about the character and courage that is lacking among the administration officials relied upon to try to keep the president on the straight and narrow. Nobody's doing it, and it's impossible to keep him there without such restraint.”

Cobb said he was glad Democrats, states and municipalities were preparing for Trump to try to derail elections in November, but he warned that the president has great resources in his corner.

“He's got the national guard. He's got ICE,” said Cobb. “You know there will be illegal orders issued, and perhaps people will refuse to follow them. But I do think that we're in for a very serious time come November.”

- YouTube youtu.be

Survey analyst G. Elliot Morris reports voters aren’t falling for President Donald Trump’s scheme to blame oil companies for high prices. They know it’s the president’s fault — and they think we’re here because he’s nuts.

The national average price of gasoline is back above $4 a gallon as fighting with Iran resumed in recent weeks, reports Morris. Rather than haggle out a lasting peace accord for the war Trump started, Trump’s response has been a well-lauded proposal to hunt down price-gougers with a probe of oil companies, despite oil companies warning Trump what his Middle Eastern aggression would do to prices.

“Polls suggest voters aren’t buying the ruse,” said Morris. “In our latest Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, fielded July 14–17, 51 percent of Americans say Trump and his administration are most responsible for the price of gas right now, whereas 12 percent put the blame primarily on oil and gas companies.”

In fact, Trump’s approval rating is accordingly at net -21 in new surveys, while Democrats score a 7-point margin on the generic ballot—their 14^th straight poll that has them leading Republicans.

A deadly legion of rotten numbers are chasing Trump to the November midterms, actually. Nearly 60 percent (59 percent) of respondents say higher gas prices have forced them to cut back or delay other spending, and 51 percent of that say Trump and his administration are “most responsible for the price of gas right now.” Almost 75 percent of them say local gas prices are higher than six months ago. Worse, nearly half of them say gas prices will have “some” influence on their 2026 vote.

And before somebody screams “slanted poll,” Morris makes clear that Democrats’ lead is not a party-composition artifact.

“Democrats don’t just lead the generic ballot in our poll because our poll has too many Democrats. The partisan makeup of our samples is pinned to Pew’s NPORS benchmarks and barely moves from month to month.

But one additional bogeyman is hounding Trump and his Republican Party as the nation crashes into November: the looming specter of Trump’s fading mind.

Morris points out that an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll in July 2024 found 44 percent of Americans thought Trump had the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president. This was a stark contrast to just 14 percent of voters for Joe Biden, said Morris, amounting to a 30-point gap.

Biden’s mental fitness was one of Republicans’ most effective cudgels to beat Biden in the lead up to the 2024 election. Only now somebody else is holding that cudgel.

“Today, Trump is 80 and has increasing bouts of trouble in public (he sleeps a lot during press conferences and frequently slurs his speech), and voters are taking note,” notes Morris. “Overall, 46 percent of Americans rate his sharpness as president as ‘poor’ — within a few points of the 50 percent who retroactively said that about Joe Biden.”

So, not only is Trump being held liable for voters’ high costs, polls suggest a significant number of Americans no longer think he has the brains to pull the nation up from the dive.

Conservative columnist Jim Geraghty is telling President Donald Trump that it's time to cut his losses on the plane gift.

Writing for The Washington Post on Tuesday, Geraghty said that the hundreds of millions are being spent on what he called "Qatar Force One" to retrofit it for security and safety.

Debuting the plane, Trump rambled that only Qatar could build a plane like that and that the U.S. couldn't.

“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar,” said Trump.

Geraghty called it "cringe-inducing," in large part because it is a U.S.-made plane. Furthermore, the U.S. government has spent at least $400 million to retrofit it, according to public statements by the administration. Estimates suggest the price tag to make the Boeing plane safe enough for a president would likely be closer to $1 billion, NBC News reported in 2025.

"Even if you could close your eyes to the ethical problems, you had to wonder how secure a plane from Qatar was. (You know who used to work in the Qatari Water Department? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11.) If you doubt that accepting an unsolicited large-scale gift can lead to bigger problems, check out that new movie about how accepting a big wooden horse worked out for ancient Troy," wrote Geraghty.

The security issue wasn't lost on former FBI agent and national security expert Juliette Kayyem, who told CNN on Monday that the plane should never have been "upgraded" to begin with.

Trump was forced to return to the old Air Force One after leaving Türkiye and flying to the U.K. It has now been sidelined, Trump said, so it could be "maxed out." It's unknown whether the plane will ever be safe enough, by Secret Service standards, to shuttle the president around, but Kayyem suspected it would not. While it was a gift to the United States, Trump claimed he would be using it as a "bridge plane" because the new planes he ordered in 2018 won't be ready until 2028.

Trump was "embarrassed" by the reporting that the plane wasn't ready for prime time. Since then, Trump put FBI Director Kash Patel in charge of investigating reporters who found out about the plane flub.

"Ah," wrote Geraghty. "The Qatari plane wasn’t completely safe, as the administration insisted."

He complained that it never should have been accepted to begin with.

"A whole lot of people, on both sides of the aisle, warned that it was a terrible idea. Only the president’s vanity drove this decision," Geraghty said. "The best thing to do would be to give the plane back to Qatar with a Post-it note that says 'Thanks, but no thanks.' (Trump wants to transfer the plane to his presidential library after he leaves office.)"

Trump's highest standards demand a more attractive private plane for his travels, but he'll have to make do with the plane every other president has used.

"It is better than the U.S. president flying around in a Qatari plane while gushing about how the Qataris build better planes than Americans do and waving away concerns about antimissile systems," closed Geraghty.

When news broke about the plane in the spring of 2025, a pool was done by Harvard CAPS/Harris showing that 62 percent of registered voters agreed that accepting the plane “raises ethical concerns about corruption.”

A year and a half into Donald Trump's second presidency, Republican strategists fear that his goals will face major obstacles if the 2026 midterms go the way of Democrats. A Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives could bring another impeachment, while a Democratic U.S. Senate majority would make it difficult for him to get his nominees confirmed. And according to The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last, Trump is sabotaging his own agenda at a time when he can least afford to.

The conservative journalist cites the Iran war and tariffs as two examples of Trump doing everything he can to hurt himself politically.

"(Conservative journalist) David Frum often says that Trumpism holds many secrets, but no mysteries," Last explains. "Generally, this is correct. But Iran presents us with the first genuine mystery of Trump's presidency: Why didn’t Trump just leave?.... I have a theory. Iran has vexed Trump because it brings into conflict his two controlling impulses: Always move forward. Push past old problems by creating new problems. Win every fight. Never cede dominance."

The Never Trump conservative continues, "Iran is a trap because in the ancient part of Trump's lizard brain, he knows he should moving on to the next thing. Maybe invading Cuba. Maybe sending an expeditionary force to Greenland. Maybe laying the groundwork to steal an election. He knows that he can't get bogged down with Iran. He has to press on and create another drama in which he's the star. But on the other hand, Trump understands that as things stand, he lost and Iran won."

Trump, Last argues, is suffering a "loss of face" that "compels" him "to push for dominance."

"With Iran, Trump is still in control of his own decisions," Last writes. "He would have to choose to accept submission. He has not demonstrated the self-mastery to do such a thing, even if it would be in his best interests."

Although Trump's tariff policy experienced a major setback at the U.S. Supreme Court, he is now calling for new tariffs on Canada — a move that Last describes as another act of self-sabotage.

"You may recall that Donald Trump unilaterally imposed a bunch of tariffs, and that, after more than a year of deliberation, the Supreme Court decided that he couldn't do that," Last observes. "And then, Trump said: Whatever. I’ll do the tariffs another way.

Well, we're at the other way. The Liberation Day tariffs were created under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. After the Court struck them down…. Trump pivoted and imposed substantially similar tariffs, but said he was using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The problem is that Section 122 has a time limit, and that limit hits this Friday, meaning that the tariffs should go poof. What's a president to do?"

President Donald Trump's economic advisor Peter Navarro has lost the appeal of his contempt of Congress charges, reported legal analyst and reporter Amee Vanderpool.

Writing on her Substack "Shero," Vanderpool explained that the three-judge panel said that Navarro's appeal didn't hold up.

Navarro penned a book after the first Trump administration "taking credit for devising a plan to 'leverage' the Vice President’s authority under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to 'delay certification' of the results of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021," the ruling explained.

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack then called Navarro to testify, but he refused. According to Navarro, he had the protection of executive privilege and he not only refused to testify but also refused to turn over any documents or engage with the committee at all.

After he was held in contempt of Congress, Navarro moved to dismiss the charges, saying that Trump invoked executive privilege. The problem, Vanderpool and the appeals court noted, is that Trump never did.

In the Tuesday ruling, the court said, "The district court also granted the government’s motion in limine to preclude Dr. Navarro from arguing to the jury that he mistakenly believed he was not required to respond to the Select Committee’s subpoena. A jury subsequently found Dr. Navarro guilty on both counts of contempt. Dr. Navarro appealed. We affirm."

The panel also noted that "Navarro first asserted executive privilege unilaterally without consulting with or receiving direction from President Trump,” who would be the one to assert the privilege.

“We hold that the authority to invoke executive privilege rests with a president or his designee. In that regard, the district court did not clearly err in finding as a matter of fact that neither President Trump nor a designee invoked executive privilege as to the Select Committee’s subpoena to Dr. Navarro,” said the court in an opinion, authored by Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of the Obama administration.

The claim from Navarro was that he and Trump had a three-minute phone conversation in which the president told Navarro to defy the committee's subpoena. Navarro never had any kind of proof showing that and Trump never testified to the contrary. In fact, an advisor and attorney for Trump who testified to the grand jury said that Trump never formally decided whether Navarro should be protected or not from testifying.

It is the reason that Millett asserted “Dr. Navarro immediately and categorically asserted executive privilege without consulting anyone … He did so before even seeing the subpoena and its cover letter that made clear the subpoena sought some information that Dr. Navarro concedes is not privileged because he had discussed it publicly. That all cuts against Dr. Navarro’s purported good-faith defense, not in favor of it.”

The cost of living continues to explode under President Donald Trump, and now, a new CNN report on Florida seniors has exposed the reality of this economic ruin.

On Tuesday, CNN News Central featured a segment from chief domestic correspondent Phil Mattingly, examining the economic struggle of senior citizens in Florida. As host Dana Bash explained as she introduced the segment, Florida's particular characteristics have made it an ideal place to measure the impact of rising costs on some of the country's most vulnerable residents.

"Florida has long been a top retirement destination thanks to its climate, tax benefits and massive senior communities," Bash explained. "That also makes Florida a magnifying glass on the impact of rising costs on Americans with the least cushion to absorb the blow. One example: healthcare. As ObamaCare subsidies expire, premiums are expected to double for nearly 5 million people in Florida. Some are being left to choose: my house or my health."

Early on in the segment, Mattingly spoke to senior Ellen Trocino, a nurse he met at a volunteer health clinic she was attending as a patient. Trocino said she had been living in her car for about a week, and gave herself low odds of managing to get housing anytime soon, given the steep cost of a down payment or a security deposit.

"Roughly a million Florida seniors depend on state-funded insurance, and that lifeline is fraying," Mattingly explained. "Florida turned down federal dollars to expand coverage to residents just above the poverty line... And cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Beautiful Bill act could strip coverage from more than a million additional Floridians by 2034. Medical expenses. Rent. These are just some of the costs bearing down hardest on those with the least cushion left."

Mattingly also spoke to healthcare advocate Scott Darius about the misconceptions many have about how helpful Medicaid can be for Florida residents.

"What people assume about Medicaid is that it's there for all low-income people, right?" Darius said. "But in Florida, if I'm a single parent with two kids, the most I can make in a year and still qualify for Medicaid is $8,000, for the year. But what we've seen in expansion states is that once you do that, the cost of private insurance actually goes down for everyone else."

Another struggling senior, Phoebe White, told Mattingly about the hardships she has experienced trying to pay bills that keep going up, while her Social Security payments remain static.

"Somehow with prayer, I made it, and I'm not on the streets," White said. "I'm not homeless. I'm okay. And I do need my car. I do need my car just in case. Yeah, I need to sleep in it. And I pray that that never happens."

"You're actually thinking through like, I have to keep my car insurance up because I may have to live in my car?" Mattingly asked.

"Absolutely," White responded.

Members of the MAGA movement are raging against an "idiotic" decision that could upend a solidly Republican-safe midterm race, per The New Republic, with some giving a "hard pass" to an unexpected new candidate.

Following the recent and sudden passing of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the state's governor, Henry McMaster, appointed his younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to serve out the remainder of his current term, which is set to end in January. Nordone, whom Graham helped raise after their parents passed away when she was just 13, initially expressed no interest in officially entering the GOP special election to potentially fill her brother's seat properly.

After an endorsement from President Donald Trump, however, she began singing a different tune, confirming in a Monday interview with Sean Hannity that she would officially be joining the race.

“I have been praying a lot, talking to my family... I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely,” Nordone said. “I’ve made a decision: I’m in.”

As The New Republic highlighted in a Tuesday report, this development in the South Carolina Senate race drew withering reactions from several prominent figures in the MAGA and right-wing media sphere.

“Hard pass. Birthright senatorship is idiotic,” Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist news site, wrote in a post to X.

“Trump continues to fill the Swamp with the worst congressional creatures, including his predictable endorsement of Darline Graham,” former Virginia Representative and chair of the House Freedom Caucus Bob Good wrote in his own post to X. “Are there worse criteria than 1) family name, and 2) pledged unconditional and unconstitutional allegiance and obedience to the president?”

“It didn’t take Lindsey Graham’s sister very long to go from ‘thank you for this placeholder appointment to honor my brother until an election can be held’ to ‘you know what? I kind of like sitting in this Senate seat. Like a lot. I think I’ll stay for life, like my brother did,'" Glenn Greenwald, one of the co-founders of The Intercept, observed in another X post.

MAGA outrage against Nordone's decision further signals that this South Carolina race could be another where Trump's grip on the Republican voting base begins to slip. Politico noted in a Tuesday report that "South Carolina Republicans aren’t sure Trump will pass" the test of his power in the state, with other GOP candidates "seeing an opening in a race with a highly untested candidate."

The Justice Department has promised a New York judge that it will do the investigations necessary to justify subpoenaing reporters and their families after the judge put everything on hold.

It was reported on Monday that the New York Times has been targeted by the FBI and the larger Justice Department as part of the investigation into "leaks" regarding President Donald Trump's new Air Force One. Not only were reporters subpoenaed, but the Times reported on Monday that the DOJ also told their family members to hand over their phones.

Courts and justice reporter Chris Geidner, who runs the "Law Dork" Substack, wrote that the docket was updated Tuesday to show that the Justice Department responded to the New York Times filing, agreeing to put off subpoenas for two weeks so that the government can take "particular investigative steps." The DOJ swears that the information they intend to find will be relevant to the court in assessing whether to quash the case.

The subpoenas have already been blocked by Judge Arun Subramanian until the ruling over the motion to quash, Geidner explained. There's a hearing on the matter this week.

The DOJ uses words like "confidential grand jury investigation" and "classified for otherwise confidential and sensitive information" to claim that it has the information to fight back against the Times' motion. It claims that its evidence will disprove the Times' claim that the DOJ "lacks proper predication and that no investigative steps were taken prior to issuance of the subpoenas."

It also disagreed with the claim "that the Government failed to comply with governing Department of Justice regulations regarding issuance of subpoenas to members of the media."

To Geidner, he said, the letter read as if the DOJ was saying in their document, "We're going to do the work now that we were supposed to do before issuing the subpoenas."

He also called it "true clown car s—— that shows how overreaching this is, which in and of itself is a problem because that is not what you want to put in writing to a judge in response to a challenge to a subpoena unless you really need to do so."

In most criminal matters, an investigation begins before the grand jury gets involved. Prosecutors and law enforcement then present evidence to the grand jury, which decides whether there is enough probable cause to issue indictments.

Thus far, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel demanded that administration officials turn over their phones to inspect whether they were responsible for the leaks to reporters about Air Force One not being fully equipped to protect the president.

Some of the subpoenas for the reporters demand records dating back to Jan. 1, 2026, long before the Air Force One was unveiled to the public, and certainly before the report and the NATO trip flub.

Lawyer Jas Easterly commented, "The judge is certainly going to ask, if investigative steps are material to whether the subpoenas can overcome the reporter's privilege, why were the subpoenas issued before those steps were completed?"

President Donald Trump once again took aim at Canada after reigniting his feud with America's neighbor to the north, claiming "they need us to survive" during an Oval Office event on Wednesday.

Trump this week escalated his long-simmering feud with Canada after wildfires in the country blanketed much of the American Northeast and Midwest in dangerous levels of smoke, an occurrence becoming more common with the advance of climate change. Holding Canada responsible for the air quality threat, Trump threatened to impose new tariffs over the situation, and on Monday evening, announced that he would be setting a separate 50 percent tariff on certain Canadian goods in 30 days, claiming that this was in response to the country allegedly discriminating against U.S. exports.

Trump was pressed about the situation again during an Oval Office press conference, confirming that the newly-announced tariff is separate from the wildfire tariff, which he added that his administration is still looking at.

He also spoke further about his reasoning behind the new 50 percent tax, which Axios reported will impact things like "hockey sticks, wine and cement."

"It's a response to the way they've treated our farmers and our people," Trump said. "Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president has done anything about it. I love Canada, I love the people of Canada, many friends that live in Canada. But their leadership from [former Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau to the current leadership, I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there's no way they can survive. So... they've been very, very tough over a period of the last 50 years, actually."

“Over the past year, Canada has retained substantial retaliation against the United States as the U.S. imposes trade actions to reindustrialize, reshore, and support its manufacturing,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters during a call on Monday, according to The Hill. “Specifically, Canada has to be held accountable for this continued discrimination.”

As Democrats look increasingly likely to take over Congress after the 2026 midterm elections, some lawmakers are looking toward impeachment — but not necessarily for President Donald Trump.

MS NOW columnist Hayes Brown cautioned that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought may be the most dangerous man in Trump’s administration, and he should get the first honor.

Brown argues that while Trump grabs the headlines, Vought "has spent the last year and a half willfully breaking the law." He is quietly carrying out a bigger power grab: ignoring Congress, slashing spending lawmakers already approved and turning the White House budget office into a weapon against the legislative branch.

Vought didn't have any role in the first administration, so he spent a lot of time outside the White House promoting his vision for a presidency with absolute power. The OMB director has his "hand in how practically every tiny bud on the executive branch operates. With the possible exception of deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller," characterized Brown.

One example is the Smithsonian museums. Trump proposed cutting its funding, Congress rejected the cut, then Vought allegedly moved to stop the institution from spending beyond the president’s demand. It's becoming part of a pattern of the administration restricting funding to agencies it doesn't have unilateral control over. It's against what the Supreme Court mandates for the roles of each branch of government.

Brown also explained that Vought's moves may violate the Impoundment Control Act and possibly even the Anti-Deficiency Act. Both can carry penalties.

“When a president delays, withholds or impounds funds to impose a cut proposed rejected by Congress, he is blatantly disregarding the appropriations laws: the funds appropriated for the salary of the Office of Management and Budget officials imposing those cuts is being spent in direct violation of that legal prohibition," said the the Anti-Deficiency Act.

One reason Vought is easier to go after is that he's not Trump and lacks the political shield from his MAGA base.

According to Brown, What Vought does have is a contempt for Congress and its authority.

Cerin Lindgrensavage, a counsel with Project Democrac, and David A. Super, a law professor at Georgetown Law penned an opinion essay for The Hill. The two explained: "Trump proposed cutting funds for the Smithsonian by more than $60 million. Congress rejected that cut and increased Smithsonian funding to account for inflation. Vought’s office then unlawfully forbade the Smithsonian from spending any money Congress appropriated beyond the president’s budget request[.]"

As a key nomination flounders, Politico reported that the Trump administration has resorted to groveling for help from some of the president's biggest GOP enemies.

President Donald Trump is attempting to get Todd Blanche, his one-time personal attorney and the acting attorney general, confirmed by the Senate as the proper attorney general, but has so far encountered significant resistance. Concerns remain, even among Republicans, that Blanche is committed to going through Trump's contentious "slush fund" plan, and about how much he would actually keep the Justice Department independent from the White House. The latter worry was far from assuaged when, during a recent hearing, Blanche said, "I'm his lawyer," when pressed about his connections to Trump.

Now, Politico reported on Tuesday that the administration is attempting to start communications with two of Trump's most bitter GOP rivals, Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, in order to get them on board with confirming Blanche. Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, is retiring at the end of his current term and has been an outspoken Republican critic of Trump and his second-term appointees. Cornyn, a Texas Republican, was among the GOP lawmakers whose reelection bids were squashed by Trump endorsing primary challengers, making him even more strident in his opposition to the president with the time he has left.

"The Trump administration is engaging directly with Tillis and Cornyn’s aides as the North Carolina and Texas lawmakers continue to withhold firm commitments to voting to confirm attorney general nominee Todd Blanche in the Judiciary Committee — where a single 'no' vote on the GOP side of the aisle could tank his prospects," Politico detailed. "Tillis and Cornyn both confirmed the back-and-forth in interviews on Capitol Hill Monday evening, and a White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, also said in a statement that 'the Administration continues to have active conversations with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.' It shows how the balance of power, at least in this high-stakes confirmation battle, has shifted for the two outgoing lawmakers — and how Cornyn and Tillis both know it."

“I know my staff have been in touch, almost, probably daily,” Tillis said, referring to communications between his office and the DOJ. “So they are acting. I mean, they’re following up in good faith.”

When pressed about potentially getting Blanche to agree to certain concessions, particularly as it pertains to the "slush fund" settlement, Cornyn said, "Well, does he want to get confirmed or not?" The senator also confirmed that he is negotiating with the administration over the settlement's provision that would shield Trump and his family from IRS audits in the future.

“Those are the issues we’re continuing to discuss with the administration to see whether we can get a modification of the settlement agreement,” Cornyn said.

During former President Joe Biden's four years in the White House, many critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's GOP-appointed 6-3 supermajority proposed packing SCOTUS with additional seats — an idea that Biden rejected. But Reason's Damon Root predicts that the proposal will likely make a comeback if Democrats retake Congress in the 2026 midterms.

"After his election in 2020," Root explains in the libertarian Reason, "President Joe Biden faced enormous pressure from progressive activists who wanted him to expand the U.S. Supreme Court by packing it with a supermajority of new liberal justices who would be ready, willing, and able to override the Court's conservative majority. Yet Biden consistently resisted such pressure. Why? Perhaps it was because Biden agreed with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said it 'was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Court' in 1937, and it would be an equally bad idea to try again. 'If anything would make the Court look partisan,' Ginsburg said, 'it would be that — one side saying, 'When we're in power, we're going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.'"

Root continues, "Or perhaps it was because Biden agreed with liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who similarly concluded that Court packing would be a race to the bottom that erased whatever credibility and independence the Supreme Court had left[.] Whatever his reasons, Biden held firm in his anti-Court-packing stance throughout his single term in office."

According to the U.S. Constitution, the High Court doesn't necessarily have to have nine justices. And President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, frustrated because the Hughes Court was striking down parts of his New Deal as unconstitutional, favored expanding the Court to as many as 15 justices. But the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, described as the pro-FDR "Court-packing plan," was defeated in Congress.

Root argues that because the High Court is so unpopular, "debates" over Court packing will likely resurface.

"Court packing 2.0 may not be inevitable," the libertarian writes, "but it does seem increasingly likely to come up for serious debate in a future Congress. One reason why is that the Supreme Court itself has become increasingly unpopular and distrusted. Indeed, according to a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll, 'more than half of Americans disapprove of how the Supreme Court is doing its job, while 46 percent believe that the Court is ruling on President Donald Trump's policies based on ideology rather than the law.'"

Root continues, "In other words, if enough people believe that the Court no longer has any credibility or independence left to lose, then those people won't be persuaded by any Ginsburg-Breyer type of arguments against court packing. For Democratic politicians and the voters who elect them to office, that kind of fundamental distrust of the Supreme Court only seems to be gaining steam."

When he was campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump proclaimed that in his presidency, in vitro fertilization (IVF) would be free for anyone who wants it. Now, Republicans intend to cut funding for it altogether in the programs that do currently fund it.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) told CNN on Tuesday that she intends to hammer Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he appears before the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss Trump's funding demands for the Iran war. She wants to know what Hegseth has spent so far and what it will cost in the future. The last amount Congress saw, she said, was $35 billion, but that was well over a month ago and only included munitions. She fears it's now over $100 billion.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Pentagon has been forced to move money around to help it fund the president's war while it's "sinking billions" into bombing. The Defense Department was fully funded previously, but the war in Iran is contributing to a shortfall.

"The funding crunch is already leading the Pentagon to limit training and maintenance that help maintain military readiness, according to four current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the budget constraints," the report said.

Duckworth also wants to know the official number of soldiers who have actually been wounded due to the war with Iran. Current estimations show over 100 have been wounded.

When CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked about Hegseth's new testosterone initiative, Duckworth said that the Pentagon should care about all health needs of a soldier and not force testosterone on those who don't want it.

"We're in the middle of a war that he is failing to execute properly against Iran, and he's worried about testosterone levels for men in the military," she said. "You know, it seems like to me, gender affirming therapy ... and if he's going to do gender affirming therapy, then let's also extend hormone testing to female service members so that if they have infertility issues, they can apply for and get coverage for IVF."

Duckworth revealed that the administration and GOP Senators have blocked bills providing IVF for soldiers suffering with fertility issues.

One of the biggest challenges, she said, is that members of the military are more likely to leave the military to start a family because they lack access to fertility issues.

"We can't afford to lose fully trained service members that we've invested all this money in, because we won't provide them with the health care that they need. So if Hegseth wants to provide hormone therapy to service members, he should extend it to all service members so that they can get the full range of their health conditions attended to, because we want them in the best fighting condition they possibly can be in to defend America," said Duckworth.

This defense bill excludes IVF funding to begin with. Duckworth suffered from issues having children. Infertility issues among both men and women in the military are double that of the civilian population. Trump signed an executive order to make IVF medications cheaper.