The Right Wing

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a former U.S. Army Europe commander, is warning that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — by forcing seasoned military figures out of leadership roles — are promoting instability in the U.S. Armed Forces. But Hertling isn't the only veteran who is sounding the alarm. Retired U.S. Army Adm. William H. McRaven, writing in The Atlantic, emphasizes that the United States needs detailed "answers" about all the firings and resignations taking place at the Pentagon during Trump's second presidency.

"Every president and secretary of defense has the right and, moreover, the responsibility to remove officers who are failing to meet the high standards expected of senior leaders," McRaven argues in his Atlantic article. "But when crucial decisions regarding the professionalism, effectiveness, or morale of the military are made, the people and their duly elected representatives have a right to know why these decisions were made. In recent months, President Trump, upon advice from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has relieved or forced the retirement of some of the finest officers that have ever served this nation. I have personally worked with most of them in combat."

McRaven continues, "I can tell you from experience that Generals C. Q. Brown, Randy George, Jim Mingus, J. P. McGee, Dave Hodne, Jim Slife, and Joe Berger and Admirals Lisa Franchetti and Jamie Sands were war fighters through and through. And this week, in an egregious decision, the president forced Gen. Chris Donahue to step down from his position in command of U.S. Army Europe."

Hertling, on the conservative website The Bulwark, found the forced resignation of Donahue especially troubling — as Donahue, Hertling argued, brings a wealth of military expertise to the table.

McRaven, similarly, writes, "Donahue is without question one of the most brilliant officers I know. He is strategically focused, tactically aggressive, personally courageous, exceptionally thoughtful in his planning and execution, and compassionate with his troops…. What is particularly concerning about these firings is the effect the dismissals will have on the officer ranks."

The Trump/Hegseth firings at the Pentagon, according to McRaven, "raise a real risk that senior officers will be overly cautious about providing their best advice and, therefore, that the chance for military miscalculation will grow dramatically."

"If Secretary Hegseth is trying to 'revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military,' as he has said, then the unplanned departure of these senior leaders will do just the opposite and may leave the president and the secretary without the experienced voices they need to make the best military decisions," the retired U.S. Navy admiral says. "Members of Congress should demand answers. The American people should demand answers. The future of our national security depends on it."

During a late June visit to the Middle East on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait to discuss foreign policy matters — including President Donald Trump's ceasefire agreement with Iran. Trump's son-in-law Michael Boulos was sitting next to Rubio during a meeting with UAE's president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi — and Boulos' presence is raising questions.

On X, formerly Twitter, Rubio posted a photo from that meeting, noting that he discussed the memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran as well as "efforts to secure full and safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz" and "regional stability."

The New York Times' Edward Wong is among the reporters drawing attention to the fact that Boulos, who is married to President Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump, was sitting next to Rubio.

Wong, on X, observed, "Trump's son-in-law, Michael Boulos, sits next to Rubio in this meeting in UAE with Sheikh MBZ, the country's leader. Boulos is a businessman who has no official post (his father has one). He visited UAE in May 2025 with Trump for a business event."

Wong, in a separate tweet, noted, "On that May 2025 trip, Michael Boulos and Tiffany Trump were at a business roundtable in UAE at which President Trump gave a speech."

Speaking to reporters in Kuwait City, Kuwait, Rubio was asked about Boulos and responded, "Oh, Michael Boulos? His brother lives here. He was just at the meeting to catch up."

Rubio also told reporters, "I'm a good friend of Michael. So we had a chance to catch up."

But journalists are pointing out that Boulos doesn't actually serve in the Trump administration in an official capacity, and they find his presence during Rubio's meeting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan odd and Rubio's explanation vague.

CNN's Aaron Blake, formerly of the Washington Post, tweeted, "From Rubio's exchange with reporters on this — > Q: Sir, can you clarify — can you clarify what the role of Michael Boulos was today?.... RUBIO: Oh, he was there to see his brother who lives here. He was just there to see me and catch up."

Rubio was once a scathing critic of Donald Trump, repeatedly attacking him when they were competing for the GOP nomination in the United States' 2016 presidential race. But Rubio and Donald Trump later made amends, and now, he wears multiple hats in Trump's second administration. In addition to serving as secretary of state, the 55-year-old former U.S. senator is acting national security adviser.

After Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry lost a GOP primary race in Utah on Tuesday, he blamed a vote in favor of a data center for the loss. Perry's "yes" vote, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, cleared the way for a massive data center in the area.

Perry, in his concession, said, "Do I think that the data center vote cost me the election? Yes, I do. Would I do anything different?.... I wouldn't vote differently, but I would push back against the state and make them come out publicly and tell everybody why they're forcing it down our throat."

Perry, who lost to GOP primary challenger Nathan Tueller by roughly 8 percent, isn't the only Republican who is blaming support for data centers for a loss.

Newsweek's Joe Roberts reports, "A wave of voter anger over massive data center projects is beginning to reshape U.S. politics, with local officials and senior lawmakers losing elections after backing controversial developments tied to the artificial intelligence boom. In Utah on Wednesday, State Senate President J. Stuart Adams — one of the most powerful Republicans in the state — lost his primary election after supporting a major data center development near the Great Salt Lake, in one of the clearest signs yet of the growing political risks tied to the industry."

According to Roberts, the "defeats of Adams and multiple county officials" in Utah on Tuesday "suggest that opposition to data centers is no longer confined to planning disputes — but is emerging as a voting issue capable of reshaping elections."

"The controversy in Utah centered on a sprawling proposed data center campus, known as the Stratos project, planned near the Great Salt Lake," Roberts explains. "Described as one of the largest data centers in the world, and backed by 'Shark Tank' investor Kevin O’Leary, the Stratos development would have spanned tens of thousands of acres in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley. The project would ultimately require up to 9 gigawatts of power — more electricity than the entire state of Utah currently uses, according to The Guardian, although O'Leary later told NBC News he would be willing to shrink the project.

Adams, Roberts notes, "became a focal point for opposition after backing the development."

"Those concerns translated into political consequences," according to Roberts. "Adams, who had previously won reelection comfortably, was defeated by a challenger who ran in part on opposing the project. At the county level, commissioners who voted to advance the project also lost their primaries."

When Donald Trump declared, during his 2016 campaign, "I love the poorly educated," that line underscored his claim to represent working-class voters. And a decade later, Trump — despite being a billionaire — and his allies continue to depict MAGA as a movement designed to make the working class more prosperous. But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in a biting late June article, argues that MAGA's appeal to "working-class identity and authenticity" is a sham.

DeVega is vehemently critical of Vice President JD Vance in his article, attacking the "Hillbilly Elegy" author and former U.S. senator as an "opportunist" who has long since turned his back on the working class he claims to represent.

"The years since the publication of 'Hillbilly Elegy' demonstrated that Vance is, at his heart, an opportunist and a chameleon," DeVega writes in Salon. "Before entering politics, he publicly and privately condemned Trump, describing him as 'America's Hitler' and an 'idiot.' Venture capitalist and conservative activist Peter Thiel served as his mentor, funding his career in finance and underwriting Vance's own business. When Vance ran for the Senate in 2022, Thiel was his largest donor, contributing approximately $15 million to his campaign."

DeVega adds, "Thiel's intervention on behalf of Vance serves as a reminder that the vice president did not pull himself up alone by his bootstraps; he had a lot of help and luck along the way."

The Salon journalist notes that when Vance "returns to his working-class roots" in interviews, his appeal to "working-class authenticity" is "largely performative" — which, according to Vega, is typical of the MAGA movement.

"In American politics — especially in the post-Civil Rights Movement era — the term 'working class,' or 'blue collar,' is presented as being race- and gender-neutral when it is usually a stand-in for white conservative and right-leaning men. In reality, there are tens of millions of working-class Black and brown people. Approximately 46 percent of the U.S. working class are women. As a group, working-class Americans support progressive policies. Besides being pro-union, they are in favor of expanding the social safety net, investing in infrastructure, and increasing taxes on the rich and corporations to create a fairer economy and more opportunity for all Americans."

DeVega continues, "When Vance or Trump talk about 'working-class' or 'hard-working Americans,' they are making thinly coded appeals to aggrieved white men and women who feel they have 'lost their country' to Black and brown people, immigrants and others who have 'cut ahead in line.' To that point, research has repeatedly shown that it is not economic anxiety but racism, nativism and white racial resentment that drives support for Trumpism, MAGA and today's Republican Party."

After Donald Trump's narrow victory in the 2024 presidential election, one of the things that frustrated Democratic insiders the most was his gains with Latino voters. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris outperformed Trump among Latinos, but only by the low single digits — and by a much smaller margin than Joe Biden in 2020. However, Trump is now struggling among Latinos in countless polls, and according to CBS News, their frustrations could be a major problem for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

CBS News reporters Anne Bryson and Fin Daniel Gómez examine those frustrations in a June article, explaining, "Leading Latino political strategists are examining the races where Latinos could play an outsize role in this year's midterm elections, and believe their votes will be critical in a number of House races…. At Tuesday's Latino Vote Summit in Washington, D.C., Latino political strategists, pollsters and campaign operatives from both sides of the aisle gathered to discuss cost-of-living issues and Latino political power heading into the fall. The backdrop is Latino voters' swing toward President Trump in 2024 — and Democrats' efforts to win them back during a tightly contested race for control of the House and Senate."

Carlos Odio, co-founder of the political data firm Equis Research, told Latino Vote Summit attendees that in the midterms, "the House map especially is very Latino." And he believes that Latinos could play a key role in the outcome of Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race, which finds far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton up against Democratic nominee James Talarico."

Inflation is a major source of frustrations for Latinos voters, according to Bryson and Gómez.

Asked what Latinos' top issue will be in the midterms, Odio replied, "The economy, and the economy, and the economy."

Bryson and Gómez report, "Latino voters continue to view economic conditions, like inflation, as their top concern — and Mr. Trump's ratings on his handling of the economy are weaker than they were at about the same point in 2018, Odio said. But Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who won his competitive Senate race in a battleground state that Mr. Trump won, said Hispanic voters cannot be taken for granted by the Democratic Party."

Gallego warned members of his party, "The Democratic Party still does not understand that there is no national Democratic Party without the Latino vote being part of that coalition, and part of that is that you have to answer to where the Latino voter is — not where you want the Latino voter to be. There has been this want by special, very liberal organizations and very liberal donors and very liberal groups that they want Latinos to be liberal, and the fact is not all of them are."

MAGA Republicans often hail Florida as a symbol of their movement's success, praising Ron DeSantis' two terms as governor and arguing that President Donald Trump chose wisely when he made Mar-a-Lago his primary residence. The Sunshine State is associated with a who's-who of MAGA, including Trump, DeSantis, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, ex-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, among many others.

But Florida, according to Bloomberg, is now facing higher-than-average unemployment.

"While the U.S. unemployment rate has been little changed over the past year, joblessness in Florida has surged," according to Bloomberg News reporter Augusta Saraiva. "It's climbed more than a percentage point to 4.8 percent — faster than nearly any other state — and is now among the highest nationwide. Job growth has slowed to a crawl amid a pullback in key industries like real estate, retail and tourism, all of which are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand."

Saraiva continues, "That marks a reversal from Florida's run as a magnet for workers and retirees coming out of the pandemic, when its economy was one of the hottest in the U.S. It also raises questions about the viability of the state's growth model as a rising cost of living starts to send would-be Floridians elsewhere."

Interviewees offered some reasons why unemployment is rising in Florida.

Howard Frank, a public policy expert at Florida International University, told Bloomberg News, "We're highly dependent on tourism and retail. If people aren't going out to eat, if people aren't going to Disney, if people are cutting back on discretionary expenses, well, Florida will be hit quite hard."

Jesse Wheeler, who studies macroeconomics at Revelio Labs, told Bloomberg News,

"By the way its economy is set up, Florida just tends to be more cyclical than the U.S. economy as a whole. It shares the trends of the U.S., but it tends to exacerbate them."

Saraiva notes that Florida's "lack of job opportunities" is "likely to become front-and-center ahead of this year's midterm elections."

"The tide has turned amid worsening affordability problems, a surge in immigration enforcement and a slowdown in tourism," the Bloomberg News journalist reports. "Net domestic migration to Florida totaled just 22,517 people in the year through July 1, 2025, according to Census Bureau figures — less than a tenth of the peak recorded in 2022. And Visit Florida, the state's official tourism bureau, says the number of visitors fell 1 percent in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier."

Right-wing media outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax, continue to double down on President Donald Trump's claim that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — which is suffering from algae and a peeling, cracked liner — was the target of vandalism. And Salon's Sophia Tesfaye views that claim as a glaring example of MAGA media pushing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories in order to mask Trump's "failures."

"The bizarre ordeal with the renovation of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is important not because of the pool itself," Tesfaye argues in Salon. "Americans have bigger concerns than algae in Washington. It matters because it illustrates a broader pattern that has defined Trump's political career and increasingly characterizes his administration's communication strategy. More than merely mismanaging reality, the White House is actively replacing it with conspiracy. The project has collapsed into an emblem of systemic incompetence and cronyism that the administration has attempted to mask through a dizzying array of official conspiracy theories, weaponized law enforcement and cynical trolling."

That "trolling," according to Tesfaye, includes well-known right-wing media figures like Fox News' Laura Ingraham and Newsmax's Grant Stinchfield.

In a June 22 post on X, formerly Twitter, Ingraham wrote, "Will any Democrat urge people not to vandalize the Reflecting Pool?"

Stinchfield, meanwhile, posted a video of himself near the Reflecting Pool and tweeted, "President Trump fixes the reflecting pool and a week later it’s green again, loaded with algae… Sabotage… Vandalism? I believe it is. The left can't stand Trump, American greatness and his quest to make DC beautiful again. What a shame!"

Similarly, Tesfaye observes, "War Room" host Steve Bannon is claiming that "the reason" that Trump loyalist Bill Pulte is serving as acting national intelligence director "is to get to the bottom of the 2020 stolen election."

"Right-wing media has long functioned as both amplifier and validator for Trump's claims," Tesfaye observes, "but the Reflecting Pool episode shows how far that relationship has evolved. It is no longer reactive. It is now anticipatory. The ecosystem does not wait for evidence; it constructs a narrative framework into which evidence, if it ever appears, can be slotted later. In the meantime, repetition does the work. A claim aired on cable becomes a segment, becomes a tweet, becomes a talking point — becomes, for millions of viewers, a form of truth."

The Salon journalist continues, "And yet, even that is only part of the picture. Because alongside these attempts to rewrite a mundane failure, the White House has started doing something more deliberate and more dangerous: openly courting conspiracy culture itself…. The algae in the Reflecting Pool, the fake Q drop and the phantom menace of election fraud are, in many ways, the same story. When the administration confronts an inconvenient reality, it substitutes evidence with insinuation. Then right-wing media personalities rush to amplify claims before facts are established. The purpose is to transform accountability into victimhood and failure into sabotage."

Since returning to the White House 17 months ago, President Donald Trump has used the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to target his political adversaries while pardoning his allies. And according to CBS News, "business is booming" for an Indianapolis-based lobbying firm pushing for presidential pardons from Trump.

The firm is Mo Strategies, which, according to CBS News' Gabe Kaminsky, includes former Trump campaign and administration officials and is successfully "expanding into the newly-lucrative world of pardons."

"The Trump-linked firm has signed on to lobby for the law firm Blessinger Legal in Northern Virginia for 'immigration and pardon-related discussions,' federal lobbying disclosures in late May show," Kaminsky reports. "The engagement has already yielded the firm $500,000 in income, and more work is expected, Marty Obst, president of Mo Strategies, said in an interview."

Obst told CBS News, "We're one of the fastest-growing firms in D.C., and are helping them navigate the landscape and process. What I've tried to do is provide guidance of what the process looks like, and what types of cases would appeal to this White House. There's a legal process and a political process for pardons and clemency."

Mo Strategies' work, according to Kaminsky, shows that a "cottage industry" of "well-connected lobbyists, lawyers and influencers who advocate on presidential clemency" has "flourished during Mr. Trump's second term." And Obst, according to the CBS News reporter, is a veteran conservative strategist who worked on Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns and was also a senior adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence."

The Mo Strategies filing that listed $500,000 in income, according to Kaminsky, lobbied the Trump White House as well as DOJ this year.

A DOJ spokesperson, quoted anonymously, told CBS News that its pardon office has received a "record number of applications for clemency" and will "make recommendations to the president that are consistent, unbiased and uphold the rule of law."

Blessinger Legal, Kaminsky notes, was founded by attorney Eileen Blessinger — who is known for her extensive work in immigration law.

"As Mr. Trump's administration pursued an immigration crackdown, Obst said Blessinger contacted him for guidance on new policies and to have him review dozens of her clients' cases to determine which might be viable for a potential pardon," Kaminsky reports. "Some of Blessinger's cases have a criminal court component, including green-card holders who were convicted of a crime, though some of the pardon work could be for non-immigration-related cases, he added."

Obst told CBS News, "The Biden administration really expanded government reach, sometimes unfairly. In some cases, there were very aggressive prosecutions that seemed highly political. There are cases that qualify as needing further review. Whether or not they get a pardon — there are no guarantees to that."

President Donald Trump remains fixated on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, angrily berating "stupid" GOP senators for not passing the voting bill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and other Republican lawmakers are saying that the votes to pass it simply aren't there — and that Trump should be focusing on the economy instead. But conservative David M. Drucker, in a Bloomberg News column, stresses that Republicans who hope Trump will change course and "pivot" to the economy are dreaming.

"For Republicans in Congress who've been clinging to hope that President Donald Trump might finally focus on the economy ahead of the midterm elections," Drucker argues, "their time might be better spent searching for proof that the tooth fairy is real. The same day Trump reaffirmed support for an agreement with Iran to end the war, he turned his attention to Capitol Hill. Did he demand or introduce legislation addressing voters' No. 1 priority, what they believe is an unacceptably high cost of living? No. Rather, the president revived his push to strongarm how the 50 states and Washington, DC administer elections — an issue that barely registers on voters' radar, outside of MAGA social media circles."

Trump, according to Drucker, is so obsessed with the SAVE America Act that he is "holding hostage renewal of crucial government spying tools, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" — much to the frustration of GOP senators.

"Of course, the president could be focused on more than one issue at a time; that goes with the job," Drucker writes. "But he still refuses to acknowledge that any aspect of the economy is underperforming on matters related to affordability or otherwise."

In a June 21 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "Our Country is doing GREAT. Record Jobs Numbers and Stock Market. BEST ECONOMY EVER! We are WINNING on all fronts. WINNING LIKE NEVER BEFORE." And he recently told reporters, "The word 'affordability' is a fake word, made up by the Democrats."

Such messaging, Drucker notes, is frustrating GOP lawmakers and is "just not reality."

"Inflation has spiked since Trump launched the Iran war on February 28, with the Consumer Price Index climbing 0.5 percent from April to May — and a whopping 4.2 percent since the same period in 2025, according to the Labor Department," Drucker observes. "That was the highest rate of inflation since the 4.9 percent during the year that ended April 2023, as Bloomberg reported this month. Theoretically, there's still time for Trump to address the economy to improve his party's prospects in the midterms, still more than five months away…. If Trump's ratings go up, so, too will the GOP's chances of preserving its roughly 10-seat House majority and defending its three-seat Senate advantage. Absent that, Democrats are poised to have quite a bit to celebrate on the evening of November 3."

New York Times authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's new book was released Tuesday to the public, and among the revelations about the first lady is that she didn't want trillionaire Elon Musk anywhere near the White House residence.

The Daily Beast dug through the book, uncovering a story that the tech guru, who promised and failed to reduce government spending by $2 trillion, once needled the president about crashing in the White House. Melania Trump put her foot down, but her husband didn't care. Musk then spent several nights in the Lincoln bedroom, the Daily Beast relayed.

Despite his vast wealth, Musk is known for couch surfing or living out of his offices or factories, the New York Post reported in 2022.

“Though he also told associates he had taken to using a sleeping bag on the floor of his office in the Eisenhower Building," the book said.

The trillionaire then bragged about it to the press, saying, “Sometimes I stay at the White House." He then noted he'd done it “more than once.”

According to Trump's version of events, the two were on Air Force One when Trump asked Musk where he was staying. During Trump's first term, he liked to ask the question to test whether people were staying at his hotel. Musk said he didn't know yet. Trump then invited him to the White House for a private tour.

He said he thought the Lincoln Bedroom was "cool" and swore he never requested it.

Musk aslso praised Trump as a great host.

The first lady didn't like Musk around and neither did many of the White House staffers, the book said. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles didn't like him much either, feeling he had a "strangeness" to him. He came across as "unhinged."

After Musk left the White House, it was revealed that he may have been using an extensive amount of drugs at the time, some of which are illegal. The New York Times reported in May 2025 that "Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it."

The Times was careful to explain that it was unclear whether Musk was doing all of those drugs while at work in the White House. Musk denies the reporting, saying that he does not use drugs.

Haberman and Swan's new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, is on sale Tuesday.

Liberal and progressive media outlets have been highly critical of the U.S. Senate's GOP majority for being, in their view, overly deferential to President Donald Trump — often arguing that Republican senators confirmed his most unqualified nominees. But in recent weeks, tensions between Senate Republicans have been flaring. And according to Politico's Jordain Carney, frustrated Senate Republicans are losing patience with Trump more and more.

"Donald Trump is about to come face to face with one of his frequent punching bags: Senate Republicans," Carney reports. "They might just be in a mood to punch back. The president was invited to GOP senators' Wednesday lunch to push for his No. 1 priority, the GOP election bill known as the SAVE America Act. But several outgoing Republicans who have clashed with Trump said Monday they will be there to deliver a reality check: The bill isn't passing, and it's time to move on."

One Republican senator who is speaking out is outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who recently lost a GOP primary to far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who Trump endorsed.

Cornyn told reporters, "I'm going to be there front and center. It will be important if it actually is a constructive exchange of different opinions, and hopefully we can all get on the same page. Right now, we're not in a great place."

Cornyn said of the SAVE America Act, "I've been around here long enough and been through enough battles and counted enough votes to know that it doesn’t just magically occur, no matter how much you wish it would happen."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) is making it clear that he has no desire to abolish the filibuster — no matter how much Trump berates his caucus.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, "Anybody who doesn't want to Terminate the Filibuster is a FOOL, a very stupid one, at that!"

Thune told Politico, "It's not a question of what I want to do or don't want to do. It does always come back to the math. And.… there just aren’t the votes to do it."

Other frustrated Senate Republicans who are speaking out include North Carolina's Thom Tillis and Louisiana's Bill Cassidy — who, like Cornyn, lost to a Trump-supported primary challenger.

Cassidy said of the SAVE America Act, "I'm a co-sponsor, but it doesn’t have the votes, and so it’s time to talk about something else."

Tillis told Politico that he would like to have a productive relationship with Trump but stressed that the president isn't going to get everything he wants legislatively.

"So why don't we spend more time being productive about how we communicate, when we communicate, and get some of these very pressing issues done?" the North Carolina conservative commented.

President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser is in charge of a MAGA non-profit staffed with Trump loyalists — but apparently they are secretly at each other’s throats.

“Since taking over the storied conservative group America’s Future in 2021, retired general Michael Flynn has turned it into a real rogue’s gallery,” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer wrote on Monday. “For one, Flynn, who briefly served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser in the first administration, put Lara Logan—the former CBS News reporter turned conspiracy theorist—on the nonprofit’s board. Flynn also launched an anti-child trafficking initiative within America’s Future called ‘Project Defend & Protect Our Children,’ which he stocked with fringe activists, including Pizzagate true believer Liz Crokin, who now serves as a Project board member.”

Yet this “kook heaven” proved to be “hardly paradise,” Sommer observed, as a rash of unexplained resignations began depleting the organization’s staff.

“The cause of these resignations remains unclear,” Sommer said. “But, as a whole, they strongly suggest that Flynn’s organization, a pillar of the conspiratorial right, may be in serious trouble. America’s Future didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did anyone who resigned.”

He added, “Rest assured, I’m working to get to the bottom of all this. Unfortunately, my skeptical approach to QAnon and other conspiracy theories appears to have alienated some of the key people involved in this story. When I asked Moore, who was tweeting over the weekend about how Barack Obama would soon be arrested for treason, why he had resigned, he declined to tell me.”

Sommer then quoted a statement by Ben Moore, “a lawyer on the “Project Defend” advisory board” who when resigning earlier this month resigned used “QAnon-style language as a ‘digital soldier.’”

“Will, you shit on so many of us for so long,” Moore said in his statement. “You want a story to try to destroy General Flynn.”

Another QAnon booster who is sticking by Flynn, Sommer pointed out, has tried to downplay the resignations, but has used language which raises more questions. Sommer described it as “drunk night between grown adults,” adding that “there’s no side. People are upset over personal shit. Drunk night between grown adults. This s——— has NOTHING to do with General Flynn or his organization.”

The details have been left “blank,” Sommer concluded.

Flynn has been criticized before for his cozyness with Trump, which has also seemed to personally benefit him financially. In March a former Justice Department prosecutor accused Flynn of committing theft by accepting a $1.25 million settlement after pleading guilty under oath to intentionally making false statements to the FBI in 2017.

"I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft," Andrew Weissmann told "The Illegal News" at the time. "To make this a legitimate settlement, there would have to be a good faith belief that he has a meritorious argument and that there might be some downside in litigating this."

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Warren Davidson — the GOP lawmaker who took over the seat once held by former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — is sponsoring a bill dubbed the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act of 2026. Davidson is touting his bill, which would repeal the Corporate Transparency Act of 2021, as an effort to make life easier for businesses. But according to journalist/author Casey Michel, Davidson's bill, if it became law, would be a victory, not a setback, for "autocrats" and corrupt shell companies.

"In late April, Trump's allies on the House Financial Services Committee pushed through legislation by a one-vote margin to formally repeal the requirement that U.S. shells divulge their true owners," Michel, writing for The New Republic, explains. "Claiming that the transparency requirement — which requires that company managers take approximately five minutes to fill out a form disclosing company ownership — was an onerous burden, the new bill, dubbed the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act and sponsored by Ohio Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, will restore America's status as the leading offshore haven."

Michel adds, "Last month, Senate colleagues introduced similar legislation, aiming to attach it to the broader defense bill set to be passed later this year…. The repeal effort 'ignores clear warnings from American national security and law enforcement officials,' as Transparency International's Gary Kalman said — all of which 'risks turning the United States back into a place where criminals and foreign adversaries can more easily fund their networks and hide dirty money in plain sight.'"

The Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act of 2026, according to Michel, would be a "staggering gift to cartels, Chinese money-laundering networks, Iranian proxies, and others who have relied on anonymous U.S. shells — all of whom Republicans supposedly stand against"

"It's not difficult to see where this new momentum for effective repeal is coming from," Michel argues. "(President Donald) Trump, saturated as he is in rampaging anonymity and international financing, has gone as far as he can to flip the U.S. from an opponent of corruption to a confederate of kleptocrats around the world. But he needs his allies in Congress to help him achieve all of his pro-kleptocracy aims — and to help all of their wealthy, oligarchic benefactors continue to benefit from anonymous U.S. shell companies, as well. In the service of aiding those wealthy donors, Republicans pushing for the bill's effective repeal are willing to aid Russian gunrunners, terrorist financiers, transnational criminal syndicates, and others who need all of the anonymity that states like Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, and others perfected."

Michel laments that although Trump "may be the leading wrecking ball destroying America's anti-corruption credentials," he is "hardly alone."

"Thanks to congressional Republicans," Michel warns, "Trump — and corrupt actors around the world, salivating at the chance to turn the U.S. back into their own personal dirty-money laundromat, can finally restore an American kleptocracy in which only oligarchs, grifters, and criminal kingpins benefit, while everyone else pays the price."

Former U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander published a new book talking about his time as the governor of Tennessee, his time in the Senate and what changed so significantly about the GOP in that time.

In an excerpt published by The Harvard Gazette, Alexander said that up until the past few decades, Republicans and Democrats both wanted much of the same things, they merely disagreed about how to get there. Once activist groups got involved and began contributing to campaigns for ideological reasons, things changed.

"When I began in politics in 1966, the East Tennessee Republican base was composed of voters who were patriotic, churchgoing and leery of the federal government," recalled the ex-lawmaker. "Because most were descended from Civil War Lincolnites, they were generally pro-civil rights. The state party organization was the custodian of 'the base.' There were not many other intermediaries between an elected official and the voters."

Staying in touch with "the base," back then, involved actually attending public events and shaking hands.

"During the 1970s and 1980s, new organizations inserted themselves between the elected official and the voter," he continued. "They became the 'new base.' The state party was reduced to being a fundraising machine and producer of operatives who consumed most of the money raised."

It grew a new GOP base that focused more on Washington D.C., than the states. Talk radio show hosts began rising and Fox News "spread the gospel," he said.

That "new base" wasn't a problem when he first ran for office in 1978, he said. Issues like abortion "rarely came up." He recalled working with Democrats for plans involving "better schools and roads, clean water, and healthy children."

He complained, "Republican House Leader Newt Gingrich’s confrontational politics made it look like activist Republican governors and nay-saying Republican members of Congress were not on the same team. Another difference was that congressional Republicans were winning elections, and Republican governors and legislators were not."

He recalled a meeting where he invited Gingrich and other GOP leaders to talk about how they could better work together.

Alexander recalled telling them, “Washington issues are tremendously important and fascinating, but when we get together, that’s all Republicans talk about. Democrat governors are running up and down the street proposing programs to improve schools, pick up the garbage, fix roads and make children healthier — and they are getting elected.”

“If I were in Congress, I would be voting ‘no’ to more federal control as Newt is doing. And if he were governor, he would be hard at work fixing schools and roads and health care — as I’m doing,” he quoted the speech. He mentioned that Gingrich agreed. They gave it the name the "New Federalism" and it began helping them win elections.

Once he went to Washington as a U.S. senator, Alexander said he watched the evolution of the party to a greater extent. He recalled being labeled as a "partisan attack dog" which was laughable since he was such a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. He noted he detests the word "moderate" because it's a "lazy" description.

"I especially resented self-righteous political pharisees who claimed to be a better Republican than I was, in the way someone might wander into Sunday school and claim to be a better Christian," he wrote. "I am a very Republican Republican, a bona fide Abraham Lincoln mount in Republican descended from Union soldiers who voted like they shot and who made certain that our congressional district had not elected a Democrat to Congress since Lincoln was president."

The Senate in which he served quickly became one in which it wasn't the moderates vs. the conservatives, but between grand-standers and those who wanted to govern.

"My priority of governing didn’t suit the Washington D.C., political pharisees who had begun to infiltrate Tennessee Republicans," said Alexander. "It didn’t help that I had always worked with Democrats and tried to represent all Tennesseans. During 2009, I provided more ammunition by voting to support Obama 10 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly."

He closed by lamenting that some of the most legendary lawmakers in history, like Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen (Ill.), may not have made it in a world of "Digital Democracy" that hinges on soundbites, trolling and being inflexible. He hopes that Tennessee can recruit more candidates who look to progress rather than one-party rule.

Four years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — a ruling that, according to conservative GOP consultant Sarah Longwell, continues to be a political liability for Republicans.

Writing in the conservative website The Bulwark, Longwell — founder of Republican Accountability (RA), formerly Republican Voters Against Trump — explains, "Amid all the talk of inflation, war, and artificial intelligence, people are underestimating just how important abortion could still be to this fall's elections. That seems like an insane sentence to type because, after all, abortion proved decisive in 2022, when Democrats dramatically overperformed expectations. The consensus quickly formed that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was the key contributor. But when the Democratic Party put a heavy emphasis on abortion in the 2024 elections, it didn't pan out. That's because voters were more motivated by economic issues."

Longwell adds, "Fights around abortion moved to the states — where Republican- controlled legislatures were passing sweeping bans — and receded from the federal level. Today, Dems may have over-learned the lesson of 2024."

Although Longwell is on the right politically, she is very much in the Never Trump school of conservatism and rooted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024. And she emphasizes, in her Bulwark piece, that not all conservatives want abortion to be illegal.

"I can't tell you how many times I've heard voters — even swing voters and conservatives — say some version of 'I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose,'" Longwell notes. "Translation: Voters can be personally uncomfortable with abortion and still believe that the state-level bans are a bridge too far. In recent focus groups I've conducted, abortion still pops up as an issue. That's especially true in states with very restrictive abortion bans — including some that have key Senate and gubernatorial races this year, like Iowa and Texas."

In Texas, outgoing Sen. John Cornyn — who recently lost a U.S. Senate primary to far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — is anti-abortion, but not as extreme on the issue as the Donald Trump-backed nominee.

"Paxton is a weak candidate for a lot of reasons, including his association with Texas' extreme abortion laws," Longwell observes. "This is something Democrats can and should hang around his neck. Sure, Texas is still Texas. But Paxton's liability on abortion, among his other indiscretions, could prove a major drag. In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds also received plenty of fire. She isn't running for a third term. But Republican Zach Lahn is on the ballot, and he supports a total abortion ban with potential implications for IVF, which is even more extreme than the current law…. Dems seem aware that abortion itself isn't enough to tip any one race. Instead, it’s folded into a candidate's broader profile — and that can make all the difference."

Longwell continues, "Governors like Brian Kemp in Georgia and Mike DeWine in Ohio managed to get reelected in 2022, even though in 2019, both had signed 'heartbeat' abortion bans similar to Texas'. But they benefit from a broader 'normie' appeal. By contrast, patently insane candidates who supported near-total bans — like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Tudor Dixon in Michigan, or Kari Lake in Arizona — all lost their races. Extreme positions on abortion are often, though not always, a leading indicator of extreme positions on other issues, like whether or not the 2020 election was stolen."

GOP senators were quite frustrated when, on Wednesday, June 17, President Donald Trump delayed the nomination of federal prosecutor Jay Clayton for director of national intelligence (DNI) in order to keep Acting DNI Bill Pulte in that position longer. That delay, according to The Hill's Alexander Bolton, underscores growing tensions between Trump and Senate Republicans.

"President Trump's relationship with key Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), is crumbling after repeated clashes over strategy on an array of issues," Bolton reports in The Hill. "The two sides are splitting further apart as the midterm election nears and GOP lawmakers fear the potential loss of both chambers of Congress. GOP senators say there has been a major loss of trust between the president and many members of their conference as the White House has repeatedly blindsided Thune and other Republican leaders."

Another source of frustration for Thune, Bolton notes, is Trump's decision to endorse far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary for Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race. Paxton won the nomination, and Thune isn't shy about saying that Cornyn would have had a much better shot against Democratic nominee James Talarico.

Cornyn told The Hill, "In my case, there was no real reason given my support for the president's agenda. When he endorsed my primary opponent, people realized you could never do enough to stop the president from endorsing your primary opponent. I think that destroyed what remained of any kind of trust. I think that changed the playing field in a way where you see a lot more what I would call transactional relationships as opposed to one based on trust."

Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) warns fellow Republicans that Trump is making it easier for Democrats to flip either or both branches of Congress in the 2026 midterms.

Tillis told The Hill, "When we're five months out from a major election (when) we historically have headwinds, you've got to be pitch-perfect and you got to execute with precision. We can't surprise the president and the administration cannot surprise us. Every time we do that between now and November, we're diminishing our chances of holding our majorities."

This Wednesday, June 24, according to Bolton, Trump "will have a chance to discuss his differences with Republican senators in person" and address the Steering Republican Committee at the invitation of its chairman, Sen. Rick Wilson (R-Florida).

"Republican senators are growing more and more frustrated over Trump's unrelenting calls to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which would require people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show photo ID when voting, despite the fact that it has already failed five times on the floor," Bolton notes. "Trump surprised Republicans again when he posted on social media Wednesday morning that he would not sign an extension of FISA's enhanced surveillance authorities unless the SAVE America Act is attached to it — something that is a complete nonstarter with Republicans."

Jared Kushner's investment fund, Affinity Partners, and its ties to Saudi Arabia not only drew scrutiny from Democrats; even conservative Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) warned that it "crossed the line of ethics." According to Mother Jones' Casey Michel, Kushner was "denied top-secret clearance" — that is, until his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, stepped in and "overruled intelligence officials."

"Of course, it wasn't just Saudi Arabia that saw Kushner as a pliable source of influence," Michel explains in Mother Jones. "The United Arab Emirates, whose own despot had cultivated Kushner years before, began tossing money at Affinity Partners around the same time. So did the Qatari regime, which slipped back into America's good graces as it was helping bail out Kushner's family company. To date, firms linked to the UAE and Qatar have invested at least $1.5 billion in Kushner's fund. With more modest infusions from smaller investors, nearly all foreign, Affinity's asset pool grew and grew, topping $6 billion and generating more than $100 million in management fees for Kushner and his partners…. The investments themselves weren't enough of an ethical hornet's nest, the contracts Affinity signed give the regimes troubling leverage over Kushner."

Michel adds, "They allow investors to pull out after a five-year window, which means Saudi Arabia and Qatar have the power to implode Affinity in the middle of Trump's second term, decimating Kushner’s standing — a financial sword of Damocles that, by extension, dangles over the federal government."

A former White House official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Mother Jones, "There was a risk the Saudis were playing him."

Michel notes that according to NBC News, Kushner's application for a top-secret security clearance was initially rejected because of fears "about potential foreign influence." But when Trump overruled intelligence officials, Kushner was, Michel reports, granted "access to America's most closely held secrets."

"As MBS (Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) tucked Kushner further into his pocket," Michel reports, "other regimes tried to replicate the Saudi success. One year into Trump's first term, U.S. intelligence analysts reported that officials from a range of foreign countries had 'privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner,' the Washington Post noted, 'by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties, and lack of foreign policy experience.' They'd hit on the same conclusion as MBS: Kushner was tractable, and perhaps the best vector for influencing Trump."

Michel continues, "One of those countries was Israel…. Russia had a similar epiphany. Once Trump was sworn in, Kushner became a Kremlin target second only to Trump himself. President Vladimir Putin, federal documents show, tasked businessman Kirill Dmitriev with courting top White House officials, and Dmitriev took a particular interest in Kushner."

According to Michel, "Kushner's assertion" that he "would play no role in a second administration crumbled as soon as Trump returned to power" — and foreign powers have been "quick to recapitalize on his proximity to the throne."

"(Kusner) and his partners are traveling the world, gleefully raking in cash as they cultivate relationships with sordid regimes and kleptocratic leaders in the interest of making a buck," Michel warns. "The world burns, and Jared Kushner gets richer."

Two top officials in President Donald Trump's administration are teasing "evidence" they have that will vindicate one of the biggest presidential scandals in history.

Last month, President Donald Trump's officials promised that they had evidence of rampant fraud in the 2020 Georgia and Arizona elections. On Sunday, however, the same officials proclaimed that former President Richard Nixon was innocent and that the Watergate scandal was a "deep state hoax."

According to pardon attorney Ed Martin, "We should mark the 54th anniversary of the Watergate break-in (a few days ago) by remembering this: it is the OG hoax with the pre-FISA CIA running wiretaps on domestic politicians. And then blaming the Nixon campaign. And Washington Post leading (not reporting)."

Even the Encyclopedia Britannica makes it clear that there was no CIA involvement in the Watergate break-in. Rather, "Four of them formerly had been active in Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activities against Fidel Castro in Cuba."

Trump's chief of protocol and ambassador Monica Crowley shared Martin's post, adding, "President Nixon was the target of a Deep State hoax. He will be vindicated!"

Crowley was the same official who promised last month that they would "soon" have proof that would prove 2020 election fraud.

“He did win in a landslide, and we will soon be able to give evidence about that,” she said, according to May 8 reporting from the conservative Washington Examiner.

Members of the Nixon administration and his own allies testified against him about the scandal. There were also taped conversations and a paper trail showing the Watergate connections. Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, hatched a scheme to have the CIA falsely declare that the FBI's involvement in the Watergate break-in investigation could compromise national security, and that there should be other investigators. Nixon's Oval Office taping system recorded the conversation, and he fought to keep the tapes secret up until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him in a unanimous decision.

The conservative New York Post reported on John W. Dean, Nixon's former White House Counsel, who said in his book The Nixon Defense that the infamous missing 18 minutes in the tapes “contained some general comment that revealed [Nixon’s] involvement in the [Watergate] cover-up.”

“There’s other talk that week that would have been equally as damaging,” Dean also explained in the book. “It’s just those tapes weren’t subpoenaed.”

Trump has spent years claiming at one point or another that all of his biggest scandals were a "deep state hoax," including Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the 2020 election results and the investigation around his theft of classified documents.

Studies suggest there could be a reason your conservative friend has a bad habit.

“New research published in the Journal of Marketing provides evidence that a person’s political ideology shapes their responses to addictive products,” reports PsyPost. “The findings suggest that political conservatism is associated with more favorable attitudes and behaviors toward items like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling, due to a heightened perception of personal control.

Past studies have confirmed that political ideology affects consumer actions, like charitable giving and recycling. But researchers knew much less about how these same political beliefs affect choices that “carry significant health and financial risks,” like addictive products, which are manufactured specifically to “create physiological and psychological dependencies.”

The difference appears to come down to an individual’s perception of their own self-control — regardless of whether or not they really have any.

“Addictive products, such as gambling, alcohol, tobacco, gaming, fast food, and illicit drugs, create serious public health and social harms,” the authors report. “Yet people differ in how dangerous they think these products are and how favorably they respond to them. We wanted to understand whether political ideology helps explain these differences, as most prior research has focused on how ideology shapes positive consumer behaviors, rather than potentially harmful ones.”

Apparently, an overblown sense of self confidence can lead you into addictions that you’ve convinced yourself you have a handle on.

“The researchers proposed that this heightened feeling of control might lead conservatives to underestimate the inherent dangers of addictive products. If individuals believe they are always in charge of their actions, they might perceive addictive substances as less threatening. This reduced perception of danger could then result in more favorable attitudes and increased consumption,” reports PsyPost.

“Our main finding is that political ideology can shape how people respond to addictive products,” the authors said. “Across ten studies, we found that conservatives, compared with liberals, tended to have more favorable attitudes, intentions, and behaviors toward addictive products. This happened because conservatives reported a stronger sense of personal control over their actions, which made these products seem less dangerous.”

The results came as a bit of a surprise because it ran counter to expectations based on previous psychological profiling.

“Prior research often suggests that conservatives are more sensitive to risk and threat, so one might expect them to view addictive products more negatively,” the authors explained. “Instead, we found the opposite. In this context, conservatives’ stronger sense of agency seemed to reduce their perception of addictive product danger.”

But it wasn’t a fluke, they said.

“We also tested the effect across different countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,” they said. “The fact that we observed similar results across these settings suggests that the relationship is not unique to a single country or political system. We also found the pattern across several addictive products, including alcohol, tobacco, gambling, fast food, gaming, and drugs.”

Jasmina Ilicic and Stacey Brennan authored the study, “Political Ideology Shapes Consumer Responses to Addictive Products.