How does a president who has already lost a war he started with a comparatively underpowered nation able to stand before a crowd of hundreds and proclaim — without a single twitch in his face — that he’s winning the war and that the disputed territory will soon be U.S. territory without evidence? Look no further than the pillow-cushioned sprawl of President Donald Trump’s intel service for morons, says New York Ties columnist Jamelle Bouie.

“[Since Harry Truman U.S. presidents have labored to “create new, institutionalized processes designed to get the best and most accurate information available,” said Bouie. “In addition to practical considerations, this has been a way for presidents to combat one of the pathologies of executive authority: a tendency to value one’s own unique insight above all else. Even still, it is immensely difficult for presidents to avoid the trap, if you will, of getting high on their own supply.

But new information courtesy of NY Time authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reveal Trump has not simply “junked this process in its entirety — he has set up his White House to affirm his frequently arbitrary instincts above all other considerations.”

“He has insulated himself from opposing views and made internal dissent verboten,” said Bouie. “At no point does Trump receive neutral information; just about everything is tailored to his whims, impulses and mercurial disposition. The result is that he is isolated from reality to the extent that he is practically living in a fairy tale.”

Haberman and Swan describe a Trump who “cannot see beyond the first few steps of any given action and is constantly taken aback” by unforeseen political obstacles like the depletion of the U.S. military’s stock of sophisticated munitions and the deplorable conditions on naval vessels.

Events like these, said Bouie, probably shake the very foundation of an ignorant president pampered by fawning helpers loathe to convey any bad news. Or even just news.

“More likely, he is told what he wants to hear: that America is winning and Iran is on the verge of surrender,” said Bouie.

However, Bouie said much of the destruction of the second Trump administration is self-inflicted, so far, with Trump’s policies and his inept allies having “wrecked the administrative state, undercut science and mired the country in a new Middle East quagmire.”

What happens when something thoroughly unaffiliated with the clown posse roars out of the blue and hits the metaphorical circus tent, he asks.

“There has not yet been an external crisis — the kind of catastrophic event that demands an active and effective leadership. Through their reporting, Haberman and Swan make clear that if and when this country faces such a crisis, both the president and his administration will be caught flat-footed,” Bouie lamented.

“When this happened in Trump’s first term with the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States still had a functional bureaucracy with experts willing and able to provide leadership in the absence of any from the White House,” said Bouie said. “Should we see a similar disaster, we very likely won’t even have that.”

Amherst College political science professor Austin Sarat tells the Fulcrum that President Donald Trump has amassed a devastating amount of power in the White House thanks to Congress and a conservative Supreme Court determined to make the White House a monarchy.

All that power, however, is going to feel like a hammer in the hand of the next president — the kind that just makes somebody look for a target.

“As Arizona Senator Mark Kelly puts it, ‘(W)hen leaders of countries start to get more power and more influence, as it comes time for election-time they start to get worried. Is the next guy going to turn these new powers against me? So, we need whoever winds up in the White House next time to hit the reset button.’”

It would be quick sugar high, and probably poetic, to watch the next president use the DOJ — like Trump — to run the last president over a log ripper. And thanks to all the power Trump has amassed, and the newfound expectation of Americans for the next president to similarly politicize the DOJ, this is now an expected consequence.

But Sarat said a post-MAGA president will have to make decisions quickly on a range of appointments, institutional arrangements, and issues to keep the office from converting to malignant gravity well threatening to topple democracy.

“They will have to decide if they want to harness the enormous power accumulated by President Trump and blessed by the Supreme Court’s embrace of the so-called ‘unitary executive theory,” said Sarat.

Sarat said a post-MAGA president will need to decide how to use the vast new power to fire officials in administration agencies recently recognized and created by the Roberts Court’s incessant kowtowing to the White House.

“They will have to use that power to rid the federal government of MAGA operatives,” Sarat said. “It won’t be pretty, but it is necessary. Only then can they use expertise in ways that are vital to a well-functioning democracy.”

Second, the next post-MAGA president will have to decide very quickly what to do with a Department of Justice that currently functions as the president’s personal squad of defense attorneys.

“Should they appoint a political ally as Attorney General and charge them with carrying out a pro-democracy agenda in areas like civil rights, voting rights, and anti-corruption? Should they ask the department to investigate and prosecute any members of the Trump Administration who have violated the law, anyone the president does not pre-emptively pardon before he leaves office?” asked Sarat.

The answer, he said, is “both.”

“There is no going back to a hands-off relationship between the president and the attorney general. And, as we have learned from the transitions to democracy undertaken in numerous other countries, you can’t really revitalize democracy without holding those who were its enemies to account,” said Sarat.

Sarat said the third important thing that needs to happen in a post-MAGA world is returning the security sector to democratic civilian control, so individuals can participate in civic and political life without fear or retribution.

Fourth — and just as important — a post-MAGA president will have to restore the election infrastructure that the Trump Administration has worked so hard to discredit and dismantle.

“And, finally, the world after Trump will need to have a national debate about what elements of the previous order enabled the misuse of power and what constitutional changes will be necessary” to put democracy back on track, Sarat concluded.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman left no room for U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to hide in a blistering Friday night fact check on MS NOW.

Bessent recently promised that high inflation and rent prices would soon go down in a Newsmax in a Thursday interview, after first blaming immigrants for the price increases.

“The laws of supply and demand still work when you take illegals out of the workforce, working class wages go up. When you send them back home, rents go down,” Bessent said.

Oh, no, said Krugman.

“This is really Trump's economy,” Krugman quickly corrected. “There's never been in my lifetime a case of this dramatic — a set of, you know, blatantly irresponsible policies that are directly making life worse for the great majority of Americans.”

“It's amazing that these guys can be boasting about jobs,” Krugman added. “The reality is that in the last year of the Biden administration, America gained about 100,000 jobs a month. Under Trump, so far, it's a little over 30,000 a month. So we've had a real we've sort of fallen off a cliff in terms of job creation. So, this is not a great economy for anybody except, you know, a handful of people who are have bought the right stocks.”

The Trump economy, he added, “favors wealth over work.”

“This is an economy that's been great for the oligarchs, for a handful of people. Really, it’s no longer the 1 percent. We're really talking about the 0.01 percent. A few hundred people are the ones who've done really well in this economy. And sure, they're the people that get to talk to Trump. So, he probably hears from them that ‘things are great.’ But what about the 99.9 percent who are not doing so good?”

He emphasized that unlike many presidents before him, Trump has no one to blame but himself and his policies for the mess now facing Americnas, and threatening Republicans in November.

“Oh, you know, there's an old truism among economists, which is that presidents get too much blame and too much credit because they don't have that much control over what happens to the economy,” said Krugman. “Now, Trump has broken that, if you're going to go and start a war that blocks one of the world's major shipping points for energy, if you're going to impose massive tariffs.”

“You know, in previous troubled times you couldn’t blame the presidents [catching the responsibility] for the economy. The economy of 2022 was not really Biden’s economy. That was global. It wasn't mostly things he did. And so on down the line. Even the Great Depression wasn't really Herbert Hoover’s fault, although his response was pretty bad. But this is Trump’s economy.”

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Conservative Dispatch writer Nick Catoogio can’t stop agonizing over the number of ways President Donald Trump has destroyed American strength — worse than a Democrat.

Trump’s latest wacky decision to revert the U.S. Navy to “steam catapults” is only the latest goofball decision that hit Trump’s ear during on of his more ‘lucid’ moments, said Catoggio.

“As it happens, the steam-catapult idiocy isn’t the only fiasco in the news this week that involves the world’s greatest military,” rages Catoggio. “The most sordid has to do with conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where morale has allegedly deteriorated after nine months at sea.”

When U.S. infantry from Fort Hood held military exercises against a Ukrainian drone unit, the Americans were defeated “easily” despite the Pentagon having had many months to adapt its tactics accordingly. Our armored vehicles were spotted and “killed” so quickly that U.S. units had to “re-spawn” simply to keep the exercise going, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Burning through your billion-dollar missile stockpile in a war with an enemy using low-cost robot knives is another fiasco that should haunt the Trump administration and Republicans for years. And Catoggio said the Pentagon is already urging defense contractors to crank out weapons “significantly faster” at taxpayer expense.

All that, and America’s Gulf allies are having to accept the fact that Iran now owns the Strait of Hormuz, prepping to pay a “fee” to Shiite forces so tankers can safely travel through the strait.

But there’s a fourth fiasco in motion, Catoggio warned — something a president who has declared bankruptcy multiple times may not easily understand.

“Even before the president returned to office, the United States passed the grim milestone of spending more on debt servicing than it does on defense. But under Trump, the problem has worsened considerably: In an age of high interest rates, America nonetheless borrowed more in the first 10 months of this fiscal year than it did in all of fiscal year 2025. Last month’s budget deficit was the steepest since March 2021, putting us on track for an annual deficit of no less than $2 trillion.”

All that money going toward debt servicing is definitely not going to national defense.

“All in all, there’s a solid case to be made that this presidency will end with U.S. military power at its weakest point since the Carter years. And we’re still not even halfway through it,” said Catoggio. “ … Since Vietnam, Republicans have been the party of strength abroad. The Cold War, the Gulf War, the war on terror, now the war with Iran: The GOP is forever eager to throw roundhouses at foreign villains while the hippie Democratic base cries, ‘There has to be a better way!’ If you’re a hawk who believes in hard-power projection, choosing between blue and red has been a no-brainer since 1980.”

Will that still be true in 2028? Not likely, said Catoggio. And how many more of Trump’s military-related fiascos will be necessary before the longstanding Republican advantage on national security among voters “ends up as depleted as the Pentagon’s missile stockpile?”

“That’s a trick question, actually. According to some polls, that advantage is already gone,” he said.

Conservative pundit S.E. Cupp questions the wisdom of setting President Donald Trump up with unfettered power for the second half of his term, especially considering the mess that his first two years have delivered.

“In October 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan asked voters a very important question: ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ It was during the only televised debate he had against incumbent President Jimmy Carter, whose presidency had been marred by one crisis after another, from record-high inflation and rising unemployment, to soaring gas prices and the Iran hostage crisis,” Cupp said in a Chicago Sun Times column.

Reagan, of course, already knew the answer to his question for most Americans, but putting it to words helped propel him to a landslide victory, said Cupp. It also became a catch-all phrase for a political challenger to question an incumbent.

Trump himself has used Reagan’s argument against Biden and others, so Trump knows the cautionary tale of Carter’s presidency. She adds, however, that Carter ended his term with a 34 percent approval rating. Trump is now polling at an abysmal 32 percent, according to Quinnipiac.

“And likely for many of the same reasons Carter finished where he did, ironically — high inflation, rising gas prices and a foreign policy crisis in Iran,” said Cupp. “… [But] when you move beyond the economic numbers, which are bad enough, the picture of Trump’s America gets worse with every peek behind the MAGA curtain. In fact, it can feel at times like America has become a Third World country.”

The nation is on the verge of losing its official measles elimination status, thanks to the administration’s vaccine misinformation. We’re also facing at least 11 foodborne illness outbreaks, including cyclospora outbreaks, listeria, salmonella and E. coli since Trump “downsized oversight agencies, dropped food facility inspections and stripped back mandatory reporting requirements at the federal Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network.”

Trump’s war in Iran has depleted American munitions up to 80 percent in some categories. There are reports of sailors at sea since November, jumping overboard to escape poor conditions and mental health concerns.

“This is America — the superpower?” demanded Cupp. “Where college grads can’t find work, where housing is unaffordable for 75 percent of the population, where families must choose between paying rent or paying doctors bills? Where you can be shot dead for peacefully protesting? Where your government is shuttering important health agencies while spewing junk science about autism and Tylenol? Where our allies are skeptical of us, and our enemies no longer seem to fear us?”

“And Republicans are asking for two more years of control of it all. Who could possibly want more of this?” Cupp asked. “… ‘Are you better off?’ Are you kidding?”

When former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) announced his candidacy in October 2009, he said his opening campaign speech dealt with the nation’s debilitating debt: ”My name is Joe Walsh, I’m running for Congress, and I’m [furious] at both political parties for bankrupting future generations of Americans.”

This Friday, Walsh was apparently still mad, boiling at the horrific expenditures of President Donald Trump and his enablers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate.

“And you know what’s absolutely crazy about this? When I announced my candidacy in October of 2009, the national debt was $11.9 trillion,” said Walsh. “When I was sworn into Congress in January of 2011, the debt was $14.1 trillion. As I write this, the debt now stands at $39.86 trillion, and by the time you read this, the debt will be over $39.9 trillion.”

“The Republican Party we have is an authoritarian embracing cult. So they will do whatever he wants them to do, as opposed to being the Congress that our founders envisioned. An utter check on executive power. We don't have that,” Walsh said in a Friday podcast.

Walsh guest-host Edwin Eisendrath, former member of the Chicago City Council, said that at least it was looking like Democrats may take the House and put a check on the damage the united bloc of Trump and a Republican Congress were doing to the nation and it's beleaguered pocketbook.

“We have candidates all over the place. But there's something else they did this primary season. They ran everywhere,” said Eisendrath. “So, you're going to have in the ruralist parts of Missouri, Democratic candidates who haven't run in that place in ages. And they mostly won't win, but they will shrink the margins. They'll shrink the margins.”

Walsh, a former member of the Tea Party movement that took off after the election of the nation’s first Black president, said he saw the Tea Party’s energy in Democrats’ anti-establishment groundswell.

“I know some of our listeners get bothered when I call what's happening now the Democrats having their Tea Party moment. When I say that, I'm only equating the fact that both movements are anti-establishment. Yes, they completely differ. And very energetic,” said Walsh.

“I was part of the Tea Party wave,” Walsh admitted. “There were more first-time candidates running for office in 2010 and 2012 than ever before in the Republican Party. Just a lot of average regular people got [ticked] off and said, ‘I'm going to run.’ We're seeing a lot of that on the Democratic side this cycle. A lot of business, small businessmen and women are running. A lot of people who've never run before. This is a great thing.”

Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt has clearly had enough of President Donald Trump. Now he’s willing to get his organization’s money involved.

The final 80 days leading up to the 2026 mid-terms are a pivotal time for GOP majorities in the House and Senate. Under their current Republican management, the House is rubber-stamping many of Trump’s unpopular policies. The Senate, while only slightly more cautious about Trump’s orders, appears unwilling to enforce Congressional clout over the White House, and Senate Republican leaders are happy to approve Trump’s most controversial administrative appointments.

This must end, said Schmidt, who co-founded the hotly anti-Trump Lincoln Project in 2019.

“That is why The Save America Movement is launching the “Donald Trump Hates You” campaign, which is built on this simple truth. Beginning today, Americans will see a plane with this banner flying across the Florida panhandle,” Schmidt announced on his substack. “Next weekend, posters will go up in Washington, DC, timed to coincide with the Freedom 250 Grand Prix.

Trump, said Schmidt, is “filled with contempt for the American people, to whom he has lied — when it was being tracked in his first term by The Washington Post Fact Checker — more than 30,000 times, and from whom he has stolen billions of dollars.”

“He has unleashed state violence against the American people, smeared the reputations of murdered citizens, prosecuted innocent Americans, and lost a war under the weight of his fantastical incompetence,” Schmidt continued. “He has idiotized every institution he touches. He tried to overthrow the US Constitution when he lost a fair election in a deranged coup attempt that has weakened the republic more than any single act ever undertaken by any president across 250 years.”

Trump also “hates the US Constitution,” argued Schmidt, pointing out Trump’s December 2022 bogus claim of a stolen election, and his argument that “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Schmidt then ticked down a long list of other “hates” Trump has accumulated, using Trump’s own words to incriminate his grabby behavior toward women. His own quotes also suggest he hates Muslims, immigrants, and Black people.

He also hates his own “sycophants,” who Schmidt said Trump “abandoned on Air Force One as he escaped the menace of the Iranians on an Ankara tarmac at three mph in a catering truck with Natalie Harp, whom he apparently loves.”

But above all, Trump apparently hates his own supporters, said Schmidt. “There is no group he seems to despise more.”

“I mean it. He hates you,” he added. “Voting for someone who hates you never works out for anyone. The easiest way to tell if you are hated is to listen and watch. Hear the words and watch the actions. … Observe the disgustingness and hideousness of this man. Appreciate what he is and what he stands for. More than anything know this: Donald Trump hates you … and you get a vote in 81 days.”

Former prosecutors piled on President Donald Trump’s efforts to obliterate anti-corruption efforts and destroy policies dedicated to preventing bribery and money laundering in the country.

The Atlantic reports this week “brought the biggest blow yet: The Treasury has obliterated a recent rule to deter devious shell companies, handily reopening the American economy to anyone looking to hide their illicit wealth.”

On Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that businesses formed in the United States would no longer need to disclose their actual owners. Worse, it determined that nearly all the data already gathered on such companies would be destroyed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the move “a victory for common sense and American small businesses,” but former prosecutors told MS NOW that it effectively destroys years of hard work curbing shifty financial networks and provides cover for wealthy American tax dodgers and money launderers.

“If you look at this sort of small scale fraud, they are now solely pursuing, whether it's against daycares in Minneapolis or food trucks in southern California, I'm willing to bet that if you did another sort of demographic breakdown and analysis, you would find that this is just one more piece of the administration's general preference to go after minorities at the expense of going after people who are actually damaging the country,” former prosecutor Michael Feinberg told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “The notion that you would go after a daycare or a food truck or something else with a relatively small economic footprint and no tentacles that reach into other criminal organizations while giving a pass to major corporations that might actually be committing large scale fraud, or enabling embezzlement. And money laundering is insane. And I can't find any legitimate motive for it.”

Feinberg added that prosecution of huge, multi-faceted schemes like those cooked up by Enron will be a thing of the past under Trump’s gutted departments.

“That's going to be exponentially more difficult the next time something like that happens, because this department of justice [have] jettisoned literally centuries of cumulative subject matter expertise and experience. You can't just replace a toughened, experienced prosecutor or a seasoned investigator with somebody who just graduated from law school or Quantico.”

Former prosector and DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer also pointed out that Trump has walked away from major cases against wealthy individuals by either surrendering investigations or pardoning them entirely. Worse, he’s erasing the money many convicted felons were sentenced to pay back to their financial victims.

“I was a federal public defender for about ten years, and the majority of my clients were low-income people of color, and those people have always experienced the unfairness of the criminal justice system because of disproportionate targeting with prosecutions because of having less resources to defend those cases,” Oyer told Wallace. “This administration has essentially doubled down on those disparities. …Trump does not care one bit about who he is targeting disproportionately and how his prosecution policies affect communities of color, low-income communities, communities with large immigrant populations.”

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Republicans generally lead Democrats on the issue of crime, and have for years. But someone President Donald Trump is no longer leading on this ironclad GOP issue.

According to a recent Yougov Economist survey, when people were asked “do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling crime,” 50 percent disapprove. That’s only half, to be sure, but it’s generally much higher than that, said former California GOP Committee Chair Mike Madrid.

“When the mood is this sour for an incumbent president — he’s sitting at 13 percent with Independents. And I've never seen those numbers before because I don't think anybody's ever pulled that low before with Independents, only 24 percent of people in this poll are saying that the country is heading in the right direction,” Madrid told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur. “That's cutting deep into the MAGA base here. You're into that bone of the red hat crowd.

“It's hard to say that anything is going right. I didn't see the immigration number, but if it is positive, if he is over 50 percent, it'll be the only issue that he is over 50 percent on, and it will be the only issue,” Madrid added. “He's been on over 50 percent in the past 5 or 6 months. So the situation is deteriorating and it's getting worse.”

Madrid added that Trump is also suffering a serious “credibility issue,” which is in turn tearing down the rest of the party.

“He also has this believability and credibility problem on core issues. And so, while you're going to see Republicans revert to the oldies but goodies, the crime issue — which is why he's in front of cops right now [in promotional videos].

The immigration issue, similarly is one Trump tried to have save him in 2018 but failed, said Madrid.

“The environment is much worse than it was even in 2018 when Republicans lost 40 seats. So, it's hard to see the situation getting better.”

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The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports a Republican candidate for local city council got sentenced after running what prosecutors described as “Georgia’s largest Ponzi scheme.”

U.S. District Judge Tiffany Johnson sentenced Todd Burkhalter, 55, to 20 years in prison on Friday after he plead guilty to wire fraud. Burkhalter is primarily responsible for defrauding more than 2,000 investors out of around $380 million through his Alpharetta investment firm, Drive Planning, according to federal prosecutors.

His company, which is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission since 2024, is now in receivership, reports the AJC.

At his sentencing, Judge Johnson said many investors lost their retirement savings and children’s college funds, and others had to remortgage their homes because of Burkhalter’s scheme.

“It was almost difficult to physically read all the victim impact statements in this case, because there were so many people who were devastated,” the judge said. She then noted that Burkhalter used investors’ money to “buy jets, diamonds, luxury cars, a ranch, a condo in Mexico and more than $300,000 in clothing, among other things.”

“Though prosecutors recommended Burkhalter be sentenced to 17½ years in prison, Johnson said his conduct warranted 20 years, the maximum term she could impose,” reports AJC. “She said the investors who were scammed will probably never get all their money back.”

Burkhalter was also ordered to pay $233.7 million in restitution to the victims. He will be subject to supervision for three years after he completes his prison sentence.

In 2015, Burkhalter entered the race for the Johns Creek City Council’s Post 2 seat. At the time, Burkhalter said his campaign platform focused on open government, “direct and blunt communication” with voters and “good stewardship” of city tax dollars.

“Far too many politicians run for office with promises of never raising taxes yet somehow our taxes continue to go up,” said Burkhalter. “I will speak bluntly with citizens and not engage in political word games to deceive voters. A fee increase is a tax increase - I will oppose all tax and fee increases on the residents of Johns Creek. I love this city and I love the people. This is where my wife and I will retire. I will always be honest with you. You may not always agree, but you will know I’m always shooting straight.”

That year, Burkhalter lost his race to candidate Jay Lin, who won with 59 percent of the vote.

“He knew from its inception that it was all a sham,” prosecutor Kelly Connors said at the time of Burkhalter’s Friday sentencing. “There was never a point where this was somehow legitimate conduct that went astray. Mr. Burkhalter was calculated, and he was ruthless.”

The AJC reports two investors who lost money in the scheme spoke in court without entering their names into the record. One of the investors said she put most of her Social Security and life insurance money into Drive Planning after her husband died, hoping to get a little money back to live on.

She said she now relies on her adult daughter for financial support.

The Atlantic reports President Donald Trump’s personally directed sports events always seem to offer a “very particular version of America.”

“But of all of these festivities, the Patriot Games in Ohio this week might have been the oddest,” wrote Matt Viser.

Organizers invited 120 teens from across the country, and for three days, they competed in gym-class staples such as ball tosses, long jumps, tug-of-war, dodgeball, and a jazzed-up version of basketball that didn’t appear to contain a lot of high jumping.

“More than anything, it was a reality-television-style snapshot of the America that Trump most wants to see,” said Viser. “The contestants were overwhelmingly white, in a country where roughly half of children are not, and many spoke openly of their Christian faith or their affection for this particular president.”

Multiple boys wore a cross necklace, said Viser, and several of the girls had a cross painted on their body.

“I just want to say, it’s the glory for God. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity,” said Max Biondolillo of Florida, after finishing the obstacle course.

“Thank you, Jesus. That’s all I can say. Thank you, Jesus,” Seylah Brown, representing North Carolina, said after completing a sports circuit.

“The biographies suggested that the organizers might have struggled with recruitment in some deep-blue jurisdictions,” said Viser. “The boy representing Puerto Rico has a southern accent and resides in Texas. Elsie Bruckart was the contestant for Vermont, but her hometown was listed as Bellbrook, Ohio. Her cousin Rebekah Roberts competed for Maine, but her hometown was Cornish, New Hampshire. Bobbi Vickers was representing Massachusetts, but she is from California.

“I get a bunch of questions, like Why are you representing Massachusetts and not your home state?” Vickers told CNN. “But I think it’s really cool, because a lot of my family is from there and my favorite basketball team is actually the Boston Celtics.”

“Freedom 250 did not respond to questions about why certain states were represented by competitors living in other states, or why there was such a lack of diversity among the contestants,” said Viser.

Viser reported that people familiar with the recruitment process told him that the athletes were selected through applications that required submissions of a personal-essay, as well as a video submission, so recruiters could have a good look at what they’re getting. ESPN added that they had nothing to do with the process. They’re not even paying for the rights to carry it.

To Viser it soon became clear that the whole thing, “like so many others this president has overseen, was actually all about Trump.”

“This was his vision of the Hunger Games, MAGA style. He was front and center, watching the grand finale unfold and eyeing golden trophies he could present,” Viser said.

Charles Hilu, a writer with the conservative National Review, reports that Senate Republicans and other lawmakers are clenching their fists at President Donald Trump’s inability to shut his face 80 days before the midterms.

“In a typical midterm year, the August recess serves as a vital time for those up for reelection to pitch their record to their constituents. For most presidents with a governing trifecta, it’s a time to get in messaging lockstep with members of their party, touting their accomplishments as a united front,” wrote Hilu. “Donald Trump, however, is not most presidents.”

The very day the Senate came back into session for two-weeks before its generous recess, Trump called for GOP Senate leadership to cancel the month-long break if it did not pass his stalled SAVE America Act. When that didn’t work, Trump attacked Majority Leader John Thune as not being a proper leader the chamber’s Republicans. He also further suggested that certain GOP senators were resisting controversial attorney general nominee Todd Blanche (Trump’s personal defense attorney) because they were bitter that he would not support them for reelection.

None of this is helpful to Republicans in November, senators told NR. And it would be awful nice if the president would just be quiet.

“Every day that a Republican in the White House criticizes a Republican over here, it’s undermining that Republican’s ability to get out the voters who will get out for President Trump,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told National Review. “By inference, when the president makes a critical statement of a member of the Senate, he’s probably convincing one or two people who really only want to go out to vote for him [not] to even waste their time coming out in November.”

Hilu points out that Tillis opted not to run for reelection after Trump demanded a more Trumpy Republican run against him in the primary, but “his comments reflect a growing frustration among Republicans with the president’s attitude toward the midterms.” And “some feel he has not been sufficiently helpful to his party in the lead up to an election that, if historical trends hold, is set to be difficult for the GOP to win.”

“He does that at our peril and at the peril of us continuing to be in the personnel business come next year,” Tillis told NR.

Indicators suggest Tillis is not the only GOP senator with beef against Trump’s big mouth, said Hilu.

In a recent meeting of Senate Republicans and GOP-aligned political operatives, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) asked when Trump “would begin attacking Democrats rather than Republicans,” according to Politico. Daines may be willing to admit this because he is also retiring at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Trump is showing no obligation to support his Republican comrades in their reelection battles. Trump claimed voters who chose him in 2024 were solely angry at his party.

“They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me,” said Trump.

CNN reporter John King says angry Republicans and emerging blue suburbs in Iowa may be gearing up to give Republicans a hard midterm in one of the reddest states in the nation.

Just 82 days away from the midterms Democrats appear hopeful that Iowa's third congressional district will add to the belt notches giving them back the House.

President Donald Trump won Iowa by 13 points in 2024 and carried every single county but one, but now new occupants of the Hawkeye State, coupled with growing Republican anger, appears to be giving Dems a rare opportunity.

Loyal Republican and three-time Trump voter Kris Mudd said his Republican friends are having a difficult time siding with the Republican Party as the pain of the Trump economy hangs over the state.

“Housing is expensive. The interest rates are expensive and gas is expensive. People are upset. They're frustrated with the way things have gone on. You know, I can't tell you that I'm 100% excited about everything that's happened. But I believe that there's some pain that we have to go through to get this thing fixed,” Mudd told King.

Meanwhile, new homes in West Des Moines and other fast growing metropolitan areas in the Midwest are proving to be a critical piece of Iowa’s midterm math, with King saying a reading in a public bookstore not hiding the evolving politics.

Linzey Murray, for example, was born in China, adopted by a family in Kansas City, went to college in Iowa, and returned three years ago to open the bookstore and start a family. She sees the chance for a big blue year, said King.

“We're just going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and we just have no more [care] … to give,” said Murray.

Iowa voter Shanen Ebersole, like other three-tie Trump voters are also proving to be “more of a wild card” this year as Trump’s nagging economy and his unpopular war in Iran drags on.

“First and foremost, we need to take care of our Americans. And that is one frustrating point of the Iran war is because I voted to take care of us first,” said Ebersole, adding that she is also unhappy with the Republican Party putting the party ahead of rural Iowa.

“I am really still leaning [for change.] I believe that change is always a good thing,” she added.

“So right there in the end tells you everything you need to know about the season of opportunity for Democrats, even in Iowa,” said King. “That's a three-time Trump voter thinking about voting Democrat for governor, thinking about voting Democrat for congress. … And if the Democrats have opportunity in Iowa, think about states that are less red, less Trumpy. So, it's a great season of opportunity for Democrats.”

After all, added King, Obama won the state twice.

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U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) did not take kindly to badgering from CNN anchor Dana Bash over $10,000 he received from Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), currently facing allegations of injuring his ex-wife Emily Moreno and their two-year-old daughter through domestic violence.

Rather than commit to returning the money, Lawler pivoted to criticizing the Democrat in the race against him, whom he accused of attending a fundraiser hosted by a former New York governor Elliot Spitzer, who resigned after a prostitution scandal.

“I'm asking you specifically about Max Miller,” said Bash, forging on through Lawler’s non-answers. “So, it sounds like you said you talked to him a lot privately. It sounds like you're saying that you're not returning the donations because—”

“Right. I’m not going to get into that,” Lawler interrupted.

“Because you believe him,” Bash pushed back.

Lawler paused for a minute, seemingly staggered.

“Look, this is a private family matter that, unfortunately, has spilled out into the public,” said eventually said. “It should be adjudicated in family court. Max has been accused. Max has also made accusations against his ex-wife. It is tragic. And obviously, I don't condone any level of abuse. But ultimately, there's been nothing that has been corroborated here.”

“Why not just give it back? It's only $10,000,” Bash later pressed.

“Because this is this is the typical Washington — this is the typical Washington media game where it's always an allegation comes up, you must return the money,” said Lawler, his voice rising. “It's the typical game. Everybody plays.”

CNN senior reporter Annie Grayer later pointed out to anchor Pamela Brown that this issue will haunt all Republicans who received donations from Miller.

“By our count, it's as many as 25 incumbents, Republicans running for reelection, many of whom are in tough reelection battles. And they are going to have to decide if they keep this this money,” said Grayer, who then played footage of U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) telling reporters that he also was not returning Miller’s money right now.

“I respect the Ethics Committee and that process, and I'm going to see what their findings reveal,” said Barrett.

After the video, former Trump administration official Matt Mowers told Brown that “Democrats should be careful” [of] all the glass houses around them,” citing the fundraiser Lawler also deflected to, the one hosted by Spitzer.

But former GOP lawmaker and Trump critic Adam Kinzinger had much less sympathy.

“I think if you break your daughter's collarbone or are credibly accused of it … and basically go out there and give interviews where it just continues to dig a deeper hole—I mean, part of Max Miller's problem is there's no humility about any of this,” said Kinzinger. “I think Democrats seem to hold themselves to a different standard, whether that's internal pressure or not. Graham Platner obviously was forced to resign. Republicans were quick to call that out. The party turned against him. You saw that with, Eric Swalwell, of California. Et cetera. Look, I ultimately think Republicans would have been far smarter to throw miller under the bus on this one. But they're going to have to live with it.”

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The Hill reports a retired general suspects Iran has President Donald Trump at a severe disadvantage, and they’re plan to unleash it at Trump’s most painful moment.

“Retired Gen. Jack Keane forecasted Thursday that Iran’s military would whack Trump with their most devastating weapon closer to November — US voters.

“I think as we get closer to the midterms, it’s likely they will,” he told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney.

“And the reason for that is because they believe in their head now that they have something of an upper hand here, Stuart, because we went through the ceasefire over oil and gas prices and the impact of the midterms and as we get closer to the midterms, they think the less likelihood that President Trump react very consequentially in terms of military operations,” he added.

Keane has advised leaders of both parties on foreign policy, including Hillary Clinton and Trump himself. Trump watched Keane on Fox News for years, and referred to him as “my No. 1 guy,” according to the Hill. He’d even (temporarily) advised Trump against attacking Iran in 2019.

The general was quick to advise Iran against that strategy on Fox.

“If that’s their game plan — and it could very well be — they’re going to miscalculate here because he absolutely will come down hard on them as a result of it,” Keane said.

But Trump’s attacks on the Middle Eastern nation have done nothing to bully the nation into a ceasefire after Trump first attacked the country in a joint missile strike with Israel. In fact, White House insiders say the “uncertainty and incompetence” of President Donald Trump’s administration is on full display as he grows increasingly desperate for ideas on how to end his war with Iran. Reporting from Politico buttressed claims of the administration’s internal turmoil as it struggles to extract itself from the Middle East in a situation “reminiscent of the darkest days of the Iraq war.”

The moment is extremely dangerous,” said Elliott Abrams, a longtime Middle East hawk who worked for Trump in his first term. “And the Trump administration is showing uncertainty and incompetence.”

Reports reveal Trump’s unilateral war with Iran have depleted the U.S. military's munitions stock. While the White House has attempted to deny reports about the stockpile, Trump also reportedly ripped into his own officials over the situation during a recent visit to Camp David.

And if Iranian leaders watch the news, they already know that Trump is hemorrhaging support as the war staggers on. While at first it was largely from independents, now, "new polling shows a large chunk of MAGA turning on the war," say analysts.

President Donald Trump appears to have a flawless four-point plan for surviving the worst political scandals, and Republicans are determined to follow it.

It’s a kind of Konami code, reports Bulwark writer and researcher Will Saletan: Never resign. Deny everything. Accuse the accusers. And invoke Trump.

After three women accused Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) of physically abusing them, Miller told Trump he would stay in. Then Saletan said he went on TV and called Trump his model. He boasted that Trump had survived similar allegations in 2016 and that he, Miller, would now do the same.

“Miller is the latest in a line of scandal-plagued Republican congressmen who have played the Trump card. In the face of investigations, indictments, or convictions, they have denounced law enforcement and invoked the felon-in-chief as their inspiration to fight on,” Saletan said. “It hasn’t always worked out for them. But in doing so, they’ve clarified the ethos of today’s GOP: It’s a party of reprobates, led by a crook.”

In 2018, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) got indicted on charges of stealing money from his campaign for personal use. Similarly, Hunter vowed “I am not going anywhere.” Hunter accused the Justice Department of bias against him, and he embraced Trump — the party’s crook commander — who was also being investigated for obstruction of justice in the Russiagate scandal.

“The ploy paid off,” said Saletan. “Soon after Hunter delivered those remarks, Trump publicly rebuked Sessions for allowing DOJ to indict the congressman. Two months later, Trump dumped Sessions. And two years later, after Hunter pleaded guilty to the charges, Trump pardoned him.”

And in 2021, when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) faced scrutiny in a federal sex-trafficking investigation he quickly announced “I am absolutely not resigning,” in a Washington Examiner op-ed. Then he accused the accusers and invoked Trump’s name in one go by claiming he was falsely accused, “just as they once falsely attacked President Donald Trump as a Russian asset.”

“Again, Trump rewarded the suckup,” said Saletan. “In November 2024, he nominated Gaetz to be the attorney general. Trump dropped the nomination only after it became clear that Gaetz couldn’t get confirmed. A month later, the House Ethics Committee reported “substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

In 2023, Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) — the same. When he was indicted on charges of money laundering, wire fraud, credit card fraud, identity theft, and theft of public funds, Saletan said he refused to step down and then immediately invoked the fraudster-in-chief: “I’m entitled to that same process that Joe Biden is entitled [to], that Donald Trump was entitled to, but Donald Trump was denied,” he said.

The House expelled him, and in August 2024, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft and got seven years in prison.

Five months later, Trump commuted Santos’s sentence, bouncing him from prison.

The formula also held true for Republican Gov. Eric Greitens (R-Mo.) and his allegations of violent and coercive sexual behavior, said Saletan: Never resign. Deny everything. Accuse the accusers. And invoke Trump.

“In the years before Trump, Republicans talked a lot about character. They denounced Bill Clinton’s adultery, his perjury, and his exploitation of an intern. They said moral rot was infectious. They warned that a party led by a scoundrel, and dedicated to defending that scoundrel, would come to resemble him,” said Saletan. “Under Trump, they’ve proved it.”

Democratic James Carville said the nation is clearly losing patience with President Donald Trump, and even Republican voters are finding themselves less and less beholden to the man — even if they are loathe to admit it.

He said on his Wednesday “Politics War Room” podcast that many Republican and MAGA voters appear to be bidding a fond farewell to Trump as they cast their eye to a new cult leader.

Nowhere was this clearer, said Carville, than in the South Carolina primaries this week, as State Sen. Darline Graham failed to clinch the primary after Trump offered her a full-throated endorsement. Now she faces a second grueling run-off against Republican Rep. Ralph Norman, a conservative hard-liner who had previously run for governor.

Republican voters expressed doubt about Graham in earlier surveys, with one Trump voter saying “she has a master's and she's helped people that are blind and she's a lovely woman advocate. But I don't feel like she has the experience.”

“With Trump, it's kind of like he wants her to take his place because I almost feel like he feels like he can just mold her into doing whatever he wants,” complained another Trump voter. “… It was kind of like, ‘well, let's get her in there and, you know, she'll do what I want.’”

Carville himself acknowledged in conversations with Republicans that Graham appeared to be a “hard” sell after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster temporarily appointed Sen. Lindsey Graham's younger sister to the GOP senator's seat following his unexpected July death.

He added that Trump’s endorsement appeared to deliver diminishing returns as the president’s popularity continued to crater.

“The most under covered story in American politics today is Trump’s Republican approval numbers. They keep falling,” said Carville on Wednesday. “I think it’s coming in at 80 now in most polls, which is significantly lower than 95. For the last 10- years it’s been Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, and the country is starting to turn away from him.”

His polling numbers are down but he’s just becoming less relevant in peoples’ minds and I think that applies to Republican primary voters in South Carolina. I think every day his endorsements lose a tenth of a point of influence,” Carville added.

“It sure did in Minnesota,” said show co-host Al Hunt, referring to the crash and burn gubernatorial campaign of Trump endorsee Mike Lindell.

“They can feel it,” said Carville. “Even the Trump MAGA people, they’re becoming less attached.”

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Actor Matthew Rhys’ longtime partner and fellow actress Keri Russell discussed their Emmy nominations in an interview with Variety. Rhys chatted about his roles in Widow’s Bay and The Beast in Me, and Russell discussed her nomination for The Diplomat.

But even though President Donald Trump and the chaos politics surrounding him and the White House did not factor into the isolated world of the northeastern island that served as Widow’s Bay’s setting there was no banishing the controversial president form the exchange.

As they discussed the popularity of Widow’s Bay, Russell said she appreciated the “escape” the show provided the audience — even if it buries modern American politics in the drip-drip creepiness that plagues the beleaguered island inhabitants.

“It’s also such a delightful departure from the s—— that we’re in,” Russell told Variety. “Do you know what I mean? There is not a mention in the show so far for me about what’s happening — the destruction of our country,”

“Right?” she added, laughing “mordantly” according to Variety.

But Rhys disagreed, telling her that there was in fact one character in the series that reminded him of the make-up wearing White House occupant.

“Well, there is,” said Rhys, referring to the ghost of a clown that murdered children decades ago and who now lurks and heaves around in a dark basement containing his desiccated corpse. “In the crawlspace. That’s Trump.”

The interviewer noted that Russell seemed “dismayed” by the revelation. Her own show, the Diplomat, is set in a world of high-stakes international intrigue and smartly run government, “as we imagine it being practiced in a pre-MAGA era,” according to Variety.

“It can feel as if no time has passed since ‘The West Wing’ or ‘Homeland,’ both of which “Diplomat ‘ creator Debra Cahn wrote for.

During a panel discussion about President Donald Trump’s embarrassing switcheroo to avoid Iranian attacks (while leaving aides and reporters to take the blow), Bulwark Editor Sam Stein could not subdue a tirade on the president’s consummate lying.

Stein’s explosion preceded a clip of Trump unleashing yet another legion of lies before a Tuesday night press gaggle.

“The country is doing well,” Trump said, ignoring bad job reports and consumer and voter polls. “Iran is going fine — going just absolutely fine. We totally control the Strait of Hormuz. We have control over it. Nobody else, only us. Our Navy is unbelievable and things are going great for our country.”

“I mean, the only true statement there, Sam, is that the Navy is unbelievable,” said “Deadline: White House guest host Alicia Menendez on Wednesday. “Everything else — Iran is not going great. The Strait of Hormuz is not going great. And nothing is as the president described, being smuggled in a catering truck with your Diet Coke valet. Is that supposed to express confidence to the American people, from an administration that purports to be the most transparent administration in American history?”

“This is the underlying thread that ties all this together, which is dishonesty,” said Stein “I mean, I couldn't agree more with … [panelist] Carol [Leonnig]. Like, obviously it was a serious enough threat that the president should have been moved, that a decoy flight was totally acceptable. The Secret Service made a determination. No one should begrudge the president for getting on the catering truck, as silly as that is, and going to this other military aircraft, you can even make the case that a bit of sort of deception was probably necessary in order to make sure that nothing leaked.”

“However,” raged Stein, “there is a widespread lack of honesty and transparency and outright lying that is accompanying the administration throughout this. And Carol is too kind to say it because she's a good person. But when she initially reported that they had to switch from the Qatari jet to the Air Force One … the White House was very public in saying that she was a liar. They did. They went out there and said, ‘she's a liar.’ And it turns out she was right and they were wrong.”

“And that's just the M.O. for this administration,” said Stein. “And you saw with President Trump last night where he's saying,’ oh, we control the state of Strait of Hormuz. We do not. There's nothing going through the Strait of Hormuz. Eight ships, when there used to be 130! Things in Iran are fine? They are not. We are a couple of days before the 60-day target for the MOU, when we're supposed to have a negotiated a settlement. No one's acting like that's going to happen. Things are not going well, but they're asking you to believe that the sky is green, that two-plus-two is five. And there was no security threat to air force One.”

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If you’ve ever wanted to burn gas and drive somewhere to see the same AI-generated artbarf crawling across MAGA social media sites on a wall, Slate writer Christina Cauterucci has a suggestion for you. Or maybe not.

“Have you ever wanted to see John Adams’ facial pores? Examine the precise hairline of Alexander Hamilton’s unibrow? Admire the sheen of James Madison’s pillowy lips? Then you’ll love a series of portraits by Brandon Ralph currently on view in Washington,” said Cauterucci.

As part of an exhibition titled Passport to Patriotism: 250 Years of Diplomacy, mounted by the State Department at the Art Museum of the Americas, blown-up images are suspended on walls with the familiar faces of the Founding Fathers “in granular detail.”

Cauterucci said Ralph created the art by funneling other peoples’ famous paintings through an A.I. model that mimicked his personal photographic style. According to his Instagram he calls them the “first-ever photographic portraits” of America’s dads.

“I suppose one could take away something profound from the sight of George Washington’s stubble as imagined by a computer program. … But Passport to Patriotism does not encourage such searching interpretations,” Cauterucci said. “A declaration of uncomplicated national pride, the exhibition comes as a rebuttal of sorts to Smithsonian displays that the Trump administration has deemed insufficiently flattering to the American ego. In this context, Ralph’s portraits read not as an invitation to ponder the founders’ imperfections but as a symbol of Donald Trump’s war on the arts.”

Other works include Henri Reed’s paint-spattered canvas depicting an angry eagle in flight, which Cauterucci describes as “objectively hideous, and not in a deliberate, statement-making way.”

“Some are merely amateurish, like a thickly daubed painting of a heart in turquoise and gold spangles by Fer Da Silva, a friend of the exhibition’s organizers who bragged in an Instagram video that the piece’s inclusion would raise its monetary value,” Cauterucci said.

Others are technically adept “but banal works you might find at a tourist gallery on the main drag of a seaside town,” said Cauterucci. “Taken together, the overarching impression is of a seasonal HomeGoods display around the Fourth of July.” And these appear to be the good ones.

The exhibition’s title, in fact, is so out of step with its content that Cauterucci reasons it was “slapped on as an obligatory justification for State Department sponsorship.” It wouldn’t be the first time the museum’s programming has accommodated the president’s agenda.

“Museum leaders canceled two shows last year after deciding that their focus on international Black and queer artists would run afoul of Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,” said Cauterucci. “Now, in service of an ideology that brooks no deviation from blind nationalism, Passport to Patriotism advances a shallow vision of U.S. identity with all the nuance of a propaganda reel and all the sophistication of the art project your first grader brought home on Flag Day.”

There a visitor will find “five dozen” interpretations of the U.S. flag, and some abstract nonsense that likely survived because they had a red, white and blue color palette.

“It will not shock you to learn that this MAGA art exhibition is the product of a cascade of underqualified nepotism hires,” Cauterucci adds, with one of the organizers, Art in Embassies Director Erin Scavino, a former Apprentice contestant and the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Another is Scavino’s friend, who “owned a pet-food store before being tapped by Scavino for a top national arts post.” And both women have personal connections to several artists in the show.

Not a single historian or art curator had a hand in the exhibition, said Cauterucci — and it shows. And “not just in the breathtakingly simplistic art on view.”

“In the broadest sense, Passport to Patriotism is an embarrassing travesty of a public art exhibition. But on Trump’s terms, it’s exactly as it should be,” Cauterucci concludes.

President Donald Trump’s elaborate switcheroo to avoid getting blown up by Iranians appears to have included his favorite blonde flatterer.

The Mirror reports sleuths believe the president cherry-picked his personal staff favorites to sneak off with him after threats from Iran put his luxurious Qatari plane at deadly risk. He then abandoned the leftovers to the Qatari “bait plane” to draw attack.

“Those included his aides Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta,” reports the Mirror — but that short list did not include top cabinet members like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as members of the media.

Harp, sometimes referred to as President Donald Trump's "most beautiful aide," has been blistered social media as the aging president progressively mumbles, rambles and nods off throughout his day.

“Users on social media dubbed Harp the president's "diaper nurse," a dig at his age, 80, as he is one of the oldest presidents in American history,” reported the Irish Star. “The accusations of Trump wearing a diaper were lobbed when Trump was seen standing alongside Spain Sunday as they lifted the World Cup trophy.

The relationship has become so “nursey” that Snopes had to try to debunk claims that Harp is actually Trump’s “hospice nurse,” based upon the fact that Harp has no record of being a licensed nurse in Washington, D.C. or in Florida.

Nevertheless, Harp is gaining attention after reports came out about her fawning relationship with the commander-in-chief. As Trump continues to decline, critics are taking to social media with conspiracy theories to explain their relationship. The jabs came fast after explosive new claims emerged about the pair's proximity. The latest disclosures from Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, painted a picture of Harp as one of the most influential figures in Trump's administration. The book -- by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan -- claims Harp even leaves deeply personal letters for the aging president to discover in his private spaces. In one, she reportedly wrote, "You are all that matters to me."

A former television presenter for the One American Network, Harp earned the colorful nickname "The Human Printer" for her habit of printing out social media posts and news articles for President Trump.

She is even frequently seen trailing after Trump with a portable printer, ensuring he has easy access to favorable media coverage and praise about himself.

U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn is losing patience with a billionaire Republican donor as he delays his 12-year sentence, according to the Charlotte Observer.

“A federal judge warned Durham billionaire Greg Lindberg during a heated Monday morning hearing that he was ‘overestimating his intelligence’ by continuing to shuffle through lawyers and fight about how much restitution he must pay for bribing a North Carolina official and orchestrating a $2 billion scheme to defraud insurance companies.”

Lindberg, founder and CEO of the private equity firm Eli Global LLC — renamed Global Growth — was recently sentenced to more than a decade in prison. But that was a “lighter sentence” option made possible by Lindberg’s proactive payments to his victims, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn pointed out.

A special master in charge of determining Lindberg’s restitution said he still owes more than $1.6 billion, but Lindberg says he doesn’t and has pulled in a new attorney to argue that the special master should be disqualified and is acting unconstitutionally.

The Observer reports Lindberg “siphoned more than $2 billion” from his insurance companies and used “more than $60 million of money on yachts, jets and women.” Lindberg’s attorneys said Lindberg had already paid victims $1 billion before the court ordered him. That, says the Observer, was the largest restitution ever paid in the state.

Lindberg was once the biggest political donor to the North Carolina Republican Party before pleading guilty last year to leading a $2 billion fraud and money laundering scheme that profited off of thousands of people insured through his Durham-based companies. In a separate trial, Lindberg was convicted of attempting to bribe NC Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey, a Republican, who wore a wire for the Federal Bureau of Investigations to record Lindberg.

A special master in charge of determining Lindberg’s restitution said he still owes more than $1.6 billion, but Lindberg says he doesn’t and has pulled in a new attorney to argue that the special master should be disqualified and is acting unconstitutionally.

Judge Cogburn wasn’t having Lindberg's stalling.

“The defendant, and possibly strategically, wanted to show he was going to pay restitution for a lighter sentence,” Cogburn said, and now that Lindberg’s been sentenced, “he wants that money back.”

Lindberg’s original attorneys had withdrawn from the case, and other attorneys had started filing motions without any signed paper designating them as Lindberg’s new counsel.

In the minutes before the hearing began, Cogburn said that Lindberg’s new attorney, Vivek Ramachandran, and another attorney, Kenneth Barnes, had filed 10 motions in Lindberg’s docket: “What’s the deal? We’re not playing games,” said Cogburn. “This court has given a fair sentence. This sounds like a delay!”

The judge also cautioned: “We’re not dummies here. We know fraud when we see it,” according to the Observer.

Nevertheless, the judge appears weary of Lindberg's tactic, said the Observer.

“It’s been a long case,” said Cogburn, who has presided over the case since 2019 and is expected to rule on the restitution by Aug. 24. “And apparently, it’s going to be longer.”

The War Department delivered its unreleased annual report on civilian casualties to members of Congress on Tuesday, but two government officials blasted the it, with one calling the report “a ... joke,” following a harsh expletive.

The “1057 report,” which covers allegations of civilian harm stemming from military attacks in Iran, Somalia, Yemen, and the campaign of boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, found that U.S. attacks likely killed or wounded hundreds of civilians. Still, officials say it severely undercounted the carnage, with one deeming the report, a “total whitewash.”

It’s the latest in a series of recent Pentagon reports that have called attention to U.S. failures to prevent, mitigate, or adequately track civilian harm after self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth gutted civilian harm mitigation and response or CHMR programs.

“Shockingly, the Pentagon’s review of its 2025 attacks found that no civilians were killed in [President Donald Trump’s] campaign of boat strikes, according to the officials, despite the fact that the U.S. killed more than 120 civilians last year in attacks that experts call extrajudicial killings or outright murder,” reports the Intercept. “The Trump administration has asserted repeatedly and without evidence that the boat strike victims, who now number more than 220, were ‘narcoterrorists.’ In a classified briefing last fall, a high-ranking officer on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff said that some of the people killed in the initial September 2, 2025, attack may have been the victims of human trafficking, according to an Intercept investigation.”

“They have absolutely no credibility,” the second official told The Intercept about the boat strike claims, adding that the report was “sickening.”

The Intercept reports the 1057 release determined that only three incidents “likely” harmed civilians, according to the second official, with another 15 attacks still under review, he said.

“The idea CENTCOM still has fifteen cases on Yemen to adjudicate doesn’t bode well for the war in Iran,” said the first official.

The report also does not cover Trump’s ongoing failed war on Iran, which Trump coordinated with Israel in February, because it includes only military attacks from 2025. The second government official said that the number of incidents of civilian harm to investigate from the current war with Iran will dwarf the number in Yemen.

Reports of civilian injury were recorded every day from the beginning of the war on February 28 to the first ceasefire on April 8, according to the U.K.-based air strike monitoring group, Airwars. The World Health organization put the death toll in Iran at 3,375 people — before the ceasefire crumbled last month. The second official said the backlog of war dead in Iran would likely carry over several years, referencing the fact that the 10-person civilian harm mitigation team at CENTCOM has been reduced to just one individual.

“How will they get through hundreds of cases for Iran if their one civilian harm person still hasn’t finished Yemen?” one official told the Intercept.