In Florida, Judge Marlon Weiss expressed strong views in a surrogacy-related case that, according to the Tampa Bay Times, "could dramatically reshape reproductive issues" in the Sunshine State. And it has far-reaching implications that go way beyond the case itself.

The case involves a married couple, both men, who made an agreement with a Florida woman for her to carry their child. But when the due date was approaching, they made a petition for early parental rights. The order was granted, and Weiss, Tampa Bay Times reporter Romy Ellenbogen notes, "suggested in his order that surrogacy may be unconstitutional" — while Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier "is arguing that surrogacy is akin to slavery, saying it violates the 13th Amendment and should be deemed unconstitutional, according to a lawyer representing the family."

Ellenbogen stresses that the implications of this case are much broader than surrogacy.

"The questions raised by Weiss in his order could also have a chilling effect on Floridians' access to abortion," the Tampa Bay Times reporter explains. "Weiss' questions center around the idea of fetal personhood, a concept long supported by anti-abortion advocates. If a court were to deem that a fetus or embryo has the same constitutional rights as a newborn, that opens the door to arguments that a fetus' life can't be terminated."

Weiss is an appointee of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while Uthmeier is a close ally of the MAGA governor and a vehement opponent of abortion.

Attorney Katie Jay is representing the fathers and is questioning Uthmeier's conduct.

In a letter to the court, according to Ellenbogen, Jay wrote, "It is election year for the Attorney General and he has signaled that surrogacy cases are valuable political fodder for his campaign. Unfortunately, this seems to have incentivized someone to breach the public trust of the independent judicial branch and use the Broward County Courthouse as a political playground to curry favor in Tallahassee."

U.S. President Donald Trump isn't shy about posting scathing attacks on his opponents, both liberals and conservatives. But Trump often erupts in fury whenever he is the target of criticism.

Mark Shanahan, a political professor at the University of Surrey in England, highlighted this pattern in an interview with the UK-based i Paper.

Shanahan told the i Paper, "Trump can dish out the darkest of dirt, but he absolutely can't take it. He is incredibly thin-skinned, and we've seen increasingly in this second term that his only defense against even the softest provocation is to go heavily on the attack. There's a cognitive disconnect within him that simply can't compute that when he shares AI images of the Obamas as monkeys or him as Jesus that it will provoke a reaction."

According to Shanahan, the problem with Trump is that he doesn't want to have a debate with his opponents — he wants to silence them.

The University of Surrey professor pointed to the Trump White House's reaction to a recent social media post by veteran Hollywood actor Mark Hamill as an example.

On Bluesky, the 74-year-old Hamill, known for playing Luke Skyywalker in the "Star Wars" films, posted an AI-generated image that depicted Trump in a grave, with a tombstone that read "Donald J. Trump 1946-2024" — along with the comment "If only."

The actor, however, made it clear that he wasn't wishing violence on Trump, but instead, wants him to go on living so that he can suffer political humiliation.

Hamill wrote, "He should live long enough to witness his inevitable devastating loss in the midterms, be held accountable for his unprecedented corruption, impeached, convicted and humiliated for his countless crimes. Long enough to realize he'll be disgraced in the history books, forevermore."

Regardless, the Trump White House claimed that Hamill was promoting violence.

Using its Rapid Response 47 account on X, the Trump White House posted, on May 7, "Mark Hamill is one sick individual. These Radical Left lunatics just can't help themselves. This kind of rhetoric is exactly what has inspired three assassination attempts in two years against our President."

Hamill clarified in his position in a subsequent social media post, writing, "Actually, I was wishing him the opposite of dead, but apologize if you found the image inappropriate."

Shanahan emphasized that the reaction to criticism from Hamill and others shows that Trump is not only thin-skinned, but totally self-absorbed — which, he laments, is "hugely damaging for U.S. political discourse."

Shanahan told the i Paper, "Trump views all events only through the prism of how they personally affect him. (A) key driver now appears to be retribution against anyone he judges to be his political enemy, from members of Congress to late-night TV comics — and now, 'Star Wars' actors."

In the past, Republicans and Democrats had some famous alliances: conservative President Ronald Reagan and liberal House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-Massachusetts), conservative Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and centrist Democrat Joe Biden. And veteran Democratic strategist James Carville is married to a famous conservative consultant: Mary Matalin, who left the GOP in 2016 and joined the Libertarian Party.

But President Donald Trump is known for vilifying both liberals and conservatives who disagree with him.

Comedian and Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, on the panel show "The Five," expressed disbelief that some liberals don't want to be friends with a Trump supporter like himself. And he made that argument on more than one broadcast.

Gutfeld told other panelists, "What does that mean to me if I'm your Republican friend who voted for Trump? That you would believe I would support a Nazi? We've been friends for years. ... How were we friends for ten, 20 years — and now, you found out I was a fascist? How did that happen? You knew I was a right-winger in the 1980s and 1990s — and now, all of a sudden, you're like, 'I can't be seen with him.'"

But liberal Fox News pundit Jessica Tarlov explained why liberals have a problem with Trump supporters, describing Trump as a "completely, morally bankrupt person."

Tarlov told Gutfeld, "Care leads to voting, and then voting leads to bad policies that make life harder. ... Because you like him, he's my president."

U.S. President Donald Trump is arguing that higher gas prices are a small price to pay for the Iranian government not having a nuclear weapon. The Islamist regime in Tehran, Trump claims, would have developed a nuclear weapon had he not launched a series of airstrikes against that country in late February.

But MAGA Republican Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is pushing back against that claim.

In a Thursday, May 7 post on X, formerly Twitter, Kent posted, "One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the U.S. Intel Community, including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon [and] that Iran would target U.S. bases in the region [and] shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by Israel [and] the U.S. The IC also properly assessed that targeting the Iranian leadership would strengthen the regime and embolden the hardliners."

Kent added, "Despite the professionalism [and] accuracy of the IC, the narrative [and] agenda spun by a foreign government- Israel, won the argument [and] forced us into this war. We need to understand exactly how this happened to ensure we are never put in this position again."

On March 17, Kent voiced his opposition to the Iran war by announcing his resignation as National Counterterrorism Center director. Some MAGA Republicans, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, applauded his stand — while others attacked him for not sticking by Trump during the Iran operation.

Kent, in his resignation letter, posted, "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."

Back in the 1950s during the Cold War, officials in the Eisenhower Administration wrote what are known as PEADs (Presidential Emergency Action Documents) and gathered them in the "Doomsday Book" — an instructional book detailing executive orders a president could give during a really extreme scenario such as a nuclear attack on Washington, DC. At the time, the fear of a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union was quite real. And after President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, that fear escalated with the John F. Kennedy-era Bay of Pigs crisis in 1961.

The "Doomsday Book" and its PEADs still exist. And in a sobering article published by the UK-based i Paper on May 8, former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Miles Taylor lays out some ways in which they could be dangerously abused by President Donald Trump and his loyalists.

The conservative Taylor, who served in DHS during Trump's first presidency but is now very much in the Never Trump camp, describes PEADs as "draft executive orders, prepared in advance, that reportedly allow a president to do extraordinary things with the stroke of a pen during wartime-level emergencies, such as detaining civilians, suspending communications, censoring the press, freezing property and even imposing what amounts to martial law."

"The PEADs were created in the Eisenhower era to keep the country running if Washington was destroyed in a nuclear strike," Taylor explain. "They were designed for the unimaginable — a decapitated government, an invading army or a moment when the survival of the American republic itself was in doubt…. After I served in Donald Trump's administration, ultimately as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, one of the possibilities that worried me most was that the wrong person would gain access to that book. We came perilously close."

Taylor continues, "In Trump's final year, the White House apparently attempted to install a diehard loyalist onto the National Security Council in a job that would have given her proximity to the nation's most sensitive emergency authorities. Career officials worked frantically to prevent it. 'We were a hair's width away,' one of them told me at the time…. One such official, who once held the keys to the Doomsday Book, warned me back then that if Trump returned to office, he feared those powers being turned not outward at America's enemies, but inward at citizens."

As critical as Taylor was of Trump's first presidency, he is much more worried about his second. And he describes some disturbing power-grab scenarios in which Trump could abuse PEADs and the Doomsday Book.

"Jonathan Winer, the former Clinton-era diplomat, has sketched out, in The Washington Spectator, how the pieces would fit together if Trump chooses to use them around the 2026 midterms," Taylor warns. "The president declares the results rigged. Federal authorities open 'investigations' into the count. Protests are reframed as organized political violence under NSPM-7. Mass arrests follow, using the only paramilitary domestic detention infrastructure of sufficient scale: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), whose budget Congress has just inflated to $45bn, with $38.3bn of that for new facility construction."

The former DHS official continues, "Communications systems are seized. Bank accounts are frozen…. I want to be careful about what I am saying. I am not predicting any of this will happen. I am saying that three years ago, this scenario lived in the realm of cheap thrillers — and today, it is the subject of academic papers, New York Times columns and formal policy memoranda issued on White House letterheads. All the instruments required to execute it are now in place. The detention capacity is being built. The legal framework exists. The targeting doctrine exists."

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was delighted when Barack Obama, in the 2008 presidential election, won Iowa by roughly 9.5 percent. And Obama carried Iowa by roughly 6 percent when he was reelected in 2012.

But Iowa took a decidedly Republican turn after that. President Donald Trump won Iowa in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is a Republican, as are both of the midwestern state's U.S. senators: Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, who isn't seeking reelection in the 2026 midterms.

According to New York Times reporter Julie Bosman, however, GOP insiders are growing increasingly worried about Iowa's 2026 gubernatorial race. And a major source of their anxiety is Democrat Rob Sand, who is running for governor .

Bosman, in an article published on May 8, explains, "In recent election cycles, Iowa has turned solid red, with Republicans occupying the governor's mansion for the last 15 years, dominating both chambers of the State Legislature and filling all six of the state's seats in Congress, and with President Trump winning reelection there in 2024 by more than 13 percentage points…. Yet the governor's race in November is shaping up to be an unusually competitive one."

Reynolds isn't seeking reelection, and Republican insiders, according to Bosman, fear that Sand may have what it takes to go the distance.

"So far, Mr. Sand has accumulated a formidable war chest: In 2025, his campaign amassed $9.5 million, outraising all of his Republican opponents combined," Bosman reports. "And in a midterm election year when polls suggest that President Trump is sinking in popularity, national Democrats see Mr. Sand as a candidate with a real chance to win. They also see his practical-sounding pitch that spurns strict partisanship as a test of how to broaden the party's appeal."

Bosman notes that in April, the Cook Political Report moved Iowa's gubernatorial race from "leans conservative" to "tossup."

Sand is running as a centrist, and Megan Goldberg — who teaches political science at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa — cautions that he needs to avoid coming across as overly partisan on the campaign trail.

Goldberg told the Times, "He's certainly trying to make the race a referendum on how the state is going at the moment…. He's not even talking about Republicans. But if he starts saying, 'Hey, this is Gov. Reynolds' fault — this is President Trump's fault,' and you identify as a Republican, you feel attacked."

During a time of considerable tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and Pope Leo the 14th, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Vatican on Thursday morning, May 7 and met with the Pope — who has been an outspoken critic of Trump's war against Iran. State Department spokesman Tommy Piggott told the New York Times that Rubio and Pope Leo discussed "the situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere."

According to Democratic insider Christopher Hale — who focused on Catholic outreach for former President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and now publishes Letters From Leo — Rubio had a gift for Leo: a small crystal football.

Hale, in a May 7 thread for X, formerly Twitter, explained, "Pope Leo XIV gifted Marco Rubio a plant of peace. In return, Marco Rubio gave the pope a crystal football. The pope's response? 'Wow. Okay.'"

Hale, in his biting but humorous thread, posted video of Rubio's meeting with the Pope. The crystal gift was a replica of an American-style football, not a soccer ball.

Hale found Rubio's gift odd, commenting, "Why in God's name did Marco Rubio give the pope a crystal football?.... I'm dedicating myself to ensuring the next Democratic president gives Leo XIV a thoughtful, tasteful, and relevant gift."

Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost, AKA Pope Leo the 14th, is the first American pope in the history of the Catholic church. After Trump ordered military strikes against Iran in late February, Pope Leo voiced strong criticism of the operation.

Pope Leo XIV has emerged as a significant moral voice in global affairs since his election in 2024.

The Chicago-born pontiff, whose given name is Robert Francis Prevost, made history as the first American pope. His papacy has been marked by vocal advocacy for peaceful diplomacy and humanitarian concerns, particularly regarding U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Following Trump's February military strikes against Iran, Pope Leo publicly condemned the escalation, citing Catholic teaching on just war theory and the sanctity of human life.

The Vatican under his leadership has increasingly positioned itself as an independent voice critical of unilateral military action, straining the traditionally close relationship between the American presidency and the Holy See that many conservative Catholics had cultivated.

When Donald Trump won the United States' 2024 presidential election, it marked a major turning point in then-special counsel Jack Smith's two federal cases against him: the election interference case and the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case. Smith, citing the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president, asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election case — a request she granted "without prejudice."

The "without prejudice" part is important, as Chutkan wasn't attacking the merits of the case, but granting Smith's request to adhere to DOJ policy. And Smith was gone from DOJ by the time former President Joe Biden left the White House.

Smith kept a relatively low profile during the early months of Trump's second presidency, but in recent months, he has been speaking out about those cases. And now, MS NOW's Steve Benen stresses in a May 7 column, he is also calling out the direction DOJ has taken since Trump's return to the White House.

"As the prosecutor exited the stage," Benen says of Smith's resignation from DOJ before Biden left office, "he did so with relative silence. In fact, even many of those who followed his cases closely didn't even know what his voice sounded like, because Smith said so little, allowing his work to do the talking. But nearly a year and a half later, the former special counsel has made the transition from a lawyer who preferred silence to one who has quite a bit to say."

The New York Times' Glenn Thrush reported that Smith, at a private event in Washington, DC on April 20, described the Trump-era DOJ as "corrupted" and warned, "We have a Department of Justice today that targets people for criminal prosecution simply because the president doesn't like them…. We have a department that fails to investigate cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient narratives the president would like to press."

Benen argues that Smith's "condemnation of the" Trump-era DOJ "wasn’t just compelling given the degree to which it has been politically corrupted — it was also part of a larger pattern."

"Last fall, for example, the former special counsel delivered remarks at George Mason University and sounded the alarm about intensifying threats to the U.S. legal system," Benen observes. "'My career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today, it is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes,' Smith said. Around the same time, he appeared in a video, lending his public support to DOJ employees who had been fired or forced out by the Trump administration."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer continues, "Soon after, during an interview with former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London, Smith condemned Republican criticisms of his work as 'ludicrous,' adding, 'I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it's hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.' More recently, Smith also delivered private and public testimony before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, which also didn't do his Republican detractors any favors. Smith was not able to make his case in court, but with increasing frequency, he's bringing his arguments to the public in forceful and unrestrained ways."

Since returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to give the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI an ultra-MAGA makeover — including choosing far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for FBI director. Many non-MAGA veterans of the FBI have either left the agency or been fired, and some of them are now pointing the finger at Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch, in an article published on May 7, reports, "several former FBI agents are arguing Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) played a significant role in their firings — removals that followed his release of a number of unredacted materials about the criminal investigation into President Trump. That assertion was made in two separate lawsuits against the FBI that don't name Grassley as a defendant but point to his actions as a factor precipitating the firing of agents who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021."

The lawsuits, according to Beitsch, allege that the agents were fired simply because of their work on Smith's election interference case against Trump for DOJ.

"The litigation also raises questions about the Senate Judiciary Committee's sprawling investigation into Smith's Arctic Frost probe, as well as Grassley's role in a conservative ecosystem focused on addressing what Republicans have branded as 'rot' at the FBI," Beitsch explains. "Grassley's disclosures include the unredacted names of agents, something their attorney argues sparks not only online vitriol but backlash from the bureau as it culls employees."

Grassley, now 92, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980. Before entering the Senate, he spent six years in the U.S. House of Representatives. And Grassley served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959-1975.

Margaret Donovan, the former DOJ federal prosecutor now representing two ex-FBI agents who are suing the FBI, told The Hill, "It is appalling to me that lawmakers would so carelessly mischaracterize these unredacted disclosures, knowing that the direct result of their actions is to cause an ill-informed online mob to go after honest, hardworking federal law enforcement officers. The best-case scenario is that Grassley is so far past his prime, he is clueless as to what he's doing. The worst-case scenario is that Grassley and others are intentionally trying to harm federal agents who dared to investigate criminal activity, which happened to implicate a political ally."

Under Donald Trump loyalist and Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, the post-Pam Bondi U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to target Trump's foes —including former FBI Director James Comey, who is facing a grand jury indictment for, Blanche alleges, threatening to kill the president by posting, on Instagram, a photo that showed seashells arranged in a way to read "8647." Many of the legal experts featured on MS NOW, including Lisa Rubin and former DOJ federal prosector Barbara McQuade, believe the Comey indictment has no merit.

Trump's critics in the legal world, from Rubin and McQuade to Democracy Docket's Marc Elias to The Bulwark's Kimberly Wehle, argue that he is using DOJ to take revenge against his opponents and reward his allies.

In an article published by The Contrarian on May 7, attorney Lauren Stiller Rikleen — executive director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy — laments that DOJ is now a resource for MAGA's "grifters."

"The Department of Justice's grift store for friends and supporters of the president, laying a solid foundation for settlement payouts, should be an affront to every taxpayer in America," Rikleen warns. "In the past few weeks, Michael Flynn, a 2016 Trump campaign adviser, seems to have benefited twice from DOJ largesse. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about discussions with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 transition — a case that was dismissed after President Trump pardoned him. Not satisfied with the good fortune of a pardon and dismissal, Flynn sued the government, alleging malicious prosecution and related claims. The DOJ, which had been successfully fighting the case, reversed course under the Trump Administration, paying a reported $1.25 million taxpayer-funded settlement to Flynn. And just days ago, the government submitted a court filing asserting it had reached yet another settlement in principle with Flynn on a different claim."

The attorney adds, "The DOJ also reportedly paid $1.25 million to former 2016 Trump campaign adviser Carter Page for his claims against the government relating to the Russia investigation, notwithstanding that lower courts had dismissed Page's lawsuit and an appeal was pending."

Trump, according to Rikleen, is even using DOJ to benefit rioters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

"At the start of his second term," Rikleen explains, "Trump continued to upend history's retelling of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by issuing blanket clemency to more than 1600 January 6 riot defendants and absolving the attackers from owing restitution for the millions in damages they caused. Many of those pardoned have become repeat offenders. Now, in a display of jaw-dropping audacity, pardoned January 6 rioters have sued the federal government for tens of millions of dollars for alleged physical and emotional damages caused by the police seeking to repel the attacks."

Rikleen adds, "Another DOJ settlement seems more likely in light of the department's recent move to vacate the conspiracy and sedition convictions against Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders."

According to Rikleen, "loyalty and personal benefit" are "mutually reinforcing" with the second Trump administration.

"The settlements to Trump's cronies, however, may merely be practice for the ultimate payment to the president and his family that would result in one of the most brazen examples of public corruption in history," the Lawyers Defending American Democracy director laments. "The president, his two sons, and The Trump Organization have sued the Internal Revenue Service — an agency the president oversees — for $10 billion, alleging the IRS disclosed confidential tax information to the media. The president had previously filed claims before the DOJ seeking $230 million as compensation for grievances that included the search for classified documents at Trump’s Florida home and the Russia investigation."

Rikleen continues, "The president controls both sides of these cases. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general and Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, demonstrates the same slavish devotion to the president that his fired predecessor, Pam Bondi, exhibited…. If the DOJ resolves this case for even a fraction of the billions sought, it will validate its disdain toward the taxpaying public and its contempt for conflict-of-interest requirements."

During the United States' 2016 GOP presidential primary, conservative radio host/columnist Hugh Hewitt was a frequent critic of Donald Trump — who he said lacked "the temperament to be president." But after Trump became the nominee, Hewitt supported him. And his pro-Trump columns in the Washington Post became a major contrast to the Never Trump views of conservative Post columnists George Will, Max Boot and Kathleen Parker.

In a column published by right-wing Fox News' website on May 7, however, Hewitt expresses strong reservations about a possible Trump agreement in the Iran war.

Trump, Hewitt argues, is reportedly weighing a deal with Iran that would be "terrible" if he goes through with it.

"Since the battle with Iran began on February 28," Hewitt writes, "there have been so many reports of 'deals' with the rump regime atop the ruins of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it seems almost silly to respond to another one. But Israeli journalist Amit Segal usually cross-checks all reports of deals — including the most recent one from Axios' Barak Ravid — with senior Israeli officials, so I pay attention to Segal’s posts. On Wednesday, (May 6), Segal quoted Ravid, posting on X: 'According to @BarakRavid the U.S. and Iran are at the closest point to an agreement since the war began.'"

The "framework" on that possible agreement discussed by Segal and Ravid, Hewitt notes, reportedly includes: "The U.S. and Iranian naval blockade will be gradually lifted during the detailed negotiation period. The United States will commit, in the memorandum of understanding, to gradually lift sanctions and release tens of billions of dollars from frozen assets…. Two sources claimed that Iran would agree to transfer the highly enriched uranium it possesses out of the country."

Hewitt goes on to describe his reasons for opposing such an agreement.

"That would be a terrible 'deal,' one that would draw fierce criticism from the GOP's Iran hawks who want President Trump to 'finish the job' and do so in dramatic fashion," Hewitt says. "The 'end game' doesn’t have to be humiliation of the remnants of the rump regime atop the ruins of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps atop the shattered Iranian 'government.' But they are 'lunatics,' as both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have called them — 'insane in the head,' Rubio added Tuesday from the White House press podium — and that's generous. The 'leaders' left standing in Iran (the ones with the guns at least) are fanatical killers who cannot be trusted."

Hewitt continues, "The blockade should stay in place until full commercial traffic to every country not named Iran resumes through the Gulf…. Finally, the regime must turn on the internet for its people and turn off the money spigot for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. These are reasonable demands, and the fanatics in Iran — unless they are irrational (they may be) — must see them as such. President Trump doesn't surrender leverage. He's got it. We have to hope he uses every ounce of it."

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance suffered a major disappointment when, on April 12, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was voted out of office after 16 years. Although Trump and Vance campaigned aggressively for Orbán — who they considered a valuable ally of the MAGA movement — he lost to Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar and the Tisza party by roughly 19 percent.

In an op-ed published by The Guardian published on May 7, however, Cas Mudde — an international affairs professor at the University of Georgia and author of the 2019 book "The Far Right Today" — stresses that Orbán's humiliating defeat doesn't mean the populist far right is going away.

"There is simultaneously a consensus that Donald Trump has gone from inspiration to 'liability' for the global far right," Mudde explains. "While the fall of Orbán has great symbolic significance and important consequences for EU politics…. we should be very careful not to read too much into it for three reasons. First, as far as lessons for how to defeat so-called illiberal democrats are concerned, we must bear in mind that Orbán was in power for an exceptionally rare 16 years. This allowed him to oversee not only a political transformation of Hungary, but an economic and societal one…. Second, while the European far right has lost its unofficial leader, it is not in decline…. Third, it is true that Trump is, at the moment, 'toxic' for the far right, although this had no significant effect on the Hungarian election."

Mudde strongly disagrees with claims that the far right is "in decline."

"Sure, some other far-right parties have also recently lost elections (in Bulgaria, for example) or power (the Netherlands)," Mudde argues. "But far-right parties remain in government in a variety of EU member states (Czech Republic, Italy), and lead the polls in several others (Austria, France). The thing is, the far right is here to stay, and many of its parties are as established as the former 'mainstream' parties. And, like other parties, their electoral support fluctuates and is affected by internal and external factors, such as corruption, infighting and crises in government."

Mudde adds, "More importantly, the mainstreaming and normalization of far-right actors and ideas continue unabated. (Prime Minister) Giorgia Meloni's Italy has become a mandatory pilgrimage site for politicians who try to present themselves as tough on immigration."

Trump, according to Mudde, "helps the European far right simply by being the U.S. president."

"Even worse," the University of Georgia professor warns, "because Trump's behavior is so extreme and often seems unhinged, it is very easy for European far-right leaders to seem 'moderate' in comparison — after all, he or she is 'not as bad as Trump.' This endless comparison, and the inability to accept that there can be various shades of far right, helps savvy politicians such as Meloni. By not acting aggressively, erratically and loudly like Trump — or, in her own country, Matteo Salvini — she is mistaken for a mere 'conservative' rather than a radical-right politician."

U.S. President Donald Trump's approval ratings, in numerous polls, were weak even before he went to war against Iran in late February. But the war is making him even more unpopular in polls. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released in early May found Trump's overall approval at 37 percent, although his numbers were lower than that on inflation (27 percent), the cost of living (23 percent) and the economy (34 percent).

According to Wall Street journal reporters Brian Schwartz and Alison Sider, Trump's advisers are growing "increasingly worried" about his unpopularity and fear that Republicans will suffer for it in the 2026 midterms.

Schwartz and Sider, in an article published online on Wednesday night, May 6 and in WSJ's print edition the next day, report that former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, "sounded the alarm" about "high jet-fuel prices" during a recent meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Sununu, who heads the airline industry group Airlines for America, warned that the economic impact of the Iran war could be a major political liability for Republicans.

"Administration officials have gotten the message," according to the WSJ reporters. "Privately, President Trump's advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war in hopes that prices will begin moderating before November's midterm elections. The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices. That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans."

According to a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll, 63 percent of Americans blame Trump, to varying degrees, for higher gas prices.

"Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high," Schwartz and Sider note. "Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins…. Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels. In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21 percent from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales."

On Cinco de Mayo 2026, President Donald Trump visited Indiana in the hope of ousting eight GOP state lawmakers who opposed his redistricting efforts in that red state. Politico described the visit as part of a "revenge tour" that also includes supporting Republican challengers to two of federal lawmakers Trump is angry with: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

Trump was happy with the outcomes of the GOP primaries for Indiana State Legislature seats that Tuesday night, May 5: At least five of the eight seats went to MAGA Republicans Trump endorsed, and the Trump foes who lost won't be competing in the general election in November. It remains to be seen how those five will fare against Democratic nominees. And it also remains to be seen whether or not Trump will succeed in unseating Massie or Cassidy when GOP primaries are held in their states.

Never Trump conservative Bill Kristol examines Indiana's May 5 election results in an article published by The Bulwark the following day. And he argues that Trump's "joy" over ousting those five Indiana state lawmakers could be "short-lived."

"In Republican primary elections across Indiana," Kristol explains, "Trump-backed challengers deposed five Republican state senators who had helped block his wished-for gerrymander of the state's congressional districts. A sixth race was too close to call. And the incumbents who lost were conservative Republicans, albeit of a more traditional type…. So, Trump is happy, putting up celebratory posts on Truth Social."

Kristol continues, "He'll be happier still if he succeeds, ten days from now, in knocking off incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in the GOP primary, and then if Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) goes down to defeat three days later on May 19. The first result seems likely, the second quite possible. But Trump's joy at once again driving all dissenters from his ranks should be short-lived."

Trump is trying to make sure that Republican candidates who make it to the general election in the 2026 midterms are as MAGA as possible, but Kristol stresses that being ultra-MAGA could be a liability — not an asset — in November.

"If he's successful," Kristol says, "the Republican Party will be even more completely and totally his party. Which, given his steadily increasing unpopularity, will presumably further increase the likelihood of voters turning to Democratic candidates for both the House and Senate this November in order to check Trump. So Democrats have reasons to be happy, too. It's too bad that decent Indiana Republicans who stood up to Trump have to suffer in the process. But that's the choice of the Republican primary electorate, and the only solution for now is an even bigger Republican defeat in November."

U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are pushing for a major increase in laser weapons for the military. Hegseth is calling for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to "create a strong and consistent demand signal for the production of greater quantities of these weapons, on the order of tens to hundreds of units."

But according to journalist Jared Keller, their goal is facing some big hurdles.

In an article published by Fast Company on May 6, Keller explains, "The defense industrial base simply cannot invest in the manufacturing and supply-chain capacity required for production at scale if it can't predict how many systems it will actually be asked to build, especially if promising initiatives continually perish in the 'valley of death' between research and development and procurement. The defense industry has been making this point for years."

Keller continues, "A January 2024 report from the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) trade group on directed energy weapon supply chains, which is based on in-depth research and interviews with dozens of key industry stakeholders and subject matter experts, found that the lack of a consistent demand signal 'was raised many times by industry leaders as negatively impacting all levels of the supply chain.'"

The NDIA report stated, "Existing (directed energy weapon) supply chains can only produce small numbers of systems with long lead times."

Keller offers some reasons why NDIA's January 2024 "assessment isn't wrong."

"Despite ramping up laser weapon efforts following a deliberate shift from bulky chemical systems to more reliable, compact, and efficient solid-state and fiber laser technology in the 2000s," Keller notes, "the last two decades have been marked by abandoned projects…. First, many critical components in laser weapons currently face long lead times due to lack of capacity…. Second, the raw materials required to make these components are subject to their own geopolitical bottlenecks…. There's a third constraint lurking beneath the manufacturing and materials challenges: the U.S. simply does not have enough people trained to build laser weapons at scale."

On Tuesday, May 5, U.S. President Donald Trump announced, on his Truth Social platform, that he was pausing Project Freedom — his plan for the U.S. Navy to guide ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is claiming that the operation is on hold because his negotiations with Iran are going well and a "complete and final agreement" on the war could be coming soon.

But retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. James E. McPherson is "skeptical."

During a May 6 appearance on MS NOW, the 73-year-old McPherson — who served as acting U.S. Navy secretary during Trump's first presidency — equated Trump's claims with Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's novel "Alice in Wonderland."

When host Ana Cabrera asked McPherson if the Trump Administration's latest Iran war claims sounded like a "real breakthrough" to him, the U.S. Navy veteran responded, "Well, we've heard pronouncements before that we hoped were real breakthroughs, and they eventually broke down in the face of reality."

McPherson told Cabrera, "Ana, a tip of the hat to Lewis Carroll: I think we've slipped down the rabbit hole, and we've now joined 'Alice in Wonderland.' Two days ago, the secretary of state, (Marco Rubio) announced that Operation Epic Fury was concluded. It's over, therefore taking the War Powers Act off the table. And now, we're involved in Project Freedom — which was soon paused by the president."

The retired U.S. Navy rear admiral continued, "Notice the change in wording. We went from an Operation Epic Fury to a Project Freedom. Clearly, operations are military in nature; a project can be anything in nature. And I think it's important to note that wording…. I wish I could be more optimistic, but I'm skeptical."

On Sunday, May 3, U.S. President Donald Trump announced "Operation Project Freedom" — a plan for the U.S. Navy to guide ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, a Middle Eastern waterway vital to the flow of oil. But only two days later, on Tuesday, May 5, Trump announced that Project Freedom was on hold.

In an article published by the UK-based i Paper on May 6, journalist James Ball emphasizes that Trump's sudden "U-turn" or "about face" with Operation Project Freedom "shows his growing desperation and just how few options he has right now in trying to end the unpopular war he started two months ago."

"For Trump, the clock is ticking," Ball explains. "The rising price of petrol and the cost-of-living crisis comes at an awful time, with November's U.S. midterm elections on the horizon. He is clearly desperate to declare victory — which he has tried to do on several occasions already, including by saying there has been regime change in Iran since the former supreme leader's son is now in charge — and move on. The latest about-face for Trump is embarrassing, but it will only become worse if the conflict with Iran drags on."

Ball continues, "At the moment, it is unclear if the White House has any exit strategy that is remotely feasible, or if it is just relying on wishful thinking and aggressive posturing on the part of the president."

Trump is claiming that he decided to pause Operation Project Freedom because his negotiations with Iran are going well and a "complete and final agreement" could be coming soon. But Ball argues that his claims don't hold up.

"He has claimed this several times before, without anything to show for it," Ball writes. "In fact, neither the U.S. nor Iran even bothered to turn up to the last round of negotiations, which were set to take place in Pakistan. Trump tried to argue that future negotiations would take place by 'telephone' to save on 15-hour flights."

Ball adds, "Across the world, experts have warned of economic catastrophe and major shortages if the Strait (of Hormuz) is closed even for a few weeks…. Iran's leaders will have taken note of his latest climbdown. Trump has taught them not to take his announcements seriously. With the life-and-death stakes at play, few things could be more dangerous than that."

During an early May appearance on Fox News, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche vigorously defended a grand jury indictment of former FBI Director James Comey — who, Blanche claims, threatened to kill President Donald Trump when he posted, on Instagram, a photo of seashells formed in a way that read "8647." Trump is the 47th president of the United States, and "86" means to ditch or get rid of. Many legal experts are arguing that the case has no merit, as "86" doesn't necessarily have a violent connotation — and "8647" could easily be interpreted to mean "impeach Trump," "ditch Trump" or "remove Trump from office" without encouraging any type of violence against him.

One of those Blanche critics is Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor for DOJ who is now a University of Michigan law professor and frequent legal analyst for MS NOW (formerly MSNBC).

In an op-ed published by Bloomberg News on May 6, McQuade argues that Blanche is violating longstanding DOJ rules and policies with his actions against Comey and other Trump foes.

"Responding to what Fox News described as 'widespread criticism' that the indictment (of Comey) fails to meet the legal standard of a 'true threat,'" McQuade explains, "Blanche disclosed some previously unknown information. 'This is not about a single Instagram post,' he said, adding that intent is proved with 'witnesses,' 'documents' and 'materials.' 'This is about a body of evidence that the grand jury collected over the series of about 11 months,' Blanche said."

The former DOJ prosecutor continues, "But the indictment against Comey only references the post and no other evidence. And sharing evidence beyond the four corners of an indictment violates the DOJ's policy. These 'extrajudicial' disclosures can taint the potential jury pool and thus, impede a defendant's due process rights to a fair trial. They also put the indictment at risk of dismissal by the judge. Blanche's willingness to take that chance provides further evidence that this DOJ is more about political messaging than about justice."

Blanche isn't the only Trump appointee McQuade criticizes in her Bloomberg op-ed. She also calls out former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, now a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — and argues that her actions against U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell violate traditional DOJ standards and policies.

"Even investigations that have not resulted in charges are being litigated in the media, contrary to DOJ norms," McQuade laments. "Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, has made it known that her office holds leverage over Powell with its on-again, off-again criminal investigation into the finances of the central bank's new headquarters. Her statements fly in the face of DOJ policy to neither confirm nor deny even the existence of an investigation. Then, when Trump was pressuring Powell to lower interest rates, Pirro issued grand jury subpoenas, which a judge quashed as baseless. She announced the investigation was over when Trump sought Senate confirmation of Powell's successor, Kevin Warsh."

McQuade continues, "Once the Senate Banking Committee advanced the nomination, however, Pirro said that the probe could resume at any time…. In a famed 1940 speech at the Justice Department's Great Hall, then-Attorney General Robert Jackson spoke of 'the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor.' In Trump's DOJ, that spirit is dead."

Georgia is among the swing states that GOP and Democratic strategists will be paying close attention to in the 2026 midterms. Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is up for reelection, and Republicans are hoping to unseat him. Meanwhile, conservative Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is term-limited, and GOP strategists are hoping Georgia doesn't end up with a Democratic governor.

But according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) reporter Patricia Murphy, President Donald Trump is making life difficult for fellow Republicans in the Peach State.

"On any given day," Murphy explains, "Georgia's politics still feel a little more red than blue. A Democrat has not won a governor's race since 1998, and Republicans have dominated statewide offices for more than two decades. Most counties outside of metro areas are Republican top-to-bottom, too, even in positions that are otherwise nonpartisan."

Trump continues to claim, without evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him in Georgia. However, Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a conservative Republican, maintain that Joe Biden won the Peach State fair and square that year.

On May 5, NBC News reported that the Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is "seeking the names and contact information of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, who worked during the 2020 presidential election, according to legal filings." And a DOJ subpoena, according to NBC News, "marks an expanded effort by the Justice Department to investigate the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump has continued to focus on since he lost there."

But some traditional conservatives in Georgia believe that Trump's obsession with 2020 isn't helpful.

According to Murphy, Trump is making Georgia's statewide races harder for Republicans than they have to be.

Murphy reports, "Apart from the uphill race to defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, the 2026 elections still seem like Republicans' to lose. But President Donald Trump isn't making it easy."

Noting a recent AJC poll in a May 6 post on X, Murphy wrote, "One last takeaway from the @ajc 's latest poll--Republicans are trying to hold on to power in Georgia. Donald Trump isn't helping."

When liberals and progressives argue that the ultra-rich have way too much power in U.S. politics, the Supreme Court case they often attack is 2010's Citizens United v. FEC. That hotly debated ruling equated campaign contributions with free speech, drawing strong criticism by then-Rep. Alan Grayson (the Florida Democrat who called it as "the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case"), activist Ralph Nader and many others. On the right, conservative Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) said he was "disappointed" by the ruling.

But the New York Times' Danny Hakim, in an article published on May 6, examines a different High Court case that affected the amounts allowed with political campaign contributions — and it came 36 years before Citizens United.

The case was Buckley v. Valeo, decided by the Burger Court in 1976.

"For a brief moment in American history," Hakim recalls, "the rich didn't control politics. Back in 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed new campaign finance restrictions that would have largely eliminated the ability of wealthy people to buy elections…. David Koch, a wealthy industrialist, was enraged. 'I have the right to spend whatever I choose to promote what I believe,' he later wrote, adding that the law 'makes my blood boil.'"

Hakim adds, "Flash forward to the 2024 presidential campaign. Six of the nation's wealthiest billionaires spent more than $100 million apiece to help get another billionaire, Donald J. Trump, elected president."

According to Hakim, Buckley v. Valeo helped pave the way for Citizens United. The Gerald Ford-era ruling, Hakim notes, "upheld many aspects of the post-Watergate campaign finance law" but "eviscerated other parts of the law, leaving the rich with their own set of rules."

"Later cases, like the better-known Citizens United decision, opened the doors even further," Hakim explains. "But it was Buckley that established the nation's modern, muddled campaign finance system, and Buckley that allowed the Koch brothers to build a right-wing political money machine that rivaled that of the Republican Party itself. The case is as relevant as ever. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has celebrated billionaire donors at a White House dinner and raised unprecedented sums for a lame-duck president."

The "Buckley" in Buckley v. Valeo wasn't the National Review's William F. Buckley, but then-Sen. James L. Buckley (a member of the Conservative Party of New York). And the "Valeo" was Francis R. Valeo (secretary of the U.S. Senate).

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone argues that Buckley v. Valeo opened a Pandora's box, although the Burger Court justices didn't necessarily realize it at the time.

Stone told the Times, "If those justices had been aware then of what we now face, my guess is that we would have had the opposite result. They weren't imagining the current world."

After returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump made a point of choosing ultra-MAGA loyalists in order to avoid the heavy turnover of his first presidency. But in 2026, Trump has fired or forced out some of his top officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ex-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. And according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff, Health & Human Services leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be the next one on the chopping block.

Wolff, in an episode of the "Inside Trump's Head" vodcast posted by the Daily Beast on YouTube on May 5, told host Joanna Coles, "(Trump) has staffed the administration with people who everyone — everyone — thinks are jokes. And this is certainly true of RFK Jr., but also, very specifically directed at him because he has become the face of something that is deeply, deeply unpopular — which is the anti-vax position."

RFK Jr.'s disdain for vaccines, according to Wolff, "became something central to MAGA" and "something that much of the media credited with being behind Trump's 2024 victory."

"Well, it turns out, in fact, that the anti-vax position is wildly unpopular — wildly unpopular everywhere," Wolff told Coles. "That whole idea that this was part of a new movement in America is flat-out wrong. So, they are now stuck with RFK Jr. and the anti-vax face. So, what do they do?"

Wolff continued, "Now, what I'm hearing is that they're trying to get rid of him. And they are trying to get him — the way this was put to me — they're trying to get him to go."

The Trump biographer told Coles, however, that Trump and his advisors don't want to flat-out fire RFK Jr., but are hoping he will resign on his own.

"The MAHA (Make American Healthy Again) constituency, they feel, is significant to the Trump base," Wolff told Coles. "So, they want him to go away but not go away mad.... There's only so many enemies in their own base they can afford."

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With the 2026 midterms only half a year away, President Donald Trump is facing the possibility that one or both branches of Congress could be in Democratic hands in 2027 — which would make it much more difficult for him to advance his legislative agenda. The two-term president isn't literally on the ballot in 2026, but Democratic organizers are trying to make the midterms a referendum on his presidency — not unlike 2018, when Democrats recaptured the U.S. House of Representatives during his first term.

The New York Times' Thomas B. Edsall, in his May 5 column, argues that Trump is feeling increasingly desperate in his efforts to "stave off" a "mortifying defeat" in November.

"Heading into the 2026 midterm elections," Edsall explains, "you can't say that the president hasn't warned us, over and over, that he will do all he can to prevent the congressional contests from turning into a humiliating Republican rout…. In Trump, we have a president whose hatred of losing drove him to provoke the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a president who expanded the mandate of the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force to include the investigation, arrest and prosecution of individuals engaged in 'domestic terrorism' and created a multimillion-dollar domestic terrorism unit to pursue those cases."

Edsall adds, "He is a president who asserts national control over state-administered elections, a president who has overseen the seizure of ballots and federal attempts to get access to voting machines and voter lists, and a president who has gutted the institutions that are supposed to ensure a fair election process and fired the people who work for them."

Trump's fear of defeat, according to Edsall, was evident in the National Security Presidential Memorandum issued on September 25, 2025 — a memo that, the columnist warns, gives the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies "a license to label left-wing groups as domestic terrorist organizations."

"There are other danger signals," Edsall observes. "One is the possibility that a majority of the Supreme Court justices would hesitate to block Trump if, just days before the election, he asserted constitutionally questionable powers to disrupt the process under the doctrine of the 'Unitary Executive Theory,' which supposedly grants the president unrestricted authority to control the executive branch. Another is that the Republican majorities in the House and Senate would continue their passive submission to Trump and take no steps to block potentially unconstitutional actions."

University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Kenneth Mayer, in an interview, told Edsall that Trump "has obliterated the boundaries and guardrails that we had long thought would serve as meaningful constraints on presidential extremism."

Mayer warned, "He is acting as if his will is law, the government and everything in it belongs to him, and everyone owes their allegiance to him, not to the Constitution, the law or the public good."

After 37-year-old Alex Pretti — an intensive care nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) — was fatally shot by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Minneapolis on January 24, protests were held not only in that city, but in many other U.S. cities as well. One of them was Augusta, Georgia, where VA recreational therapist Becky Halioua was among the demonstrators.

Now, CNN's Brian Todd is reporting that Halioua was the subject of a VA internal investigation because of her involvement in those protests.

"Her supervisor informed her that an internal probe had been launched into whether she violated agency rules regarding employee interviews with the news media — a probe that could result in disciplinary action," Todd explains in an article published on May 5. "Halioua is not alone, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN. At least three other VA employees have been investigated for their interactions with the press, including at least one other related to Alex Pretti, according to one of the sources."

Todd adds, "As part of her investigation, Halioua says investigators e-mailed her photos of herself at the vigil from news coverage, which also included a brief interaction with a local newspaper. Someone had drawn a line around her image in some photographs, labeled with her name."

Halioua told CNN, "It really gave me an uneasy feeling," adding that seeing her face circled in photos of protests seemed "very stalker-like."

Pretti's death followed the fatal shooting of another Minneapolis resident, Renée Good, by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (ICE) agents on January 7.

"In the case of the VA workers," Todd notes, "the interviews touched on an issue that sparked a national discussion. Pretti's killing, along with that of another protester, Renee Good, became political flashpoints in debates over immigration enforcement and free speech following a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minneapolis in January. Within hours of their deaths, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, claimed, without evidence, that Pretti and Good were domestic terrorists, sparking outrage. Protests and vigils, like the one Halioua attended, popped up across the country."

The union National Nurses United, which helped organize the vigil for Pretti that Halioua attended, told CNN, "It is despicable and immoral to come after any federal employee who participates in a vigil for a fellow worker."

Halioua described the probe of her as a "scare tactic," telling CNN, "I think that it is a method really to silence the employees with the loudest voices."

When Donald Trump narrowly won the 2024 election, one of the things that frustrated Democratic strategists was the inroads he made with Generation Z. Many of those Gen-Z supporters were male, including avid consumers of Manosphere content. But Trump had female Gen-Z allies as well, including Ashley St. Clair.

Now 27, St. Clair was a brand ambassador for the late Charlie Kirk's MAGA youth group Turning Point USA, and she was known her attacks on transgendered Americans.

In an article published on May 5, however, The New Republic's Virginia Heffernan details St. Clair's transition from prominent MAGA influencer to outspoken MAGA critic.

"For the last few months," Heffernan explains, "St. Clair has been posting to TikTok about her escape or exile from the MAGA carnies. She sums it up this way: 'I became a cringe MAGA influencer for 8 years before I found my brain.' Now, she is ready to 'talk about my experience within this machine of MAGA' and 'speak about the inside of a system that nobody else is.' Though she makes serious reference to having renounced her previous creed and making earnest amends, St. Clair is mostly conducting her multipart exposé with Catskills-style comedy."

Heffernan adds, "She's well suited to it, as she resembles a young Fran Drescher, and has something of Drescher's manner, manicures, and nasality."

St. Clair, Heffernan notes, is the mother of one Elon Musk's children but had a major falling out with the Tesla/SpaceX head. And she now "vehemently opposes" the "whole movement she once embraced," according to Heffernan.

In one of her TikTok videos, St. Clair declared, "I encourage people within MAGA to really look at what's happening in this country and what you're a part of." And she isn't shy about criticizing herself, saying, "I am speaking openly and honestly about my experiences. I understand that there's a lot of skepticism and critique, and I am open to that. And I am understanding that there are a lot of people that are still going to be angry at me. And I don't fault them for that because of my role in harm."

This Tuesday, May 5, President Donald Trump is traveling to Indiana in the hope of ousting eight GOP state lawmakers who opposed his redistricting push in that red state. And after that, he is venturing to other red states in support of GOP primary challengers to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

Politico reporters Liz Crampton, Lisa Kashinsky and Alec Hernandez, in an article published on May 5, describe this trip as a "revenge tour" and emphasize that it will put to the test the power of an endorsement from Trump in Republican primaries.

"President Donald Trump's power as the GOP's kingmaker faces a major test with this month's primaries," the Politico journalists explain. "So far, he's on rocky footing…. Trump has also selected his favorite candidates in the crowded GOP primaries for Alabama Senate and Georgia governor. But his picks have struggled to dominate their fields, with most holding only narrow leads in polling and some failing to pull far ahead in fundraising. In Indiana, even a few allies of the president are tempering expectations of a full eight-lawmaker sweep."

Crampton, Kashinsky and Hernandez continue, "The results will reveal how effective the president's political operation is at turning out Republicans when Trump is not on the ballot, and how motivated MAGA is to go along with his ongoing retribution campaign. It's also a potent expression of his power ahead of the likely lame-duck phase of his presidency. Some Republicans — even those involved in the races — say the shaky standing of Trump's preferred candidates suggests that his ability to move his base en masse is beginning to slip."

One of the Republicans who is questioning Trump's powers as "kingmaker" is former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), a longtime foe who served on the January 6 Select Committee and supported Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

Crampton, Kashinsky and Hernandez note that Trump has a "very mixed record" when it comes to trying to oust incumbents via GOP primaries. On one hand, Trump's push to oust former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) — another conservative who served on the January 6 Select Committee — was successful. But his efforts to oust Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp were not.

Kinzinger told Politico, "He's hit his max power, and now, you're seeing the backside of that power curve. This will be his last competitive election cycle that will have any impact on him. And I think the base is starting to think into the future."

Many of President Donald Trump's appointees received widespread opposition from Senate Democrats, but a major exception was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Not a single Senate Democrat voted against confirming the former U.S. senator.

Trump made a point of filling his administration with ultra-MAGA loyalists, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Rubio, however, is known for being a traditional conservative and an establishment Republican — and Democrats who voted to confirm Rubio hoped he would be a voice of reason as secretary of state.

But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in a biting article published on May 5, argues that Rubio has seriously "sacrificed his values" in order to survive in the second Trump Administration.

"While also attending to Trump's needs," DeVega explains, "Rubio has been busy remaking the State Department in the MAGA image — an act that is undermining democracy at home and accelerating strategic failures abroad. What the administration calls 'America First' is, in practice, white racial authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism that governs who and what is deemed to be in America's vital interests."

DeVega notes that during the Cold War, the U.S. State Department "emphasized cultural pluralism" and "inclusiveness" with its "public messaging" — as officials realized that "American diplomacy takes place around the world."

"During the Cold War," the Salon journalist recalls, "America's elites understood that racism at home made America weak abroad…. Jim and Jane Crow were an international embarrassment, giving the Soviet Union a powerful counternarrative about American hypocrisy and the color line…. The State Department, meanwhile, deployed jazz diplomacy and other cultural outreach programs to project, in a carefully curated way, an image of American diversity as a weapon against communism and authoritarian regimes. These traditions have been largely abandoned under Rubio at the behest of Trump."

According to DeVega, Trump's "America First" purity tests for State Department employees are hurting the U.S. from a foreign policy standpoint.

"Limiting the number of Black and brown diplomatic corps members at a time when China is making great inroads in Africa and other parts of the non-white world through infrastructure development, securing rare earth and other vital resources, and building military bases is a strategic blunder," DeVega writes. "The (State) Department has also overseen the systematic dismantling of America's soft power. The gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and related programs that support public health have already contributed to an estimated 762,000 preventable deaths…. Since Trump's return to power, the United States has been repositioning itself as an explicitly Judeo-Christian nation — and government departments and agencies are following suit."

DeVega notes that Rubio "was a strong advocate for global democracy" during his years in the U.S. Senate but has "abandoned" that outlook to please Trump.

"He wanted America to be more confrontational with Russia and backed Ukraine in its freedom struggle," DeVega observes. "Now, while enduring the president's humiliation rituals — the public debasements Trump uses to test and bind the loyalty of those around him — Rubio has adopted his values…. Rubio sacrificed his values and the storied institutional legacy of the State Department itself to be in closer proximity to Donald Trump, a chaos agent — and America's reputation and power are collapsing."

In GOP circles, President Donald Trump's defenders often give him credit for injecting a great deal of energy into the Republican Party. Trump, even with his weak approval ratings in many polls, still excites his hardcore MAGA base.

But with the 2026 midterms only six months way, White House lawyers are, according to early May reporting in The Washington Post and The New Republic, trying to prepare Trump and his administration for worst-case scenarios — including possible Democratic majorities in Congress in 2027.

The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling reports, "The White House is forecasting a rough November for congressional Republicans. In private briefings, attorneys at the White House Counsel's Office are preparing executive branch staff for a blue wave in the 2026 elections, The Washington Post reported Monday."

White House lawyers, according to Houghtaling, are giving Trump staffers "30-minute briefings" that include a "PowerPoint presentation detailing how congressional oversight works and best practices for handling it."

One official attending the briefings, the Post reported, described them as "a sober-eyed conversation."

Houghtaling notes that Trump is facing a wide range of problems ahead of the midterms.

"Trump, who was once a golden ticket for the Republican Party at the ballot box, has in his second term cooked up a litany of issues, any one of which could be a death knell for conservatives come November," Houghtaling explains. "In the 15 months since he returned to America's highest office, Trump has launched the U.S. into a war with Iran, sparking a global energy crisis that has raised the cost of living pretty much everywhere. He also invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, Nicolás Maduro, axed thousands of staffers from the federal government and crippled some government agencies, and used his office to target his political opponents…… His lagging popularity has been reflected in nationwide polls: 62 percent of Americans disapprove of the president, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published Friday — a growth of two percentage points since the poll was previously conducted in February."

President Donald Trump's hardcore MAGA supporters often say they love the fact that he never apologizes for his actions. Trump's refusal to back down from his positions, they insist, is a major plus.

But Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, in a May 4 column posted on his Substack page, argues that Trump's stubbornness is a political liability — and that he doubles down on his political "humiliations" when he needs to be changing course.

Krugman cites the Iran war as a recent example.

"So, what has the Trump Administration learned from its humiliation in the current war?" Krugman writes. "Silly question. This administration doesn't learn. After all, the war in Ukraine had entered its fifth year by the time the U.S. began bombing Iran. Drones have turned the entire front line of that war into an ever-widening 'kill zone.' So, nobody should have been surprised by the lethality — (Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth's favorite word — of inexpensive drones in the Persian Gulf."

Krugman continues, "Yet Hegseth and co. were evidently caught completely off guard. Many reports indicate that U.S. military sites have suffered far more damage than the Pentagon has acknowledged."

The liberal economist and former New York Times columnist notes that in a variety of ways, the Iran "debacle" is going badly for Trump. But instead of considering other options, Krugman laments, Trump keeps digging in deeper.

"In fact, Trump fired his Navy secretary, not because of poor performance in the Iran war, but because he wasn't delivering the new ships on Trump's impossible timeline," Krugman explains. "As far as I can tell, there is an overwhelming consensus among military experts that giant battleships are as obsolete as, well, coal power. Ukraine sank the Moskva, Russia's Black Sea flagship, with missiles early in the war. Since then, Ukraine has used drones, both airborne and seaborne, to effectively drive Russian forces from that sea despite not having a navy of its own."

Krugman continues, "There's every reason, then, to believe that Trump-class battleships would, at best, be expensive pieces of junk. At worst, they would be floating coffins for U.S. sailors. And I do mean expensive. Current projections are that each of these ships would cost $17 billion. That's not the cost of a whole fleet, it's the cost for each individual ship."

Referencing the 1977 movie "Star Wars," Krugman jokingly adds, "Somehow, I don't have the sense that the force is with us."

In December 2025, President Donald Trump announced that a World War 2-era battleship would be back in use. But defense technology has changed considerably since that war, which ended 81 years ago in 1945. And according to analysis from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, the "Trump-class battleship" doesn't meet the needs of 21st Century defense and warfare and is absolute technologically.

Fortune's Jake Angelo, in an article published on May 3, explains, "Here's the issue: the U.S. Navy hasn't operated a battleship since the last Iowa-class vessel was retired in 1992 — a type of vessel which hasn't even been constructed since the mid-20th Century. The Trump-class battleship, which the Department of Defense is requesting upwards of $1 billion to build, will inherently be stuck in WW2, and would be rendered helpless against modern-day weapons. In fact, despite the billion-dollar price tag, Cato puts the true cost at $20 billion apiece, and it still won't be able to subvert modern-day, advanced anti-ship missiles."

Cato policy analyst Ben Giltner believes that the U.S. Department of Defense should rule out using the battleship that Trump is promoting.

Giltner told Fortune, "We haven't used this since World War 2, because the aircraft was able to pick it off in the ocean."

Giltner, according to Angelo, "said this type of ship shouldn't even be on the Defense Department's list: it’s not an aircraft carrier, meaning it can't carry jets or other supplies."

"Giltner said Cato's estimated $20 billion price tag on a single battleship is a conservative estimate, one which only takes into account the acquisition and procurement of the vessel," Angelo reports. "That estimate, Giltner said, fails to take into account the long-term expenses associated with the standard upkeep of a ship and for specialized training required for ship crew. Instead of adding to the debt, Giltner said that opting to pay down the debt would be a better allocation of tax dollars."

Giltner is sounding the alarm about the United States' national debt, warning that using the defense budget carelessly will greatly add to it.

The Cato analyst told Fortune, "We could be doing something even as simple as helping to pay down the debt, the interest on the debt right now, which is absolutely enormous."

On Sunday, May 3, the Trump White House posted, on its X.com account, an AI-generated image depicting a smiling President Donald Trump playing the card game Uno. The text reads, "I have all the cards" — presumably a reference to the war with Iran.

X is being inundated with responses to the tweet. Some are attacking the Trump White House for not understanding the rules of Uno (which means "One" in Spanish and Italian), while other X users are arguing that the Iranian regime is holding "the cards" in the U.S./Iran conflict.

The group Anonymous, which has 7.6 million followers on X, tweeted, "If you have all the cards and you’re playing Uno, you're losing you f– – moron."

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California) posted, "Dear @WhiteHouse: If Trump has all the cards, then why are gas prices at record levels? Oh wait, in Uno you win by not having any cards. Your social media person really should get fired."

The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP strategist, commented, "Small hands."

Progressive media figure Alex Cole wrote, "So dumb, if anyone played UNO before, this means you are actually losing. You score more points in Uno by getting rid of all your cards."

Journalist Nick Bryant wrote, "I have a five year old. I play a lot of Uno. You cannot win or finish the game with these cards."

The Russian government-operated RT posted, "Iran prove they smash Trump In Uno for starters."

A separate RT post read, "Trump posts Uno cards unaware they mean 'you are losing.'"

A Vladimir Putin parody account posted, "Wait until someone tells him that in Uno, once you're down to your last card, the game is almost over."

X user Jamie Bonkiewicz tweeted, "I bet this goes hard if you're f– – stupid."

Journalist Khaled Diab wrote, "What Trump means is that he is one card short of a full deck and a sandwich short of a picnic."