ABC has retained a top Supreme Court litigator and is accusing the Trump Federal Communications Commission of a First Amendment free speech violation.

In its filing, ABC said that the FCC’s actions had a “chilling effect” on free speech, specifically political speech the agency disagreed with, The New York Times reports.

At issue, the Times says, is a “minor regulatory dispute” over ABC’s “The View,” but the implications could extend beyond the single Houston, Texas station positioned in the dispute.

“The Commission’s order to file this Petition for Declaratory Ruling is unprecedented, beyond the Commission’s authority, and counterproductive to the Commission’s stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion,” the filing reads. ABC alleges the FCC’s actions threaten to “upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly.”

The Times calls the filing “the most aggressive defense from any television network since President Trump kicked off an extended campaign last year to bring media organizations to heel.”

FCC chairman Brendan Carr has suggested ABC should not have presumed “The View” was exempt from equal-time rules.

“But the filing from ABC revealed for the first time the intensity of the agency’s efforts against the network,” the Times notes, “which have included extensive requests for documents and information about its operations and editorial approach.”

Variety adds that separately, “the FCC’s Media Bureau last week issued an unprecedented order forcing ABC to reapply for spectrum licenses on an accelerated schedule,” after President Donald Trump called for late night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired.

President Donald Trump’s hold on independent and non-affiliated voters keeps shrinking, but CNN analyst Harry Enten says Trump is as popular and powerful as ever among Republican voters.

Enten looked at this week’s results in the Indiana primaries, where a majority of Republican state lawmakers who opposed the president’s push for redistricting were voted out of office.

“As Indiana goes, so goes the nation when it comes to Republican voters and Donald John Trump,” Enten said. “He absolutely still has the juice, and when you’re a Republican and you go against Trump, you get voted off the island.”

Enten extrapolated that result to the rest of the country, saying that Indiana “is emblematic of what we see nationwide with Republicans.”

“I think there’s this myth that’s going on right now that, oh, ‘Trump is really losing support among Republicans.’ But compared to other midterm cycles, he’s just as popular with Republicans as he has ever been at this point in midterm cycles,” he said

Enten found that at this point in his first term, in 2018, Trump’s approval rating among his GOP base was 85 percent. Now, it’s 84 percent.

“That 85 looks a whole heck of a lot like this 84 percent right here,” Enten said. “The bottom line is this: Donald Trump still absolutely has juice with Republican voters.”

“You saw it in Indiana, and I think that you’ll see it down the line, as well, if any Republicans try and go against the President of the United States, who is still very much beloved by Republican voters nationwide.”

Enten says that the core Republican base “really loves Donald Trump.”

“The people who really love him, they’re the ones who are absolutely juiced up to go out and vote.”

“They would go over hot coals to vote in those primaries,” Enten observed, “and you saw that in Indiana, where the clear majority of those representatives who went against Trump on redistricting, well, they’re no longer gonna have a job come the next session.”

Enten continued, saying that “support among Republicans is just as strong as it was going into the 2018 midterm cycle.”

“So it’s not just that Republicans really like Donald Trump — it’s they want their leaders to follow Donald Trump, and when they don’t, as I said at the beginning, you get voted off the island.”

But while the distillation of far-right Trumpists works well in GOP primaries, the primary winners will soon have to face voters who are not nearly so accommodating in November.

Late last year, the White House announced that President Donald Trump would kick off 2026 by touring the nation to promote his economic agenda, with a focus on affordability. Instead, he launched a war attacking Iran — driving gas prices higher and pushing overall inflation up even further.

Now, with major campaign promises unfulfilled, and six months to go before the midterms, Trump’s economic agenda is collapsing.

He never lowered prices “on day one,” and Americans’ electric bills were not cut in half within his first six months. Six in ten Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy.

The price of gas has increased roughly 45 percent from when Trump was sworn in as president last year, but the White House is trying to spin that as a positive. The national average hit $4.55 per gallon on Thursday, per AAA, up from $3.13 the week he was inaugurated.

On Wednesday, Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, declared that rising consumer spending — including on gasoline — proves the economy is thriving, even as Americans put those costs on their credit cards. Despite Hassett’s claims that Americans “have so much more money in their pockets,” late last month, Gallup reported that 55 percent of Americans say their finances are getting worse.

Trump’s in-office economic proposals have not fared any better.

“The biggest piece of housing legislation in a generation has languished on Capitol Hill because of lawmakers’ objections to a provision negotiated by the White House,” Bloomberg News reports. Trump has also abandoned a proposed 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates, following backlash from banks and skepticism from economists.

Bloomberg notes that “two executive orders, one aimed at easing access to mortgage credit and another that seeks to streamline regulations for builders, are not yet fully implemented and experts say they would only help marginally.”

A White House official told Bloomberg there are plans to try to bring down the price of some grocery store items, and said that the administration is negotiating with drug manufacturers to lower prices.

The administration also touted a “major housing announcement” related to new credit-score models for housing, but, Bloomberg notes, “those changes won’t translate to significant savings for consumers, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum.”

“The cost of credit scores as a part of the purchase price of the house is nothing,” he said.

The cost of buying a home has increased. By buying $200 million in mortgage bonds, the administration briefly brought mortgage rates down to below 6 percent, but Trump’s Iran war escalated those costs, and today the interest on a 30-year mortgage is 6.3%.

Trump last year floated 50-year mortgages as a means to lower interest rates, but that proposal also went nowhere.

With six months until Election Day, the Iran war still in focus and gas prices still rising, voters say Trump has yet to deliver.

Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, is boasting that rising consumer spending — including on gasoline — proves the economy is thriving, even as Americans put those costs on their credit cards.

“And so the consumer is really, really firing on all cylinders, just like the corporate sector you’re seeing in the earnings reports, and they’re doing that because they have so much more money in their pockets,” Hassett told Fox Business.

Bragging that “credit card spending is through the roof,” Hassett said, “They’re spending more on gasoline, but they’re spending more on everything else, too.”

The data shows a different story.

Polls show that the majority of Americans are worried about their finances, more now than at any time in decades.

Late last month, Gallup reported that 55 percent of Americans say their finances are getting worse.

“That percentage is the highest Gallup has recorded since it began asking Americans about their finances in 2001, showing consumers are less optimistic than they were during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Great Recession in 2008,” CBS News reported.

Since President Donald Trump was sworn into office in January 2025, Americans are paying roughly 45% more for gas — with the national average hitting $4.53 per gallon today, per AAA, up from $3.13 that week.

“Almost 3 in 10 Americans now have less savings than they did a year ago, and for many, the safety net they once relied on is already gone,” reports MoneyWise. “According to a recent DepositAccounts survey, 37% of Americans have less than $500 set aside, and nearly half (45%) wouldn’t be able to cover more than a month of essential expenses if their income stopped.”

The Trump Department of Justice will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to intervene in President Donald Trump’s appeal of the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, which Trump lost and was ordered by a jury to pay $83.3 million. The DOJ wants SCOTUS to allow it to substitute itself for Trump — which effectively would result in the defamation case being dismissed because the federal government cannot be sued for defamation under federal law.

The DOJ, Bloomberg News reports, will claim Trump was acting as a government employee when he denied Carroll’s sexual-assault claims.

“A panel of appeals court judges previously denied the government’s request to invoke the Westfall Act in the case,” Bloomberg notes. “Carroll alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and then defamed her by calling her a liar when she went public with the claim in 2019.”

Critics blasted the DOJ’s decision to go to the Supreme Court.

“This is outrageous. This has nothing to do with Trump as a public official or president. More corruption in the Justice Department in service of the Cult Leader,” charged The Atlantic’s Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist.

“Of course they have. They’re the president’s personal law firm at this point,” said MS NOW legal analyst Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney.

“Most corrupt president ever,” alleged HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte.

“This is insane—the DOJ is not the president’s personal law firm,” noted Democratic strategist Mike Nellis.

“In case you have any doubt that the DOJ is just Trump’s personal lawyers now,” wrote journalist Franklin Harris.

“There really needs to be a lot more alarm about the level of fascism and corruption unfolding right now,” observed former Obama and Biden official Jesse Lee.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman calls right-wing politics “deadly” — and predicts that “MAGA Will Kill Many Americans,” by the thousands, driven by greed and willful ignorance.

Krugman goes one step further, arguing outright that this is not by accident:

“Does MAGA want to see thousands of Americans die prematurely from smoking and refusal to get vaccinated? Yes,” he writes.

He argues that the right’s decades-long opposition to health care is driven by greed, especially from “wealthy donors unwilling to pay taxes to help others in need.”

Krugman points to Tuesday’s decision by Trump’s FDA to allow blueberry and mango-flavored vapes, which critics warn will increase use among the young.

Why?

“Trump is reportedly hoping that support for vaping will win back support from young men,” Krugman writes — a constituency the president has been losing during his second term in office.

There’s also the recent decision, again by Trump’s FDA, to block the release of studies finding the COVID-19 and shingles vaccines safe, with side effects rare.

“Beyond this,” he continues, “right-wing politics in America often goes hand in hand with hostility to science in general and medical science in particular. The deadly linkage between reactionary politics and rejection of science was obvious during the Covid pandemic.”

Krugman also implicates greed in the anti-vaccine movement, saying that “quack medicine is big business.”

“Right-wing radio and social media have long relied on peddlers of snake oil for a large part of their revenue. So much of the attack on medical science can be seen as financially motivated,” he writes.

Ideological willful ignorance plays a part as well — driven by the alliance between oligarchs and white Christian nationalism, the latter of which is “deeply hostile to Enlightenment values, modern science very much included.”

To prove his point, Krugman points to the widely-reported resurgence of measles, that was seen as eliminated from the United States decades ago, thanks to vaccines. Now, many parents are choosing to forego vaccinating their children against this highly contagious and potentially deadly disease.

He adds to that the refusal of many red states to expand Medicaid, a program largely paid for by the federal government under the Affordable Care Act.

The data bear him out. Life expectancy in “Trump-leaning” states trails blue states significantly.

There’s “a strong, clear negative correlation between Trump-leaning orientation and low life expectancy at the state level,” Krugman writes. “Deep red states like Alabama and West Virginia have life expectancy comparable to, say, Kazakhstan.”

There has been a “deterioration of morale” at the U.S. Supreme Court, Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told Bloomberg News, as he predicted “there will be major fireworks” by the time the high court’s term comes to a close around the end of June.

Other legal scholars share that concern.

“It appears from the outside that there has been an erosion of comity and trust,” William & Mary Law School constitutional and administrative law Professor Jonathan Adler told Bloomberg. “This raises the concern that it could affect how the court operates and inhibit deliberation.”

The court already appears to be operating at an unusual level of enmity.

“Tensions are starting to boil over,” Bloomberg reports. “Back-and-forth sniping between Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Samuel Alito Monday night marked the latest sign of strain at a court that has become a prominent symbol of the polarization besetting the country.”

During last week’s landmark ruling all but gutting what remains of the six-decade-old Voting Rights Act, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the court’s conservative majority of taking political sides. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, called her claims “insulting” and “utterly irresponsible.”

More high-profile — and possibly highly-contested — decisions are to be handed down over the next eight weeks, and with them, more contentious opinions.

Justices are set to rule on President Donald Trump’s effort to eliminate birthright citizenship, they are to hand down opinions on transgender girls in women’s sports, and on Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

On Monday, as the court cleared the way for Louisiana to eliminate a majority-minority district, Justice Jackson “accused the court of betraying its principles, including its past pronouncements that judges shouldn’t change the voting rules on the eve of an election.”

“Just like that, those principles give way to power,” Jackson warned.

Jackson’s remarks “drew a fiery response” from Justice Alito, who said that her dissent “levels charges that cannot go unanswered.” Bloomberg reports that “Alito took particular umbrage at Jackson’s claim that the court was engaging in an unprincipled power play,” which he called “a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”

At the time, Justice Amy Coney Barrett in an appearance said that “collegiality is a decision you make,” as she shared that she and other justices spend time together at lunches and even dinners at each other’s homes.

“You have to make decisions to spend time with people, and particularly people with whom you might disagree, in order to forge those bonds,” Barrett said.

Pointing to what it calls the “Jackson Factor,” Bloomberg reports that Jackson, the nation’s newest justice, “has been at the center of much of the sparring,” and much of that seems to be with Justice Alito.

President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom started last summer as a $200 million project that he repeatedly promised would be paid by private donations. The project has now grown, as has the price tag — to at least $1 billion — and Republicans are pushing hard to get the taxpayers to foot the bill.

“In case this isn’t obvious,” MS NOW reported on Tuesday, “the White House boasted last summer that the price tag for the ballroom would be $200 million, and every penny would come from private donations. By October, the price tag had grown to $250 million. Soon after, it was $300 million. Late last year, it was up to $400 million — though, again, the official line was that American taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for the costs at all, even as the White House went out of its way to hide the identities of donors.”

Then the calculus changed entirely.

Late last month, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was among the first Republicans to float the idea of taxpayers funding the ballroom, announcing legislation to foot the bill — to the tune of $400 million. The status of that bill is unclear, and it may not have been filed yet.

Trump used the alleged assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to insist that presidents need a safe space, and claimed that having a “Militarily Top Secret Ballroom” with “every highest level security feature there is” would have prevented the attack.

On Monday, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced that the ballroom project expenditure would become part of a reconciliation bill — that’s when it appears the overall price tag jumped to at least $1 billion.

The Daily Beast reports that Grassley’s reconciliation package earmarks the $1 billion for “security adjustments and upgrades” linked to the ballroom project, including “above-ground and below-ground security features” of the East Wing Modernization Project.

As The Daily Beast suggests, it appears the $1 billion price tag is technically not for the above-ground ballroom itself, but for the security upgrades above and below ground that Trump has publicly touted.

“In Mr. Trump’s telling,” The New York Times reported last month, “the bunker will have bomb shelters and ‘very major medical facilities,’ including a hospital. It will have the latest secure communication methods and defenses against bioweapons.”

Republicans are split on the ballroom being funded by taxpayers, NBC News has reported, but most Democrats are opposed.

Meanwhile, Senator Grassley’s decision to include the $1 billion cost in a reconciliation package brings with it a flaw that could kill the project — or become fodder for political ads Democrats may want to run.

“Just flagging that now everyone gets an up or down vote on the ballroom!” U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) wrote on Tuesday.

“Under budget reconciliation,” Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis explained, “a motion to strike is always in order. So, yes, Democrats can force a vote striking funding for Trump’s ballroom.”

As of late last year, $350 million in private donations for the ballroom have been raised. The president has not indicated if those funds will be used, held, or returned to their respective donors.

Americans already oppose the ballroom by a two-to-one margin — before they were asked to pay for it. By folding the $1 billion into a reconciliation package, Republicans handed Democrats the right to force a floor vote. Trump’s team promised the ballroom wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime. Now every senator will have to say whether they agree.

After a policy meeting Monday, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to launch a spirited campaign amplifying dozens of posts backing his proposed $400 million White House ballroom — a project Republicans now want to be funded by taxpayers, not by the private donations he promised before demolishing the East Wing months ago.

Among those whose remarks were screenshotted and reposted were acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman, Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator Katie Britt, social media influencer Libs of TikTok, and social media users “MAGA Kitty” and “Comfortably Smug.”

“We were there front and center,” wrote Senator Fetterman, apparently referring to the alleged assassination attempt during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”

“I’m dropping a bill tomorrow. Let’s build the Ballroom,” wrote Senator Paul.

“It’s time for the Democrats to show up and start acting like AMERICANS,” wrote U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL). “STOP defunding DHS. STOP blocking the White House ballroom. STOP elevating people who call for political violence. Stop letting TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME guide every single decision you make. Enough is enough!”

“I’m working with my team to draft legislation ensuring the White House Ballroom is completed,” U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said. “I don’t believe congressional approval is required for the project, but if it’ll keep activist judges on the sideline, so be it. More to come this week.”

“Ballroom time!” exclaimed MAGA Kitty.

But most Americans are opposed to the ballroom project.

“Americans reject President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll,” the Post reported last week, “and they appear largely unmoved by the intensified calls from the president and his allies in Congress to allow the project to go forward.”

Republican senators are publicly speaking out against their House GOP counterparts over what some see as dysfunction under the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson. They are warning that continued infighting could damage the Republican brand and cost them during the midterms.

According to The Hill, GOP senators were “dumbfounded” that House Republicans refused for weeks to pass the Senate’s Homeland Security appropriations bill, legislation that was supported by President Donald Trump.

“Republican senators across the political spectrum say they fear the Speaker has lost control of his conference and that it will be incredibly difficult to pass legislation before the midterm elections,” The Hill reports, noting the belief by some Republicans that they need to “rack up more accomplishments before Election Day.”

“It’s like a wreck over there,” one unnamed Republican senator told The Hill, speaking on the battles between Speaker Johnson and some GOP House members. “They don’t know if they’re coming or going. Everybody is fighting.”

Other Senate Republicans also expressed frustration.

“It’s not like these things are hard. That’s the thing,” Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told The Hill, while calling the House “rowdy.”

“I feel like the Senate has teed up things fairly easily for them, even to the point where if they don’t like it, they can blame us,” he said. “And they still haven’t taken the opportunity to actually govern, and I do think it’s hurting the brand.”

One of the most outspoken GOP senators also blasted House Republicans.

“My colleagues over there need to start playing team ball,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said. “Their behavior is being noticed by people. We can’t blame Democrats for the dysfunction that’s going on over there right now and it’s a really bad look for people going into at-risk districts going into November.”

“Set aside whatever your 5 percent disagreement is and play team ball between now and November or they’re going to live to regret it,” he advised House Republicans.

“The House is broken,” another unnamed GOP senator told The Hill. “The venting is more with Johnson. Senators don’t like to be criticized constantly by Johnson.”

Going forward, in an effort to pass more legislation, some Republicans want to “jam” the House by working with Democrats on bipartisan bills, then force Speaker Johnson to pass them, The Hill noted.

In a double-barreled attack, President Donald Trump has targeted a two-term sitting Republican U.S. Senator, calling for him to be voted out during the GOP primary — which is tight and barely weeks away — while criticizing him for his vote on impeachment and his opposition to the president’s pick for Surgeon General.

Calling U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) “a very disloyal person” who won election thanks to his endorsement, the president blasted him for his Senate vote to convict him “on what has now proven to be a total Hoax and Scam,” Trump said.

Accusing Cassidy of “intransigence and political games,” Trump charged that he has “stood in the way of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Nominee, Casey Means, for the important position of U.S. Surgeon General.”

Just sixteen days before the GOP primary, Trump did not hold back.

“Hopefully all of the Great Republican People of Louisiana, which I won, BIG, three times, will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary!”

According to The Hill, Senator Cassidy is currently polling behind two of his GOP primary challengers among likely Republican voters.

Cassidy got just 21 percent support, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow received 27 percent, and state treasurer John Fleming received 28 percent, according to an Emerson poll. Although Trump endorsed Congresswoman Letlow in January, she has yet to pull into the lead.

In 2021, Cassidy was one of just seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Of the seven, just three are currently serving: Cassidy, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski.

Minutes after his attack, Trump announced his nomination of Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole B. Saphier to become Surgeon General, after calling Means “a strong MAHA Warrior” who “understands the MAHA Movement better than anyone, with perhaps the possible exception of ME!”

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is swapping “TACO” — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — for “NACHO” — “Not a Chance Hormuz Opens.” The prominent economist argues that there are three reasons the Strait of Hormuz, critical for global shipping, including of oil, remains closed and does not appear to be close to reopening any time soon.

“Hormuz won’t open until the economic damage from its closure becomes much more severe,” Krugman warns. Both Iran and America — meaning, President Donald Trump — need to stand down, and all that means is both sides need to simply stop what they are doing right now. Iran must end its embargo, and the U.S. must end its blockade.

What’s stopping this from happening? Largely, Krugman says, Trump’s “ego” and “ignorance,” coupled with the Iranians not having a reason to trust that Trump will do as he says.

“Trump’s ego is so fragile that he can never admit losing,” Krugman writes. “He cannot bear to face up to the reality that he, more or less single-handedly, led America to the greatest strategic defeat in its history. So he desperately wants to extract concessions from Iran that would lend him a fig leaf and allow him to claim victory.”

It’s unlikely Trump will be able to extract concessions.

He “deludes himself into believing” that he can, because “those delusions are reinforced by the people that Trump has surrounded himself with.” Krugman concludes that “Trump is clearly the worst informed president in modern history about the actual state of America at war.”

Precisely what Trump wants isn’t clear, but “in any case he won’t get it.” Regardless of how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is harming them, the Iranians recognize it is harming the U.S. and the world economy more. For instance, “they know that Trump is facing what is clearly shaping up to be a major electoral defeat in November due to Americans’ anger over the war, its effect on the economy and Trump’s constant stream of lies.”

Ultimately, Krugman says, “Iran won’t make any concessions that weaken its strategic position — which means that it won’t offer Trump anything that he can use to declare victory.”

What does the end look like? It will end with the “non-deal” that was already on the table.

“Iran will emerge poorer but strategically stronger,” Krugman posits. “And America will have suffered its worst strategic defeat in history as a result of a completely gratuitous misadventure to please Trump’s ego.”

A federal appeals court handed President Donald Trump a loss on Wednesday in his quest for the entire court to re-hear his appeal in the $83 million E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case.

CNN reports that the court’s decision now allows the president to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his claims arguing presidential immunity. The high court established broad criminal immunity for all presidents in 2024 for official acts.

A panel of judges earlier had affirmed a jury verdict that Trump had defamed Carroll in 2022 when he “denied her allegations of sexual assault, said she wasn’t his type, and suggested she made up the allegations to sell copies of her new book,” according to CNN.

Separately, the following year, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation “over an alleged assault that occurred in the mid-1990s at a New York department store and for statements he made in 2019 denying it happened.”

Trump has argued that the U.S. Department of Justice should have been substituted for him as the defendant. Since the DOJ cannot be sued for defamation, the case would have been ended.

Courthouse News adds that the majority of judges on Wednesday “concluded the court had correctly held that presidential immunity is waivable and that had Trump indeed waived it in the Carroll case.”

“If any other litigant had failed to raise an affirmative defense in this way, there would be no question as to whether he waived his right to assert it,” U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

Republicans are reaching back into their old playbook to try to attract voters to support them in the midterms: tax cuts.

But their efforts are tied to lowering taxes on capital gains — such as stocks and homes — which could disproportionately favor wealthy Americans.

Bloomberg News reports that some Republicans want to tie capital gains taxes to inflation, which could reduce the tax burden.

“It would be the biggest step we could do to counteract the massive inflation under Joe Biden and the Democrats and have a positive impact on affordability, particularly affordability of housing, between now and the midterms,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Bloomberg.

Cruz argued that the proposal would encourage homeowners to sell existing homes, which could free up the housing supply. He also said it would encourage Americans to sell stocks.

“Despite enthusiasm among key Republicans, the proposal faces challenges. For starters, another big tax and spending bill would require near unanimous support in the fractured GOP,” Bloomberg reported. “Republicans have discussed compiling a fresh tax-cut package this year to serve as a follow-up to Trump’s 2025 ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ to demonstrate to voters that they are taking steps to address unease about the economy.”

Bloomberg reported that the “disproportionate benefit for the wealthy would hand Democrats another attack line heading into a midterms where the party has already painted Republicans’ recent sweeping budget law as a give-away to the rich.”

Brendan Duke, Senior Director for Federal Budget Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted: “Only 1% of the benefits would go to the bottom 80%–after raising taxes on them thru tariffs, cutting Medicaid & SNAP, and letting ACA enhancements expire.”

Critics slammed the GOP proposal.

“I can’t think of a better indictment of the Republican party and the con they’ve played on working class people than their go-to idea for addressing affordability is a capital gains tax cut,” wrote Neera Tanden, who served as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council under President Joe Biden.

“Not for nothing, but this is another broken trickle-down hack idea,” declared Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen.

The majority-conservative Roberts Supreme Court on Wednesday further eroded the Voting Rights Act, tossing out Louisiana’s congressional district map after a group of non-African American voters sued, arguing the map constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Legal experts are warning the decision “will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 6-3 ruling in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, with all six Republican-appointed justices in the majority and all three Democratic appointees dissenting. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, warned that the consequences would be “far-reaching and grave” and that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was now “all but a dead letter.”

USA Today reported that the “decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans’ chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they have a thin majority.”

“It will now be easier for Republicans to draw maps that favor their party,” the paper observed, “particularly in the South where a voter’s race closely aligns with party preference.”

Critics and legal experts blasted the Court’s decision.

“Today’s VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong,” wrote noted Democratic attorney Marc Elias. “The conservatives basically said: Black people can vote for their preferred candidates, as long as they prefer the right candidates — which will be Republicans. An [absolute] mockery of the law and stain on the court.”

Elias also wrote that in its decision, the Supreme Court “kneecapped the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark civil rights law that restricted racial gerrymandering and racial discrimination in voting for more than fifty years.”

The Democracy Docket social media account added: “Today’s decision will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Democracy Docket, which was founded by Elias, also warned that today’s Supreme Court decision could usher in an additional 27 Republican-held seats in Congress and secure “GOP House control for at least a generation.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen slammed the Alito decision.

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” he wrote at his Election Law Blog. “Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head. It’s the product of his long mission: to favor the white Republicans he seems to think he represents on the Supreme Court, rather than all Americans.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote that the decision “is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities.”

“The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy,” he added, calling it “a major setback for our nation” that “threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.”

Britain’s King Charles III delivered a “carefully targeted rebuff” of President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies during his historic address before Congress, Politico reports, as he lauded NATO and called for “unyielding resolve” to defend Ukraine against Russia.

“British monarchs deliver their political messages in code,” Politico noted, adding that “contrary to the president’s repeated claims over recent weeks, NATO was in fact there to help in America’s hour of need.”

Charles told members of Congress that in “the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so, for more than a century.”

“Shoulder to shoulder,” he declared, “through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.”

His Ukraine entreaty received bipartisan applause and a standing ovation.

Charles praised the United States’ armed forces’ “commitment and expertise,” and that of its allies, that “lie at the heart of NATO.”

Calling it “a direct plea to Trump and Hill Republicans to maintain American support against the Russian invasion,” Politico stated that Charles “is striking a very different tone from Trump’s incessant criticisms of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

The significance of Charles's appearance before Congress extended beyond the immediate policy disagreements. Royal addresses to foreign legislatures are rare occurrences, with the British monarchy traditionally maintaining careful distance from domestic political controversies. The king's decision to deliver such pointed remarks about NATO and Ukraine suggested the gravity with which British leadership views current American foreign policy direction.

Charles's emphasis on shared sacrifice throughout history—invoking collective defense commitments spanning generations—carried particular weight given Trump's recent suggestion that the U.S. might withdraw from NATO or reduce its commitment to allied nations. The monarch's framing positioned American security interests as fundamentally intertwined with European stability, challenging the administration's transactional approach to international alliances.

The standing ovation that greeted Charles's Ukraine remarks also highlighted deep fissures within Republican ranks. While Trump and his closest allies have repeatedly questioned the wisdom of continued U.S. support for Kyiv, substantial portions of the GOP remain committed to the traditional transatlantic security framework. This congressional reception suggested that Charles's message resonated with lawmakers concerned about abandoning long-standing commitments at a critical moment in global affairs.

By delivering his address in diplomatic language rather than direct confrontation, Charles employed the formal protocols of statecraft while still making his position unmistakable to American policymakers and the public alike.

With additional reporting by Roxanne Cooper.

Twelve hours after a gunman tried to attack Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, President Donald Trump used the incident as justification to build his $400 million, 90,000 square-foot ballroom.

“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE,” Trump wrote on Sunday. NBC News characterized the claim as “without evidence.”

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” Trump added.

According to Bloomberg News, even at 90,000 square feet, the proposed ballroom would not be large enough to seat the dinner’s two thousand guests. Nor is the dinner a White House function — it is a private event.

Trump has been “frustrated” by legal challenges to his ballroom project, Bloomberg added.

From the start, the president maintained the ballroom would not cost taxpayers a dime, but rather, be privately funded by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” as the Associated Press reported last year.

Now, according to Bloomberg, Trump allies are pushing for federal taxpayer funds to be used to pay for the ballroom.

“Key Republican senators are pushing to use federal funds for the construction of the White House ballroom President Donald Trump has planned, citing increased threats following Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner,” Bloomberg notes.

The lawmakers calling to use taxpayer funds for Trump’s ballroom include U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO). They “plan to try to attach funding for the ballroom to a federal spending bill.”

“I will be introducing standalone legislation tomorrow to authorize and appropriate money to fully fund the White House presidential ballroom,” Graham wrote on Sunday, “which over time will provide adequate security for this president and future presidents for events like the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

Punchbowl News’ Laura Weiss reports Senators Graham and Britt are holding a press conference Monday night for their bill to fund the ballroom.

First Lady Melania Trump is calling for ABC to hold Jimmy Kimmel accountable days after the late night host offered up some jokes about her and President Donald Trump in a mock version of a White House Correspondents’ Dinner roast.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” the First Lady said on social media Monday. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she continued. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

The First Lady did not reference that Kimmel’s jokes were meant in the spirit of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which historically has had a comedian who lampoons the President of the United States host the festivities. That tradition also includes presidents delivering self-deprecating remarks. Until Saturday, as president, Donald Trump has boycotted every WHCD.

According to Fox News, Kimmel on Thursday night had said, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

During Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a heavily-armed gunman trying to rush the event “sprinted through a security checkpoint,” The New York Times reported, but was apprehended by Secret Service before he was able to enter the event space.

The Times also published some of the jokes Kimmel delivered Thursday night in a parody that he had called an “all-American” version of the D.C. dinner:

“By the way, in the unfortunate event that our president has a medical emergency tonight, do we have a doctor in the house — oh, I’m sorry. I mean, do we have a Jesus in the house? I always confuse them, too.”

“I get why you think you’re Jesus. This guy, every time he walks into a room, people say, ‘Christ, he’s back.’”

Both jokes appeared to reference posts the president had made seemingly depicting himself as Jesus.

Other jokes by Kimmel the Times published included:

“Oh, by the way, before we go any further: Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania. That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein.”

“As the president will tell you repeatedly until you beg him to stop, President Trump has accomplished so much during his second term. He passed new incentives for oil and gas. He put the brakes on solar and wind. That will be your legacy, sir, breaking wind and passing gas.”

A New York Times op-ed by a military expert argues that blockades don’t work the way President Trump thinks — and that his blockade of Iran is “unlikely” to succeed.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank, explains that Trump’s blockade should not have come as a surprise — he’s used them already against Venezuela and Cuba.

While the Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump started his war against Iran, Iran chose to close it. Trump’s response was to launch a blockade of Iranian ports, to force a deal.

“But Tehran’s effective closure of the strait since the United States and Israel attacked two months ago has emerged as the war’s most bedeviling problem and one Mr. Trump is desperate to fix,” Kavanagh writes. Trump’s goal is to “choke Iran’s economy and force the country’s leaders to reopen the strait and accept Washington’s terms of surrender.”

That tactic is “unlikely to work for the same reasons the United States finds itself facing strategic defeat by a weaker adversary: a mismatch of stakes and time horizons.”

Kavanagh explains that the way blockades work is an equation of time and will. And Iran has both. Trump, she suggests, does not.

“While Iran has gained the upper hand in this conflict by extending and surviving what it considers an existential war,” Kavanagh writes, “Mr. Trump wants a fast and decisive victory, something a blockade cannot deliver.”

She points to President Abraham Lincoln’s blockade against the Confederacy during the Civil War. The war lasted four more years. And she points to the British naval blockade of Germany in World War I. That war also lasted another four years. Today, “Iran can likely endure the U.S. blockade for months without facing economic collapse.”

For Trump, “this timeline is likely to be unacceptable. His impatience with the war is evident in his increasingly erratic Truth Social posts and near-constant assertions that the war is already over,” Kavanagh says. “In a test of wills, Tehran has the advantage and a higher pain tolerance. With their survival on the line, Iran’s leaders can afford to be patient.”

President Donald Trump is being criticized for his latest Truth Social post in which he describes himself as an “extraordinarily brilliant person,” yet admits he cannot understand the language in Virginia’s redistricting referendum — which more than 1.5 million voters passed Tuesday night.

The president also claimed the election was “rigged,” while offering no evidence, and was frustrated because ballot counting went more heavily in Democrats’ favor (the “Yes” vote) as results were counted.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump declared.

“All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

“In addition to everything else,” he continued, “the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive.”

“As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.'”

Critics blasted Trump’s remarks.

“I am begging for someone to explain to the President how election returns work,” wrote Sarah Longwell, the founder and editor of The Bulwark.

“You weren’t ‘winning all day,’ you were ahead before counting finished,” wrote progressive commentator Alex Cole. “Those are not the same thing. The real conspiracy is how MAGA convinces itself losing = cheating instead of… losing.”

After delivering dozens of Truth Social posts in a 24-hour period, President Donald Trump is now lashing out at the conservative justices on the Supreme Court — again.

The president appeared to suggest that the conservative jurists should be loyal to his positions, and lamented that liberal justices “stick together like glue, NEVER failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them.”

He also attacked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, although not by name but by calling her “that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench (Sleepy Joe!).”

Calling it “unexplainable” and a “travesty,” the president appeared furious, once again, after losing his tariffs case at the Supreme Court, and was angered at what he expects will be a ruling against his administration on birthright citizenship.

He wrongly called birthright citizenship “something which virtually NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS STUPID ENOUGH TO ALLOW,” and claimed that it “was meant for the babies of slaves, not for the babies of Chinese Billionaires.”

“No,” he continued, “certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for.”

“If they rule against our Country on Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote, “which they probably will, it will be even worse, if that’s possible. It will cost America massive amounts of money but, more importantly, it will cost America its DIGNITY!”

Trump’s Wednesday remarks follow his Tuesday attack on the conservatives: “I put certain people on the United States Supreme Court who totally misrepresented who they were, and the true ideology for which they stand!”

The U.S. Supreme Court, “nine angry men and women in black robes,” according to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch, has gone “off the rails,” and is now “at war with itself.”

“Almost every day, there are new signs — from shocking news leaks to surprisingly indecorous public jabs, and legal opinions that read like cries for help — that the U.S. Supreme Court is at war … with itself,” Bunch argues. “Looming large over this soft civil war inside one of America’s three branches of government is our most fundamental liberty, the right to vote.”

Pointing to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, amid its “shaky” ceasefire and “the daily unraveling” of the White House, “the biggest bombshell wasn’t dropped in the Persian Gulf but in the pages of the New York Times.”

Bunch is referring to the widely-cited scoop from the Times‘ Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, that reveals the extreme steps Chief Justice John Roberts took to block President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan — and expand the powers of the Court via the “shadow docket.”

“For more than a decade now, these emergency rulings have largely constrained Democratic presidents and boosted the power of Donald Trump on major issues,” Bunch writes.

He notes that the Times published a batch of five justices’ secret memos, including those from Roberts, that “exposed the hypocrisy” of the Chief Justice, “who has argued during his two decades overseeing the court that its justices are not political actors but impartial umpires ‘calling balls and strikes,’ based on sound interpretation of the law.”

Bunch states these memos “reveal Roberts as less an umpire and more the manager of a team desperate to win the World Series for corporate America.”

The leaking of the memos, which, to many, cast Roberts in a negative light, “is just the latest in a series of news leaks and public statements coming from the Supreme Court that lack any precedent, legal or otherwise.”

Bunch says the court had already been facing a “crisis of credibility,” given the “revelations of alleged corruption” swirling about Justice Clarence Thomas, and the “billion-dollar efforts by wealthy conservatives to shape and then lobby the court.”

The Times’ report was far from the first leak.

READ MORE: Breaking From Trump Republican Says Families Are ‘Struggling’ — But Points Finger at Biden

In 2022 came the “Mother of All Leaks” — the draft opinion that would ultimately overturn 1970s’ landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade.

The leaker was never discovered, but “there’s been much speculation that it came from the conservative wing hoping the news coverage would prevent last-minute defections.”

Meanwhile, since the Court’s 2024 decision granting President Donald Trump and all presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts,” Bunch writes, “there has been even less decorum and more overt verbal warfare.”

Sometimes, justices publish their snipings inside their opinions, “as when Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in response to that ruling on presidential power that POTUS is now ‘a king above the law,’ signing off ‘with fear for our democracy.'”

Bunch says an even more “shocking” event occurred when Sotomayor “lashed out” at Justice Brett Kavanaugh, when she commented that one of his opinions had come from “a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”

She quickly apologized.

Like the 2022 leak, no one has publicly stated who leaked the secret memos to The New York Times.

But, Bunch surmises, someone “very high in the judicial pyramid is trying to send a ‘bat signal’ to the American public — that things at the nation’s highest court have gone off the rails.”

READ MORE: ‘Dropping Like Flies’: Which of Trump’s Cabinet Secretaries Will Be Next?

Image via Reuters

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