Secretary of State Marco Rubio was not "fully looped in until late” on a “controversial 28-point plan dropped suddenly by the Trump administration to Ukraine,” Bloomberg reports.

According to the report, the “take-it-or-leave it proposition … was mostly the result of several weeks of negotiations behind the scenes between Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev that excluded not only Ukraine and its allies but even some key US officials.”

Bloomberg spoke with “several people familiar with the deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity” to “reconstruct” the plan's origination. The framework has since been delivered as an “ultimatum” to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Per Bloomberg, Vice President JD Vance’s “close friend” US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, triggered the “alarm” for European officials after he “told their ambassadors and Ukraine officials in an urgent tone that U.S. President Donald Trump had run out of patience.”

“Before European leaders and Zelenskiy jumped into action, they needed to try and understand who was most responsible for the framework,” Bloomberg reports. “They had been entirely shut out and it wasn’t clear who had the most influence with Trump on the issue.”

As it turns out, “Witkoff and Dmitriev forged the plan during an October meeting in Miami that included Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law,” according to Bloomberg.

“Rubio hadn’t been fully looped in until late,” Bloomberg reports. “Trump also found out about it at the last minute, but he blessed it once he was briefed.”

Despite this, the U.S. State Department on Saturday pushed back on claims from U.S. senators that the plan originated with Russia.

After a phone call with the secretary of state, Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Saturday the framework was “not our peace plan.”

Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters the plan is "essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott, in response, called King’s comment “blatantly false,” and Rubio has since insisted "the peace proposal was authored by the U.S.”

Still, no one has walked back Rounds’ assertion that Rubio told him and fellow senators the peace plan “is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, on Saturday lashed out the administration’s shifting position on the deal.

"Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days," he wrote on X.

Republicans in North Carolina fear voters will be left with a “real sour aftertaste” as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown roils the state.
“Is the price of doing this worth it?” asked P Edwin Peacock III, a moderate Republican in Charlotte. “I don’t see this cloud moving away [from] what will be in the voters’ minds.”

As Politico reports, “Some North Carolina Republicans are worried President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the battleground state could backfire."

After focusing his immigration raids largely in blue states, the Trump administration recently turned to the Charlotte, NC area as “the first test for whether the White House’s strategy can hold up in a purple state,” Politico reports. And with next year’s North Carolina Senate race heating up, Republicans will likely face a key “tension at the center of the president’s immigration agenda.”

“The White House’s message, since January, has tied illegal immigration to violent crime in U.S. cities,” Politico reports. “But immigration officials are simultaneously under sustained pressure from the White House to increase arrests and deportation numbers, an effort that requires targeting immigrants well beyond violent criminal offenders — potentially treacherous territory for swing-state Republicans.”

Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory fears the optics of recent raids in Charlotte “may hurt the GOP on an issue it has long dominated,” according to Politico.

“Republicans had the upper hand on immigration, as long as they were going after the criminals and the gangs, but I think they’re losing the upper hand on that issue because of the apparent disjointed implementation of arrest,” McCrory said. “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”

North Carolina-based GOP pollster Patrick Sebastian warned the “narrative” of U.S. officials deporting working immigrants who are not breaking other laws "has gotten more play over the past week, and that could be a problem for Republicans.”

As Politico reports, “One GOP strategist working on races in North Carolina, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said there’s a risk that the picture of a citizen being separated from their family, rather than the arrests of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, will stick.”

“You don’t know what the enduring image is going to be in voters’ minds,” the anonymous pollster said.

CNN is out with a new report Sunday detailing President Donald Trump’s hand in extensive makeovers throughout the White House complex, including the president’s input on small elements of the redesign including “the type of flagpoles on the North and South lawns.”

CNN’s Betsy Kline reports Trump “has been remarkably hands-on when it comes to remaking Washington's spending hours,” noting the president Saturday met with “golf legend turned golf course developer Jack Nicklaus.”

The pair took “aerial tours at Joint Base Andrews,” according to Kline.

“But the president is also paying very close attention to that White House ballroom renovation,” Kline said on CNN. “He leads weekly meetings at the white White House, where they discuss details as small as the size of windows to the placement of bathrooms to interior finishes.”

“And he's also been quizzing visiting foreign leaders and members of Congress on their opinions on design choices,” she explained. “We also know that the president has personally selected the limestone for the White House rose garden. He’s chosen new chandeliers for the palm room. He's chosen the type of flagpoles on the North and South lawns. And the president has really moved at remarkable speed to impose his style and tastes on the White House.”

Trump, Kine reports, “is hopeful that this will be complete by the end of his second term in office.”

- YouTube youtu.be

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Saturday handed out fake “checks” Saturday during a press conference at Harry Reid International Airport, the Daily Beast reports.

Noem was purportedly giving $10,000 bonuses to 29 TSA agents who worked without pay during the government shutdown. As the Beast reports, the TSA bonuses, “like the bonuses given to air traffic controllers … were only offered to certain employees.”

“Let’s hand out some checks, should we?” Noem asked before immediately clarifying she wasn’t handing out real checks.

“Now, I will say, this is a document that verifies it will be direct deposited into your accounts, OK?” She added.

“Noem also announced that the department will be giving bonus checks to many [transportation security officers] across the country for ‘doing their job with excellence,’ by not just showing up for their shifts during the government shutdown, but also taking extra shifts and extra responsibilities, as well as going above and beyond to serve those in their communities and help fellow employees,” CBS News reports.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, on Saturday demanded "some people ... get fired" over the fallout from a proposed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

Bacon was specifically referring to a statement from State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott, who on Saturday refuted claims made by U.S. senators at a press conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

According to Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Mike Rounds (R-SD), Secretary of State Marco Rubio distanced the United States from the proposed plan, telling senators the leaked 28-point plan "is not of the administration's position."

The senators cited a phone call from Rubio which "came at their request," Politico reports.

"Rubio, they said, agreed to walk them through the situation and gave the lawmakers permission to describe what he told them," according to Politico.

In a statement on X, King described the plan as "essentially the wish list of the Russians."

"This is blatantly false," Pigott wrote Saturday on X in response to King's tweet. "As Secretary Rubio and the entire administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians."

Responding to Pigott's statement, Bacon called the peace plan fallout "gross buffoonery" and demanded accountability for the saga.

"Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days," he wrote on X.

"This hurt our country and undermined our alliances, and encouraged our adversaries," Bacon added.

Bacon had previously spoken out against the leaked plan, which Politico reports sparked alarm among lawmakers as "global leaders railed] against it."

"President Trump’s plan to force Ukraine to give up more territory, to cut its Army by more than half, to never join NATO nor let foreign troops in its territory is an abomination," Bacon wrote Friday on X. "Freedom loving Americans must tell the President that we reject the worst appeasement seen since 1938. ... What makes President [Donald] Trump think we can now trust [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? This agreement weakens Ukraine and leaves them vulnerable to new Russian invasions in the years to come."

A three-judge appeals court panel in Birmingham, Alabama on Tuesday “gave a chilly reception to President Donald Trump’s bid to revive a sprawling racketeering lawsuit accusing his perceived political foes,” — and “made clear” they believe the lawsuit “violated federal court rules by vaguely linking too many defendants and too many legal claims,” Politico reports.

William Pryor Jr., a George W. Bush appointee and the chief judge in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called the lawsuit “a classic shotgun complaint.”

The suit involves Trump’s accusation that foes including Hillary Clinton and James Comey “[conspired] to tar him with false allegations that he collaborated with Russia,” Politico reports.

The panel is “also heard arguments over a nearly $1 million penalty a court imposed on Trump and his then-attorney Alina Habba for filing and persisting in the lawsuit a judge determined in 2023 to be frivolous,” according to the report.

Read the full report at Politico.

Washington D.C. correspondent David Gardner on Wednesday revealed which member of Donald Trump’s Cabinet will be first to go, telling podcast host Joanna Coles to “watch out for January and Pete Hegeseth."

Noting Trump’s penchant for rapid turnover during his first term, Gardner explained he was “told early on that Trump did not want a repeat of his first administration, where it was kind of chaos.”

“He was firing people, hiring people, it was a lot of unrest within the administration,” Gardner noted of Trump's first administration.

According to Gardner, he was “ told [Trump] was going to give most of his leading Cabinet members a year, so there wasn’t this kind of constant departure thing.”

“So my guess is, watch out for January and Pete Hegseth, because I don’t think he’s going to last much longer than that first year,” Gardner said.

Trump’s so-called “Secretary of War" is “taking very much a back step” to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Gardner said.

“So he’s bottom of the list in terms of efficiency and top of the list in terms of suck ups,” the correspondent added.

Per the Daily Beast:

“I don’t think he’s trusting him,” [Gardener] said of Trump and Hegseth. “I seem to remember the last meeting in the Middle East, he was put on a separate plane from the others, Hegseth. Again, sending a message perhaps.”

CNN host Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday cornered Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) with specific examples of how President Donald Trump’s policies are hurting his home state — and appeared to stump the Republican senator on several occasions.

Asked about the ongoing partial government shutdown, Sheehy gave a lengthy reply about the appropriations process before tearing into the “stupid [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer shutdown.”

Collins told Sheehy that Trump’s approach to this shutdown — chiefly, “cutting programs and laying off federal workers — “[has] literally never happened before in the last 14” government shutdowns, and pressed the senator on the president’s “unprecedented step.” The CNN host specifically called out Trump’s cut to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, a fund Sheehy himself had “signed a letter in support of earlier this year.”

“The president says they're only cutting programs and Democrat stuff,” Collins said. “Is that a Democrat fund that you supported?”

Sheehy insisted Trump will use “every tool in his toolbox” and argued “there have to be consequences for bad behavior” before launching into another monologue about the "Schumer shutdown."

Later in the segment, Collins pushed back on Sheehy’s claim that the Democrats want to fund "healthcare for non citizens, illegal immigrants”— and called out the Republican senator for “getting off [the] topic” of Trump’s cancelled programs.

“[Healthcare] is not for people who are here illegally,” Collins said. “It's people who have different legal status, people who are seeking asylum, refugees … But I ask on the program's part because—“

“Yeah, but saying non citizens is accurate, though,” Sheehy insisted.

“You said people who are here illegally,” Collins explained. “But those are different things. I mean, maybe you don't like Temporary Protected Status, but you're an immigrant with legal status.”

Sheehy tried to stop Collins from moving on, arguing “you can't just pave over that because a lot of people come under asylum, claim asylum, which are not actually asylum seekers."

“That's a legal process,” Collins replied. “You can change the law if you don't like it.”

As Sheehy continued to complain that people falsely claim asylum status, Collins told him he’s “getting off topic.”

“I think it's very much the topic,” Sheehy shot back.

Collins then got to her main point: The Department of Energy’s decision to cancel a $1 billion project that Montana’s own governor said would have created good paying Montana jobs and boost American-made energy.

“They just yanked $1 billion from that,” Collins noted. “So is that taking away good paying jobs in Montana?”

"Of course it is, we want the government to be open,” Sheehy said.

Collins asked Sheehy to clarify if he thought the Trump administration’s decision to pull funding “is hurting [his] state.”

As Sheehy argued the shutdown as a whole is hurting his state, Collins noted “the Trump administration didn't have to make” the decision to pull “billion dollars from your state.”

"Well, I think the reality is we wouldn't be here if the government was still open,” Sheehy said. “And now we're going on week three of a pretty unnecessary shutdown."

Collins noted the U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright "actually" told her “they would have [shut down the project] even if the government wasn't shut down.”

“That was months in the making, even before the government shut down,” Collins said Wright told her.

“Well, that's unfortunate we're still shut down,” Sheehy replied. “We shouldn't be.”

The United States Supreme Court conservative supermajority has been “unrelenting” in it’s “abuse of its shadow docket” — and is leaving “lower courts scrambling to figure out what, exactly, is ‘law’ on any given day,” Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reports.

“Time and again, the conservative supermajority has altered or overturned precedent — usually in Donald Trump’s favor — without bothering to explain why," Stern writes. But, as the Slate Supreme Court journalist and attorney Madiba K. Dennie explain, one district judge is standing up to the Supreme Court.

According to Stern, “U.S. District Judge Myong Joun issued a really interesting order in the ongoing battle over Trump’s unlawful assault on the Education Department. … In May, Joun issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from destroying the department by firing so many of its employees that it couldn’t function anymore. The Supreme Court then froze that injunction without explaining why.”

READ MORE: 'Truly shocking': Security fears mount as Trump takes off with ‘Russian KGB spy’

“But Joun also issued a different injunction in a related case that specifically barred the government from dismantling the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and protected its employees from termination,” Stern adds.

As Stern reports, “after SCOTUS set aside the first injunction, the Justice Department asked Joun to halt his second injunction as well. On Wednesday, he refused, writing that the court’s ‘unreasoned stay order issued on its emergency docket does not make or signal any change in controlling law.’”

“So he saw no reason to undo his own injunction,” Stern notes.

According to Dennie, “Shadow docket stays are not supposed to have any precedential value.” The attorney wants district judges to “think a little bit creatively” if the Supreme Court "is going to take such liberties with the law.”

READ MORE: 'Financial ruin': Trump's White House is terrified of losing this lawsuit

To Stern, Joun was clearly “calling out the conservative justices here for disrupting lower-court decisions without any justification.”

Dennie calls Juan’s approach “a brilliant way of flipping the burden.”

“It brings to mind this concept of malicious compliance, where you’re technically doing what you’re supposed to, but in a way that actually thwarts the goals of the powers that be,” she says. “It also reminds me of uncivil disobedience—getting in the way, but using perfectly lawful tools.”

Read the full interview at Slate.

READ MORE: This single sentence will fast-track Trump to a prison cell

Former Republican and founder of The Lincoln Project Rick Wilson on Sunday delivered a stark warning for Democrats as Texas Republicans work to change the state’s congressional map to provide President Donald Trump with more reliably red districts.

“Republicans are looking for a cheat code for the 2026 election,” Wilson explained on MSNBC. “They recognize already they're in deep trouble in a lot of these House districts across the country that are contested seats. They are now looking for a way to cheat on this.”

“As a former Republican, I will tell you, the ‘Just Win, Baby’ rule is the first and only rule," he continued. "If the Democrats do not go into this and think, ‘We’re going to have to have a countervailing amount of new seats in other states,’ they're insane They will get their heads handed to them."

READ MORE: 'Here it comes': Outrage as leaked Trump admin memo suggests 'the worst we've been waiting for'

“Play the game the way they're playing it, because this is the game we are in,” Wilson urged Democrats.

Journalist Molly Jong-Fast agreed with Wilson, warning Democrats are in “an existential fight.”

“If [Republicans] have control of the House in 2026, I don't think they'll certify a Democrat in 2028, no matter who it is,” Jong-Fast explained.

Wilson later slammed Texas Republicans for kowtowing to the Trump administration.

READ MORE: 'It was all lies': Outrage as Trump walks back major pro-family campaign promise

“The whole image that Texas Republicans had of themselves were, you know, ‘We're the libertarian independent cowboys. We don't need that that federal government telling us what to do,’” Wilson said. “And now it's like, ‘Yes, master, i'll go sit in the c——— chair.’ These people have lowered themselves so far into Donald Trump's obedient little errand boys that none of this fits with the so-called character that they play on TV. They're not independent. they're doing what Trump wants.”

Watch the clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Already feeling it in Texas': Mayors in Trump-voting states warn his policies imperil residents

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb on Friday explained why President Donald Trump is likely to side with Attorney General Pam Bondi over FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett it would be “a huge embarrassment” for Trump to fire his attorney general.

Bongino is reportedly considering resigning over Bondi’s handling of the “Epstein Files” after the Department of Justice and FBI “concluded they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered,” according to a memo detailed Sunday by Axios.

Bongino — who in the past has “fueled” conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death and relationships with powerful individuals in government — didn’t show up for work Friday, Trump confidant Laura Loomer reports. And, according to Axios, “a source close to Bongino … said ‘he ain't coming back.’"

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Cobb, who served as a member of the Trump administration legal team during the president’s first term in office, said he was surprised the “Epstein Files” have proven to be such a thorn in his former boss’ side.

“I think it’s very odd that it's the ‘Epstein Files’ because I just don't think — and I certainly don't believe the president ever thought — the ‘Epstein Files’ would be this problematic for him,” Cobb said. “Not because, you know, he's not implicated. There are seven trips that he took on the ‘Lolita Express,’ the records are out on that. There are many pictures of him surrounded by 13-year-old girls on the plane … We’ve seen him and Epstein, you know, in pictures together and talking and recordings of, you know, their affection for each other.”

“But I think the theory that this would be what the circular firing squad would form on, I don’t think anybody saw that coming,” he added.

Cobb insisted Bongino “either has to come back from the weekend and say he's sorry, he had a bad day and looks forward to working with his esteemed colleagues and moving forward. Or he's gone.”

READ ALSO: Trump's goal isn’t to restore American greatness — it's much more sinister

“Because Bondi is not going,” Cobb said. “For a specific reason, which is Bondi, like [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth, is very senior to the other people in their departments who are screwing up. And while they've both been a huge embarrassment and done some just astonishing things … for the history of the country, if [Trump] terminates one of them, he picked him and he put him in those senior positions, and it'll be a huge embarrassment to him.”

“So the further down the pecking order you go, if you're Trump and his thinking if somebody leaves that's further down — if it's not the top dog, it's not as big a reflection on him,” Cobb said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who describes himself as a representative of “the base of the MAGA party that got [President Donald] Trump elected,” on Sunday slammed the president and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over the administration’s escalation of war with Iran.

Speaking with CNN’s Manu Raju, Massie urged the president to “go back and look at the first Iraq War, where the president came to Congress and we debated and voted before they waged war.”

“The notion that this isn't an act of war, I find ludicrous,” Massie argued. “This is a hot war. There are two nations, Israel and Iran, trading volleys of missiles every night. Every day. And we're a co-belligerent now in this war.”

READ MORE: 'I know that better than you': Marco Rubio spars with CBS’ Margaret Brennan in heated exchange

Massie added he’s concerned “this could turn into a protracted, prolonged engagement.”

“I’m here to represent the, you know, the base of the MAGA party that got Trump elected,” Massie said. “Most of us were tired of the wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and we were promised that we wouldn't be engaging in another one. Yet here we see this happening, and there's a, you know, the president and the administration say, ‘Oh, we're done. We've had our little bombing, and now this is over.’ But what happens if this drags on between Israel and Tel Aviv gets pummeled by Iran, is President Trump going to say ‘We're going to sit by and not do anything’ in that instance?”

“I'm just, I'm leery of this, given everything that's happened before,” Massie explained.

Raju asked Massie “about how the speaker of the House has handled this military escalation,” asking if he agrees with former Rep. Justin Amash that Speaker Johnson should “step down or be immediately removed because he has completely abrogated his responsibilities under the Constitution.”

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene attacks Ocasio-Cortez: 'Pathetic little hypocrite'

“Well, I think there's a conundrum there with the speaker's assertion that there was an imminent threat,” Massie said. “If there was an imminent threat, [why] not call us back from our recess? We were on recess last week, and I went to special effort to offer a War Powers Resolution while everybody was on vacation.”

“In reality, if Speaker Johnson thought that America was in danger imminently, he should have brought us all back to Congress,” Massie argued. “Yet he did not.”

Asked if Johnson should step down, Massie said he’s “not a fan of the speaker,” but “he's the speaker as long as Trump wants him to be the speaker.”

“If Trump gets tired of Speaker Johnson, he better clean out his desk because that's how he's speaker,” Massie said. "He's just hanging on by doing whatever Trump wants. And in this case, it's an abrogation of our responsibility to debate matters of war. that's what Trump wants, and that's what Mike Johnson gave him. That is wrong.”

READ MORE: 'America First' buckles under 'transactional' Trump: 'Key question is whether MAGA continues after 2029'

“The Constitution requires Congress to weigh in on this," Massie added.

“There's some argument that, ‘Oh, there was an imminent threat, so the president can act for 60 days without a vote of Congress,’" Massie explained. "But here's the reality: After 60 days, he has to stop unless there is a vote. So at some point, I think we're going to be able to force a vote unless Speaker Johnson pulls some shenanigans with the rules committee.”

Asked if the attack on Iran will “alienate [Trump] from the base,” Massie noted the president “doesn’t have to run for reelection.”

“But it will, I think, fragment our party, this action that he's taken,” Massie said. “And it's going to hurt us in the midterms. We could lose the majority over this one issue.”

READ MORE: 'It’s supposed to be America First': Trump backers revolt as US strikes spark MAGA infighting

“I think this was a bad move politically, but it's also just a bad move legally and constitutionally and policy wise," he argued.

Asked if Trump broke a campaign promise by striking Iran, Massie said “absolutely.”

“He broke a campaign promise, and there are a lot of the base will say that, although not too many of my Republican colleagues will say that,” Massie explained. “They’re frankly afraid of him and they're also afraid of the Israel lobby in Congress that's given millions and millions of dollars to so many of my colleagues.”

Watch the video below via CNN, or at this link.

READ MORE: How an escalating crisis exposes Trump's fear of 'accountability': conservative

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Sunday launched an impassioned tirade against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) over the Democrat’s criticism of President Donald Trump’s “impulsive” attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday argued Trump’s Iran attack “is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachments.”

“The president’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitutional and Congressional War Powers,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations.”

“It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,” the Democratic congresswoman wrote.

In response, Greene called Ocasio-Cortez a “pathetic little hypocrite.”

"YOU fully supported our military and IC running the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine," Greene wrote. ”You don't get to play anti-war and moral outrage anymore."

Read the full report at Newsweek.

Conservative political commentator and Hoover Institution historian Victor Davis Hanson is explaining why President Donald Trump’s military action against Iran on Saturday surprised many in the media, telling the Sunday Times “Trump is neither an isolationist nor an interventionist, but rather transactional.”

“The media fails to grasp that, so it is confused why tough-guy Trump is hesitant to jump into Iran, or contrarily why a noninterventionist Trump would even consider using bunker busters against Iran,” Hanson said. “The common thread … is his perception of what benefits the US middle class — economically, militarily, politically and culturally.”

Trump on Saturday announced via a Truth Social post that his administration “completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran.” The move came after Trump, on Thursday, suggested “a two-week window and ‘a substantial chance of negotiation’ with Iran,” The Atlantic reports. That two-week window, Atlantic reporters Michael Scherer, Missy Ryan, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Shane Harris, and Jonathan Lemire write, was a “smoke screen.”

READ MORE: 'It’s supposed to be America First': Trump backers revolt as US strikes spark MAGA infighting

As the Sunday Times reports, Trump last week told reporters he’s “the one that decides” what “America First” really means. “Faced with a backlash from parts of his base over the prospect of the US supporting Israel in military action in Iran, the president said his word is final — ‘after all, I’m the one that developed America First’ — adding that ‘the term wasn’t used until I came along.'"

Of course, it’s not at all true that Trump is first to use "America First," as the Sunday Times points out with an extensive history of the slogan. But “he has driven the term back into usage,” Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer acknowledged. And that means “he has the most power to shape what it actually includes.”

But as a “transactional” president shapes the “America First” movement, members of the movement also shape the president's policies. As the Sunday Times wonders, “Is the president in control of the agenda — or is it the base that now owns it?”

“Enter the MAGA-verse — the network of former advisers, informal advisers and influencers free to speak, exerting varying degrees of influence on the president,” the Sunday Times reports. “One figure close to the White House says: ‘There are a bunch of people that we look to to see how things are landing.’ Indeed, the administration last week reached out to key figures as they tried to control the narrative. Now such efforts are required to contain the fallout.”

READ MORE: How an escalating crisis exposes Trump's fear of 'accountability': conservative

As AlterNet previously reported, some of Trump’s staunchest supporters — including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon — warn the president’s military escalation risks alienating his base.

“There’s a lot of MAGA who are not happy about this,” Bannon said on his podcast shortly after Saturday’s strikes.

And Bannon’s opinion definitely matters among MAGA devotees.

“Everybody just folds to whatever big corporate interest there is and this administration is only slightly different to that,” an insider told Sunday Times. “Steve keeps a check on it.”

READ MORE: Why Trump 'should be careful what he wishes for' with 'shameless' DOJ push

But Trump's allies won’t turn on the president on a whim, the Sunday Times reports.

“For now, most agree — at least publicly — that Trump is king,” according to the Sunday Times. “Yet privately what is making the base so jumpy is this idea that Trump is being forced by the deep state into the default establishment policy position. If it happens to Trump, what chance does his successor have?”

For Hanson the historian, the mantra “Trump decides” rings true.

"Almost everyone who tried to redefine MAGA or take on Trump has mostly lost rather than gained influence,” Hanson said.
But it appears interesting times lie ahead in the battle for the soul of MAGA.

“The key question is whether MAGA continues after 2029, given Trump’s unique willingness to take on the left rhetorically and concretely in a way that far exceeds the Reagan revolution, and in truth, any prior Republican. Trump’s bellicosity, volatility, and resilience — his willingness to win ugly rather than lose nobly — ensure him credibility and goodwill among the base that in turn allows him greater latitude and patience,” Hanson explained.

Read the full report at the Sunday Times.

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Followers of the Make America Great Again movement, including vocal supporters of President Donald Trump, are voicing their frustration with the president after he launched a strike Saturday on Iranian nuclear sites.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

As Financial Times reports, former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon told his podcast listeners “shortly after the strikes” that “an overwhelming majority of the people [in the US] don’t want to get involved in any of this.”

READ MORE: How an escalating crisis exposes Trump's fear of 'accountability': conservative

Bannon accuses Israel of “essentially [forcing] President Trump’s hand” in the escalating conflict.

“A lot of people I know that are Israel supporters are going to say — why are we doing the heavy lift here and why are we engaging in combat operations in a war that’s a war of choice?” Bannon asked.

Rightwing podcaster Theo Von told his followers “it just feels like we’re working for Israel,” Financial Times reports.

“I felt like it was supposed to be America First,” Von said. “… I think to a lot of people it’s . . . you just start to feel very disillusioned pretty quickly . . . in our leaders.”

READ MORE: Why Trump 'should be careful what he wishes for' with 'shameless' DOJ push

Per the Financial Times:

Matthew Boyle, Washington bureau chief of rightwing populist news website Breitbart, said Trump had a lot of explaining to do supporters in his MAGA base who would have preferred the US to stay out of the war.

“He’s got to win this movement over and bring them with him, and take proactive steps to do that,” he said. “He’s got to win that trust back from people.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who Politico reports "has clashed with Trump and is one of the most vocal Republican detractors of U.S. involvement in Iran," said the president's attack "is not [c]onstitutional."

Still, as Politico reports, some “Republican skeptics of U.S. military action against Iran [are] largely falling in line” with the president.

“Iran gave President Trump no choice,” conservative Charlie Kirk wrote in a tweet. “For a decade he has been adamant that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. Iran decided to forego diplomacy in pursuit of a bomb. This is a surgical strike, operated perfectly. President Trump acted with prudence and decisiveness.”

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Former Trump attorney general pick Matt Gaetz likewise praised the president as “the Peacemaker.”

“President Trump basically wants this to be like the Solimani strike — one and done,” Gaetz claimed. “No regime change war. Trump the Peacemaker!

Read the full report at the Financial Times.