Nick Hilden

Sluggish World Cup ticket sales hit Trump where it hurts: his crowd size obsession

President Donald Trump is famously obsessed with crowd size to the point where he will outright lie about visibly poor attendance. With that in mind, the Daily Beast noted on Tuesday that he is poised to be “humiliated” by dismal World Cup ticket sales.

According to a new analysis by the Financial Times, “almost 180,000 tickets for the tournament, which kicks off on Thursday, are still available on FIFA’s official resale portals. FIFA also has around 15,000 tickets for group-stage matches unsold on its website.” As a result, “scenes of thousands of empty seats in stadiums across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico could prove particularly embarrassing for the crowd-size-obsessed Trump.”

The same analysis found that the U.S. is having a particularly difficult time selling tickets. For example, there are nearly 5,000 tickets still available via FIFA’s resale portal for the USA-Paraguay opener in Los Angeles mere days before the whistle blows.

Experts say there are a number of factors contributing to poor sales, but the key problem involves sky-high, unpredictable pricing. Even with resale price cuts, median ticket costs are upwards of $800, and it’s worse when it comes to new ticket sales, with the lowest direct-from-FIFA price at $1,120.

“For the first time,” explains the Daily Beast, “FIFA has used so-called ‘variable pricing’ — also known as dynamic pricing, in which ticket prices rise or fall based on demand — at a World Cup. This has seen prices for some tickets, such as Thursday’s World Cup opener between Mexico and South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, skyrocket to as much as $3,000. Even tickets for lower-profile games in the 48-team tournament still cost at least $140. As noted by The Athletic, the ticket price for any game at any stage of the 2026 World Cup is higher than the equivalent ticket at any previous tournament.”

As a result, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and New York Attorney General Letitia James have launched an investigation into FIFA’s ticketing and pricing practices.

Whatever the investigation turns up, the games this year are going to be sparsely attended. This isn’t going to look great for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who famously — and according to some reports, embarrassingly — bestowed Trump with FIFA’s first “peace prize,” which was widely viewed as an effort to curry the president’s favor after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s also sure to rile Trump, who has a famous crowd size fixation.

As the Daily Beast explains, “Throughout his political career, Trump has desperately tried to prove his popularity by citing crowd sizes at his rallies and other public events. This obsession dates back to his 2017 inauguration, which the president claimed had the highest-ever attendance for such an event despite photos proving otherwise. Trump has also frequently inflated the size of the crowds at his political rallies, sometimes by tens of thousands of people.”

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Nobel economist warns MAGA egos are driving America’s decline

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out on Tuesday, President Donald Trump keeps making decisions that have experts “mystified” by their illogic. These actions, writes Krugman, are not only motivated by little more than “fragile MAGA egos,” but are effectively “undermining America.”

For example, Trump’s approach to drone warfare — or lack thereof. As Krugman writes, “Drones have rapidly transformed modern war. The U.S. military, the most sophisticated, best supplied force in history, has been humiliated by Iran, largely thanks to Iran’s effective use of inexpensive drones to menace shipping, energy production, and even U.S. bases. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s growing superiority in drone warfare is increasingly giving it the upper hand over Russia.”

In this context, “shouldn’t the United States be eager to make a drone deal with Ukraine, benefiting from its technology and expertise? Apparently not. The Hill reports that Donald Trump has been dragging his feet on such a deal, quoting U.S. military analysts who say that they don’t understand the delay and that they are ‘mystified.’ But I assume that they’re being disingenuous and prefer to avoid saying the obvious. In fact, Trump’s unwillingness to make a deal that would clearly benefit America’s national interest is no mystery at all.”

Then there’s “Trump’s virulent opposition to green energy."

“In the past few years,” explains Krugman, “radical declines in the cost of solar power, wind power, and batteries — which solve the problem that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow — have made renewables the most cost-effective way to generate electricity. By contrast, coal is completely unviable. Yet Trump is trying to block renewable energy projects any way he can and has just invoked wartime authority to spend $700 million subsidizing new power plants using ‘clean, beautiful’ coal.”

Krugman explains that part of Trump’s motivation is financial, as fossil fuel producers put big money into Trump’s 2024 campaign. At the same time, however, “clean energy has become a bogeyman in the culture wars: mining and burning coal are considered ‘manly’ activities, while renewable energy is portrayed as woke and effeminate. Real men don’t worry about black lung and airborne particulates, let alone climate change. So a combination of big money and fragile male egos drives Green Derangement Syndrome.”

Getting back to drone warfare, Krugman suggests that Trump’s hesitancy toward the technology stems from a combination of money and male ego.

On one hand, “America has a huge, highly profitable defense industry, dedicated to a suite of technologies that are rapidly being rendered obsolete, as $4 million Patriot missiles, that take years to build, are being used to shoot down $35,000 Shahed drones that can be manufactured in months. So it wouldn’t be surprising if defense-industry interests are playing a significant role in the Trump administration’s refusal to admit that the rules of war have changed — the same way that fossil fuel companies have campaigned against the new realities of energy technology. After all, a deal with drone-savvy Ukrainians would mean less money going to US defense contractors.”

At the same time, “recognition of the drone revolution in warfare by Trump and his inner circle would require that they abandon their fantasy of macho military power. Pete Hegseth has been purging the military of capable officers — especially Blacks and women — he considers insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. Beyond loyalty tests, however, he has exalted the importance of ‘warrior ethos’ and physical fitness, as if he were leading the 300 Spartans rather than a high-tech military in an age of drones and electronic warfare.”

Krugman says this is the same logic driving Trump’s other outdated military endeavors. As Krugman writes, the president “is in love with big, expensive weapons as symbols of virility and power. He’s still pushing for giant ‘Trump-class’ battleships, even though they would be sitting ducks in a modern war. Just ask the Ukrainians, who have used missiles and naval drones to force Russia’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet to cower in a fortified refuge. But Trump doesn’t want to give up his fantasies.”

In Krugman’s estimation, “There is no mystery about why Trump refuses to make a drone deal with Ukraine. Never mind the national interest. In military strategy as in energy policy, Trump is betraying America in the service of money and machismo.”

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Judge reveals Trump’s strategy: 'Break things' so fast no one can stop him

Over the course of both Trump terms, he and his allies have used a “flood the zone” approach where they attempt to overwhelm opponents with controversial actions and statements so quickly that response becomes impossible. Now, the court wrangling over President Donald Trump’s controversial ballroom reveals that he applies a similar strategy to his vanity and construction projects: “move fast and break things and nobody has standing.”

This is according to Lawfare senior editor Molly Roberts, who was directly quoting the judge overseeing the case — a characterization with which Trump’s lawyers openly agreed.

Roberts was on hand for the oral arguments between attorneys representing the White House and those for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the latter of which had filed for an injunction barring construction while the case was heard. That injunction was granted while allowing only construction “strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds” to continue pending appeal. The White House then tried to argue that the ruling actually allowed for the construction of the ballroom, arguing that the whole thing was vital for security, which the judge did not buy, reaffirming that aboveground construction must halt until approved by Congress. The president’s ‘break things’ approach was revealed in the subsequent appeal.

According to Roberts, these latest appeal proceedings are “simultaneously more like and more unlike your typical litigation than those following the matter might have expected. More like, because the lawyer presenting for the government sounds like a lawyer and not the president on a Truth Social spree… Less like, because what this lawyer is saying is that neither these judges nor any can stop the administration from building what it wants to build once it has started building them. Not now, not ever.”

During oral arguments, after much back and forth, the White House lawyers essentially argued that once the president had already taken certain actions on the basis of security — such as, say, bulldozing the White House East Wing — there was no legal mechanism allowing a lawsuit to be brought against the government. The judge then raised a specific example: what if the White House were gone? Say an administration decides that security justifies an entirely new building, tears down the White House, and then someone decides to sue. Would such a suit be legal?

According to Roberts, White House lawyers argued that it would not be if the destruction of the original White House had already occurred.

“So move fast and break things and nobody has standing?” asked the judge. “Bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, and as long as the government does it fast enough, too bad, nothing to be done?”

“I think that’s right,” said the White House attorney.

What’s more, the judge had an important question about what would happen were construction allowed to proceed while the case was heard. If the government lost a year or so down the line and the ballroom was declared illegal, would the White House tear it down, or would its argument, “for the same safety and security reasons, be we can’t take it down?” The White agreed with the latter.

“So your position is this can’t be stopped by a court?” the judge asked. “That court, this court, the Supreme Court, no court could stop the building of this?”

The White House agreed.

“If this were complete lawlessness by the government,” the judge pressed, “it couldn’t be stopped?”

“Yes,” Roberts explained. According to the Trump administration, “even if the ballroom construction were complete lawlessness by the government, only Congress — not the courts — would have any independent role in stopping it.”

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Trump attack on First Amendment receives major 'benchslap' from judge

Attacks against the press have been characteristic of President Donald Trump’s second term, and now it’s being reported that one of his most notable efforts to stifle the 1st Amendment has received a major “benchslap.”

“Just in,” tweeted Politico Senior Legal Affairs reporter Josh Gerstein on Monday. “Judge Roy Altman benchslaps Trump's attorneys in his $5 to 10 [billion] libel lawsuit against BBC, citing late filings and a missed deadline.”

His post was attached to an image of the latest legal filing from Trump vs. British Broadcasting Corporation, in which the judge asserted, “Rather than timely file his response, the Plaintiff filed two eleventh-hour procedural motions the day his response was due. Neither motion explained why the Plaintiff delayed so long in seeking the requested relief or asked that we extend the response deadline…And, as of this writing, the Plaintiff has missed the deadline to file his response.”

None of that is good for Trump’s case, but the judge’s conclusion was even worse: “We hereby order that by June 10, 2026, the Plaintiff shall file notice with the docket explaining: (1) whether we should consider the Motion to Dismiss unopposed and (2) why we shouldn’t sanction the Plaintiff’s counsel for their apparent disregard of court deadlines.”

In other words, the Trump legal team has just two days to explain why the case shouldn’t be thrown out entirely and why they themselves should not face consequences for wasting the court’s time. This is an embarrassing blow amidst Trump’s wide-ranging war against the media, in which he has suffered losses but also achieved high-profile victories.

Trump’s wins have included high-value settlements with ABC and Paramount, the latter of which, it has been suggested, contributed to the firing of Stephen Colbert. Beyond litigation, the purchase of CNN by a Trump loyalist also resulted in the appointment of a new CBS News chief who has been accused of MAGA sympathies, resulting in a recent string of changes at Trump-targeted 60 Minutes, which fired correspondent Scott Pelley has called an effort to “murder” the legacy news program.

But Trump’s campaign against the press has also been checkered with humiliating losses. In April, a judge threw out his $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, saying the claims were a “groundless” attempt to level allegations before looking for evidence to support them. His lawyers have also just announced intentions to request that the Supreme Court reopen a $475 million lawsuit against CNN that was slapped down earlier this year.

Now, Trump appears to be losing his fight against the BBC. The president filed suit for as much as $10 billion against the network
under allegations that it had “maliciously” doctored a speech delivered by Trump shortly before the January 6th insurrection to make him appear responsible for the violence. His case has hit a number of stumbling blocks over the past year, but now it appears that it may be tossed out altogether.
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Trump and top ally are breaking up over this 'simmering disagreement': WSJ

According to the Wall Street Journal, the major escalation in fighting that broke out between Israel and Iran over the weekend highlights “growing disagreements” between President Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu about how Lebanon fits into the wider peace deal with Iran.

“Iran has conditioned that deal on an end to the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and its militia ally, Hezbollah,” explained the Wall Street Journal. “Tehran upped the ante overnight by firing waves of missiles at Israel after Israel attacked Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Despite Trump’s effort to calm the growing tensions, Israel retaliated against targets in Iran including an important petrochemical facility, extending an exchange of fire that Iran warned could pull in energy facilities across the region.”

“Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting,’” Trump posted Monday morning, followed shortly by the assertion that “Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE! Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.” The countries have broken off their attacks while threatening that they could resume.

Trump spoke with Netanyahu before and after the Israeli strikes, reports the Journal. These are the latest communications between the two leaders since it was previously reported that Trump had cursed Netanyahu out in another recent call following an attack against Lebanon, shouting that the Israeli prime minister is “crazy." In that call, Trump asserted that “everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” and suggested that Netanyahu would have been imprisoned for corruption were it not for the president’s backing.

According to Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, “Israel’s government wants to maintain the use of force as much as possible to achieve its interests in Lebanon and Iran, while the Trump administration is on a different page.” The latest burst of violence “brought new urgency to a simmering disagreement.”

“The tensions between the U.S. and Israel are becoming a defining characteristic of the current phase of the war,” explained the Journal, “much as unprecedented close cooperation between the two allies marked its beginning.” While the two countries are still militarily aligned, “election year political pressures are pushing Trump and Netanyahu farther apart.”

Both leaders are facing political headwinds. Trump and the Republicans are projected to receive major losses in the upcoming midterms due largely to skyrocketing gas prices resulting from the war. For his part, Netanyahu is under internal pressure over allegations that he’s let the U.S. decide issues that are considered vital to Israeli national security. Israel is “eager to keep fighting Hezbollah and Iran to degrade their capabilities,” and was on the verge of launching a major assault on Beirut last week when Netanyahu was stopped by Trump’s phone call.

According to the Journal, “While Trump wants to end the war with a deal that eases the pressure on oil markets and global consumers, Israel still holds on to hope it could end with some kind of Iranian capitulation.”

Iran is using Lebanon to test the credibility of U.S. security commitments, said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, chief executive of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, an economic think tank. “They want to see if Trump can restrain Israel in its own backyard. If Trump is able to do that, then he might be able to defend his own deal with Iran from further Israeli sabotage.”

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Trump launches 'unprecedented' new attack on US citizens

On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it will take action to revoke citizenship from 17 people across the country, which CNN reports is an "unprecedented" escalation in President Donald Trump’s push to target naturalized citizens.

“Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has doubled down on its denaturalization campaign, targeting foreign-born American citizens whom it accuses of fraudulently obtaining US citizenship,” CNN explains. “Denaturalization – the process of revoking citizenship from a naturalized US citizen – is rare and can only occur in federal court. Historically, the U.S. revoked citizenship for a range of reasons, from lying about a person’s date of arrival, age or marital status to political reasons.”

While under the Biden Administration, the Justice Department filed only 24 denaturalization cases over the entire term, the Trump Administration outpaced that in just one year, in May alone moving to denaturalize a dozen citizens.

“Gaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege and under the steadfast leadership of President Trump, this Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement on the latest effort. The new denaturalization cases, according to the government, are based on allegations ranging from immigration fraud to money laundering to sexual abuse.

Per CBS News, “In federal court complaints filed across the country in recent days, Justice Department officials argued that the individuals concealed their criminal activity when they applied for U.S. citizenship or were otherwise ineligible to be naturalized, including because they lacked a 'good moral character,' one of the requirements in the naturalization process.”

The White House’s latest push represents the largest single denaturalization effort in U.S. history. According to CBS News, “The denaturalization process allows the targeted citizens to challenge the government's filings to try to retain their citizenship. If U.S. citizens are denaturalized, they return to their prior immigration status, typically as permanent U.S. residents, and lose all the legal benefits of American citizenship, including protection from deportation.”

According to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the administration “will continue to use every lawful avenue to denaturalize and remove aliens.”

As NPR reports, however, this can be more difficult than the administration’s rhetoric may suggest.

"These are cases in which the law is pretty clear that people are entitled to due process,” said Daniel Kanstroom, professor of law at Boston College who specializes in immigration. “They're entitled to be heard by a federal judge, not just an immigration judge. So the protections in place for people facing denaturalization are pretty robust.”

Other legal experts have raised concerns about the lack of legal representation for some of the accused, or that the denaturalization process could be leveraged to stifle speech.

"The denaturalization efforts are an attempt to suppress the political speech of naturalized citizens," said Cassandra Robertson, law professor at Case Western Reserve University. "Although the cases that have been brought first are maybe people who've committed some pretty bad crimes, the government's rhetoric is certainly not limited to that."

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On-air Trump meltdown reveals 'widespread awareness' of his unmistakable 'mental illness'

On Sunday, President Donald Trump stormed off from a Meet the Press Interview after correspondent Kristen Welker noted that he had presented “no evidence” to support his claims that Democrats have been stealing elections. While he was primarily focused on the 2020 election he lost, he also asserted that the election underway in California is in the process of being stolen. When pushed for evidence, he began shouting about the “crooked” media before saying abruptly, “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” then tearing off his microphone and stomping from the set.

According to political reporter Brian Beutler, Trump’s eruption offers “something that could help us beat back his election lies more thoroughly,” as the president made the allegation when he had already “toppled the firewall separating the White House and Justice Department.”

“The lie rests incongruously alongside federal inaction,” Beutler explains. “If there were evidence of fraud, this Justice Department would collect it aggressively and bandy it about for the whole world to see. It would raid counting facilities and seize ballots and air allegations at press conferences. The fact that nothing of the sort has happened is a tell. It confirms widespread awareness, even in Trump’s orbit, that his lies are just what they appear to be. And it should mark a change in how the political establishment grapples with Trump’s addiction to promoting election conspiracy theories.”

In this context, Beutler argues that the media and others should change how they frame these matters, because it’s not merely that Trump has “no evidence” — “it’s that the election was not stolen.” While it may be prudent for a journalist to admit their own lack of certainty by raising that there is “no evidence,” it leaves Trump a door open because he can say there’s no proof that it wasn’t stolen, “because proving a negative is impossible.” So Beutler suggests that the inquiry shouldn’t end at lack of evidence, but should take into account that there is “substantial evidence that Trump knows his claims aren’t true.” As he notes, there have been plenty of examples of the president admitting his loss.

With all this in mind, says Beutler, a journalist’s response to Trump’s claims should be, “A thorough investigation established that you know you lost and are being dishonest about it.”

Beutler says that it could be that Trump’s “mental illness may have weakened his grasp on reality” to the point where he’s actually convinced himself he’s won to protect himself from “ego injury.” But now, when he tells such a lie regarding the election in California and his DOJ does nothing more than make a vague statement about investigating without providing evidence, not only of a crime, but even that an investigation is happening at all, it suggests that he and his allies don’t really believe their own allegations. If the conspiracy they assert is underway, “Where are the FBI agents executing search warrants? Where’s the urgency to get to the bottom of it?” But in all likelihood, writes Beutler, Trump won’t be able to find allies willing to carry out such an effort because it would constitute “severe crimes” for which they could be punished.

Therefore, Beutler suggests that “this should be the end of the line for playing cute with Trump’s election lies. People who care about the truth should call his bluff, here and now, in order to have it out over something less consequential than a federal election. It would not be good, exactly, for Trump et al to incite a mini insurrection in southern California, but it might force the rest of us to improve our civic hygiene. Less eye rolling, fewer weasel words, more fighting to vindicate the truth.”

To that end, prescribes Beutler, journalists should stop saying Trump has “no evidence” or that he “believes” Democrats rig elections. Instead, they should say outright that “he has a habit of lying about elections when he or his friends lose.” At the same time, whenever he tells such a lie, House Democrats should raise the issue of impeachment as “it’s hard to imagine a more clearly impeachable offense or grave violation of the presidential oath than Trump’s years-long concerted conspiracy to mislead the public about the integrity of elections.”

“We should thus stop trying to race past Trump’s lies as though dwelling upon them would be rude, like pointing at someone’s acne or mocking their nervous tic,” Beutler concludes. “We should work as hard to vindicate reality as he does to deceive, and maintain that energy until he leaves office or the lies stop.”

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DOJ still has 'bottomless pot of money' Trump can use to pay supporters: report

While it has been widely reported that President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund is dead, experts are pointing out that the White House may have another tool at its disposal for paying convicted January 6 insurrectionists that essentially amounts to a “bottomless pit of money.”

According to NBC News, the Judgement Fund allows the Justice Department to settle legal claims made against the government. Originally created to “eliminate the procedural burdens involved in getting an appropriation from Congress to pay a particular judgment,” the “bottomless pit of money” could allow J6ers to be paid by filing formal claims that only require the approval of a single DOJ official. Critics have long warned of its potential for misuse by the executive branch, arguing that Congress should place guardrails around how payouts are issued.

Trump allies at the Justice Department have previously suggested the idea of using the fund, such as Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who recently noted that he already has the authority “to settle any claim that is brought against the United States of America.” He raised the topic while discussing Trump’s controversial “anti-weaponization” fund, which bipartisan critics have decried as a “slush fund” for criminals.

Woodward claimed that the “anti-weaponization” fund would actually have more accountability than the Judgement Fund, as the former is overseen by five people rather than one. But as NBC News notes, those five commissioners would be appointed by Trump and could be fired at will.

While the new fund has received strong pushback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has argued that the “victims” of the Biden administration should be paid. In a recent post, he seemed to raise the idea of using the Judgement Fund to such ends, writing, “We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government. That does not need to be reinvented.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has told Congress that the Justice Department was “not moving forward” with the $1.8 billion fund, though as many have noted, the DOJ has merely agreed to adhere to a judge’s temporary delay order, not to end the effort entirely. The president’s statements on the matter have made it seem likely that the White House will continue to push for it. According to NBC News, “Trump said Wednesday that he didn’t know if the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund was dead or just on hold, but he called it ‘a beautiful thing’ that he loved and thought was ‘so important.’”

A number of Trump allies have already received payouts through the Judgement Fund, including Mike Flynn and Carter Page. What’s more, “The Trump administration has already paid settlements to some of those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The family of Ashli Babbitt — who was shot and killed after she jumped through a broken window of the House Speaker’s Lobby — received just under $5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by her family.” According to NBC News, "Hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants have already signed up with lawyers to seek compensation from the Justice Department. Nine Jan. 6 participants filed a lawsuit this week seeking more than $1 million each related to their ‘injuries and losses relating to the protest on January 6, 2021.’”

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Back-to-back 'Trump-induced' headaches snarl GOP agenda

The past several weeks have been a legislative nightmare for the GOP, as both party infighting and the actions of President Donald Trump have foiled and stalled key priorities. Now, writes Politico congressional reporter Mia McCarthy, “Republicans are about to put one Donald Trump-induced headache behind them — but another is right behind it.”

The issues at the center of these difficulties are the immigration budget reconciliation bill and FISA spy powers, both of which have been grappled over for months as Trump has complicated their passage.

On Tuesday, it is expected that the House will submit the former to the president for approval. Assuming that he signs off, it will be cause for Republicans to breathe a sigh of relief, as the struggle over the bill has been a long and embarrassing fight, with the airport chaos caused by a lack of DHS funding several months ago fanning talk of the headwinds the party faces heading into the midterms.

But even if he does sign it, the GOP’s Trump-inspired headache appears likely to persist as he has “all but quashed” chances of passing the FISA extension by appointing Bill Pulte as Director of National Security, which even conservative lawmakers have admitted is a blatant effort to weaponize the role. Pulte not only has no experience in national intelligence, but has a track record for helping Trump advance the persecution of his enemies.

As Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SC) declared, “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there… If he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got a lengthy road ahead of him.”

Critics say that the contested FISA provision would provide such a Trump loyalist with a powerful tool for spying on his opponents, as the primary concern that has previously barred its passage was its allowance for the warrantless surveillance of communications. Now for it to advance before its Friday deadline, it will require substantial support from skeptical Democrats, putting the legislation in jeopardy.

“The idea that we’re going to allow Mr. Pulte to be potentially in charge of how this tool is used or manipulated, that’s going to be a very uphill path to convince Democrats,” said Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Senate Intelligence Democrat. “This was a self-inflicted harm.”

Warner had been collaborating with Republicans to pass a three-year extension, but Pulte’s appointment has torpedoed the effort, particularly after Trump announced his intention to have Pulte conduct mass firings within the intelligence branches. While Democrats haven’t quite gone so far as to say outright that they would bar the extension over Pulte, congressional Republicans have been admitting that its passage appears unlikely.

According to McCarthy, “The path is extremely narrow. About 15 Senate Democratic votes needed, Warner said, and very few are willing to give Trump and his hand-picked new intel chief the benefit of the doubt.”

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Trump struck out on every front this week

As NewsNation contributor Lindsey Granger pointed out on Friday, the previous week had two trends butting up against one another: the final hour for the GOP to advance key agenda priorities, and the fight over some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial actions yet. And as Granger concludes, the week proved that while Trump likes to talk a big game, he’ll more likely strike out than not as his presidency crumbles around him.

“Over the last several days, some of President Trump’s biggest priorities have either stalled, been blocked or collapsed under bipartisan opposition,” Granger explained. “And increasingly, the pushback isn’t just coming from Democrats — it’s coming from Republicans, judges and even members of his own administration.”

Granger pointed to Iran as an example, saying, “This week, the House delivered one of the most significant rebukes of Trump’s presidency when lawmakers passed a war powers resolution aimed at limiting his ability to continue military action without congressional approval. What made that vote notable wasn’t just the outcome, it was that four Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to get it across the finish line. That’s a clear signal that concerns about the conflict are extending beyond party lines and unlike the president, congressional members do think about Americans finances when it comes to the war in Iran.”

As for Trump’s widely criticized “anti-weaponization” fund, “The Justice Department abandoned plans for a controversial almost $1.8 billion fund that critics argued could have become a political “slush fund” benefiting Trump allies and even January 6 defendants. The proposal drew so much backlash — again, including from Republicans — that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche ultimately pulled the plug.” And while a budget reconciliation amendment failed to ban the fund entirely, the fact that it was sponsored by a Republican Senator and voted for by another suggests major cracks in Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP. To make matters worse for the president, four prominent Republican Senators then broke ranks to kill an amendment that would have implemented Trump’s much-demanded SAVE America Act, which critics say would disenfranchise tens of millions of voters.

“Meanwhile,” said Granger, “another Trump initiative ran into a brick wall in federal court. A judge ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center and ruled that the administration could not proceed with plans to effectively rebrand the institution without congressional approval. The court also halted plans to close the center for a lengthy renovation project. The message was simple: Congress named it the Kennedy Center, and only Congress can change that.”

All of this, says Granger, suggests a pattern: “The president is spending enormous political capital on fights that are generating resistance while some of his biggest policy goals remain unfinished…While the administration continues to launch controversial initiatives, the institutions designed to provide checks and balances are pushing back, because there is a right and a wrong way to do things. The result is a president who increasingly finds himself spending time defending plans instead of advancing them.”

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Jim Cramer calls out Trump official to his face for ignoring 'struggling Americans'

Longtime financial pundit Jim Cramer is worried. While President Donald Trump and his allies applaud Friday’s positive jobs report, Cramer thinks they’re not paying enough attention to the economic needs of “struggling Americans.”

While the news that job numbers have increased by 172,000 is theoretically good, Cramer posted that he is “concerned that the administration is not sensitive to the huge number of people who are struggling because of gasoline and higher rates.”

He specifically called out National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who had appeared on Cramer’s CNBC show Friday morning, where the official seemed to suggest that the positive jobs report means the Fed should increase interest rates. Cramer did not like what he heard.

“Kevin, I’m a little surprised at you,” Cramer replied. “You sound like you’re part of that group which says we have to have rate hikes, and that’s a little disappointing. And I say it’s disappointing because if you’re listening to the Dollar General Call […] you’re going to hear things that are quite different from what you say, which is there’s a group of people in this country, if you listen to the people who make homes and try to sell them, a group of people in this country that are very disenfranchised.”

Hassett then tried to backpedal on his rate hike suggestion, but Cramer wasn’t having it, taking issue with the official’s assertion that “everybody’s doing well.”

“What you’re saying is that everybody’s doing well,” argued Cramer. “There’s a considerable part of the people who are not doing well in this country, and they need the help of the Fed, and I’m surprised that you’re not addressing those people — the people who make less than forty thousand dollars in this country who need help, have seen SNAP benefits decline, who have the higher gasoline prices because of the war with Iran. What about them?”

While much of their debate spotlighted interest rates, as Cramer noted, focusing on what positive economic indicators there are also ignores gas prices, which have skyrocketed due to Trump’s decision to launch war with Iran. While gas prices have come down slightly from the peak in mid-May, they’re still up by over 40 percent versus February.

What’s more, on Thursday, oil industry leaders warned Trump that prices are likely to increase significantly over the coming weeks. In the U.S., the worst of the oil cost climbs have been staved off by digging into reserves, but those stockpiles are “at dangerously low levels already” and about to run dry. Complicating matters further, even if Trump were to secure a deal to end the war and open the Hormuz Strait tomorrow, it would still take months for production to ramp back up and bring costs back down.

When Cramer pressed Hassett on these everyday issues hitting American pocketbooks, the latter could do little but resort to bluster.

“Well, obviously, we care about everybody,” Hassett claimed.

“Oh?” Cramer replied skeptically.

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Economist reveals​ 'clear pain point' in Trump’s economy that jobs report misses

On Friday, the Trump administration celebrated a better-than-expected jobs report, which showed the U.S. gained 172,000 jobs in May. But while President Donald Trump may be patting himself on the back, one respected economist warns that the good news misses a “clear paint point” that shows the economy is shakier than the job numbers suggest.

“This is the clear pain point in the economy,” posted Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal. “Wage growth in May was the lowest in 5 years. May wage gains: 3.4 percent (for past year). May inflation: Likely to be ~4 percent.”

That’s bad math for the economy, meaning that inflation is outpacing wage gains. Or as Long puts it, “It's easier to get a job now, but it's hard to find a job where your pay will keep up with current inflation.” What’s more, Long notes that wage gains have hit their lowest point in five years, since May 2021, when the pandemic was still wreaking havoc on the global economy.

Other experts have agreed with Long’s not-so-fast assessment of Friday’s positive job report.

According to Bankrate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick, “It's very likely, given recent trends, that real wages will continue to fall and workers and their families will find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.” Hamrick also argues that affordability challenges have reduced job mobility, and that what job growth there has been is limited to a few sectors, which doesn’t bode well for economic strength overall. At the same time, he suggests that a strong labor market makes it less likely that the Fed will cut the interest rate, resulting in higher borrowing costs and slower business expansion.

And as U.S. economic policy expert and former chief economist for the GOP Ways and Means Committee, Donald Schneider, noted, there is an interesting correlation between the rising job numbers and the removal of a key Trump policy: tariffs. Schneider shared a chart that plots both the effective tariff rate and job growth, saying, “These things might be related.”

The chart indicates that as Trump’s tariffs began to fall at the end of last year, the plunging job growth rate started leveling off. Then tariffs plummeted after the Supreme Court slapped them down in February, and lo and behold, that’s precisely when the job numbers began racing upwards. So as Scheider points out, there appears to be a direct link between the two trends. Trump has announced his intentions to reintroduce tariffs.

Europac chief economist Pete Schiff noted another issue with the job news, posting, “Unfortunately, all of those jobs were either in leisure and hospitality, or in government or government-related services. That drives demand for imported goods, increasing trade deficits and goods prices.”

As one of his respondents explained, “We are subsidizing consumer demand without creating the domestic goods to match. Pumping government payrolls and service wages gives consumers cash to spend, but since the U.S. isn't producing physical goods, that liquidity immediately leaks out of the country to buy foreign imports.”

“Exactly,” Schiff agreed.

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Ex-RNC chair slams hypocrisy of Trump’s fondness for 'svelt men in uniforms'

On Friday morning, former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele delivered a social media gut punch to President Donald Trump, declaring that the commander-in-chief “might think of himself as a UFC champ, but in real life he’s more of a McDonald’s guy.” The prominent conservative’s jab came in reference to the UFC cage match Trump is preparing to host at the White House, which is being held in mid-June to mark the United States’ 250th birthday as well as Trump’s 80th.

“Trump wants to create the perfect backdrop as he rings in his 80th year to a testosterone-soaked spectacle of blood and chokeholds,” continued Steele, “surrounded by svelt men in uniforms.”

Steele made the statement while sharing an article in which he asserted that “the fitness requirements for Trump’s UFC fight show [are] a double standard.” He starts the piece by noting the inherently ridiculous nature of the event, but says that “somehow, the cage match isn’t even the height of absurdity.”

Citing recent reporting by the Washington Post, Steele goes on to explain that “military troops hoping to attend must meet specific body composition and fitness standards. In a memo that reads more like a casting call than a military directive, the Pentagon says service members seeking tickets to Trump’s UFC event must satisfy specific height-to-waist standards and meet all fitness requirements.”

“I wouldn’t normally pass judgement on other people’s fitness,” notes Steele, “but the president is the one who started this, and it’s not the first time he’s brought up the subject.” In fact, as Steele details, Trump is outright obsessed with the perception of fitness, if not its reality.

“The president has spent years cultivating an image of himself as a peak specimen of physical vigor,” writes Steele. “Former White House physician Ronny Jackson famously described him as having ‘incredibly good genes.’ Earlier this year, Trump’s latest White House physician reported that he stood 6-foot-3, weighed 224 pounds and enjoyed ‘excellent cognitive and physical health.’ One of the supporting pieces of evidence? His golf victories. Can we stop with this nonsense? At the reported ‘238’ pounds and a BMI of 29.7, Trump sits just shy of the obesity cutoff. It’s very convenient math.”

As Steele explains, Trump has long displayed a fragile relationship with measurements of all kinds, “whether we’re talking about crowd sizes, election margins or, apparently, his own height. When he stood next to Prince William, who is also 6-foot-3, Trump appeared visibly shorter. Social media has receipts. The mystery of his real height resurfaced when Lara Trump, who is 5-foot-11, appeared nearly the same height as the reportedly 6-foot-3 president in an Instagram video for her show, ‘My View With Lara Trump.’ In photos from China, she appeared to tower over her father-in-law despite his officially listed height. High heels may narrow the gap, but the photos illustrate how Trump’s height has become part of the factually challenged mythology around the president.”

What’s more, says Steele, while Trump demands that those around him be in top shape, his attempts to fudge the state of his own fitness have fallen flat with an unconvinced public.

“If the goal of the White House UFC spectacle is to project strength, it may not be working,” Steele concludes. “In a recent YouGov poll, two-thirds of respondents said they think the average American would defeat Trump in a physical fight. Just 10 percent picked the president. So while the administration is reportedly checking troops’ waistlines, the public appears unconvinced about the physical prowess of the man hosting the event.”

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How the Supreme Court could hand Trump an electoral 'coup'

American democracy, writes political commentator Brian Beutler, is trapped in a precarious contradiction. On one hand, outrage against the corruption and harmful leadership of President Donald Trump has made it likely that he and his party will face backlash at the polls, but at the same time, the likelihood of that backlash provides Trump supporters with “fuel for further attempts to overturn elections.” This creates a situation in which “Trump has everything to lose by losing, and nothing to lose by attempting another coup.” And according to Beutler, the Supreme Court has been motivated to help him do it.

“While his corruption will make it easier for Democrats to sweep the midterm elections, it will also make him more determined to steal back their victories,” Beutler explains. “That’s why the past month’s news read the way it did: A slush fund to buy a second insurrection. An election-denying prosecutor in North Carolina named Dan Bishop who’s up to god knows what. A promotion for the acting attorney general who’s promised Trump total loyalty. A new interim spy chief, chosen for his willingness to mine confidential government documents seeking dirt on Trump’s enemies. All while Trump increases the pace of looting, and abandons any pretense of trying to win the old-fashioned way.”

More alarming still, says Beutler, is that Republicans in key positions “seem willing or eager to go along with him. His allies in state legislatures helped national Republicans steal perhaps five to 10 House seats through mid-Census gerrymandering. They were given a leg up by Republicans on the Virginia Supreme Court, which summarily voided a voter-approved pro-Democrat gerrymander, and by Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court, who allowed southern Republican legislatures to redraw congressional maps in the middle of primary elections, creating new Republican seats just in time for the midterms.”

And it is this meddling by the courts that Beutler argues should have Americans most concerned. As he notes, while in 2020, the Supreme Court and lower courts across the country rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, now, the political landscape has changed, and “they, too, have everything to lose by losing, and nothing to lose by helping Trump complete his coup. In the winter of 2020, their interests diverged, or at least seemed divergent. Today, they are completely aligned.”

When Trump staged his political comeback, says Beutler, he “gave the Republican justices a choice: you’re with me or you’re with the Democrats. They didn’t hesitate to pick a side. They went out of their way to protect Trump from political and criminal accountability for the January 6 insurrection. Then when Trump returned to power, they used their shadow docket to advance his interests by fiat, without explaining themselves to the public. And that was before their ruling in Callais, which transformed the Voting Rights Act from a statute that prohibited gerrymanders intended to disenfranchise black voters into a doctrine meant to encourage anti-black gerrymanders and forbid pro-minority gerrymanders.”

They’re taking such action because “they can see the anti-Trump rebellion brewing, and they know it doesn’t just threaten their power. It threatens to consign them to the legal anticanon along with some of the country’s greatest historical villains. ... Every law student in America learns about the anticanon — the worst rulings in the Supreme Court’s history: Dred Scott, which upheld slavery. Plessy, which upheld segregation.” Now the Roberts Court has been adding its own decisions that will be decried by history, such as gutting the Voting Rights Act and “Trump v. United States, which transformed the presidency into a zone of lawlessness for would-be dictators.”

Today, as Beutler explains, Republicans face a near-future where Democrats score big midterm wins, flipping key districts and states and maybe taking back the Senate, which would allow them to block Trump’s judicial nominees and agenda. “Now ask yourself,” Beutler wonders, “what wouldn’t Roberts and the other justices do to stop this?”

In the face of such sweeping Democratic wins, forecasts Beutler, “Trump alleges fraud. So does the loser, Ken Paxton, who also happens to be [Texas’s] sitting attorney general. They race to federal court, claiming Paxton is the rightful victor. A Republican judge disqualifies enough ballots to flip the result. Democrats appeal. The appeal reaches the Supreme Court quickly. Control of the Senate, and thus the legitimacy of the entire U.S. government, hangs in the balance.”

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Ex-defense secretary says 'Trump's Vietnam' in Iran will haunt us for years

As the war with Iran drags on with no conclusion in sight and its consequences continue to spin out, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta has a dire assessment of the situation: the conflict in the Middle East is “Trump’s Vietnam.”

Panetta — who presided over the Pentagon during the Obama administration and helped lead the operation that killed Osama bin Laden — delivered this alarming appraisal on Thursday while appearing on CNN to discuss the faltering U.S.-Iranian peace talks, saying, “I think what you're seeing is that this war is very much turning into Trump's Vietnam. In Vietnam, we negotiated, but in the end, the North Vietnamese took total control. We were lucky to get our forces out. I think we're heading in the same direction with this war.”

Spanning 1955 to 1975, the Vietnam War famously became a quagmire from which the U.S. could not extract itself, resulting in the deaths of nearly 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians. The conflict left a major stain on the U.S. reputation, and it is today invoked when discussing intractable wars with particularly severe political fallout. Commentators have increasingly raised the specter of Vietnam as the war with Iran has ground on, but Panetta’s assertion raises the volume of such talk.

“In Vietnam, we never got a straight story from the administration as to what was happening,” said Panetta when asked what brought him to his conclusion. “And I'm not sure we're getting a straight story right now from this administration as to what's happening in negotiations with Iran.” He also noted that though US-Vietnamese negotiations went on for some time, resolving some issues, “in the end, North Vietnam won that war.”

He projected that something similar will happen with Iran.

“What I sense here is that no matter what we try to negotiate with a hardline regime in Iran, they're going to be in control of the Straits of Hormuz," he warned. "And they are going to do everything they can to try to continue enrichment so that ultimately, they can develop a nuclear weapon.”

Panetta went on to note another parallel between the wars in Iran and Vietnam: a presidential tendency to miscalculate how easily the confrontation would be won.

“At the very beginning of this war, the president said, based on Israeli assurances, that once the leadership was killed, that within a few days the regime would collapse,” Panetta explained. “That did not happen. Our intelligence made very clear that was never going to happen, so it was a terrible miscalculation.”

With all this in mind and the shadow of Vietnam looming, Panetta’s conclusion was not optimistic: “The hardline regime remains in power, and as long as they are in power, whatever we try to negotiate, very frankly, is only going to be temporary. I think where we're headed is some kind of flimsy agreement here, but in four or five years, I think the United States and Israel may very well have to go back to war with Iran.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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'I can't watch this anymore': Expert says Trump's UFC calamity to backfire

The White House campus has become immersed in construction chaos as President Donald Trump has prepared to host his controversial UFC Freedom 250 fight in June. The cage fight on the South Lawn will mark both the United States’ 250th and Trump’s 80th birthdays, with the latter aspect prompting many to note the MAGA-oriented overtones of the affair. And as one expert who spoke with Mother Jones suggested, while both UFC and Trump hope the event will prop up their brands, the whole thing may backfire as more and more fans say, “I can’t watch this anymore.”

“The UFC and Dana White arguably helped Trump get elected,” explained Kyle Green, a sociologist at SUNY Brockport who focuses on the intersection of sports and politics. White is the CEO of UFC and has remained a steadfast ally of Trump over his political career. “They put him in contact with Joe Rogan, who puts him in contact with all the other podcast bros. That really helped Trump, especially in the last election.”

As Green explained, UFC and MAGA found a comfortable overlap with their heavy themes of violence, masculinity, and showmanship, and in many ways, the two forces have co-constructed their identities. UFC played an instrumental role in popularizing Trump, and as his MAGA movement grew, UFC fighters increasingly aped its bawdy bigotry. According to Green, racist, misogynistic trash talk has become more and more common as fighters parroted “the most offensive” Trump ideas, “leaning into the MAGA fan base.”

But while a purely MAGA message has worked for Trump, Green says that White has his own priorities and recognizes the limits of such an approach.

On one hand, the UFC is currently trying to break into boxing and is using Saudi money in an effort to tear down the safety protections set in place by the Muhammad Ali Act. Congress is currently considering whether or not it will reform the act, and Trump could play a key role in bringing GOP lawmakers in line. The White House fight is theoretically a means of building that influence.

“If we believe what Dana White and Trump are saying, the UFC is paying for this, right?” said Green. “And White has said that he’s going to lose millions with this fight, with the construction and everything. But they’re getting a lot of political power. I think White’s politics are fundamentally transactional. He’s trying to strategize a way to amass the most power and money, and he’s played it well up to this point by attaching himself to Trump.”

Importantly, however, “there’s a limit to that. So he’s trying to figure out how to not offend Trump supporters, but still strike a balance in order to attract new fans. He’s leaned very heavily into saying, ‘I’m apolitical, sports are not political.’” But as Green explains, it’s hard to claim a sport is apolitical when it’s being held on the White House lawn.

As a result, “a bunch of the core fanbase is struggling right now,” said Green. “And the central question we’re asking them is, what does this do to your fandom? For some of them, they’re like, ‘I can’t watch this anymore.’”

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Conservative loses it after Trump endorses 'criminal symbol' used by 'outlaw' cops

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted an image of two patches supposedly worn by police officers in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, which bore the skull symbol used by Marvel Comics’ the Punisher, with each skull sporting Trump’s distinctive blonde hair style. This image caused one writer for the famously conservative National Review to tear apart the president’s lack of understanding as to “what law enforcement is supposed to stand for.”

As Jim Geraghty explained, “Police forces using the symbol of the Punisher have been a recurring controversy, for reasons that are self-evident to anyone familiar with the comics or the various film and television versions. The character, Frank Castle, is clearly and explicitly an antihero, a vigilante who operates outside of the law and quite frequently just straight-up murders his foes.”

Geraghty argues that it’s one thing for the general public to enjoy such vigilante stories, “but it’s another thing to see those who take an oath to uphold the law enthusiastically adopt the image of a character who rejects the criminal justice system and its laws protecting the rights of the accused.”

And he’s far from the only one to have such an opinion. As Geraghty notes, even the Punisher creator Gerry Conway has asserted that the police's embrace of his symbol “is an indication that they don’t understand what the character represents, or what law enforcement’s role in society is, either.”

Here he quotes Conway at length, who once asserted, “The vigilante anti-hero is fundamentally a critique of the justice system, an example of social failure, so when cops put Punisher skulls on their cars or members of the military wear Punisher skull patches, they’re basically sides with an enemy of the system. They are embracing an outlaw mentality. Whether you think the Punisher is justified or not, whether you admire his code of ethics, he is an outlaw. He is a criminal. Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol.”

As Geraghty notes, the comic series even once had a storyline when the Punisher himself explicitly tells the police they should not be using his symbols or methods, saying, “You guys need a role model? His name is Captain America, and he’d be happy to have you.”

Trump has a well-documented history of advocating for police violence. During his first term, he told an audience of police, “Please don't be too nice” when making arrests. Another notable example came during his 2024 campaign, when he called for “one real rough, nasty” and “violent day” of police brutality that he claimed would eradicate crime “immediately.”

For Geraghty, the promotion of the Punisher symbol is yet another example of Trump’s impulse toward lawless violence.

“I realize ‘president shares crazy thing on Truth Social’ isn’t really big news anymore,” Geraghty concludes, “but it does seem like one more illustration that the man atop the executive branch of the U.S. government doesn’t understand what law enforcement is supposed to stand for.”

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Video destroys MAGA lawmaker's claim she was assaulted by famed pacifist

On Wednesday, MAGA-oriented Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) claimed she was assaulted by the founder of the grassroots women’s peace group CodePink. But according to newly emerged video evidence, her allegations appear to be more than a little exaggerated.

“The head honcho of CodePink here on Capitol Hill decided to try to harass me as I was leaving my hearing with Rubio and smacked my arm,” Luna posted to X. “I have no issues answering questions but the moment you touch me you cross a line.” Later, she claimed again that she was “smacked” and that she “will be filing charges.”

Uproar flared across social media as a result.

“Violence has no place in a democracy,” posted El Salvadorian ambassador Milena Mayorga, calling the incident “unacceptable and cowardly,” and saying, “Differences are settled with truth and open debate, not with attacks or intimidation.”

Another commenter asserted, “These people are psychos.”

And many raised the conspiracy theory that CodePink is funded by the communist Chinese government, a claim that Luna has propagated herself. She alleges that the “attack” was part of an attempt to silence her questions about the “communist organization.”

One problem with her allegation of violence, however: a video obtained by TMZ shows that the “smack” was in fact a light brush against the arm. As the CodePink founder in question, Medea Benjamin, argued with Luna about her position on the embargo against Cuba, Benjamin brushed against the Congresswoman’s arm, prompting the latter to freak out.

“When was the last time you were in Cuba?” Benjamin asked, brushing Luna’s jacket sleeve.

“Wait, you just touched me,” Luna declared.

“I’m sorry,” Benjamin apologized.

“It doesn’t matter,” Luna said. “You just touched me. You’re going to walk away right now or else I’m going to call Capitol Police.”

According to CodePink, Benjamin was then briefly detained by Capitol Police, but was released when they saw the video.

Per its mission statement, CodePink is “a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.” An economist, nutritionist, and lifelong activist, Benjamin co-founded the group in 2002 in an effort to oppose the Iraq War. She has drawn conservative ire for decades due to her opposition to war and dedication to labor rights, corporate responsibility, and Palestinian rights, and has been targeted by MAGA in particular since heckling then-presidential candidate Donald Trump during his 2016 Republican nomination acceptance speech. Two years before that, she received the prestigious Gandhi Peace Award.

After the incident, Benjamin posted a photo of herself with Representative Maria Salazar (R-FL), in which the latter has her hands on either side of the former’s face.

“Funny how @RepLuna called the police to arrest me (they didn’t once they saw the video) because she said I touched her arm,” Benjamin noted. “10 minutes later @RepMariaSalazar grabbed my face. I’m not complaining because she didn’t do it maliciously, I’m just pointing out the lunacy of @RepLuna.”

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'Not even a chance' Trump’s 2 major priorities will get my vote: scorned GOP lawmaker

Thursday brings a consequential day for the Republican agenda, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill gather for a marathon voting session that could bring GOP priorities into conflict with those of President Donald Trump. Judging by a pre-vote statement from one senator scorned by Trump, the president faces an uphill battle.

One of the most discussed votes involves the long-hindered effort to pass an immigration and border control budget reconciliation bill, which has been a thorn in the side of Republicans for several months. While it finally appeared likely to pass in the run-up to the Memorial Day recess, the sudden announcement that Trump would create a “slush fund” to pay convicted J6 criminals stalled the bill, with outraged Republicans saying they would not advance it unless the fund was killed. While the fund has since hit a number of major setbacks, it has not technically been ended once and for all. Now, many lawmakers are pushing for an amendment to the reconciliation that would pass it only on the condition that the slush fund is fully banned.

When asked by CNN correspondent Manu Raju about the matter, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) shared his thoughts in no uncertain terms.

“Even the AG has said that [the fund] is done, so I don’t know why we don’t just codify it so that we don’t have the Democrats raising the speculation that it could come back at some point,” said Tillis, referring to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent assertion that the fund was ended, a claim that Trump quickly contradicted.

On Wednesday, it was also announced that the president would seek Blanche’s confirmation to the position permanently, an appointment that has drawn skepticism from across the political spectrum over concerns that the role will be weaponized by Blanche, who is Trump’s former personal attorney.

“The key to Todd or anybody getting through the judiciary committee would be being pretty tight on January the 6th. They better not have said for one minute that the people who beat up police officers were righteous people. You come even close to saying that you don’t even have a [chance] of getting my vote,” said Tillis. The Senator has frequently bumped heads with Trump, recently declaring that the president’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence doesn’t have a “prayer” of getting confirmed. Tillis has also called for his fellow Republicans to speak out against the White House, prompting Trump to call him a “nitpicker.”

When it was pointed out that Trump and Blanche had made opposing statements about the fund, Tillis wasn’t having it.

“The right hand and the left hand need to figure out what the h—— they’re doing,” he declared. “If it’s dead then we should be able to codify that and be done with it.”

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Rubio 'unaware' his own agency sent Trump ballroom chief to Russia

This week, far-right figures from around the world have gathered in Russia for an economic forum nicknamed “Putin’s Davos.” Among the attendees is Rodney Mims Cook Jr., the commissioner tasked with overseeing President Donald Trump’s highly contested White House ballroom project. While Cook has gotten much attention from Russian media as he’s shown off Trump’s ballroom, there seems to be some confusion within the U.S. government as to what he’s doing there, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying he is “unaware” of an American delegation to the event while Cook himself claims he was sent by Trump and urged to go by the State Department, which Rubio oversees.

“According to Russian media, Trump's ballroom commissioner, Rodney Mims Cook, told Russian press that Trump and the State Department permitted him to travel to Russia for the economic forum in St Petersburg,” reports Olga Lautman, senior Russian intelligence expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “He also said the [State Dept.] thought his travel to Russia was a good idea.”

Said Cook to Russian media, "The President and the State Department allowed me to come over to say hello and see what could come out of this in the long term. … The President's allowing me to come over could open up new avenues. This is purely an observation to see where this might lead.”

Cook’s assertion is interesting in the context of a statement from Rubio, who said he was “unaware” that a U.S. delegation was at the forum. Rubio oversees the State Department and works closely with Trump, raising questions about the daylight between his and Cook’s claims. According to Financial Times Moscow Bureau chief Max Seddon, Cook “is an ardent Russophile. He has been involved in restoring medieval Russian churches for decades. His own house in Georgia is designed in the Russian style. He says he is friends with many senior Russian elite figures. He seems absolutely thrilled to be there.”

Said government affairs expert Alex Goldenberg, Senior Fellow at the Rutgers Miller Center, “The Kremlin courts the people it assesses as useful for widening America’s divisions, the specific issue is incidental. They’ll stoke whatever fracture is available.” Interestingly enough, Goldenberg was speaking about Candace Owens, a far-right influencer and former Trump ally who is also appearing at the event. “Moscow extended the platform and that tells you how they see her, as someone whose reach can be turned into division or political capital. The Soviets had a term for Western sympathizers like Candace Owens. It translates roughly to useful idiot.”

“Maybe that’s why Trump’s ballroom commissioner is in St Petersburg,” suggested Lautman, pointing to recent news that funding for the president’s controversial ballroom had just been scrapped.

Cook and Owens aren’t the only figures from Trump’s orbit to attend. Also there is the Trump-supporting actor Steven Seagal, an ardent fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spoke at the event of a Hollywood that has been taken over by “one mafia that is controlling all of the movies,” as well as the misogynist manosphere influencers Andrew and Christian Tate, who face numerous charges in Romania and the UK.

As these and other attendees gathered in St. Petersburg, the skies above were thick with smoke from a Ukrainian drone attack.

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The little-known legal trick Trump is using to doom the economy: Nobel economist

The Trump administration has announced its latest attempt at levying extensive tariffs on countries around the world. This time, it is justifying the move by taking advantage of a little-known section of the 1974 Trade Act that allows the application of tariffs against countries accused of being too lenient on trading goods produced with forced labor. While this round of tariffs is more likely to hold up in court than previous efforts, Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman warns that it is just another of President Donald Trump’s “legal tricks and lies” that will continue to hurt American pocketbooks.

When Trump launched his tariff program at the beginning of his second term, writes Krugman, “his move caused shock waves, and not just because of the economic impact. The Trump tariffs were clearly illegal — taxes imposed not via proper legislation, but by invoking an obscure existing law intended to deal with economic emergencies, even though no emergency existed. Also, by imposing these tariffs unilaterally, Trump was violating many decades’ worth of solemn U.S. agreements with other nations, including our closest allies.”

Rather than delivering on Trump’s promise to boost the economy, the tariffs contributed to the inflation crisis. While the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the majority of Trump’s tariffs were illegal, many were kept in place using another obscure law, which allowed him to apply the fees under certain emergency situations. As Krugman notes, no such emergency exists, so because Trump’s pretext is legally limited to 150 days, he needed another scheme.

“Yesterday it came in the form of ‘Section 301’ tariffs on 60 trading partners, including the European Union and Japan,” writes Krugman. “Section 301 is titled ‘Relief from Unfair Trade Practices.’ So what are the unfair practices the Trumpists say the whole world is engaging in? The answer is that the Trump administration is accusing other countries of ‘failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.’ Notice the wording. They aren’t accusing the European Union itself of employing slave labor. Even the Trumpists aren’t willing to lie that shamelessly (yet). No, the claim is that the EU isn’t doing enough to stop countries that do employ slave labor from selling their goods in Europe.”

According to Krugman, “Everyone, and I mean everyone, understands that the alleged justification for these tariffs is a lie.” As he notes, there is no reason to believe that the EU is better about opposing slave labor than the U.S., or that the Trump administration actually cares about the issue. Rather, “this is nothing but a transparently, one might say sneeringly, bogus rationale for continuing to flout both US law and international agreements.”

“Why do Trump’s minions keep using legal tricks and lies to impose tariffs?” Krugman writes. “There is, after all, no reason they couldn’t simply ask Congress to impose tariffs through normal legislation. But doing so would run into three problems, from Trump’s point of view. First, Congress might balk. Second, at minimum an attempt to pass legislation would require hearings, in which the weakness of the administration’s arguments would become obvious. Third, one of the reasons Trump loves tariffs is that he gets to issue decrees at will, none of this pesky nonsense of consulting with the legislative branch; having to follow the Constitution would spoil his fantasies of omnipotence.”

For Krugman, this raises another question: why does Trump keep trying at tariffs at all? Not only have they failed to achieve their suggested goals, but they are “also deeply unpopular, with an overwhelming majority of Americans believing, rightly, that they have raised prices.” According to the Joint Economic Committee, tariffs have cost the average American family an extra $2,500 over the past year. They’ve also complicated supply lines, increased production costs, and slowed overall economic growth, all while hurting relationships with key trade partners.

With all this in mind, Krugman asserts that there is no economic logic to the financial doom the president is willing to inflict with his program. Says Krugman, “For Trump, backing off on the tariffs would amount to admitting failure. And if you believe he’s going to do that, I have a quick, easy victory over Iran you might want to buy.”

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Security expert explains how 'nuts' Trump put the US in a downward spiral

According to distinguished security scholar Phillips P. O’Brien, the leadership of President Donald Trump has set the United States on a downward spiral in which it is “weaker every day.” Perhaps even more alarming, the US “may never come back” from the diminished state Trump will leave it in.

O’Brien — whose book War and Power is widely cited by strategy experts — asserts that there are several factors driving the country’s decline under Trump, but the most looming is the president’s decision to launch war with Iran.

“The US does not control its own destiny at this point in the war,” writes O’Brien. “Indeed every day the American position is weakening. The US is in a far weaker state than it was when the ceasefire was announced on April 7, and will be in weaker position next week when I write this (unless Trump surrenders)... Recently we are seeing arguably the greatest example of the growth of American global weakness that Trump has accelerated. Trump has shown that the USA cannot control either Iran or Israel — indeed that he is panicking as those two states are doing what they want regardless of his threats or wishes. The idea of the USA as either the indispensable partner or unstoppable enemy is gone. It may never come back.”

O’Brien says evidence of this weakening can be seen by looking back to June 2025. After the U.S. joined Israel in a bombing campaign against Iran, the Israelis wanted to continue the attack, while Trump wanted it over fast. When he ordered Israel to stop, at the time, the country yielded.

No longer. “In the last few weeks Trump has tried to do something similar and the Israelis are basically not reacting, but doing what Netanyahu wants to do,” specifically in Lebanon. Israel has not only persisted in attacking its neighbor but has seized sizeable territory, complicating peace negotiations. “This Israeli military action has been driving Trump nuts,” says O'Brien, but “unlike last year, however, Trump cannot simply order the Israelis to turn around — and as such is getting desperate,” lashing out at Netanyahu in a screaming, curse-laden phone call. Israel has only continued to step up its military efforts. “This is what I mean about the USA getting weaker every day,” says O’Brien.

At the same time, Trump keeps insisting that a deal is close, even as the Iranians say they’ve cut off talks. And all the while, the president is posting that everyone should “just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — it always does!”

“Look closely at the power imbalance here,” notes O’Brien. “It is the US government that is desperate to keep up the fiction that the negotiations are going well, that Iran is making major concessions and that a deal is close. The Iranians, on the other hand, are happy to project the opposite image; that they can walk away from the talks and are happy to let this string for longer.”

What’s more, writes O’Brien, “This weakness ties into what Trump is doing with the GOP and the federal government…People need to ask themselves why Trump is prizing absolute subservient loyalty over anything. It's not just that he wants to punish his enemies… Trump is setting up a parallel system to protect himself and maintain his power, and that is based on total control of the GOP and executive government. This might actually be the thing that makes U.S. decline unstoppable. He is, as always, willing to destroy the country to save himself.”

O’Brien points to many domestic circumstances that are weakening the country, all driven by Trump’s efforts, from the collapsing economy, to his electoral revenge campaign, to the appointment of inexperienced, incapable loyalists to key positions, to his wildly corrupt slush fund.

“Why is Trump doing what seems to be decisions to make himself less popular and less politically secure going forward?” writes O’Brien. “The answer is not because he is stupid…it is because he is adopting what could be called a scorched earth strategy to protect himself and his power going forward. He wants absolute and total control of the GOP, even if that means he might lose a seat here or there. And he wants a federal government that will do whatever he wants when he wants.”

O’Brien ends with a dire warning: “It sets him up to corrupt either the November vote or its results. People are being too blase about this election. Trump has a party that is completely under his sway and a federal government that is staffed by uber loyalists. It gives him terrible and powerful options to subvert democracy.”

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Trump's worst economic bomb is about to drop: analysis

While warning signs have been flashing ever since President Donald Trump’s war with Iran resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, fallout in the form of a major economic disaster is yet to manifest. “That won’t last forever,” writes the American Prospect columnist Ryan Cooper, who warns that “something is going to snap.”

The danger wouldn’t be so looming if the war appeared to be nearing its end, but as Cooper points out, there is little evidence to support such a hope, noting that Iran has “cut off contact with American negotiators, and the two sides are once again shooting at each other. Trump, for his part, recently told a CNBC reporter that I’ really don’t care. I couldn’t care less’ if negotiations are over. They ‘started to get very boring,’ he added.”

So apparently, according to Trump himself, he’s feeling no pressure to make a deal, which is exactly what he said in early May. Cooper warns that this places the U.S. in a dangerous position, because while there hasn’t been a “truly major crisis” yet, “it’s only a matter of time before one or more of the severely strained parts of the global economy breaks.”

Total catastrophe has so far been avoided based on four factors. First, despite Trump’s best efforts to oppose a green-energy transition, companies and countries around the world have leaned into alternative energy as fossil fuel prices have shot up. At the same time, many nations, particularly in Asia, have begun rationing oil consumption, which while painful, has helped stave off collapse. But a third “more ominous” factor, says Cooper, is that the world has been forced to draw heavily on existing stocks of oil and natural gas.

According to Cooper, “Many people saw the Iran war coming, and filled up every oil tanker and storage facility they possibly could. A great deal of that has since been used up. The vast storage complex at Cushing, Oklahoma (regarded as a storage benchmark), has declined from 33 million barrels to 24.5 million — and they can’t be fully emptied. ‘You can’t draw them down to zero because there is gunk at the bottom of the tanks,’ oil analyst Matt Smith told CNN.” At the same time, countries around the world are depleting their reserves.

“We’re approaching unheard of inventory levels,” Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said recently. “Once you get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.”

A fourth factor, writes Cooper, is “the behavior of the media and financial markets. The D.C. political press can be relied on to uncritically repeat Trump’s preposterous lies about an imminent deal, no matter how many times they have been proved false. Traders on oil and oil futures markets, being either deluded by the media or blinded by wishful thinking or simply incapable of believing that the president of the United States is as stupid and insane as he in fact is, have consistently expected the strait to open back up soon…Oil prices again fell sharply after Trump’s latest promise.” Despite this market manipulation, Cooper warns, “Sooner or later, oil traders are either going to face reality, or bankrupt themselves.”

As Cooper points out, “reserve releases and comically underpriced oil futures are effectively subsidizing oil consumption.” While a few countries, primarily in Asia, have taken measures to reduce oil usage, many world leaders “have encouraged their nations to continue using energy at normal levels, and therefore to chew through global inventories more quickly. That means if and when the supply shock hits, it will hit even harder.”

On that note, Cooper dives into the looming crises that are poised to destroy several key sectors of the economy.

“The most obvious one is in oil itself,” Cooper explains. “As storages dwindle and run out, the only way to match demand to supply will be for the price to rise high enough to destroy something like 10 to 20 percent of global oil consumption. And because a great deal of oil demand is obligatory and therefore not very price-sensitive, that price will likely be north of $150 per barrel. That means gas and diesel at the pump in the $8-to-$10 range, and a corresponding price hike for anything that needs to be transported, or involved in plastic in some way, which is to say basically everything.” Other sectors like agriculture, aluminum, and industrial commodities are in similarly precarious situations due to plunging stock and skyrocketing prices, the fallout from which will be wide-ranging and devastating.

And worse still, notes Cooper, “even if the Strait of Hormuz opens tomorrow, these problems are going to take years to resolve.” Oil fields will take months to resume production, vital infrastructure will take years to rebuild, and the need to restock reserves will drive years of structurally higher demand.

What’s more, the situation is still in flux, and it could continue to deteriorate in ways no one has forecasted. All of this, says Cooper, suggests that an economic bomb is about to go off, the likes of which the world has never seen.

“You know what they say,” he concludes. “It’s always darkest right before it gets pitch-black.”

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Houston paper absolutely assails Trump’s brazen 'gift for grift'

Texas is typically considered firmly in the corner of President Donald Trump, who won the state by the largest margin in decades. But now the editorial board at a major Texas newspaper has blasted the commander-in-chief for his dismissive attitude toward Americans’ economic pain.

“Believe Trump,” declared the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. “He doesn’t think about Americans’ financial pain.”

This is in reference to a shocking statement Trump made in mid-May when asked about how the war with Iran was hurting American pocketbooks. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” said the president. “I don’t think about anybody.”

“Even an elected official whose enumerated lies run into the thousands during his years in office tells the truth sometimes, even when he doesn’t mean to,” notes the Chronicle. “In fact, we have a name for inadvertent truth-telling, as columnist Michael Kinsley noted years ago. A politician telling the truth — in Kinsley’s words, ‘some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say’ — is committing a Kinsley gaffe.” According to the Chronicle, “The Kinsleyian truth is, Trump doesn’t care about Americans’ financial situation, or much of anything else regarding the everyday concerns of ordinary Americans (including the millions who voted for him).”

The paper’s editors go on to list several of the many ways the president has failed in his consideration toward the public, writing, “Trump doesn’t care that his fellow Americans are watching the gas-pump click to roughly $50 or more each time they fill up. He doesn’t care that shoppers are paying noticeably more every time they tap the credit-card reader…or that millions are losing food assistance. He doesn’t care that his fellow Americans are having to forgo healthcare, having lost access to Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act. He doesn’t care that small-business owners are struggling, that Texas farmers and ranchers are suffering. He doesn’t care that White House adviser Stephen Miller’s mass-deportation crusade is fracturing families and stifling local economies. He doesn’t care that, thanks in part to his war of choice in the Middle East, inflation for many hard-working Americans is outpacing wage gains. He says he doesn’t even care if the peace talks with Iran collapse.”

The paper’s bottom line is simple: “Donald Trump does not care.”

What does he care about? According to the Chronicle, “This president does care about is the opportunity to use the office to which he was elected to enrich himself, his family members and the rarified coterie of fellow billionaires he’s so proud to be a part of…He cares about garish ballrooms, gargantuan triumphal arches and his name and visage plastered on buildings…He cares about spending our money — $1,776 billion, to be exact — on a scheme so brazen it almost defies belief.”

Meanwhile, writes the paper, polling shows that Houston residents are tremendously worried about the economy as they face the “largest one-year decline in attitudes toward job opportunities since the 1980s oil bust. As in the rest of the country, the economy is functioning beautifully for the wealthiest among us while everyday working people struggle to make ends meet.”

The paper comes to a sharp conclusion: “Donald Trump was elected in large part because he promised to ease those anxieties. He has not. His care-lessness and his gift for grift have made them worse.”

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Treasury chief stumped when senator reads Trump’s own words back to him

While appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent struggled and failed to justify a recent assertion by his boss, President Donald Trump, leading to a tense back and forth.

The exchange began when Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) asked Bessent about Trump’s recent assertion that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” when considering his conduct regarding the war with Iran. The president made this statement in mid-May — which he later defended as “perfect” — prompting outrage from Americans struggling with rising prices.

When asked about the comments on Wednesday, Bessent attempted to dodge, saying, “I believe his remarks were taken out of context.”

But Hassan would not be dissuaded so easily, saying, “Here's what he said. He said, quote, ‘I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody.’ So I'm asking you… Do you think about how the American people are paying more for gas, groceries, and utilities since the president clearly said he didn't? And you speak with the president regularly. Are you trying to tell him the truth about how much costs have increased for the American people?”

“Well, senator,” Bessent argued, “I'm going to have to disagree with you on some of that, because I have groceries are going down. Since President Trump took office, food prices — or as many people like to call them, ‘groceries’ — food at home in the statistical data is up 2.5 percent.”

“When's the last time you were in a grocery store?” Hassan asked. “Because my husband and I were just in one, and look: the average Granite Stater has paid $3,000 more since Donald Trump took office for basic goods and services. Meanwhile, the country lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs in 2025. So do you tell the president this information or not?”

“Again, senator,” Bessent stammered, “The… except for inflation, which is, I believe, going to be a short-term blip, the economic data is very strong. The jobs data has been very strong. The manufacturing has been very strong.”

“No, actually that's incorrect,” asserted Hassan. “So let's move on, because what is very clear to me is that neither you nor the president nor this administration are willing to acknowledge how much more people are paying at the gas pump, at the grocery store, in utilities, for health care, for all aspects of American life.”

Try as he might, Bessent could not squirm past hard numbers. Hassan is right. When Trump made the controversial statement, the war had been going on for over two months, over the course of which the price of gas rose by roughly 50 percent. The latest numbers show that Americans have spent an extra $500 per household on gas alone since the war began, with Fortune reporting that the war has put a $100 billion burden on taxpayers overall, and prices are not expected to ease for months to come. What’s more, since Trump returned to office, the U.S. has lost between 80,000 and 110,000 manufacturing jobs, while healthcare premiums and other costs have increased precipitously.

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'I never heard his name': Rubio blindsided by Trump's national security pick

On Tuesday, Congressional Republicans were “blindsided” by President Donald Trump's announcement that current Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte will double in the role of acting Director of National Intelligence, an appointment that has drawn harsh criticism. But lawmakers in Congress weren’t the only ones from Trump’s camp to be surprised by the move, as on Wednesday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed that he’d never even heard of Pulte, who would be leading the country’s intelligence efforts amidst its largest war in years.

It was while discussing that war with the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Rubio shared his thoughts on Pulte, or lackthereof, saying, “I never heard his name.”

The Director of National Intelligence is a role that is vital to the country’s security apparatus, and in theory, when it comes to issues like the Iran war, would work in concord with the Secretary of State, who is the nation’s top diplomat. It does not bode well that one hand does not appear to know what the other is doing — or of the other’s existence in the first place.

Rubio’s admission represents the intersection of two flashpoints for the administration. First, Pulte’s appointment, which has drawn bipartisan outrage over his lack of experience and suggestions he may “weaponize” the post, as he has a proven track record for targeting Trump’s enemies. Second, the president’s fumbling approach to the war with Iran. Rubio’s testimony on Wednesday comes in the lead-up to a House war powers vote, and the fact that lawmakers are raising the issue of Pulte amid discussion of the conflict indicates that they have concerns about how his intelligence oversight will impact the war.

The Secretary of State isn’t the only prominent, relevant official to have never heard of Pulte. When Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was asked about the appointment, she said, “I have no knowledge of this individual at all. I don’t know whether he has an intel background before that. I truly don’t know him at all.”

Others on Capitol Hill who are familiar with him have been quick to push back against his appointment.

“Whoever told the president to go ahead and commit to this publicly before vetting it should lose their jobs, because they should know that the math just works against Pulte being confirmed,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told CNBC. “I don’t think he has a prayer.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SC) declared, “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there… If he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got a lengthy road ahead of him.”

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'Real risk': Trump’s latest move threatens to blow up the GOP agenda

On Tuesday, it was announced that President Donald Trump had appointed current Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte to the role of acting Director of National Intelligence. Backlash against the move was swift, as critics from across the political spectrum slammed Pulte’s total lack of intelligence experience. By Wednesday morning, senators from both sides of the aisle had made their opposition to Trump’s pick clear, and threats to derail key legislation over the matter now pose a “real risk” to the Republican agenda.

This is according to Punchbowl News, which reports that Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has warned Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) that if Pulte remains in the position, Democrats will withhold the votes Republicans need for a FISA extension they’ve been trying and failing to pass for months. It expires in just 9 days, so with yet another legislative deadline looming, the GOP is grappling with the latest in a string of recent frustrations.

“Warner,” explains Punchbowl News, “who’s been critical in building Democratic support for a bipartisan deal to extend FISA Section 702, made clear to Thune that all options are on the table to reverse what Democrats see as a dangerous Trump pick to lead ODNI. Pulte, who currently leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has no national security experience and has used his existing role to exact revenge on Trump’s political foes.”

According to Warner, Democrats will never back the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 with Pulte overseeing the program, as opponents of the provision — which is technically used for gathering the communications of foreign targets — argue that it can be used as a “backdoor” for spying on Americans. This potential for misuse has drawn skepticism from privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle, and though Thune has repeatedly claimed that the absence of 702 would cause U.S. national security to “go dark,” its proponents have had to make concessions to gain the support of conservative Republicans, like a three year ban on a central banking digital currency and a prohibition on the use of 702 information by the FBI against Americans. But now Democrats worry that 702 could be weaponized by Pulte to attack Trump’s political enemies.

As Punchbowl explains, “Democrats have leverage here. Republicans can’t pass a FISA reauthorization on their own. With a handful of GOP senators expected to oppose any FISA agreement, Thune would likely need at least a dozen Democrats to support the bill. Without a big vote in the Senate, it’ll be difficult for the House to pass it via a fast-track process ahead of the June 12 deadline. It’s safe to say that Pulte’s appointment kills any chance of the House passing FISA using the fast-track suspension process.”

What’s more, should Pulte’s appointment be pulled, “Democrats believe they’d be doing Republicans a favor because they also see Pulte as unqualified for the job, even if few openly say it.” On Tuesday, “the White House had indicated to top Republicans that Aaron Lukas, whom Trump announced as the acting DNI 12 days ago, would remain in the role for an extended period. Republicans felt blindsided,” therefore, by the Pulte announcement.

By Tuesday, a number of top Republicans were expressing their outrage at the situation.

“Whoever told the president to go ahead and commit to this publicly before vetting it should lose their jobs, because they should know that the math just works against Pulte being confirmed,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told CNBC. “I don’t think he has a prayer.”

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Trump has 'given up' governing to focus on his real priority: Nobel economist

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, the Iran war “debacle” has “clearly broken” President Donald Trump, and as a result, the commander-in-chief has “given up governing” to focus exclusively on his true priorities: “rage and revenge.”

The latest evidence of this is tthat Trump has tapped Bill Pulte as the acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a role that is vital to the country’s national security apparatus. As Krugamn writes, “The word ‘acting’ is crucial. The statute creating the position of DNI explicitly requires that the appointee ‘shall have extensive national security expertise.’” Pulte has none. A home building baron and current head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he has zero background in intelligence.

“But pointing out that Pulte is unqualified for his new job doesn’t convey the extent to which Trump is trolling America with this new appointment,” says Krugman. “For Pulte isn’t merely unqualified for a sensitive national security position. He’s unqualified, intellectually and morally, for any government position. All he has are the qualifications that matter to Trump: he is a shameless lackey and willing hitman for Trump’s vendettas.”

Part of what brought Pulte into Trump’s orbit where the “thousands of nasty political posts” he spewed onto social media in recent years. His family’s background in residential construction garnered him an appointment as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, but according to Krugman, “His real job has been weaponizing the agency as a tool against Trump’s perceived enemies — weaponization that is being investigated by the Government Accountability Office as a potential misuse of authority. Pulte confected false claims of mortgage fraud to try to push out Lisa Cook, the only black woman on the Federal Reserve Board. He has leveled similar trumped-up charges against Letitia James, New York’s Attorney General, and several Democratic politicians. And he pushed groundless fraud accusations against Jerome Powell, the former Federal Reserve chair, who stood in the way of Trump’s attempt to politicize monetary policy.”

That Pulte has turned out to be a “bumbling hatchet man” whose efforts have been entirely ineffective is besides the point, says Krugman. “For Trump, willingness to engage in unethical behavior is all that matters.”

Even so, Krugman expresses surprise that Trump would select someone with such vanishing experience considering the fact that, at the very least, the president “sees wars only as ways to enrich himself and distract from his domestic woes,” and to that end, one would think he’d want accurate intelligence.

“But Trump appears to have given up on governing,” asserts Krugman, “even governing aimed at consolidating his own power and legacy. He wants to punish everyone he imagines has wronged him but has lost all interest in making the government work, even for nefarious purposes. So he don’t need no intelligence, just someone who will indulge his rage. And that will be Pulte’s job.”

While Krugman warns that the Republican Party and its megadonors are still working hard to corrupt American democracy, dismantle the country’s scientific community, and consolidate power for billionaires, he concludes that “Trump himself is, at this point, little more than a festering ball of anger and hate.”

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The real reason the GOP tanked Trump's 'dumbest' grift

Ever since it was announced that the Trump administration would create a slush fund for the benefit of convicted January 6 rioters, Republicans have been unusually vocal with their criticism of President Donald Trump. In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, GOP resistance to the fund appears to have tanked it. By Tuesday afternoon, Republican Senators were telling reporters that they expected acting Attorney General Tood Blanche to confirm the fund’s end during a testimony later in the day, otherwise, it would further delay their make-or-break immigration budget reconciliation bill.

“It was a nonstarter from the get go,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told NBC News. But according to Vox, Republican reasoning for opposing the fund may have had less to do with what is right or wrong, but hinged on public perception with the midterms looming.

In order to learn why Republicans finally stood up to Trump, Vox “spoke with DC insiders on both sides of the aisle, as well as leading scholars of American politics. They told a fairly consistent story: one in which the awful election year politics of giving Trump a fund to pay out January 6 rioters, combined with the specific timing of a must-pass funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), forced usually deferential Republicans’ hands.”

“We’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place right now,” said one Senate Republican aide on Monday. “There were dozens of senators that had concerns [on our side].”

The major concern was that Democrats now had a powerful new weapon with which to attack the GOP, which is already expected to take substantial losses in the November midterms due to Trump’s historic unpopularity driven by the ongoing war with Iran and its resulting economic calamity. Suddenly, with Trump’s almost universally despised fund complicating a key Republican legislative priority, the party was finally forced to take decisive action to oppose the president.

“The timing of it forces their hand,” said Matt Glassman, an expert on Congress at Georgetown University. “It can’t be ignored, because the administration chose to announce it at the dumbest possible time.”

“The point is not that Congress has, all of a sudden, discovered its constitutional spine,” notes Vox. “It is still uncommon for Republicans to fight back against something Trump really wants, and many of his defeats there are symbolic. High-profile effective challenges to Trump remain quite rare. However, there is a difference between ‘quite rare’ and ‘unheard of,’ which is basically how Congress operated in the early months of Trump’s presidency. It seems that the specific ways he has gone about trying to consolidate his own power has, over time, created space for greater friction in Congress — or even actively generated pushback. And given the narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, it doesn’t take a lot of resistance to block a bill.”

As Vox explains, this dynamic has offered Democrats opportunities to impede Trump’s agenda while the GOP is weakened electorally. Democrats are expected to reclaim the majority in at least the House later this year, which will make Trump's ability to consolidate power substantially weaker.

“If Trump were a more competent authoritarian,” concludes Vox, “he might be using his remaining time controlling Congress to grab as much formal power as he could. Instead, he’s chosen to mismanage his relationship with Congress, a series of costly and time-consuming fights that could have been avoided with defter management. American democracy would be in far better shape if Republicans actually did care about stopping Trump’s power grabs as a matter of constitutional principle. They don’t, for the most part. But their instincts for political survival, and frustration with the White House, are starting to assert themselves in democratically valuable ways.”

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Republican senator warns Trump: Kill the slush fund 'or else'

On Monday, it was announced that President Donald Trump’s highly controversial slush fund is “dead,” but as it was quickly pointed out, the Justice Department had not agreed to end the effort entirely, just to adhere to a judge’s temporary delay order. This has raised questions as to whether the White House intends to pursue the plan further. But some Senate Republicans are not willing to let the question linger, sending the administration a clear message: end the fund once and for all, or else.

This is according to Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), who, in the run-up to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s congressional testimony late Tuesday, told reporters, “I would pay attention to the attorney general's testimony before the House this afternoon. If it goes like we are told it will go there's a reasonable possibility we will move pretty quickly to the reconciliation.”

Kennedy was referring to the immigration and border patrol budget reconciliation bill that the Republicans have been struggling to pass for months. While it hit a number of hurdles along the way, it was derailed entirely by the announcement of the slush fund, which drew such widespread rage that even conservative lawmakers were willing to place everything on hold to oppose it. Monday’s news that the fund had been halted prompted GOP optimism that the reconciliation could proceed, but as some reporters noted, Republican skepticism persisted.

Then on Tuesday, as Republican Senators attempted to fast track the reconciliation, Senators like Kennedy noted that it would all come down to what they heard from Blanche. As Kennedy suggested, there was a rumor that the Attorney General was going to concede the issue. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that he’d spoken with Blanche and that the latter assured him that he would provide “‘certainty’ to skittish GOP senators that he will halt the anti-weaponization fund.” Thune acknowledged that he was “not guaranteeing that that will happen,” noting that “it comes down to the math,” but he thought it was likely.

As of an hour before Blanche’s testimony, Thune had confirmed that he’d spoken with Blanche, but did not seem to know what the Attorney General intended to say. When asked if he believes the White House won’t move forward with the fund, Thune said, “That is correct.”

The inability to move forward on the reconciliation bill has been a major thorn in Republican lawmakers' side, especially with the midterms looming. The party already faces major headwinds due to Trump’s plunging approval rating and voter anger over issues like Iran, skyrocketing prices, and the president’s fixation on unpopular vanity projects. One such project — his much-demanded ballroom—has already delayed a previous version of the bill, which included $1 billion in funds for ballroom security, prompting a rare party revolt that saw several GOP Senators vote no.

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Trump's insect defense agency has a bed bug infestation

The Animal and Plant Inspection Service — a wing of the Agriculture Department tasked with combating the spread of invasive pests — has a bed bug problem. Not only that, but it’s been a persistent issue that has clashed with the Trump administration’s anti-remote work policy, has made some agency staff sick, and may hinder the country’s preparedness against more dangerous outbreaks. According to one USDA employee who spoke with NOTUS, the irony that the agency in charge of fighting such infestations would get one itself “was lost on no one.”

The issue arose at the agency’s George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, in mid-May. According to NOTUS, “The department opted to send employees home and allow them to telework for a few days to fumigate the building. When employees returned, however, they complained of noxious fumes and resulting sickness, and USDA once again authorized them to work remotely. The telework approval was a rare exception to the Trump administration’s push to require all federal workers to report to their normal workplaces five days per week.”

On Friday, however, alarm was raised when the bugs were found yet again. “This time around, three employees said, the department has not authorized any additional telework. Instead, department leadership told employees to take personal vacation time if they did not want to report to the office.”

During a recent town hall meeting on the matter, acting APHIS administrator Kelly Moore and acting chief operating officer Carson Hawley asserted that the issue would be addressed promptly, but employees say they are not optimistic about the progress they’ve seen, with some asserting that “they felt disgusted by the conditions and, in some cases, became so paranoid that they were constantly itchy. The back-and-forth nature has also left staff distraught as they await the next turn of events.”

“They treated the building, and then they sent people home again because of offgassing,” said one employee, who like all those who spoke with NOTUS did so on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “Then they came back. Now there’s more bedbugs.” Another says that staff had “returned to an office that was making them sick because the chemicals hadn’t aired out,” lamenting that employees were required to take personal leave if they did not want to work in a building still infested with bed bugs, “noting many of them rely on public transportation and had not received instruction on preventing the spread of the insects in that setting.”

In an email to staff on Friday, Hawley argued that employees were responsible for the renewed outbreak, instructing them to place all personal items in garbage bags and remove them from the building. A spokesperson from the agency did not explain why employees were not given the opportunity to work remotely.

For their part, “Employees said they were hesitant to bring their belongings out of the office and further risk introducing bed bugs into their own homes. They have also discussed among themselves the possibility of filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but fear retribution for doing so.”

What’s more, this is no mere inconvenience. Currently, APHIS is grappling with crises like bird flu and New World screwworm, and “some staffers raised concerns about the impacts the hazardous working conditions and the push for staff to take time off would have on that critical work.”

“Not allowing employees to telework while the office is infested with bed bugs is an unnecessary significant risk to U.S. cattle health,” argued one employee, “with experts dealing with the NWS situation forced to go home if they don’t want to get bed bugs.”

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