Nick Hilden

Docs reveal Trump's shady justification for putting his face on the DOJ

A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that Stalinesque banners hung on the Department of Justice building bearing the face of President Donald Trump were justified using questionable rationale.

“I got records under FOIA showing Trump banners hung at Justice were part of a ‘RFK Beautification Project,’” posted journalist Kevin Bogardus on Friday. What’s more: “Total price? Almost $1 million. But precise costs for the banners were redacted.”

Bogardus elaborated in an article for Politico, writing, “Records obtained by POLITICO share more details on how Trump’s visage ended up adorning the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, otherwise known as Main Justice. The department signed a contract in January for a ‘RFK Beautification Project’ to clean the building’s exterior walls, upgrade the facade lighting system and install ‘Celebratory Banners.’”

The project's total ended up being $892,192.07, with another $54,768 added under a “supplemental agreement” just this week. Notably, writes Bogardus, “In the released records, officials blacked out the line-item costs for creating and hanging the massive banners.”

According to Bogardus, “Several federal agencies have also hung banners of Trump at their headquarters buildings, some of them ostensibly in celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday earlier this month. The decorations also fit with Trump’s penchant for self-promotion, placing his name on Washington landmarks, and have attracted congressional scrutiny.”

When the banners were initially hung in September, House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared, "This is not only a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's also an authoritarian tactic. Dictators from Stalin to Saddam plastered their images on government buildings to demonstrate power. Now, the Trump Administration is doing the same in Washington."

Trump’s second term has been characterized by his vanity projects. These have included a wide range of construction and renovation projects in Washington, D.C., such as the White House ballroom, a 250-foot-tall arch, horse statues coated with gold, and his disastrous attempt to have the Reflecting Pool painted. He’s also been obsessed with getting his face and signature put on currency and passports.

These vanity projects have not come cheap to the taxpayer. Funding has come from a range of sources, but roughly $1 billion (as of June) has been diverted from the National Parks Service. According to one Parks Service employee who spoke with a reporter on the condition of strict anonymity, many parks have had as much as 70 percent of their funds pulled. As the Parks employee explained, “It means that signage and exhibits won’t be improved, youth programs can’t be offered, that a trail is not improved.”

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Federal judge issues massive blow to Trump's xenophobic project

A federal judge has just ordered the extension of an administrative stay on the Trump administration's attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia, stymying the White House's push for the speedy deportation of Ethiopian refugees. This represents the latest blow to President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.

The news was shared by Politico Senior Legal Affairs reporter Josh Gerstein on Friday afternoon, when he posted the ruling by Judge Brian Murphy, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and was appointed by President Joe Biden.

"Plaintiffs have moved for an administrative stay pending resolution of their motion to amend their complaint and renewed motion for postponement. As previously noted by another Court in this District, a court “may issue an administrative stay ‘in an exercise of its docket-management authority.’ Administrative stays are not a reflection of the merits, but instead allow the court time to consider the merits of a case that cannot be successfully or appropriately evaluated in haste.” After review, and in light of the novel arguments raised in Plaintiffs’ amended complaint, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion for an administrative stay as follows. To preserve the status quo, the effective date of termination of the designation of Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia (the “Termination”) will be STAYED, subject to further order of this Court or higher courts, pending resolution of Plaintiffs’ renewed motion for postponement. During the period of the stay of the Termination, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect."

Temporary Protected Status is a program that extends temporary immigration benefits to those from certain countries who cannot safely return due to war, natural disaster, or other concerns. The Trump administration has been attempting to end TPS for Ethiopian refugees since December, but a suit filed in January has suspended that termination while its legality is wrangled in the courts. Friday's decision is a major win for the plaintiffs, allowing them to remain and work in the United States while the case is determined.

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'Psychological pattern' reveals Trump’s 'neurodegenerative disorder': neuroscientist

Over the course of his political career, President Donald Trump has displayed a “psychological pattern” that makes it clear he is afflicted with some form of “neurodegenerative disorder.” This is according to neuroscientist Frank George, who on Friday revealed the specific disorder he believes is motivating Trump, and argued that the United States must become more willing to identify such conditions in its public figures.

George asserts that U.S. institutions are limited by “blind spots” that restrict their ability to recognize and call out certain psychological patterns. He raises the example of the press, noting that while “nobody objects” when journalists suggest patterns to issues like corruption, fraud, or discrimination, “when the pattern involves personality and behavior, many news organizations are way more hesitant to frame it that way. Instead, they treat each disturbing outburst as a fresh controversy rather than asking whether the controversies themselves reflect an enduring psychological pattern.” According to George, it’s the pattern — not each individual action — that should get the headlines.

He says that this problem stems largely from “the Goldwater Rule.” Established by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973, it bans psychiatrists from diagnosing and offering professional opinions about public figures without examining them personally. According to George, while the rule makes theoretical sense, reducing the possibility that psychiatry could be used as a political weapon, “Psychiatrists became so worried about saying too much that the public was left hearing almost nothing at all. Ironically, the profession dedicated to recognizing behavioral patterns became remarkably reluctant to talk about one unfolding in front of hundreds of millions of eyewitnesses.”

In Trump’s case, argues George, we’ve observed his behavior for decades, and certain patterns have become clear. According to George, “You don’t have to diagnose someone to notice that they’ve never admitted they lost an election. You don’t need a $500 office visit to recognize chronic grandiosity, projection, or an inability to tolerate criticism. You don’t need to diagnose someone to notice that they have never admitted making a mistake. Ever. Millions of people can observe those things. That’s called...Observation.”

Lately, he notes, there has been “growing interest in Trump showing progressing signs of dementia, notably FTD,” as well as “Malignant Narcissism.” He suggests that this increasing willingness to admit such possibilities stems from a recent reframing of how the public discusses Trump’s behavior.

“For years, many people heard: ‘Trump has a personality disorder.’ That sounded like politics,” George explains. “But when they heard: ‘Trump may have a neurodegenerative disorder,’ that sounded like medicine. Once the conversation moved into a medical frame, people became more open to asking broader questions about the brain, behavior, and judgment. Some then revisited personality explanations they had previously dismissed.”

“Somewhere along the way,” writes George, “we decided there was a moral difference between saying, ‘His hippocampus is deteriorating,’ and ‘His capacity for empathy appears profoundly impaired.’ Both are observations about brain function. One feels clinical. The other feels personal. One is saying the car needs work. The other is saying the driver needs work.”

In the end, George argues that less important than Trump’s Malignant Narcissism may be Americans’ reluctance to admit to it. As he concludes, “We didn’t lack evidence. We didn’t even lack the vocabulary. What we lacked was the institutional and societal courage to put the two together. And when a society can’t comfortably describe a recurring pattern...That pattern gets a very long head start.”

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'Absurd': George Conway demolishes reports of 'sociopath' Trump’s 'grief'

On Friday, a New York Times headline prompted one figure from President Donald Trump’s orbit to declare that the chief executive is a “sociopath” who is not “capable of grief.”

This is according to attorney George Conway, a Democratic congressional candidate who was formerly married to Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. He was responding to a Times headline that read, “How a Grieving Trump Decided to Back Graham’s Sister for Senate,” in which it was asserted that the president was “uncharacteristically emotional about the death of his friend,” recently departed Senator Lindsey Graham. Conway, however, wasn’t buying it.

“Truly absurd headline,” Conway posted. “And most importantly, grossly factually inaccurate. Beyond any reasonable doubt, Trump is a sociopath; he does not grieve, nor is he capable of grief. Even if journalists are too timid to report that truth, they should not report the contrary as truth.”

Accusations that Trump has some form of severe “anti-social personality disorder” have been frequent over the course of his political career. While such assertions were once limited primarily to suggestions of extreme narcissism, in recent months, many have argued that Trump may be afflicted with a more dangerous disorder.

In March, for example, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie argued that Trump is a “psychopath” “in the clinical sense, asserting that Trump “doesn’t appear to recognize that other people exist. That other people have feelings. That their concerns ought to be considered. [He is] someone who has no awareness of the existence of other minds.” Then last week, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich claimed Trump is a sociopath “who will stop at nothing to get the results he wants.” The very same day, bestselling Trump biographer Seth Abramson wrote, “However it came to pass — childhood trauma, genetics, dementia — this U.S. president is now functionally a psychopath. He lives in his own reality. He converses only with himself. All America is now downstream from a madman who's not listening to anyone or anything but his own madness.”

There have been many such claims as of late. And what’s more, Conway isn’t alone in suggesting the inaccuracy of the Times’ headline.

Producer and Emmy Award-winner Mark Concannon asked of the Times, “Why do you continue to parrot this Trump pressroom garbage? He wasn’t ‘grieving’ about Lindsey Graham. He just knows his sister will be as big a sycophant as her brother was and do anything he tells her to do. That’s why he endorsed her. Full stop.”

Others have argued that the headline is outright nonsense. As National security analyst Marcy Wheeler noted, "If you were struck by the description of Trump the sociopath making a decision (to appoint Lindsey's sister, which decision Gov McMaster had already made) [because] of something NYT called 'grief,' the passage on the left precedes the passage on the right in the story.” In other words, the Times’ own story admits that Trump wasn’t acting out of some “emotional” state, but out of shrewd political calculation.

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One economic concept reveals the true cost of Trump’s war: Nobel economist

One basic economic concept makes it clear that the true cost of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran extends far beyond the price of oil, and that the hidden inflation could result in “economic catastrophe.” This is according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who on Friday explained why the economic damage of the ongoing war hinges on more than the price of oil barrels.

“Yesterday,” writes Krugman, “Trump declared that the Iran war is going ‘better than anybody expected could be done.’ He’s delusional, of course. And his delusions are the reason the price of oil is back at around $100 a barrel, and — as I’ll explain shortly — the effective price is much higher than that.”

Krugam asserts that while the economic impacts of the first phase of the war were relatively slight, eased by the world offsetting its oil needs by drawing down inventories, rerouting oil through the Red Sea, and other measures, “the second Hormuz closure could be worse, for several reasons. Iran’s Houthi allies are now attacking shipping in the Red Sea, threatening that safety valve. Also, inventories are now much lower than they were when the conflict began, and can’t serve as a cushion going forward.”

“Perhaps the most important thing to realize about the current situation, however, is that oil is more expensive than it looks.” As Krugam explains, “Nobody burns crude oil. Oil must be refined into usable fuels, mainly gasoline and diesel. And there’s a global shortage of refining capacity. This partly reflects the war in Iran, but it also reflects Ukraine’s stunningly effective campaign against Vladimir Putin’s energy infrastructure.”

While the refining capacity shortage has helped keep crude prices down — “why buy crude when you can’t refine it?” — Krugman asserts that “it means that prices of petroleum products to end users are much higher than one would have expected given the price of crude. The overall ‘crack spread’ — the difference in price between a barrel of crude oil and the price of the products into which that barrel is refined — has exploded, from around $25 a barrel before the war to more than $65 now.”

In this context, “from the point of view of end users, this is the same as if crude prices had risen an extra $40 per barrel. In effect, the world is coping with the equivalent of $140 oil even though the headline price is ‘only’ around $100.” Krugman says that while it doesn’t necessarily guarantee “economic catastrophe,” it still could be on the way.

“Last month’s easing in the inflation rate now looks temporary,” writes Krugman. “With energy prices surging again — not to mention the inflationary impact of Trump’s new round of tariffs, imposed using the ludicrous excuse that nations aren’t doing enough to stop forced labor — interest rates will almost surely rise, intensifying the squeeze on families and businesses. Long-term rates, reflecting expected future Fed hikes, are already way up.”

“Things could be worse,” Krugman concludes, “and they may be about to get worse. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is in ‘revenge mode,’ and the U.S. military is surging forces into the Middle East. And if Trump doubles down on failure, drastically escalating his disastrous war, the economic, not to mention human, impacts will get much uglier.”

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'Loaded weapon': Trump is ready to pull the trigger on suspending habeas corpus

On Friday, the authors of a bombshell tell-all book about the Trump administration revealed just how close President Donald Trump came to suspending the constitutionally enshrined right of habeas corpus, and asserted that the idea is still a “loaded weapon” he’s ready to fire at any time.

This is according to journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, authors of the hit book Regime Change, which exposed the chaos in the White House over the course of Trump’s second term. The authors joined Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff to discuss the administration, and over the course of their conversation, they detailed how frighteningly close Trump came to suspending habeas corpus, and emphasized that the danger isn't over.

As Haberman explains, by April 2025, Trump was publicly musing about the idea of suspending habeas corpus after the Supreme Court stymied his ability to send migrants overseas without trial. The president was frustrated and ranted at a Cabinet meeting about how “there's one thing three presidents have used very strongly,” referring to the Insurrection Act, and CNN reported several days later that he was talking about suspending habeas corpus, but the episode passed quickly.

“But we were really obsessed with it,” Haberman explains, “because habeas corpus is enshrined in the Constitution. It is older than the Magna Carta. It is one of the most fundamental rights of due process, and the idea that a president would think that this was something he could just end ... Stephen Miller was openly endorsing this, so we went down this rabbit hole to try to understand it. What we learned was the discussions were extremely serious.”

The idea came from Miller, who pushed it repeatedly. “The president was interested,” and Miller tasked the DOJ with studying the matter, “which was astonishing — that it went that far — and a reflection of how serious it was.”

From there, confidential memos were prepared by Staff Secretary Will Sharf, who Haberman characterizes as a “very conservative lawyer” and extreme Trump loyalist. Here she notes that unlike during Trump’s first term, when there were officials and staff who were uncomfortable with and opposed the president’s most radical ideas, during the second term, his administration is full of people who will obey his every command. Sharf is one of these, and “he has endorsed almost all of Trump's most radical and extreme agenda items.” Sharf prepared two memos that laid out the historical context for such an action, ultimately concluding there was little legal justification for it, and forwarded them to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to bring to Trump.

“They're very dry these memos,” says Haberman, “but the point is very clear: this is a line the administration should not cross. That kind of a memo is not getting written if this is just some kind of idle talk. It was put back on the shelf, but like all ideas with Trump, you know these are loaded weapons on the shelf.”

The idea was taken back up again in January after ICE agents killed Alex Pretti, when Vice President JD Vance suggested the invocation of the Insurrection Act to quell protests. According to Swan, even Miller pushed back, noting they hadn’t “explored whether the law will stretch to accommodate” it. “They end the meeting in this sort of no man's land. They basically decide to put it aside.”

“But it wasn't this definitive decision — We will never do this,” warns Swan. “It's something that Trump himself has expressed a desire to do many, many times. Stephen Miller clearly has expressed an eagerness to do it. So it's just waiting there. It's waiting there for the moment. It is not like they flirted with these things and now it's the furthest thing from their mind. That’s not the case.”

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Baptist pastor tears apart Trump — and his 'abusive' MAGA movement

A Baptist media publisher and pastor has urged his flock to admit that President Donald Trump is an “abuser,” deeming MAGA an “abusive movement that preys on the most racist and misogynistic tropes possible.” In an op-ed published Thursday, he urged his fellow Baptists to “admit the urgency of the crisis.”

This is according to Texas-based Baptist News Global executive director Mark Wingfield. Baptists are a denomination of Evangelical Christians, who were among Trump’s most loyal voters in 2016, 2020, and 2024. While reliable numbers on Baptist voters specifically are hard to come by, exit polls have shown that around 80 percent of Evangelicals voted Trump. Wingfield’s op-ed, however, comes amidst a dramatic shift among Evangelicals, whose support for Trump has plunged to 52 percent — a 30 percent drop in one year.

According to Wingfield, “A common criticism I get here at BNG and that some of my progressive clergy friends get in their congregations is this: ‘Why do you have to keep talking about Donald Trump and Christian nationalism all the time? Could you please change the subject?’ This question fails to grasp the urgency of our current crisis. It is like saying to a woman who is being abused at home, ‘Why do you have to talk about your abusive husband all the time? Can’t you talk about something more pleasant?’”

Wingfield lays out his thoughts on the president in no uncertain terms, writing, “Donald Trump is an abuser. He is an adjudicated rapist and predator. Donald Trump is a grifter. He is a well-known con man who gets away with the con because so many don’t want to talk about it. Donald Trump is a liar unlike any liar most of us ever have known. And there are enormous consequences to his perpetual lying. Donald Trump is literally the most dangerous man in the world, and you want to label me with ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ for saying that.”

What’s more, he asserted, “MAGA is an abusive movement that preys on the most racist and misogynistic tropes possible and does real harm to people. Real people are dying and starving and becoming ill because of the cruelty and stupidity of the Trump administration. Lives are being ruined. Families are being ruined.”

“The nation’s house is on fire, and those of us who keep yelling ‘Fire!’ are told to please talk about something more pleasant,” he warns. “While the fire rages. Most of us would love to talk about more pleasant things but our consciences will not allow us that privilege. We must continue to sound the alarm while the threat remains.”

He concludes by spurring his fellow Baptists to action, urging, “If you want us to be quiet, step up and do something to put out the fire. Admit the urgency of the crisis. Identify with those being harmed. Use your position and privilege to call for change and hold accountable those who are enabling this insanity. If you want us to shut up, then you must put up. Otherwise, we are not the problem.”

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'Tweets don’t overturn signed agreements': Trump just learned the limits of his power

On Wednesday, the bombshell announcement that the Trump administration will allow Saudi Arabia to launch a nuclear program drew widespread condemnation from critics asserting it would fuel the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Then Thursday morning, President Donald Trump attempted to backpedal, claiming the deal was conditional on the Saudis normalizing relations with Israel. But according to sources, he’s about to learn the limits of his social media power.

This is according to veteran foreign affairs reporter Lauren Rozen, who on Thursday said that when asked about the new conditions Trump is trying to add to the deal, a Saudi source told her that “it was signed,” so there was “nothing to renegotiate,” adding, “Tweets don’t overturn signed agreements.”

Trump’s post in question made a number of assertions that appear to conflict with reality. According to Trump, “The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords. The United States is not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities.”

First of all, Trump’s claim that there would be “no enrichment” not only clashes with how experts have assessed the deal, but is outright impossible. While the agreement theoretically focuses on the U.S. bringing nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, according to Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, the plan appeared to let Saudi Arabia enrich its own nuclear fuel in-country. Said Guzansky, "Saudi insistence on enrichment in Saudi Arabia ... was the thing that got [previous] negotiations stuck and U.S. administrations, one after another, did not permit enrichment.” What’s more, all nuclear facilities — whether for energy or weapons — rely on enriched material. In other words, Trump’s insistence that there will be “non-enriched” facilities is nonsensical.

But perhaps most importantly of all, as Rozen’s source pointed out, Trump’s post has no legal weight. A number of experts have agreed.

“The U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal was signed yesterday,” said Axios Global Affairs Correspondent Barak Ravid. “But at the current time, Saudi Arabia signing a peace deal with Israel doesn't seem like a realistic near-term scenario.”

“Most normal countries go by what the actual text of an agreement says,” posted former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro. “And while Trump is willing to screw the countries he doesn't like (Canada, e.g.) by violating signed agreements, my bet is today’s outburst is momentary spin to respond to criticism the deal is getting, and then the deal goes forward as written because it is a country he likes (and who knows who is getting cut in on the reactor deals).”

Center for International Policy Senior Fellow Sina Toossi warned that there could be wider diplomatic implications for the president’s attempt at rule by social media, declaring, “Trump has spent years destroying America's negotiating credibility. When even close partners have to wonder whether a signed agreement will survive his next post, diplomacy becomes exponentially harder.”

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'Disillusioned' North Carolina Trump voters grumble over 'angst' spawned by his policies

On Thursday, MSNOW aired a segment in which North Carolina voters expressed their “angst” over the war with Iran and its resulting economic consequences. According to one self-proclaimed supporter of President Donald Trump, she hails from an entire family of Trump voters who have been “disillusioned” by his performance.

The segment aired during a panel on the war, in which journalist Molly Jong-Fast noted, “Politico had a poll that came out yesterday, and it showed that 1 in 5 self-identified MAGA voters wants this war over today.” Here host Antonia Hylton suggested that Trump has attempted to “rhetorically work his way out of accountability on this,” raising his recent claim that while “voters are stressed about gas prices,” “they're not unsupportive of the war.” But in the North Carolina voters interviewed by MSNOW contradicted the president’s assertion.

“My opinion on the war,” said one woman: “It's an unnecessary war that should never have taken place.”

Asked whether the war’s growing $37.5 billion cost could have been better spent elsewhere, another respondent declared, “Roads, schools, lower prices, anything but this.”

And one noticeably upset woman delivered a response indicative of MAGA’s rising frustration at the situation. Asked if the war had helped her life at all, she shook her head and said, “No. For one thing, it causes me angst. Makes me angry. I'm very disillusioned. My entire family is disillusioned. And we are and were Trump supporters.”

Republican strategist Susan del Percio wasn’t surprised by this reaction. As she explained, with previous “forever wars,” the American public was at least sold on why it was happening in the first place. But in the case of Iran, “We entered this war for no reason that Trump can properly explain.” What’s more, “When we look at gas prices[,] they went up, they went up, went up, they ticked down. We never see gas prices go up, go up, tick down and then tick back up so quickly, which tells the American public that this war is directly in correlation.”

As Jong-Fast noted, new polling shows that just a third of self-proclaimed MAGA voters think the war is worth the economic costs, which is a steep 13-point drop since May, when Trump had the support of more than half of MAGA. Hot on its heels was another poll by Fox News, which revealed such disastrous numbers for the president that one leading political reporter called it the “end days for GOP.”

According to Fox, “If the election were today, 53 percent of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 46 percent the Republican. That 7-point edge is just outside the poll’s margin of error. Democrats were up by 5 points in April. Notably, 53 percent is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic House ballot in Fox News polling since 1996." What’s more, the poll found that “Trump’s job approval remains near a record low, more Democrats are motivated to vote, Republicans join Democrats and independents in rating the economy negatively, and 4 in 10 voters want ‘dramatic’ or ‘revolutionary’ change.”

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Authoritarian expert unveils Trump’s 'new MAGA propaganda theme'

According to a leading expert on authoritarianism, President Donald Trump has seized on a “new MAGA propaganda theme” that has been used by autocrats for over a century. The “trick” is “not subtle,” and involves labeling everyone and anyone who opposes Trump as “communists.” What’s more, she warns, the president and his allies may use this as a justification for a “crackdown” on their opponents.

This is according to fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University and the author of Strongman: Mussolini to the Present, who via a series of posts on Wednesday explained why Trump and the Republicans have renewed old Red Scare, communist-baiting tactics.

Ben-Ghiat began by sharing a video of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), in which he declared that “the Bolshevik takeover of the Democratic Party is in full swing” and that “communism is on the ballot this November.” “Bolshevik?” mused Ben-Ghiat. “How retro, a return to the original Fascist counter-revolutionary rhetoric and action … Conjuring Communism in all its forms is apparently the new MAGA propaganda theme.”

She followed this with a clip of Trump claiming that communists are trying to blow up Mount Rushmore. According to Ben-Ghiat, the president’s intention was “not subtle.” As she explained, the “new party line is to associate Communists with every crime, every offense. Create a sense of Communist threat to justify a rightwing crackdown. Old playbook used with coups and Fascist takeovers.”

Next came a clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio ranting about communists. As Ben-Ghiat explained, “Propaganda is about repetition: the group you want to smear must be mentioned negatively over and over again. When you are conjuring a largely imaginary enemy, you must redouble your efforts. That's what is happening here.” This was followed by an all-caps repost from House Republicans that declared, “WE WILL STOP COMMUNISM,” to which Ben-Ghiat replied, “Are we getting the point about propaganda requiring repetition with tiny variations in messaging?”

With the November elections looming, in which the Republicans are expected to take major losses, Ben-Ghiat warns that such talk suggests Trump and his allies are willing to take extreme measures to stay in power. As she writes, “Again, all of a sudden commies are The Enemy. Students of propaganda, track the diff in messaging from a month ago. Goal is likely to justify a crackdown for ‘national security’ reasons, conveniently staged just before the midterms.”

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Disaster for Trump: Fox News warns of 'end days for GOP'

A pair of new polls revealed the true extent of the damage President Donald Trump has done to his party’s midterm chances, and according to one leading political reporter, it amounts to the “end days for GOP.”

This was the assessment of Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, who shared the two polls Thursday morning. One was from Fox News, which explained, "If the election were today, 53 percent of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 46 percent the Republican. That 7-point edge is just outside the poll’s margin of error. Democrats were up by 5 points in April. Notably, 53 percent is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic House ballot in Fox News polling since 1996."

As Sherman notes, that’s a “big gulf in the generic,” implying major angst toward the Republicans. But the Fox poll didn’t stop with the revelations there. As Fox elaborated, “President Donald Trump’s job approval remains near a record low, more Democrats are motivated to vote, Republicans join Democrats and independents in rating the economy negatively, and 4 in 10 voters want ‘dramatic" or "revolutionary’ change. Plus, more view the GOP as tied to elites than the Democratic Party.”

The news continues to get worse for Republicans from there. According to Fox, “Voters say Democrats can better handle income inequality (+22 points), healthcare (+21), inflation (+10), the economy (+9), and foreign policy (+7). Republicans hold the advantage on crime (+7 points), while government spending (Democrats +3) and national security (R +2) are more evenly divided. On immigration, the GOP had an 8-point edge in April. Now, Democrats are preferred by one point.” The number of those who say they face “severe” financial hardship due to inflation has shot up by 8 percent since last year, and 54 percent say they expect the economy to get worse in the coming year. What’s more, “when looking only at counties where the 2024 presidential vote was close — Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris within 10 points — the Democratic candidate leads by 59-41 percent.”

And all that bad news is coming from a source that tends to skew in Trump and the GOP’s favor. Set alongside another new poll from Emerson, which shows a whopping 11-point lead for Democrats on a generic ballot, and it becomes clear why Sherman is saying “that’s end days for GOP.”

All of this is very bad news for Republicans heading into the midterms, where even Fox admits their chances of losing the House majority are high. It also bodes poorly for the Republican presidential candidate in 2028, as voters are making it increasingly clear that they want major change.

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MAGA lawmaker forced to break with Trump when cornered by press

On Wednesday, when confronted with President Donald Trump’s attempt to downplay the lethality of his war with Iran, MAGA-oriented Representative Pat Harrigan (R-NC) was forced to admit that he disagreed with the Commander in Chief after initially dancing around the truth.

Harrigan was cornered by Spectrum News White House correspondent Reuben Jones, who first asked the lawmaker whether Trump was wrong when he claimed that Iran’s military had been destroyed weeks ago.

“They weren’t specific enough,” Harrigan replied. “And at the end of the day you have to parse out, we have destroyed Iran’s ability to produce new ballistic missiles and new drones. Totally destroyed. Their defense industrial base is gone.”

“But the military’s not destroyed,” Jones persisted.

“They have substantial inventories of both of those two things that we have to be very cognizant of,” Harrigan admitted, noting, “The longer this goes, the more American soldiers that we stand to lose, there’s no question about it.”

“But you wouldn’t say that the military is destroyed?” Jones pressed again.

“The military and their capability is degraded, not destroyed,” Harrigan conceded.

Jones then raised the matter of the Trump administration's request for a Pentagon budget of $88 billion dollars, suggesting that, “Some might say, well, if the administration doesn’t seem to have a clear grasp of what Iran’s military capability is, why would we give them tens of billions of dollars more to spend?”

“There are a couple of reasons,” said Harrigan, claiming that he thinks the administration has been clear about what he says were five initial objectives laid out by the White House at the beginning of the war, but admitting, “I think there has been some unclarity about how far are we along those strategic initiatives to what you would consider mission complete.” He then argued that the Pentagon needs more money for the war to prevent it from making cuts to other programs, which would “put the United States of America at significant strategic risk.”

Jones then shifted the conversation to a new post from Trump, in which he listed the death toll of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea, then noted that the Venezuelan “War” lasted only one day with zero dead, while the Iran “Military Conflict” had gone on for only four months with "18 DEAD.” The reporter then asked Harrigan whether Trump’s post minimized the deaths of American soldiers killed over the weekend.

At that the lawmaker struggled to disagree.

“Yeah, anybody can go just a few miles away from here to Arlington National Cemetery and see that this incredible country that we’ve built has been bought at an incredible price, and we should never diminish or demean that in any way, shape, or form,” Harrigan admitted. “I also don’t think comparisons are a great idea. I think we have to look and say, well, look, we have had sacrifices in this conflict. We don’t want to have more, but for those we have had and those we may have in the future, we’d better earn their sacrifice with the right outcome.”

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'Scared straight': Once bitten Fox leery of backing Trump's latest election fantasy

When President Donald Trump delivered a national address last Thursday to rehash his 2020 election denial claims, Fox News notably dodged any appearance of promoting his allegations. It’s not the first time Fox has avoided lending a platform to Trump’s attempts to push his “Big Lie,” and according to Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye, that may be because the network has learned an “expensive lesson.”

“Fox News may have been scared straight,” wrote Tesfaye on Wednesday. After airing the address, “rather than rushing to validate the president’s claims, chief political anchor Bret Baier immediately offered a stark, legally cautious disclaimer to his audience. He informed viewers that the network ‘has not seen the evidence yet and is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statement and claims.’” Afterwards, there was an “almost total blackout” of the president’s speech across Fox. As Tesfaye explained, “The morning after the address, ‘Fox & Friends,’ the network’s flagship three-hour morning show that typically serves as a rallying ground for administration priorities, pointedly neglected to even cover the speech. ‘The Five,’ the powerhouse afternoon panel show that regularly generates the highest ratings in cable news, completely ignored the address on Friday, Monday and Tuesday.”

Top network talent who usually champion Trump’s agenda were similarly silent. “Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters chose not to preview or promote the speech in the two prime hours leading up to it, and Ingraham refrained from mentioning it on her Friday, Monday and Tuesday broadcasts. Hannity, despite promising his audience a ‘deep dive into all this documentation in the days ahead,’ promptly took Friday night off and subsequently omitted the topic from his Monday and Tuesday shows. Mark Levin — the man who helped craft the legal theory Trump’s allies used to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into rejecting electors in 2020, and who defended that effort publicly for years — said nothing about the speech on either of his Fox News weekend programs. On ‘Fox News Sunday,’ anchor Shannon Bream allocated a mere four seconds to the entire event, treating it as a footnote before moving on to interview a Democratic senator.”

Conservative media noticed, spurring commentators to claim Fox is full of “fair weather friends” who were abandoning the president, and prompting one to ask, “What is up with Fox News?” But as Tesfaye explained, Fox has good reason.

“The network famously got burned by Trump’s earlier election claims, agreeing in April 2023 to pay a staggering $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems,” explained Tesfaye. “That blockbuster settlement came after months of grueling discovery exposed embarrassing internal communications revealing that Fox executives, producers and star hosts privately mocked and disbelieved the false claims about rigged voting machines, even as they broadcast them to millions of viewers in an obvious effort to prevent audience defection to rival networks like Newsmax.”

Worse yet, “the Dominion settlement was not just a historic financial blow; it was a devastating institutional humiliation that left Fox exposed to continuing legal danger, including an ongoing $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic. Having paid nearly $800 million echoing Trump’s 2020 falsehoods, Fox’s corporate leadership appears to have drawn a firm, permanent line. The network’s legal department now clearly wields a veto over its newsroom and primetime opinion stars. When Trump steps to a podium to claim that Chinese software, stolen voter files or rigged machines altered the course of American democracy, Fox’s lawyers see a multi-million-dollar liability walking onto television screens.”

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Prominent Trump ally 'starting to realize' MAGA is 'ignorant'

On Wednesday, prominent MAGA influencer Laura Loomer revealed that she’s “starting to realize” that many in her political orbit are “ignorant.” Loomer has acted as a key online mouthpiece for President Donald Trump over the course of his second term, and her latest realization comes as she’s admitted to learning that other aspects of MAGA’s messaging don’t align with reality.

“I’m starting to realize many things, and one of those things is I really don’t actually like a lot of the people I have met in the GOP over the last 12 years,” Loomer posted on Wednesday. “Some of these people are so ignorant to me. They mock me for saying there’s Russian propaganda on social media and some of them even accuse me of being an Israeli spy for calling out right wing Jew hatred. Some of these people are literally ret—. Some are just paid off. Either way, I don’t like what I’m seeing.”

Loomer has recently expressedrecently expressed a 180-degree-flip in regard to her position on the war between Russia and Ukraine, having previously claimed that the former was merely purging the latter of neo-nazis. These beliefs have been widely held throughout the MAGA movement, and political commentators have suggested they factor in the Trump administration’s reluctant support of Ukraine in preference to Russia. Loomer has been a vocal proponent of such pro-Moscow narratives.

“I’ve realized, I was wrong,” she posted on Monday. “I was living in a media echo chamber and I was propagandized by Russian media on social media to believe those things. So I came to Ukraine to see the country for myself. I am going to try to find evidence for the propaganda I’ve been fed, and if I don’t find it, I will let everyone know so they too can come to see the light.” She went on to describe atrocities committed by Russia, from massacres to “Ukrainian POWs who had swastikas engraved into their forehead.”

This turned out to be something of a social media bombshell, prompting vocal reactions from across the political spectrum. One popular MAGA-oriented account typified the response from the far-right, asking, “Laura have you lost your mind?”

Not everyone on the right was so negative. Conservative commentator Marc Thiessen — himself typically a supporter of Trump’s foreign policy — chimed in with a “Good for you Laura!” Others were more reluctantly positive. As one prominent attorney put it, “I hate to say this, but this is a good tweet by Loomer. This is exactly what you should do when you realize you were wrong about something.”

So far, Loomer remains a dedicated Trump ally, promoting MAGA conspiracy theories and Islamophobic beliefs. She credits her visit to Ukraine with changing her stance in regard to Russia, on Tuesday posting photos of herself eating McDonald's in front of a bombed-out street.

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3 MAGA speeches in one day 'pronounced death' of American democracy

Last Thursday, three speeches delivered by MAGA figureheads in the Trump administration amounted to “pronouncements” of the death of American democracy. This is according to veteran critical care physician Robert B. Shpiner, who took to the Guardian to warn of the dangerous way the White House is wielding the word “cancer” to describe its political opponents.

“The presumption that US elections are legitimate died last week in Washington,” writes Shpiner. “It did not die of one wound. It died of three, inflicted in a single day… And the country, running to the loudest of them, never examined the one most likely to kill.” Shpiner admits that while such pronouncements can seem alarmist, when his family left Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1933, “in both generations, leaving was called excessive; staying was the reasonable position. But an alarm that was right both times it sounded is not overcaution.” He asserts that the alarm sounded three times last Thursday.

“The morning belonged to the secretary of state,” writes Shpiner. “Before officials of more than 60 countries, he announced that the counterterrorism architecture of the free world, built over a generation against jihadist mass murder, should be rebuilt and aimed at the domestic left. He named a transnational enemy defined by hatred of the west, ‘a revolt of the worst against the best.’ He tied it to Iran and to Cuba and offered no evidence for either link. He said the journalists and thinktanks who might check the claims often agree with the enemy’s goals. The move is old and reliable: discredit the second opinion in advance.”

Then, writes Shpiner, “midday belonged to the White House deputy chief of staff. What he said deserves to be quoted rather than summarized, because summary is a mercy it has not earned. He called ‘leftwing political terrorism’ a ‘fatal cancer of civilization.’ He said that its politics, left to run its course, ‘always becomes a gulag.’ He said antifa demonstrators are ‘all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism,’ that ‘their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred,’ and he asked why there is ‘not one normal-looking person among them.’ He said that when the leftist protests that his rights are being violated, those appeals ‘must fall on deaf ears.’ He urged the assembled governments to be ‘completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.’”

Here Shpiner notes that he has practiced critical care for four decades, and that “cancer is my vocabulary, not his,” writing, “I know what happened the last time a government borrowed it. The Nazi state’s central perversion was the medicalization of killing: the enemy as tumor, as bacillus, the nation as patient, extermination as cure… When a government describes citizens as a cancer, it has written the first line of a treatment plan. On Thursday, the plan was read aloud, from a state department podium.”

Finally, writes Shpiner, “the evening belonged to the president. In primetime he called the American election system indefensible, claimed a foreign power held 220 million voter files, declared mail voting inherently corrupt, accused his own intelligence services of concealment, and told Congress that the only reason to oppose his bill is the intent to cheat. That framework converts every future outcome into evidence. Pass the bill and win: the bill worked. Fail and lose: the cheaters blocked it. A presumption of legitimacy cannot survive inside a belief system engineered to be unfalsifiable.”

Shpiner describes the media’s response in the days to come as a “triage error,” asserting that the focus fell on the “loudest injury” — President Donald Trump — and ignored “the morning’s remarks, the ones that declared a class of Americans a cancer and read enmity on their bodies.” Writes Shpiner, “I have watched teams run to the dramatic patient while the quiet one, the one not crying out, exsanguinates behind a curtain. The most dangerous words spoken in Washington on Thursday were not spoken in primetime. They were spoken before lunch, to more than 60 countries. The official transcript records the applause.”

He concludes on a grim note, writing, “In 40 years of intensive care, I have pronounced death many times. The criteria are strict because the declaration is irreversible, and so we are taught to be certain before we speak. I have also, more than once, seen a rhythm return after the room had gone quiet, when someone refused to stop compressions on schedule. This notice is filed in the knowledge that pronouncements can be premature. It is filed in the fear that this one is not.”

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Trump DOJ just blew up its own fight against the 1st Amendment: ex-federal prosecutor

Last week, President Donald Trump launched a new assault on the First Amendment by sending swarms of subpoena-wielding FBI agents to the homes of New York Times journalists, demanding that they reveal sources to a recent story about security concerns regarding his Qatari-gifted jet. But while Trump may be making an intimidating show of force, a former federal prosecutor says that his attack is likely already doomed for two reasons his Justice Department should have realized.

This is according to former assistant US attorney Elie Honig, who on Tuesday examined the legal context of a White House attempting to force a journalist to give up its sources. According to legal precedent and obvious facts here in the present, writes Honig, the president has a flimsy case.

According to Honig, “The Justice Department’s own internal policy — most recently updated in April 2025, during the current Trump administration — exposes just how abusive the Times subpoenas are. The newly revised Justice Manual specifies that subpoenas should be served on journalists only as ‘an extraordinary measure to be deployed as a last resort’ in a case of ‘substantial importance’ to law enforcement or national security.”

Honig says this makes it clear that there are two problems, writing, “First, forget about a case of ‘substantial importance’ — the Times’s reporting barely poses any security risk at all. The Times didn’t reveal war plans or expose an undercover agent or publicize information about an ongoing crime or disclose details about potential domestic vulnerabilities to foreign attack. In fact, it was already widely and publicly known that Trump had flown to Turkey on the Qatari plane and that the switch back to the original Air Force One happened before his return home. All the Times added was that the change in aircraft was ‘a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities with Iran.’”

“Crucially,” Honig elaborates, “the Times did not report anything about the specific nature of those security concerns around the Qatari plane, or where weaknesses might exist. Nobody with bad intentions could realistically use the information in the Times story to do anything malicious, beyond rolling their eyes that Trump had accepted the dubious foreign gift in the first place.”

“Second,” writes Honig, “it’s doubtful the Justice Department tried less intrusive measures before deploying the ‘last resort’ — the Trump DOJ’s own words — of subpoenaing journalists. Did investigators first make any effort to get information about the apparent leaks from other evidentiary sources? Did prosecutors give the journalists a chance to negotiate their disclosures, or perhaps to voluntarily provide certain limited information? Given how quickly this all unfolded — the Times story broke on July 8, and subpoena-wielding agents came knocking two days later — it seems DOJ broke its own rules.”

The Times has filed a motion to block the subpoenas. While Honig says the aforementioned issues should be compelling to the judge, he concludes on a grim note, writing, “If the Times ultimately prevails, the Justice Department’s leak investigation could still continue but the reporters won’t have to give up their sources. But if the Times loses and the subpoenas are deemed lawful, things will get dark. Each journalist will have to decide whether to comply and reveal their sources to prosecutors — or to risk a contempt finding and imprisonment.”

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Trump in 'politically impossible' bind as he finally loses most loyal supporters

MAGA has finally had it with President Donald Trump’s Iran war, with just a third saying it is worth the economic costs — a steep drop since May, when over half supported the commander-in-chief. This means that Trump is underwater with the one group that has remained loyal to him for a decade now.

The poll, conducted by Politico, revealed a 13-point drop in just two months, and signaled that “the president’s most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.’ involvement in the war.” What’s more, the survey found that “37 percent of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say the U.S. should continue its involvement only if it doesn’t increase costs, up from 29 percent who said the same in May ... Nearly 1 in 5 MAGA voters believe that the U.S. should end its war in Iran, regardless of the costs.”

This flagging support among Trump’s most loyal supporters is clear evidence that Americans are sick of the economic turmoil that has characterized the war and angered voters in the run-up to the midterms. According to one source close to the administration who spoke with Politico, the White House is “at a maximum level of frustration right now, and I was told by very senior people that the president is now fully aware that the only way to the victory that he wants is completely politically impossible. The American people just will not support the kind of escalation it would take at this point. We’ve got more dead Americans and a politically impossible situation.”

Politico notes the poll also shows that “non-MAGA Trump voters are even more down on the war, with only 21 percent believing it is worth higher costs, while 28 percent say that the U.S. shouldn’t continue the war regardless of costs. And the results show the president’s voters are broadly comfortable blaming the war for higher prices. When asked why gas prices have increased since the president took office, the majority of respondents blamed the conflict, including 57 percent of MAGA voters and 63 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters.”

Those who voted Trump in 2024 are also “split on whether gas prices would have gone up more, less or the same under a Democratic president compared with now — another indication that Americans are more willing to assign blame to Trump for the state of the economy. Equal shares of Trump voters say that prices would’ve gone up more under a Democrat (34 percent) and that prices would have gone up the same (35 percent). A notable 20 percent believe prices have gone up more under Trump.”

“This shows that as unpopular as the first round of war was from February to early summer, this second round is even more ridiculous,” said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine. “The American people quite simply do not get it, do not understand why we are in this war, and, yes, President Trump is king of the Republican Party. Yes, the president can do a lot and has a lot of latitude with his own supporters, but kings are not invulnerable from political reality.”

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Judge demands Trump surrender his financial records

On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump must surrender detailed financial documents relating to his defamation lawsuit against the BBC. According to Politico, "U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett concluded that Trump’s sweeping complaint put injury to his businesses at the forefront and made their vitality a fair subject for the BBC to demand information about."

“All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,” Lett said at the conclusion of a three-hour hearing. As Politico reports, "Her decision opened the door for the BBC to explore the finances of more than 400 companies owned by a Trump family trust, but Trump can appeal the ruling to U.S. District Court Judge Roy Altman, a Trump appointee." Trump's attorney declined to comment on whether or not the president would appeal.

"Trump’s lawyers had tried to head off the ruling by backing away from some of his initial damage claims, giving up on assertions that the 2024 BBC documentary had caused him economic injuries and diminished the value of his companies," explains Politico. "Brito told Lett the president’s approach to the case has 'evolved' and he is now pursuing only damage to his reputation — not his businesses — as a result of how the BBC spliced together portions of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech. Trump contends that the edit made it sound like he called for violence when he did not."

Brito told the court, “The damages are limited in a way that is different from when the case was originally filed. Even if there has been a harm to the brand, we are not pursuing that as part of our damages….It’s a far more narrow scope of what this case is about.”

In the end, the judge declared that she "lacked the power" to drop the business element from the complaint. As Politico notes, "The hearing could serve as a reminder to Trump that the headline-grabbing lawsuits he’s fond of filing against media outlets are a two-way street, giving the press added leverage to pry into his business dealings and controversial episodes he might prefer to consign to history."

This comes as one of several legal setbacks that have hit Trump recently. In June, Trump's lawsuit against the BBC received a major "bench slap" when a judge censured his legal team for missing a deadline. In April, a judge threw out his lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, calling it "groundless." And last year, yet another suit, this one against CNN, was dismissed as "meritless."

Trump has also encountered legal troubles beyond these attacks on the First Amendment. Last week, a judge issued yet another slap down of Trump's "slush fund" for J6ers. The following day, a judge warned Trump's attorneys for using fake citations generated by AI. At the same time, his case against an Olympian charged with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool appeared to implode due to contradictory evidence submitted by White House lawyers.

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Trump biographer decodes 'goblin' president's worldview

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump shared a post to social media that explains his “goblin” worldview, according to one of his bestselling biographers.

The president’s post read, “Rich people and Companies are pouring out of Dumocrat run Blue States at levels never seen before! If this trend continues, these States will become the ‘Ghettos’ of the Future — No people, no money, no hope. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

He made the statement along with an article from a MAGA-oriented outlet Just the News, which asserted that wealthy business owners are making an “exodus” from liberal states like “Taxifornia” and New York to conservative states like Florida and Texas. According to biographer Seth Abramson, who has penned a trilogy of bestselling books about Trump, this post revealed something disturbing about the way the president views the world.

“If you read this post as contending that the only people *deserving* of being called ‘people’ are the rich (coded as white) and corporations, you're reading the post correctly and correctly understanding the worldview of the goblin who currently leads the United States of America,” Abramson declared.

Abramson, a trained criminal investigator who spent years digging into Trump, may be especially well qualified to decode the president’s statement, but he isn’t the only one who came to the conclusion that it was “racist.”

"He keeps telling yall he's racist and yall continue to defend him," one X user declared, while another noted it "seems rather on the nose for a fascist regime leader to say.” Suggested another, "He should probably sell all his NY/NJ assets or admit he's just saying this stuff for clicks.”

Others have noted that the truth behind the president's assertion about businesses exiting blue states “is more complicated than Trump claims.” According to the Daily Beast, “Since 2019, Charles Schwab, Tesla, Chevron, SpaceX, and Oracle have abandoned California for Texas, while some hedge funds have relocated from New York to Florida and Texas during that same time period. But California has continued to grow economically, and last year, the state overtook Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy. New York, meanwhile, had the highest GDP per capita of any state in 2024, the New York Times reported.”

What’s more, the Daily Beast elaborates, “on the population front, between 2020 and 2025, California, New York, and Illinois all lost between 76,000 and 172,500 residents, while the populations of Florida and Texas have grown, The New York Times reported in April. Those numbers, however, reflect the fact that blue states like California saw relatively high net outflows during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2022, but that their populations then grew in 2023 and 2024 and flattened out in 2025, according to the Times. Texas and Florida, meanwhile, had more international immigration during that period than any other state in the country — something the Trump administration has tried to curtail.”

Census data shows that starting in 2022, “the number one reason people moved was that they were looking for more affordable housing, not because of tax concerns, according to the Times. Blue states with lower housing costs such as Minnesota have not seen nearly as much net migration.”

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Conservative tears apart the 'big myth' of Trump’s success

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s national address last week, in which he once again promoted his election denial "Big Lie," one prominent conservative is raising the issue of Trump’s "Big Myth.”

“As we enter a news cycle in which the Qatari’s wingéd bribe is grounded, the Pentagon is running out of cash and the term ‘explosive diarrhea’ has entered the conversation,” wrote longtime conservative media figure Charlie Sykes on Tuesday, ”a quick reminder: Trump’s Big Lie was about the 2020 election, but his Big Myth was about his competence — the delusion that the man who bankrupted a casino, ran Trump University into the ground and presided over the serial botches of Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, the Trump Shuttle, Trump Mortgage, the Tour de Trump, Trump the Game and Trump Magazine, actually knew how to run anything more complicated than a bottle of spray tan.”

While there has been much discussion of the president’s "Big Lie" that the 2020 race was rigged against him, which he has leveraged to draw support from the conspiracy theory-hungry MAGA movement and justify his efforts to “federalize” elections, Sykes notes the importance of the "Big Myth" that got him elected in the first place. Voters bought Trump’s claim that his background as a shrewd businessman made him uniquely capable of fixing the economy, which polls showed they overwhelmingly declared their top priority.

But Sykes argues that Trump’s actual business track record doesn’t hold up to the "Big Myth" of his competence. Before entering office, Trump presided over decades of failed business endeavors run using shady practices, like failing to pay hundreds of contractors he hired. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Skyes suggests he's have seen the results of believing the president’s "Big Myth." Inflation is “wiping out” what sluggish wage gains there are. The floor has fallen out on labor force participation, with massive manufacturing job losses. And a string of other disasters caused by mismanagement have plagued the administration.

Trump lost many of his MAGA supporters with the bungled handling of the Epstein file release. His war and negotiations with Iran have been decried as botched at best and a surrender at worst, making the war historically unpopular as Trump keeps it going. And his attempt to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary was characterized by disasters and will probably be best remembered for the Reflecting Pool ordeal.

“It’s only gotten worse,” writes Sykes, “as he purges experts and grownups from his government, and surrounds himself with toadies, chodes and zealots who tell him what he wants to hear and never, ever suggest that the emperor’s shortcomings are dangling in the breeze.”

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Trump's latest 'temper tantrum' sets US on path to Great Depression: Nobel economist

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would impose a 50 percent tariff against Canada in a move that Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman notes is not only “almost surely illegal,” but is the same “terrible mistake” that pushed the U.S. into the Great Depression.

“Yesterday,” writes Krugman, “the Trump administration invoked an obscure and never-before-used provision of Smoot-Hawley — Section 338 — to impose 50 percent tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods.” Trump’s asserted reasoning for the tariffs involves accusations that Canada is discriminating against U.S. products, but as Krugman notes, the timing is suspicious, as just days earlier, the president had lashed out at Canada because smoke from its wildfires had drifted south of the border.

‘Whatever the real motivation for these new tariffs, they are almost surely illegal,” asserts Krugman. “They are definitely a violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a revision of NAFTA negotiated and signed by Trump himself during his first term. Indeed, the White House fact sheet explicitly states that the new tariffs will be imposed ‘regardless of whether a good originates under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).’ So these latest actions confirm what most people around the world, from the European Commission to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, have already figured out: a deal with Donald Trump lasts only until he feels like breaking it.”

Krugman argues that “this really is a temper tantrum, in the sense that there’s no strategy here. The new tariffs will hurt American consumers, and nobody expects them to extract any concessions from Canadians who are only getting more outraged at the United States.”

And Krugman isn’t guessing, but basing his assessment on historical evidence. As he writes, “The Trade Act of 1930, generally known as the Smoot-Hawley tariff, lost its standing as the worst trade policy action in US history when Donald Trump imposed his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April 2025. But Smoot-Hawley was widely recognized as a terrible mistake soon after its passage, as it provoked widespread retaliation and contributed to the downward spiral of world trade that accompanied and reinforced the Great Depression.”

In fact, the Smoot-Hawley “stupidity” was so widely recognized as harmful that it “led to the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, under which the US began negotiating trade deals — we’ll reduce our tariffs if you reduce yours — that helped pave the way for the great recovery of world trade and the global economy as a whole in the decades that followed World War II.” But while everyone else understood the failures of Smoot-Hawley, Trump and his allies have resurrected the long-defunct approach.

What’s more, argues Krugman, it degrades the U.S. relationship with vital partners. As he writes, “Canada should be, and used to be, America’s greatest friend in the world. We share essential political and moral values with our northern neighbor. For the most part we even share a common language, eh? And Canadians viewed us very favorably until Trump began his tariffs and threats. Now we’re viewed less favorably than China.”

Based on all this, Krugman’s conclusion is grim: “I don’t see a golden age. I see an America that has become an ineffectual bully, sicker, poorer, and riven by political extremism, with no friends anywhere in the world.”

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Ex-Trump official explains the real reason Trump is fine with a 'forever war'

As the conflict with Iran reignites and spirals into a “forever war,” a former official of President Donald Trump has revealed the real reason the commander-in-chief has allowed the U.S. to slip into endless fighting. That reason: Trump simply can’t help himself in the face of Iran’s “taunting.” In other words, the president’s fragile ego compels him to take the bait.

This is according to Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term, and writes, “Trump’s character defects cannot be contained – and some nations are exploiting them to create chaos.” Iran and its allies are aware that they benefit from allowing the war to drag on, “and have learned that the cheapest way to prolong it is to keep insulting the man in charge. Indeed, Iran is delivering a masterclass on how to bait the U.S. President.”

Taylor explains that during Trump’s first term, it became clear that other leaders were choosing one of two approaches to handling him: flattery or provocation. “The hunger for respect that makes Trump easy to flatter also makes him even easier to provoke,” writes Taylor, who notes that he saw firsthand how “a well-aimed insult could send the President into a tailspin and upend the operations of the White House.”

North Korea, for example, used both praise and provocation to great effect. As Taylor explains, “In 2017, Pyongyang timed its missile launches for maximum spectacle, called the President a ‘dotard’ in state media and baited him into threatening ‘fire and fury.’ We were baffled by how easily he was sucked into the tit-for-tat. Having proved that strategy could jerk Trump’s emotions on command, Kim Jong-un then switched levers and offered respect. The summits followed, then the love letters. Kim banked legitimacy that no North Korean leader had ever enjoyed by luring a U.S. President onto his shores; kept every warhead; and purchased years of American inattention.”

Iran, says Taylor, has been paying attention to Trump’s malleability.

“Just look at what the Iranians have done since the war began in February,” he explains. “Regime propagandists have flooded the internet with videos ridiculing Trump, with content engineered for an audience of one. Murals in Tehran depict his death and menace his family. Assassination plots keep surfacing in public view rather than staying in the shadows, where a serious intelligence service would normally keep them, which tells you publicity is the point.”

“The regime has studied Trump for a decade,” asserts Taylor. “They know their taunts goad him, maybe not always exactly how they’d hope, but enough to give them leverage the regime has never had before. They’ve developed influence over a man who sees this as a personal feud. And in doing so, they put him in a position where he offered perhaps the most absurd deal America has ever offered to an enemy just weeks into a war[.] Iran has now spurned the U.S. offer.”

“Governments losing wars do not refuse golden exits unless someone is making it worth their while,” says Taylor. “I suspect, if you follow that trail, you’ll end up in Moscow and Beijing – two capitals where leaders have also learned to play Trump, where they see how effective Iran has been in taunting the U.S. and where they see opportunity to keep weakening the world’s pre-eminent superpower.” Taylor notes a number of recent trade and diplomatic pacts between the three U.S. adversaries.

“A stable U.S. president would see this obvious trap and starve it,” Taylor argues. “They would recognize that their enemies are conspiring and exploiting their ego, and would decline, publicly and repeatedly, to be baited. Yet, in four decades of public life, Trump has not been known to decline a bait. Now, he is preparing to double down again in what some officials say might become a wider war.”

Taylor’s forecast is not optimistic, writing, “Iran will drag the U.S. into an expanded air campaign. The regime will deploy more proxies to harass shipping and American bases at a tempo calibrated to justify the next sortie without ever forcing a decision. In other words, it will keep the war too hot to leave and too cold to win.” At the same time, Russia and China will continue to exploit the situation.

What’s more, the American elections could be impacted. According to Taylor, “We should be watching for Iran to dangle negotiations again at the moment of maximum political damage, perhaps weeks before the U.S. midterms, so that accepting a deal looks like surrender and refusing one extends the bleeding.”

“Trump will not rescue himself from this,” Taylor concludes. “America’s enemies are spending next to nothing on insults and cartoons to purchase the exhaustion of the West. Until Trump learns that taking the bait is more expensive than restraint, they will keep getting serious value for their money.”

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Top historian explains why Trump might 'fake' an 'act of terror'

As the war with Iran flares back up, a leading historian and expert on authoritarianism warns that President Donald Trump might attempt to “fake” an “act of terror.” This is according to Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on the fascist regimes, who on Tuesday raised a dire warning about Trump’s intentions regarding Iran.

“Trump is pursuing this war in the HOPE that Iran carries out an act of terror in the U.S.,” Snyder posted. “And even if it doesn’t, which I doubt it will, consider the possibility that Trump's people would fake one.”

Snyder made this statement along with a link to an article he wrote describing Trump’s “desire for terror,” which would provide the president with “a pretext to try to cancel or ‘federalize’ the coming Congressional elections.” The historian’s warning comes not only as the war resumes, but as Trump has ramped up his election denial claims and demands for states to surrender control over elections to the federal government.

According to Snyder, “Self-terrorism might not have been the initial aim; but as time goes by, and failures and atrocities mount, its appeal will grow. Trump could think that he has much to gain; the war itself makes terrorism more likely; there are plausible vectors of terror; and the United States has let down its defenses.” What’s more, “Trump has already telegraphed the move. We know that he is obsessed with the fall elections, which his party will almost certainly lose by spectacular margins, and that he fears the accordant loss of power. This is clear from his own statements and actions.”

Snyder notes that Trump has offered “incoherent” justifications for the war, writing that “it is as though the war itself is not the main goal, but that it was simply important to somehow get the thing started.” And if the president is hoping for an act of terrorism, “the Tehran regime is, so to speak, a convenient partner in the mutual provocation of terror. Trump seems to have anticipated this, without seeming to care about loss of life: ‘Like I said, some people will die.’ And if they do, he has his pretext.”

While there are a number of contexts in which Iran or a different U.S. adversary could attempt a terror attack, Snyder suggests that “another possibility is an American act of terrorism on the territory of the United States, either presented as an Iranian attack or not. Most terrorism inside the United States is domestic and is right-wing, and this war has been very divisive among American fascists. Historically, fascist competitions for power have been accompanied by internal violence.”

What’s more, according to Snyder, not only has Trump dismantled much of the anti-terror apparatus, but “domestic terrorists are also getting a pass if they are right-wing; the Department of Homeland Security has deprioritized domestic terrorism and is no longer keeping up its database. An unqualified but right-wing recent college graduate is in charge of its program designed to prevent domestic terrorism.” Snyder notes that several current high-level U.S. intelligence and anti-terror appointees lack experience, and are direct allies of Trump who have expressed desire to meddle in U.S. elections.

Should a terror attack occur, whether by Iran, Russia or some domestic entity, writes Snyder, “none of this requires any sort of grand plan in the White House, let alone a conspiracy. None of it even requires very much initiative. Self-terrorism is more a matter of allowing things to fall apart, and then grabbing opportunely at a bit of the falling wreckage, which is something that Trump does well.”

“Modern tyranny is terror management,” Snyder concludes. “When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book.”

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Security expert reveals Trump’s plot to use 'terror powers' against his enemies

Last week, the Trump administration quietly revealed the scheme it will use to label its opponents as domestic terrorists and target the power of government against them. So blatant is the undemocratic nature of their plan that one of President Donald Trump’s closest aides declared that when it is put into action, appeals to civil liberties “must fall on deaf ears.”

This is according to security expert Miles Taylor, who served in the Department of National Security during Trump’s first term and acted as a whistleblower when he shared the existence of a resistance movement within the White House. Taylor asserts that the Trump administration has developed a “workaround to use terror powers against his foes.”

As Taylor explains, “Last Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gathered representatives from 66 countries at the State Department for something called the ‘Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.’ Stephen Miller was there to help rally the world against ‘far-left political terrorism.’ The actual purpose was something else. Trump’s team was road-testing its blueprint for using America’s counterterrorism machine against the president’s enemies. And buried in the speeches was the legal trick they’re planning to use.”

To understand the plot, Taylor notes, it is important to keep in mind that “there is no such thing as a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ under U.S. law. The government can only designate foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah. When I helped run the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, those labels allowed us to take powerful action against global adversaries, including asset seizures, sweeping surveillance and prosecutions that could put a group’s supporters away for decades.”

But because there is no legal domestic equivalent, Trump is unable to use these powers against his political opponents at home, so he’s taking steps to circumvent the law. According to Taylor, Trump started by issuing an executive order declaring antifa a “major terrorist organization,” despite the fact that there is no such thing as an antifa organization.

“It’s a fake label,” writes Taylor. “They’re using it to open investigations into groups that don’t like the president. Even still, they cannot use the government’s most sweeping anti-terror powers against these folks. They must find other crimes if they want to bring a prosecution, like money laundering or fraud. Which brings us to the workaround.”

Here Taylor explains the three-step plan Rubio quietly laid out last week:

“ONE, they’ll designate foreign groups and call them ‘antifa.’ Last November, the State Department added four obscure European far-left groups to the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, labeling all of them ‘antifa.’ Almost nobody reported this tiny detail: only one of the four — a German outfit called Antifa Ost — even identifies with the antifa movement. There’s no clear evidence linking any of them to activists in the United States. That didn’t matter. The point wasn’t the groups. The point was getting the word ‘antifa’ onto the FTO list. And Rubio promised this past Thursday that ‘more designations’ are coming.”

“TWO, they’ll declare it one big transnational network. This is what the ministerial was really for. Rubio told the assembled diplomats that today’s far-left militants ‘coordinate,’ ‘communicate,’ and ‘act together’ across borders and that they can ‘raise money in one country,’ train in another and strike in a third. Miller claimed antifa factions worldwide draw from ‘common networks of funding, organization and information sharing.’ Notice what’s happening. They’re constructing a factual predicate that American activists are connected to the foreign groups they just designated.”

“THREE, they’ll use ‘material support’ as the bridge to go after American citizens. Under federal law, knowingly providing ‘material support’ to a designated FTO is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. And material support is defined in breathtakingly broad terms. It can be money, ‘services,’ ‘training,’ ‘advice or assistance' or ‘personnel.’ Critics of the statute have warned that even sharing a Wikipedia link with a designated group could qualify.”

According to Taylor, “once the government claims a left-wing nonprofit or a protest network is somehow providing ‘material support’ to a foreign terror movement, the entire post-9/11 arsenal unlocks. That means it’s easier for them to activate spy powers meant to monitor al-Qaeda; freeze bank accounts; seize assets; add individuals to terror watchlists; track financial transactions and more. They don’t have to commit violence. They just have to be linked (by the government’s own say-so) to a network the government itself defined. That’s the workaround.”

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'More bad news for Trump' as his popularity tanks among essential voting bloc

Mothers have had it with President Donald Trump. This is according to the latest polling, which found that parents in general have made a dramatic move away from Trump, with moms accounting for the biggest shift.

The polling shows that since July 2025, support for Trump has plunged by almost 30 points among moms, resulting in a net approval of -20. It also found that the majority of fathers disapprove of him. Overall, the new poll found that 61 percent of voters are negative on Trump, resulting in a total net approval of -23.

According to the Daily Beast, “It’s more bad news for Trump heading into the midterms, as cost of living concerns drive voters, and their opinions of him and his administration. Mothers are often in charge of the family budget, managing household bills and grocery shops, and have noticed the ballooning cost of living, much of which can be directly linked to decisions of the administration. Contributing to household belt-tightening are Trump’s deeply unpopular war in Iran, his tariffs on imported goods, the removal of health care cost protections, increased barriers to Medicaid, and his decision to allow the freeze on student loan payments to expire.”

The new survey found that 62 percent of moms think the economic situation will continue to get worse, while 60 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. What’s more, 80 percent of mothers say they intend to vote in the midterms, which doesn’t bode well for Republicans, who worry about losing their majority in the House and potentially even the Senate.

“Although 54 percent of the moms surveyed identified as Republicans, compared with just 43 percent of dads, that partisan advantage did not translate into support for the president,” noted the Daily Beast. “Only 37 percent said they considered themselves primarily Trump supporters. Asked who they voted for in 2024, 50 percent of moms said Donald Trump, with 48 percent nominating Kamala Harris. The drop in support for the president comes as he continues to focus on issues that don’t affect voters or their budgets, but do prop up his ego, like Trump’s obsession with his conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged to ensure he lost.”

Trump’s fallout with moms comes as he’s seen a string of key voter blocs abandon him. In early July, a survey found that he is rapidly losing support among men, who have historically been his most loyal voters. Last month, polls showed that the president is falling behind among the so-called “Reluctant Right” who express they are more likely to vote Democrat in the midterms. Shortly before that, another poll revealed that Trump has dropped to a new low among rural Americans.

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US at 'turning point' in Trump’s imperial project: top historian

A leading historian says the United States has reached a “turning point” due to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian project, and that it could determine the future integrity of the country, both in terms of its reputation and its existence as a state.

This is according to renowned historian Timothy Snyder, whose scholarly work has focused on authoritarian regimes in Russia and Germany. While appearing on the podcast of researcher Robinson Erhardt, Snyder discussed how democracies collapse and historical parallels to the U.S. under Trump. His assessment was not optimistic.

“The fact that the U.S. exists and is celebrating 250 years doesn't mean that it'll exist in 5 years or 10 years or 15 years — states have a beginning and they have an end,” he said. “I think that the Trump people are much more likely to wreck the U.S. as an entity than they are to succeed in generating some kind of homogeneous tyranny from the Pacific to the Atlantic.”

While he ultimately thinks it will fail to materialize, Snyder said one corollary came to mind in terms of the type of state the U.S. is moving toward under Trump, explaining, “Many of the things that have happened in the United States happened first in Russia. And many of the clues of what post-modern tyranny or fascism will look like, you can get first from observing Russia.” He provided several examples of these “clues,” from Russia’s reliance on hydrocarbons for fuel and economic generation, the centralization of media and the destruction of local reporting, and how social media can be wielded to promote “authoritarian politics” — all trends he suggests are being repeated in the U.S.

Rather than transforming into a stable autocracy, however, Snyder thinks the U.S. is headed toward outright decline.

“As far as general historical moments,” he said, “I think we're at an imperial turning point.” He nodded to past examples when people took the existing “imperial order for granted,” saying, “The question is, how do you react when it breaks up? How do we deal with it when we no longer exercise the same kind of power that we used to? Are we able to exercise power in new ways? Or do we choose to fall upon one another?”

Snyder suggests that the future of the country may be less a matter of resisting tyranny than a “rebuilding paradigm” in which the country must recover from the damage done by Trump, both domestically and in terms of its international relations as well. As the U.S. deals with the negative aspects of its heritage, Snyder questions, “Do we choose to focus on how we were always right…and thereby lose any sort of possibility for building a post-imperial kind of state? Or do we instead continue a conversation inside the United States which allows us to present ourselves as a credible power outside the United States?”

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Trump niece warns he’s 'profoundly insecure' and can’t stop repeating the same mistake

President Donald Trump can’t help but make the “same mistake” again and again, undercutting his own thirst for “reverence” and setting himself up for “ridicule” rather than the “intimidation” that he desires. That mistake: “He never stops talking.” And whenever he does, he “trolls” himself by changing his position “from sentence to sentence.”

This is according to his niece, psychologist Mary L. Trump, who on Monday wrote that the great “irony” to Trump’s second term is that he and his administration routinely undermine his claims. She notes that while sometimes the examples suggest major consequences, like with his election denial claims, sometimes more “bewildering” cases highlight how rapidly he can contradict himself.

Mary Trump raised the example of magnets, writing, “Nobody has spent more time proving they do not understand magnets than Donald Trump. Sometimes magnets are dangerous. Sometimes they do not work. Sometimes they stop working because they get wet. Sometimes they are apparently the key to unimaginable wealth. The rules change from sentence to sentence.”

Here she cites remarks he made at a defense contracting summit on Thursday, in which he complained about ship designs that use “ridiculous” magnetic elevators, claiming the magnets would stop working if touched by water, and that he would only trust magnets if Caterpillar tractors started using them instead of hydraulics. “As though the first explanation were not bewildering enough,” writes Mary Trump, “Donald somehow managed to contradict himself only moments later.”

“I hope you’re going to do magnets,” he said. “Somebody out there, I hope you’re all brilliant people. Magnets. Do magnets. Okay. I’ll tell you how to make money. Do magnets.” He continued in that vein for some time.

According to Mary Trump, “Only Donald could spend several minutes insisting magnets are a catastrophic engineering failure before pivoting seamlessly into investment advice about the magnet industry. Hydraulics are good. Magnets are terrible. Actually, magnets are the future. Invest in magnets. Avoid magnets. All within the span of a single press conference. It almost feels as though making sense has become optional inside the Trump regime.”

“Then again,” she notes, “perhaps consistency has never really been the point. Donald has spent his entire public life saying whatever serves him in the moment, regardless of whether it contradicts something he said thirty seconds earlier. Logic is irrelevant. Facts are negotiable. Reality is simply another obstacle to be ignored. Unfortunately, that same approach extends well beyond magnets. It now shapes the propaganda ecosystem surrounding Donald, where television hosts, political allies and administration officials spend every day asking Americans to reject what they can plainly see in favor of whatever fantasy Donald happens to be selling at that particular moment.”

While the president often attempts to sell his audience on more serious concepts, like election denial, according to Mary Trump, one only needs to give him a few moments before he’ll make some absurd statement torpedoing his own argument. As she writes, “Fortunately for the rest of us, Donald keeps making the same mistake. He never stops talking. Every press conference, every rally, every interview, every rambling explanation about magnets, elections, or whatever new obsession captures his attention provides another reminder that beneath all the manufactured spectacle is simply a profoundly insecure man who cannot keep his own stories straight.”

The president and his allies, concludes Mary Trump, “desperately want to be feared. They want to project strength, inevitability, and power. Strip away the propaganda, however, and what remains is something considerably less impressive. There is only absurdity. And absurdity deserves exactly what we continue to give it. Not reverence. Not intimidation. Ridicule.”

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'Weaponized against his own party': Republicans panic over Trump’s 'mess'

As President Donald Trump ramps up his 2020 election denial rhetoric, panic is growing among Republicans who fear he has “weaponized" his latest legislative priority "against his own party."

According to the Washington Post, a turning point came last week with Trump’s prime time address, in which he claimed to reveal “shocking” discoveries about foreign election interference. But while he and his usual supporters praised the speech, it “failed to galvanize conservatives, with some publicly questioning his focus on 2020 as the midterms approach. Republicans fighting to maintain congressional control this fall largely sidestepped the message.”

Within a day of the address, even pro-Trump commentators had moved on, and as the Post explains, “The muted response underscored a broader political reality: Many Republicans facing voters this fall have shown little interest in making Trump’s renewed focus on the 2020 election central to their campaigns as they head into a midterm complicated by the president’s weak standing with independent voters.” Even Fox News largely ignored the speech, instead focusing on a GOP senatorial candidate speaking about public safety.

The “clear and simple” reason most Republican candidates don’t want to talk about the 2020 election is that voters don’t care, said Paul Shumaker, a veteran Republican strategist. As he explained, “If candidates are not talking about the economy, if candidates are not talking about affordability, if they’re not talking about how they’re going to make people’s lives at home cheaper and less expensive, then they’re not talking about the issues that voters care about.”

Matthew Bartlett, who was appointed to the State Department in Trump’s first term and is now a Republican public affairs strategist, said Trump’s speech was “mess” that undercut Trump’s effort to push Republicans into passing the Save America Act, “which he has oddly weaponized against his own party.” Many Republicans, he said, are happy Trump’s message didn’t break through. The general sentiment after the speech, he said, seems to be, “If the president makes outrageous claims about an election and no one is listening, did it even happen?”

After the speech, the two Republican senatorial holdouts against the SAVE Act said it did not sway their positions, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who co-sponsored the bill, was similarly unimpressed, saying, “We have 109 days until the midterm elections, and I don’t understand talking about what happened six years ago in light of these upcoming elections.”

According to the Post, “The speech also fell short with Trump’s hard-right supporters who wanted a more aggressive response.” Longtime MAGA figurehead Steve Bannon said he was “decidedly unimpressed” and didn’t hear “any sense of urgency or any real action plan.” And “prominent right-wing ally Laura Loomer questioned on social media as Trump spoke whether any of the information he was sharing was new.”

As the Post notes, “Trump’s renewed focus on his 2020 election loss comes as polls continue to register voters’ frustration with his handling of the economy and the Iran war. And while Republicans are not losing by a wide margin on a hypothetical midterm ballot, despite Trump’s deep unpopularity, Republican voters currently aren’t as energized to turn up at the polls[.] Democrats are 10 points more likely to be certain to vote this year than Republicans, compared with their two-point edge in 2018.”

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MAGA-coded candidate’s visit to Black-owned restaurant prompts outrage in Atlanta

On Friday, a popular Black-owned Atlanta restaurant responded to outrage over a photo circulating of the establishment’s owner with Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, declaring that it was not a political endorsement.

The restaurant, Toast on Lenox, made this assertion on Instagram the day after a photo was posted by the Jackson campaign, which showed the candidate at the restaurant with owner Tamara Young. The photo prompted calls to boycott the restaurant, and has since been taken down by the campaign.

According to local outlet the Grio, “The billionaire businessman and founder of Jackson Healthcare just won the Republican nomination on Tuesday, beating out Donald Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. He will now take on the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, in the general election this November. Though he did not receive the president’s endorsement, Jackson has compared himself to Trump, according to the Georgia Recorder, saying he ‘will stand up to the radical left, the media, the bureaucracy and anyone else that tries to take advantage of Georgians.’” He's also been a vocal supporter of Trump's immigration crackdown, saying that undocumented immigrants should be "deported or departed."

It seems that not all Georgians are on board with his message, as his appearance at the restaurant made clear.

“Welp another one bites the MAGA dust,” wrote one angry poster, receiving thousands of likes and hundreds of shares. “How can a black woman allow herself to be associated with an administration that has it out for black women. Don’t believe me look up the numbers. At some point we have to take a stand. Even if that’s means cutting off those close to you.”

“Toast On Lenox is CLOSED,” posted another. “We the people are shutting it down. Stay out of there spending money. The street interviewers of the internet will be filming yall walk in and they will post the footage. They’re already out there. If you’re seen in there it’s because you support a white man named Rick Jackson, that’s vowed to be Trump 2.0. The owner saw no issue in having him there to campaign. I guess she’ll have no problem with the loss of clientele.”

After the photo of Jackson with Young was posted, the restaurant’s initial response came from co-owner Virgil Harper, who posted an image of text reading “A Discussion is not a Vote!!!!!!” over a series of fist emojis and #Staywoke. Outrage continued to build to the point where Toast responded with a clearer statement.

“Toast on Lenox does not endorse Rick Jackson,” read the post. “We did not do a campaign, nor are we affiliated with Jackson. Any statements made in that post were his own and do not represent our personal beliefs or the position of Toast on Lenox.”

The post seemed to do little to quell the anger. By Monday, it had received hundreds of comments from jilted Atlanteans. As one declared, “Y’all align yourself with people actively trying to sow division and diminish our community. Then act obtuse when backlash occurs. Practice discernment and stop always trying to set tables for your enemies to sit at.”

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Road map: Inside one state's quiet rebellion against the Supreme Court

In recent months, the United States Supreme Court has handed down a string of consequential decisions that have prompted accusations that conservative justices have engaged in ideological overreach. Now on the Hawaiian Supreme Court, one justice is fighting back against what he calls “hubristic originalists.”

According to Slate, in an opinion handed down on Wednesday, State Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins “once again refused to import SCOTUS’s ‘results-driven approach to due process’ into state law. He explained that the Hawaiʻi Constitution ‘takes no instruction’ from ‘hubristic originalists’ who are ‘driven by agenda and intent on swiping power that belongs to the people.’ A Supreme Court ‘that systematically dismantles democratic safeguards, steamrolls constitutional liberties, and tramples human dignity,’ he concluded, ‘does not chart the course for the Hawaiʻi Constitution.’”

As Slate explains, “Sitting judges arguably have the best informed perspective on this Supreme Court: They must apply its jurisprudence, reconcile its contradictions, and confront the real-world effects of its rulings. It is a shame that so few are brave enough to speak candidly about the constitutional wreckage left by the Republican-appointed supermajority. The rarity of Eddins’ indictment makes it all the more valuable.”

The case decided on Wednesday concerns convictions built on false forensic evidence. According to Slate, “At Daniel Granillo’s 1990 trial for sexual assault, prosecutors used FBI hair-and-fiber analysis to place the victim in his car and bolster her account. He was sentenced to 40 years. Later, the National Academy of Sciences and a federal science panel concluded that such comparisons cannot identify a unique source, and in 2017 the Department of Justice notified Hawaiʻi that the FBI expert in Granillo’s case had overstated what the method could prove.”

The court in Hawaii unanimously vacated his conviction, but was split on the governing rule. Slate explains that “Eddins’ majority applied the false-evidence standard used when prosecutors knowingly present untrue testimony, holding that the state constitution makes the prosecutor’s knowledge irrelevant. ‘What matters is whether the trial was fair,’ he wrote, ‘not whether the prosecutor knew it wasn’t.’ A defendant need show only a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the bogus forensics swayed even one juror. Two concurring justices favored harmless-error review, which would preserve the verdict if the state proved, ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ that the discredited testimony did not affect the outcome.”

Here Eddins recognized the influence of U.S. Supreme Court, and he accused the concurrence of trying to impose the federal court’s interpretation of due process onto the Hawaiʻi Constitution. He made this the basis for why SCOTUS’s conception should be rejected.

“What this court has done to constitutional rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law,” Eddins wrote, “explains why Hawaiʻi’s Constitution takes no instruction from it.” For example, the Hawaiian judiciary takes “no guidance on the meaning of due process from a court that gutted due process protections in Dobbs” by eliminating a “generations-long constitutional right, stripping autonomy from half the population, and empowering states to force birth.” It “does not import that results-driven approach to due process. We follow principles, not agendas.” And so it “does not anchor Hawaiʻi’s due process rights to the federal floor. Especially one that keeps sinking.”

But “the Supreme Court’s imperious ideology,” Eddins elaborated, “does not stop at due process. The same jurisprudence has cratered democracy itself.” Its “judicial demolition” of the Voting Rights Act culminated in Louisiana v. Callais, which “buried what remained of the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.” The supermajority “then ditched its own thirty-two day default for releasing decisions and hustled out its judgment mid-primary, a favor granted over objection only twice in twenty-five years.” Shortly after that, “on its shadow docket, the court tossed an eleven-day trial record built on fifty-one witnesses, 790 exhibits, 2,600 pages of testimony, and a 270-page opinion by a three-judge court.” In the process, “it resurrected a tainted congressional map the three-judge factfinders found deliberately entrenched racial bias against Black voters.”

The Roberts court, Eddins asserted, “sees only white. It refuses to acknowledge who the Equal Protection Clause was written to protect. The freed people, their descendants, and all others denied equal citizenship. It turns its back on what is in plain sight. The Fourteenth Amendment is not colorblind. It never was.”

“The court calls the Constitution colorblind while engineering the dilution of Black votes, the unraveling of hard-fought civil rights remedies, and the erasure of Black history,” Eddins declared. “That is not blindness. That is white sight, by design. A Constitution interpreted this way is not colorblind. It is whatever the court needs it to be. A way to advance its partisan project.”

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Trump just gave a huge gift to Russia that will upend global power

At the NATO summit in Turkey last week, President Donald Trump made an announcement that experts say will not only benefit Russia, but could change the balance of global power. This is according to international relations analyst Derek Grossman, who explained in Foreign Policy on Friday how Trump’s intention to sell F-35 fighters to Turkey weakens U.S. sanctions against Russia, emboldening its arms buyers to ignore restrictions and enriching the Kremlin.

For Trump to sell fighters to Turkey, Grossman explains, he “had to contend with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Turkey was already under CAATSA sanctions for its purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system and needed Trump to lift these restrictions if it was to receive the F-35. He decided to do so — and that decision has implications far beyond Turkey.”

As Grossman elaborates, “Passed by the U.S. Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Trump during his first term in 2017, CAATSA creates what is effectively a secondary sanctions regime. It allows the president to punish foreign governments, companies, banks, and individuals engaging in 'significant transactions' with Russia’s defense or intelligence sectors. The U.S. State Department maintains a list of entities in these sectors, including Rosoboronexport, Moscow’s principal state arms exporter.”

If a banned transaction is discovered, CAATSA offers a number of penalties that can be applied, “including U.S. defense export embargoes, asset freezes, and visa restrictions on foreign officials…Invoking CAATSA can thus jeopardize a government’s access to U.S. weapons, technology, and financing. Enforcement is not automatic but determined by the executive branch.”

Trump has previously leveraged CAATSA against Turkey and China, but according to Grossman, his “recent decision to lift CAATSA sanctions on Turkey will have wider consequences for Moscow’s strategic partners across the Indo-Pacific region. This primarily means India, which continues to purchase S-400 units and other Russian arms despite CAATSA…To be sure, neither the first Trump administration nor the Biden administration ever formally exempted India from CAATSA. Instead, they both deprioritized CAATSA enforcement in the interest of maintaining a strong strategic partnership with India in hopes that the latter would help the United States counter China.”

According to Grossman, the second Trump administration has “looked the other way” on CAATSA enforcement, such as when India received another S-400 regiment last month. Now Trump’s decision to remove CAATSA restrictions from Turkey will encourage India to continue pushing to see how much leniency the U.S. will extend.

And India is hardly the only example. “In Southeast Asia,” writes Grossman, “two governments must be breathing sighs of relief following Trump’s Turkey decision. One of them is Indonesia. Under President Prabowo Subianto, Jakarta has been pursuing a sweeping military modernization and professionalization drive that has involved diversifying arms imports, including from Russia. In 2018, Jakarta was negotiating the possible purchase of 11 Su-35 fighters, but by 2020, it had nixed the deal. It became clear that Indonesian concern about U.S. punishment under CAATSA was the primary reason.”

“Vietnam, too, must be happy about Trump’s CAATSA reversal,” asserts Grossman. “Since the Cold War, Hanoi’s military has become heavily dependent first on Soviet and then Russian arms. In recent years, it has sought to build a more diversified defense, including arms purchases from Washington. Some of this diversification away from Russia may have been fueled by CAATSA concerns. Nonetheless, Hanoi has tried to maintain defense procurement from the Kremlin and even devised schemes to circumvent potential CAATSA restrictions: In 2025, The Associated Press reported that Hanoi and Moscow had devised a backdoor payment scheme that would use profits from joint oil and gas ventures to pay off defense contracts, effectively shielding these transactions from the reach of Western financial institutions and their sanctions mechanisms. CAATSA enforcement has evidently been a concern, and Trump’s recent Turkey precedent should provide a sense of relief.”

Grossman raises more examples of country who subtly or overtly seek to circumvent the sanctions, writing, “Trump’s decision to back away from imposing CAATSA on Turkey gives these countries even more confidence to continue business as usual with the Kremlin… by signaling a more permissive approach to CAATSA enforcement, Trump has inadvertently reduced one of the few remaining political obstacles to future Russian arms sales in the Indo-Pacific.”

Trump’s reversal on Turkey, Grossman reasons, means that “Indo-Pacific governments will increasingly conclude that CAATSA is not a fixed rule but a policy tool for applying selective leverage according to Washington’s political priorities. That may release some of the pressure on U.S. allies and partners today, but it also risks weakening one of Washington’s most potent instruments for constraining Russia’s global military relationships.”

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