The Trump administration's accusation against former CNN journalist Don Lemon appeared to be contradicted in a newly released piece of video, according to a Friday report from the Washington Post, casting significant doubt on the rationale given for his the charges brought against him.

Last month, Lemon, along with Twin Cities-based reporter Georgia Fort and several others, was arrested by federal officers in connection with his presence at a protest that took place at a St. Paul church weeks prior. Lemon and Fort asserted that they were present for the event as journalists covering it, but the federal indictment against them claims that they were "agitators" along with the rest of the protesters, who "entered the Church in a coordinated takeover-style attack."

The indictment did not characterize Lemon and Fort as reporters, aside from mentions of Lemon engaging in a livestream for his online show and Fort conducting an interview. They and the rest of the protesters are charged with conspiring to deprive congregants of their religious rights and of interfering with access to a place of worship. The DOJ alleged that they "oppressed, threatened, and intimidated" church attendees "by physically occupying most of the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the Church, engaging in menacing and threatening behavior."

"Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done," Lemon's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said following his arrest.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported on footage of the protest from a Black Lives Matter livestream and a livestream conducted by Fort. At no point in the footage, the outlet explained, did Lemon appear to behave in a manner consistent with the allegations against him.

"A live stream from Black Lives Matter Minnesota captures Lemon standing at the back of the sanctuary when the protest begins about two minutes later," the report detailed. "He soon moves forward to where the demonstrators are gathered and can be heard on his feed narrating the events for his audience. Fort’s live stream shows protesters chanting anti-ICE slogans and in some cases confronting parishioners... Lemon remains toward the front of the church — sometimes off to the side and sometimes near the main aisle — for roughly 16 minutes. "

The report continued: "For less than half of that time, he is off-camera but his feed remains live with audio from his microphone. His feed drops out entirely on several occasions for a few seconds at a time. The videos and audio reviewed by The Post contain no indication Lemon threatened church congregants or chanted or yelled."

At one point in the footage reviewed, Lemon can be heard saying, "I’m not part of the group; I’m just here photographing. I’m a journalist." Later on, he holds the door for people leaving the church, asking some for interviews. When one man declines the request, Lemon said, "Okay, thank you, I appreciate it." The two continue a heated back-and-forth after the man claimed to support the deportation operation in the Twin Cities area, with Lemon accusing him of not listening to facts and the man countering that Lemon was posing as a journalist. While tense, the Post noted that Lemon at no point prevented the man from exiting the building, as the indictment said.

“There is clearly no physical obstruction of that exit,” Judy Appelbaum, who worked as a lead congressional staffer involved in drafting the 1994 law that Lemon was charged under, explained to the Post. “And I don’t see any use of force, nor any threat of force.”

Sen. John Husted, a MAGA-friendly Ohio Republican, voted against a measure to release the Jeffrey Epstein files last year, only a few months after taking a donation from a man recently named as an alleged Epstein conspirator.

On Friday, The New Republic reported on Husted's "shady" transaction, first uncovered this week by local news outlet TiffinOhio. According to campaign filings obtained from the Federal Election Commission and the office of the Ohio Secretary of State, the senator has received over $116,000 on contributions from Les Wexner throughout his decades-long career in politics, dating back to 2001.

Wexner co-founded Bath & Body Works and is credited with the nationwide expansion of the Victoria's Secret clothing and beauty chain. This week, Rep. Ro Khanna also revealed on the House floor that he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator of the late sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, alongside several other powerful men. Previous reports have uncovered a close relationship between the businessman and Esptein, with Wexner retaining the latter's services as a financial manager for two decades between 1987 and 2007. Wexner was, at one point, considered the primary client of Epstein's firm.

Husted most recently accepted a $3,500 contribution from Wexner in July, only two months before he voted against a measure to force the disclosure of the Epstein files. By November, however, the Epstein Fils Transparency Act had gained considerably more momentum, passing the House with only one "no" vote and in the Senate by unanimous consent.

Khanna read Wexner's name and others out on the House floor after calling out the Justice Department for its efforts to redact the files. Many accused the agency of hiding co-conspirators, despite its claim that it only redacted the names of Epstein victims. Khanna claimed that the names of Wexner and the others could be found in the unredacted files recently provided to members of Congress.

In the months leading up to that November vote, Husted spoke out against releasing the files, at one point telling NewsNation that Trump was avoiding the issue to focus on "trade deals" and ending the last government shutdown. Husted has also been accused in recent years of pivoting sharply from his past standing as a traditional conservative lawmaker to, as The New Republic characterized, a "steady MAGA sycophant."

Wexner has also made donations to Ohio's junior senator, Bernie Moreno, who expressed similar opposition to the disclosure of the Epstein files, accusing Democrats and the media of putting too much focus on them.

Some of the traditional trappings of Valentine's Day will be a lot tougher on your wallet this year, and according to a Friday report from Axios, Donald Trump's tariffs have played a significant part in causing that.

In the report, Axios detailed the recent price fluctuation roller-coaster ride that his inflicted the global trade of cocoa beans. In recent years, the beans, famously the signature ingredient in chocolate candies, reached record high prices driven by a thinning supply. In May, prices peaked at around $10,000 per metric ton, well in excess of the average price throughout the 2010s, which typically ranged between $2,500 and $3,000.

Now, however, with supply issues fading, the price of cocoa beans is falling precipitously, with a 30 percent decline in the past month alone. One might expect this to be good news for Valentine's Day and the price of a box of chocolates, but unfortunately, that will not be the case. While consumer prices for chocolate are expected to reflect the recent plunge in cocoa bean prices eventually, for the time being and with Valentine's only a day away, companies are still working with product made record-high purchases had to be made.

"[The] chocolate you'll find on the shelves now was manufactured with cocoa that was purchased at near record-high prices," Axios explained. "Companies like Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury and Toblerone, increased prices multiple times to offset the higher cocoa costs."

"Valentine's Day 2026 is still feeling the aftershocks of the cocoa crisis," Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO of commodities advisory firm, Helios AI, told Axios.

Making this issue worse for some companies are Trump's tariffs, which have been causing consumer prices to climb for a wide range of products in the last year. Speaking with investors recently, Hershey, the largest and most recognizable chocolate manufacturer in the U.S., admitted that Trump's tariffs had driven up its consumer costs, and will continue to do so as it works through materials purchased last year.

While the Trump administration exempted cocoa beans from tariffs in November to address mounting affordability woes, like the easy supply chain issues, this move will not be reflected on store shelves for quite a while. Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put said that the easing of issues driving up chocolate prices should start to bring the cost of a chocolate bar of box of Valentine's candies down sometime next year.

Republican lawmakers are reportedly becoming more and more anxious about Donald Trump's tariffs behind closed doors, according to Politico, worrying that one of the president's signature policies is worsening an already "shaky" economy.

In its report from Friday, Politico noted that while the White House and its allies are dismissing the implication of a major tariff rebuke in the House this week, the vote in fact reflected the feelings of an increasing number of lawmakers who are anxious that the tariffs are doing more harm than good. These Republicans worry that the work has not been done to properly persuade voters that tariffs will be a good thing, while they are also making life much harder for key members of the party's base.

"But privately some Republicans remain anxious about a tariff policy that has injected uncertainty into a shaky economy," Politico detailed. "It’s a far cry, they say, from the booming one President Donald Trump promised, one that was supposed to be supercharged by tax cuts and deregulations that Republicans would be eager to run on. They fear that the administration has not done enough to sell the president’s top economic priority to the American people as an unalloyed good.

The report continued: "And while the White House points to a robust GDP, booming stock market and relatively low unemployment, the tariffs are applying direct pain on select constituencies such as farmers or small business owners whose fortunes can make the difference in a close election."

Trump's tariffs saw one of their most significant GOP revolts yet on Wednesday, when six Republicans broke with the rest of the party to vote against a measure that would have blocked any other anti-tariff votes through to the summer, sealing its fate and setting the stage for an onslaught of new bills seeking to rein Trump in. In the aftermath, a further bill to rescind Trump's tariffs on Canada also passed in the House, and has now been sent to the Senate.

Speaking with Politico, a source close to the White House worried about the "not great messaging" the vote represented, while also expressing surprise about one thing.

"I was surprised it wasn’t more," the source said.

GOP strategist Doug Heye told Politico that more Republicans have opted not to break with Trump on tariffs because "he threatened them" with primary challenges.

"That’s it," Heye said. "That’s always it."

Another insider source explained Trump's reaction to the vote in blunt terms.

“He is angry and unhappy,” the source told Politico. “But other [Republican] politicians are going to act in their self interest.”

As Donald Trump's popularity with voters continues to dwindle, even Republicans from "deep red" districts are beginning to question their degree of loyalty to him, as shown in a Friday report from the Chicago Tribune.

The piece documents the recent reactions to Trump's agenda from Illinois's three Republican House members. One of them, Rep. Darin LaHood, stands out from the rest owing to his increasing tendency to break with the White House on issues that are driving the president's plummeting approval ratings.

LaHood has served in Congress since 2015 and currently represents Illinois' 16th District, which has a consistent history of voting Republican. In 2024, Trump won the district over Harris by 22 points, though the Democrat ultimately carried the state. LaHood, meanwhile, ran unopposed by any Democrat that year, receiving 99 percent of the vote. He last faced a prominent opponent in 2022, winning reelection by nearly 33 points.

Despite that rock-solid GOP base in his district, the Tribune reported that he has spoken out in ways that clash with the Trump administration on issues ranging from immigration to tariffs. He called for a "comprehensive and transparent investigation" involving federal, state and local authorities following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers, and issued a similar statement after the killing of Renee Good. The Trump administration has so far blocked non-federal authorities from being able to investigate the shootings.

“I don’t think Congress should be in the business of dictating who should do the investigation,” LaHood told the Tribune. “There needs to be, obviously, an independent, thorough investigation that’s done with proper law enforcement and a full vetting of the facts and evidence, and then ultimately, once that’s done … a prosecutorial body will make a decision on whether there should be any charges.”

LaHood also told the Tribune that he believes federal immigration agents do not have "absolute immunity" from criminal charges, or even just from state-level charges, as has been suggested by administration officials, and he said that agents must have judicial warrants in order to enter federal property. He stopped short, however, of saying that agents must be banned from wearing masks.

On tariffs, LaHood said that he opposed Trump's signature economic policy "from an affordability standpoint, from an inflation standpoint and an open market standpoint."

“When you get into a trade war, which these tariffs have caused us to do, in many ways, the first pawn in the trade war is agriculture,” he told the Tribune. “So I have concerns about blanket tariffs, particularly on many of our allies, and the economic effect that it’s had on my farmers and my manufacturers.”

LaHood did not, however, vote against the recent House measure to end Trump's tariffs on Canada. He does believe that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule against Trump's tariff authority altogether.

Elsewhere in the state, the Tribune noted that GOP Rep. Mary Miller "has continued to push a hard line on immigration and shown little light between her beliefs and Trump’s," according to the Tribune. The state's third GOP congressman, Mike Bost, could not be reached by the outlet.

Donald Trump's administration and allies are rarely known to retreat from controversial statements, but that is precisely what Billy Long, nominee to be ambassador to Iceland, has done after backlash to a joke about making the country the "52nd state," according to Politico.

Long previously served as a Republican congressman from Mississippi for over a decade, departing the office to make a failed Senate bid in 2022. He also served as Trump's IRS commissioner after being confirmed by the Senate in June, but was removed from that office just two months later as the president prepared to nominate him for the Iceland ambassadorship.

Long's path to confirmation hit a significant bump last month when he joked to members of the House that Iceland ought to become the "52nd state," with himself serving as governor. Reports of this remark set off a firestorm of controversy, with the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs pressing the U.S. embassy with questions about it and the Icelandic public launching a petition for Long's nomination to be rejected.

During a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Long apologized for the joke and pleaded with the people of Iceland for "a second chance."

“It was totally inappropriate,” Long said. “I just hope that the people in Iceland will give me a second chance to make a first impression.”

He also added: "There was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were kidding about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize."

While Long insisted that the remark was meant purely in jest, it came in the wake of Trump's unprecedented pursuit of power over foreign nations and territories.

Early on, the second Trump administration severely stressed relations with Canada after making repeated assertions that the nation should give up its sovereignty and become the "51st state." Long's joke also came not long after the U.S. seized a measure of authority over Venezuela after a military operation ousted its president, Nicolás Maduro, and in the midst of Trump's insistence that the U.S. must annex the Arctic island territory of Greenland from Denmark. The latter situation set a major international backlash after Trump refused to rule out the use of military force, risking the dissolution of the NATO alliance.

Donald Trump's "fixation" with his loss in the 2020 election has not abated, according to a Thursday report from the New York Times, with the president now pursuing his false fraud claims with a conspiracy theorist once dismissed as a "fringe menace."

According to the report, Trump has brought on lawyer Kurt Olsen to serve as his director of “election security and integrity," a position that allows him to refer criminal investigations. Olsen is credited with instigating the recent criminal investigation into alleged election fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, which led to a highly publicized raid at an election center where 2020 ballots were seized.

Olsen's place in the second Trump administration, the Times explained, is part of a larger trend in which "some of the most far-out election conspiracists who helped him spread lies about the 2020 election and then tried to overturn it are now inside the government, using the power of the state to keep Mr. Trump’s denialism alive." During Trump's first term, officials in his administration once dismissed him as a "fringe menace."

Trump has rarely wavered from his false assertions that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, and that his "loss" was the result of widespread voting fraud committed by Democrats. These claims have been investigated and litigated thoroughly and repeatedly since then, and each time, no evidence of his claims has surfaced, solidifying the truth of his defeat by Joe Biden.

Now that he has returned to office, Trump's 2020 claims have been one of his longstanding fixations that has returned to the foreground. During an address to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last month, Trump falsely claimed that evidence had been found to prove his election fraud claims, and pledged that criminal prosecutions would be coming soon. Only weeks later, the raid in Fulton County took place.

As the Times laid out, "in a constellation of conspiracists" now making up the ranks of Trump's second administration, "Mr. Olsen stands out."

"Kurt Olsen has a history of abusing his law license to spread lies about our elections,” Christine P. Sun, a senior vice president at the nonprofit States United Democracy Center, told the outlet. “Now, he’s using his role in the administration and the power of the federal government to take actions fueled by those same lies. It’s part of a multipronged approach that threatens state power over our elections.”

When Olsen became involved in Trump's effort to dispute and reverse his loss in late 2020, he became known for "taking on cases that many other Republican attorneys avoided putting their names on." This included a case that made it to the Supreme Court, seeking to have Trump's loss overturned, which was ultimately rejected. Olsen reportedly then began discussing a plan to bring another case via the Justice Department. This idea was quashed by other administration officials, who said the case would lack legal standing, despite Trump claiming Olsen told him it would be a "slam dunk."

"Even after Mr. Trump left office, Mr. Olsen continued to press the false claims about election machines," the Times continued. "He found a like-minded ally in February 2021 when... Mr. Trump introduced him to Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who has become best known for promoting the falsehood that voting machines are often rigged and have flipped elections. The two worked together for years with a movement of activists and cybersecurity experts around the country to promote conspiracy theories about election machines through lawsuits, media appearances and yearly conferences."

Conspiracy theories questioning the official narrative of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk's death, especially those espoused by Candace Owens, appear to be gaining popularity with his own former employees at Turning Point USA.

Writing for The Bulwark on Thursday, Will Sommer, a veteran reporter in the realms of far-right politics and conspiracy theories, relayed the story of Aubrey Laitsch, a former communications staffer at TPUSA who was recently let go from the company. Laitsch claims that her boss's stated reason for firing her involved a "convoluted" story about the executive hearing she was telling friends conspiracy theories related to Kirk's death, a story which she "didn't buy."

Instead, Laitsch believes that her firing had something to do with her belief that TPUSA itself may have played a hand in Kirk's death. Versions of this unfounded conspiracy theory have notably been spread in recent months by Owens, an outspoken far-right commentator, who has suggested publicly numerous times that the shooting may have been orchestrated by forces within the organization, or by parties connected to Israel.

"I just have a gut feeling that I was terminated from Turning Point because I am questioning the narrative of what happened to my role model and CEO, Charlie Kirk, on the day of his assassination," Laitsch said in a video released last week.

Kirk, who founded TPUSA in 2012 and grew to be one of the more popular commentators in far-right U.S. politics, was shot and killed at an event he was hosting at Utah Valley University in September. Suspect Tyler James Robinson was later arrested and charged with the shooting, with the case currently making its way through court.

In his piece, Sommer acknowledged that conspiracies about Kirk's death remain unfounded and said that TPUSA would be well within its rights to fire employees for "telling people you thought your bosses murdered someone." Beyond that, however, he argued that Laitsch's story and others show that the conspiracies are increasingly taking hold within TPUSA itself, not just in the wider conservative media landscape.

"Laitsch is just one of several Turning Point staffers who has been fired amid what’s been dubbed a 'purge' of employees," Sommer detailed. "While it’s not clear how many have been let go, Owens has played audio on her show of another staffer who claimed to have been fired without explanation. Owens also claimed that a TPUSA executive showed up at a third staffers home to fire her and demand the immediate return of her company devices."

He continued: "It’s hard to say if these firings are being driven by the (very sensible) disapproval of staff talking about their company killing its founder, or paranoia about Owens having credible information about internal TPUSA activities — or both. But clearly, someone within the organization is leaking to Owens. Just this year, the highly controversial podcaster posted videos of Erika Kirk on internal videochats in the wake of Kirk’s assassination that were interpreted on the online right as insufficiently mournful."

Numerous Republicans celebrated Donald Trump's latest legal defeat, according to a new report from The Hill, with one senator saying that the case amounted to "lawfare" that is "not acceptable and needs to stop."

On Tuesday, reports emerged that a grand jury in Washington D.C., had rejected the Trump administration's attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers on charges relating to a video that reminds military members of their duty to refuse illegal orders, which the president attacked as "seditious" behavior. The failed indictment, hailed as a "remarkable rebuke" by the New York Times, is the latest example in a growing trend of grand juries refusing to indict in cases pursued by Trump's Justice Department.

The video was put together last fall, amid Trump's escalating attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and reports of impending military action in Venezuela. It featured Democratic lawmakers with backgrounds in the military and intelligence agencies, including Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, as well as Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania.

Speaking with The Hill and in posts to social media, several Republican senators further rebuked the Trump administration by celebrating the failed indictment of their colleagues across the aisle.

“Political lawfare waged by either side undermines America’s criminal justice system, which is the gold standard of the world. Thankfully in this instance a jury saw the attempted indictments for what they really were,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and prominent Trump critic, said in a post to social media. “Political lawfare is not normal, not acceptable, and needs to stop."

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who serves alongside Kelly and Slotkin as the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, said about the news, “I think the grand jury made the right decision."

“I’m glad that the grand jury came back and rejected indictments but I think it is a very disturbing direction that the administration has taken in basically trying to make criminals out of sitting lawmakers who effectively pointed out what the uniform military code of justice says," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican from Alaska, told The Hill in a statement.

While speaking on the failed indictment, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving member of the Senate and current President pro tempore, said that Trump's law enforcement officials ought to be focused on real issues.

"I think that our law enforcement people ought to be spending their time on making our communities safe and going after real lawbreakers," Grassley said.

The tumultuous congressional grilling of Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed a lot of the priorities of the Justice Department, former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steel argued, and showed that the agency's problems for Donald Trump are "not going away."

Steele previously led the RNC from 2009 to 2011, but has for the last decade been a prominent conservative critic of Trump and his political agenda. Writing in a piece for MS NOW Thursday morning, he broke down Bondi's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and its implications, arguing that while it may have impressed Trump, it "failed badly" at putting the Epstein files scandals to rest.

"Bondi repeatedly criticized the administrations of Joe Biden and prior presidents for their handling of Epstein," Steele detailed. "She accused Democrats of focusing on the files to distract from Trump’s criminal justice agenda and in one bizarre instance even cited the performance of the stock market to defend the president."

Bondi's deflection on the Epstein issue was typified by an exchange in which survivors of the late sex trafficker's abuse in attendance were asked to stand up and raise their hands if they had been unable to meet with the DOJ.

"If there is justice in the world, the photograph of Bondi looking straight ahead as a row of women raises their hands behind her will haunt her for the rest of her career," Steele argued.

Throughout the hearing, Bondi repeatedly responded to interrogation about the Epstein files and other subjects with personal attacks and insults. According to Steele, she refused to engage with the central question of how much responsibility the DOJ bears for the survivors, and revealed the real focus of her work within the agency.

"She did not face the survivors. She did not apologize. She did not signal that their pain, their stories or their demand for transparency would guide the department’s next steps," Steele wrote. "And that is what she revealed under oath. She revealed a department more animated by partisan defense than by moral clarity. She revealed an instinct to protect power rather than pursue truth and justice. She revealed that, in this moment, loyalty appears to carry more weight than accountability."

He concluded: "If the attorney general will not turn around and face the victims standing behind her, the American people must face what that means about the Trump administration. The Epstein files are not going away. Neither is the demand for justice."

Donald Trump's destabilization of the economic relationship between the U.S. and Canada will have consequences that last longer than some might expect, with one retiring ambassador warning that Canadian businesses will not be coming back "anytime soon."

Kirsten Hillman has served as the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. since 2020 and is set to step down from the role in the coming weeks. Her final year in office, per a Wednesday report from The Hill, has been "a roller coaster ride" amid Trump's return to office and subsequent assault on the longstanding relationship between the two neighboring nations.

Speaking to The Hill for the piece, Hillman noted that there had been tough negotiations when Trump was out of office, but that they were never conducted without a sense "that predictable and open trade among the three countries was good for America and with Canada and from Mexico.” With Trump back, however, such stability is "not the case today," with the president threatening to impose harsh tariffs on Canadian imports, musing about making the country the 51st state and engaging in an increasingly bitter feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

"I think Canadians took for granted that a strong, predictable, open relationship with Canada based on a sort of mutual benefit would always be something that Americans not only believed in, but would kind of fight for, and I think that that is no longer the case," Hillman said. "And I think Canadians have had a range of reactions to that, from sort of disbelief to anger to sadness."

While there might be hope for some that this tension will fade away once Trump is out of office, Hillman warned that Canadian business leaders will take a much longer time to start trusting the U.S. as a trade partner again.

"I don’t think there’s a sense that predictability is going to come back anytime soon," Hillman said. “Business leaders are telling me that they won’t go back, because… they won’t go back to putting too many eggs in one basket or expecting things to be as they always were, because they have come to realize that an administration can make changes, and that changes the entire business relationship that they have with the entire country."

She added: "[T]here are things that are being questioned today that haven’t been questioned before, and that is not just with Canada, but with allies around the world."

Donald Trump's forceful and brutish handling of his foreign and domestic policies saw him likened to a "pagan king" in a new analysis in The New York Times, with documentary filmmaker Leighton Woodhouse arguing that he has abandoned the true ideals at the heart of "Christian values."

In a piece for the Times published Wednesday, Woodhouse took inspiration from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's comments about Trump's leadership style, which he summed up as, "the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." Woodhouse delved extensively into the philosophies of ancient, pre-Christian societies, which he argued more closely resemble the operating philosophy of Trump's second presidency.

Trump, Woodhouse wrote, operates as is if "the weak and the vanquished" have no "inherent moral value at all," meaning that the U.S. can do whatever it likes, so long as it has the power to do so. He also cited comments last month from Trump's controversial adviser, Stephen Miller, in which he justified the president's desire to take Greenland by arguing that the world is "governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power," and that the U.S. can not be bound by "international niceties" if it has the power to do something it wants.

All of that flies in the face of the core principles of Christianity, which Trump and many others in his administration have claimed to fight for. The true values of the religion, Woodhouse explained, are based on the notion that even the weak have inherent worth, and that assaults on them are an affront to God. In this way, he concluded, Trump's conduct puts him more in line with Ancient Greek or pre-Christian Roman rulers.

"By brazenly jacking Venezuela for its oil and threatening to acquire Greenland against its will, the U.S. is acting as the ancient Greeks, the ancient Persians and the Germanic tribes conducted themselves: brutishly, without shame or apology," Woodhouse wrote.

He continued: "And the abdication of Christian values is already shaping the conduct of our government toward its citizens, as in Minneapolis, where immigration agents have killed two protesters. The Trump administration appears unconstrained not only by the limits imposed by the Constitution but by the standards of an average American’s conscience. Federal agents’ treatment of both immigrants and U.S. citizens in Minneapolis is the reflection of a government that has abandoned the moral instinct that it is wrong for the powerful to abuse the weak."

Similar analysis also recently came from The Bulwark's Andrew Egger, who wrote that Trump seems to view himself "as Christianity’s Punisher," someone willing to do the "dirty work" of committing violence to protect the faith. This, Egger argued, runs directly against the religion's core values.

"This is part of what makes Trump-brand Christianity as a cultural and political force so dangerous," Egger concluded. "Trump’s political project is seen by the MAGA faithful as utterly righteous, the work of God on earth against the forces of Satan. But he has broad license to transgress all moral boundaries as he does that work... None of this, it should probably go without saying, is compatible in the slightest with the teachings of actual Christianity. Sin is sin, the faith teaches, no matter whom it’s directed against..."

Donald Trump's threats against a bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada flummoxed some of the leaders involved with its creation, but according to a New York Times report, the president's turn may be connected to the influence of a wealthy donor.

On Monday, Trump took to Truth Social with a threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, a $4.7 billion project connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, which had been set to open soon. Trump claimed, falsely, that Canada would control both ends of the bridge and that it had been constructed using no American materials. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters on Tuesday that he has called Trump and is working to resolve the matter.

“I explained that Canada paid for the construction of the bridge," Carney said. "That the ownership is shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada, and that in the construction of the bridge, obviously there’s Canadian steel and Canadian workers, but also US steel, US workers that were involved. This is a great example of cooperation between our countries.”

On Wednesday, the New York Times cited two anonymous administration sources who said that Trump's bridge outburst came only hours after Matthew Moroun, a Michigan-based billionaire and transportation magnate whose family owns the Ambassador Bridge, which also connects Windsor and Detroit. Moroun, the sources claimed, met with Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at the White House, with Lutnick later taking a call with the president shortly before his Truth Social post.

Moroun has been a prolific donor to Trump's political campaigns, and his business has long opposed the construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Once opened, it will serve as a competitor to his family's own bridge and divert toll revenue away from it.

The new bridge, named for a late Detroit Red Wings hockey legend, was first proposed in the early 2000s and received approvals in the early 2010s, with construction finally commencing in the summer of 2018, during Trump's first term. As opposed to the Ambassador Bridge, the Gordie Howe is publicly owned. All throughout that time, the Moroun family, led by Matthew's father, Manuel Moroun, vigorously fought against it, alleging at one point that it violated the exclusive rights of his own bridge.

"The Moroun family has for decades mounted legal challenges to block or delay the competing project," the Times explained. "One of the challenges reached the Canadian Supreme Court, while the family has also lobbied extensively against it."

Democrats are looking to turn the GOP's "silence" in the face of Donald Trump and his Department of Justice's "lawlessness and gross abuse of power" into a bigger liability, according to Politico, as a major hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi gets underway.

In a Wednesday morning report, Politico spoke to various lawmakers set to take part in the House Judiciary Committee hearing. Ordinarily, the outlet explained, the DOJ's recent "barrage of controversies" might portend a thorough grilling from both sides of the aisle. However, aside from prominent Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie, "Republicans on the panel don’t appear to be clamoring to challenge Bondi on any of it."

While Democrats are eager to grill the attorney general over a variety of issues, including the slow, haphazard release of the Epstein files and the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents, Republicans who spoke with Politico seemed more interested in pursuing the party's typical fixations, such as "the rights of parents" and the department's effort to combat "fraud." Committee Chair Jim Jordan also suggested to Politico that he wished to commend Bondi for "the good work they’ve done on just regularly prosecuting bad guys."

Despite this lack of cooperation from Republicans, Politico noted that Democrats believe they might get the "upper hand" at the hearing by exploiting the GOP's silence on these mounting controversies.

"It’s not unusual for Cabinet officials to confront a hospitable audience when the majority shares the party affiliation of the administration in power, but Democrats think the stack of high-profile dramas encircling Bondi could give them a unique opportunity — namely by drawing out the GOP’s anticipated silence on the hot-button issues and the attorney general’s expected refusal to engage in Democratic questioning," Politico explained.

Various Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee laid out their plans for confronting Bondi in interviews with Politico, including the sorts of tactics they might employ against her and how they hope the public will react.

“The Department of Justice has been found to be lying by federal courts across the land — they have withheld evidence, they have misled the court, they’ve shown spectacular disrespect for the rule of law and the integrity of the courts,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the outlet. “So, I think as little respect as they have for the courts, they probably have less for Congress.”

“We’ve all noticed that at prior hearings, when she’s afraid to answer a question, she attacks the members of Congress,” Rep. Ted Lieu said. “So if she starts doing that, you know she’s afraid to answer a question, and she’s engaged in a cover-up, so the American people will be able to see what she does on Wednesday.”

“It’s very hard to narrow down all of the lawlessness and gross abuse of power that this Department of Justice has engaged in in just one year,” Rep. Dan Goldman added. “She’s been trying to avoid us, but she can’t avoid us any longer.”

White House official Peter Navarro on Tuesday braced the markets for a "weak" impending jobs report, urging them to keep expectations "down significantly" while also pointing the blame elsewhere besides Donald Trump's policies.

Navarro serves as Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, and is noted as one of the biggest boosters in the administration of the president's wide-ranging tariff policy. During a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business, Navarro suggested that people should temper their expectations for the new jobs report set to release on Wednesday.

The jobs report’s going to come out tomorrow. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like," Navarro told host Maria Bartiromo.

He also asserted that the impending poor number will be the result of Trump's mass deportation agenda, while also claiming, with no evidence, that all of the jobs created during Joe Biden's presidency were given to undocumented immigrants. Biden-era job creation reports regularly reached the six-figure range, while tomorrow's number is expected to be around 50,000, which Navarro attempted to spin as a positive.

"When we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens… we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for steady state. And by the way, all of the jobs that we were creating in Biden years were going to illegals,” Navarro said. “Americans were going to the unemployment lines... That’s totally reversed, and now 50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need."

He added, "So, Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can’t rain on that parade. They have to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of our job market."

In response, Bartiromo asked if Navarro was expecting a "weak" number.

“No,” Navarro pushed back. “Not expecting a weak number. I’m just saying that going forward, when we see a number under 100,000, we don’t wring our hands. We say, ‘Yeah, that’s going to be steady state,’ so it’s all good, Maria.”

Meanwhile, in a Monday statement to investors, JPMorgan's chief global strategist David Kelly gave a much grimmer forecast for the economy, which he said was beset with "soggy consumption, weak job gains and a sour public mood.

"In short, while the stock market is booming and tech sector capital spending is soaring, much of the real economy remains very slow," Kelly said, and further quoted Wall Street analyst Albert Edwards as saying, "We are again in a Peter Pan world where an exuberant Wall Street is propping up the real economy. Things could get interesting very quickly."

Donald Trump promised to avoid "regime change" foreign policy goals when he ran for reelection, but according to his former national security adviser, John Bolton, he has engaged in a "much worse" policy, implemented "incoherently" and risking "disastrous consequences" for the U.S.

On Tuesday, Bolton published a scathing takedown of Trump's second-term foreign policy agenda for The Atlantic. In it, he echoed the frustrations of many Republicans about the president's reversal from his campaign promise to avoid "regime change" and "nation building" initiatives, while also ripping the haphazard execution of the "global buccaneering" plans he has pursued instead.

"But Trump has instead opted for global buccaneering: attacking Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, launching pinprick swipes at Yemen’s Houthis, and seeking a massive, elusive trade deal with China," Bolton wrote. "He has inserted himself as a would-be governing force into lands as diverse as Venezuela, the Gaza Strip, and Greenland. He has done so inconsistently and incoherently, unguided by theory or history, improvising at will, painting with real-estate salesmanship futures that bear little connection to reality and threaten potentially disastrous consequences for America if he fails."

Bolton argued that Trump's foreign policy agenda so far has been "much worse" than simple regime change plans. The latter, he explained, at least has a logical grounding: "If reforming the behavior of a hostile regime is impossible, replace it with one more friendly and, hopefully, more democratic. Do so when the likely benefits outweigh the likely costs."

After the military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, instead of recognizing Edmundo González, whom Trump's last administration officially recognized as the country's rightful president, the White House let Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, serve as acting president, effectively letting the regime stay in power.

"None of this provides the stability that Venezuela needs to encourage foreign investment in its oil sector and produce revenues that could revive the economy and thereby facilitate a transition to democratic rule," Bolton wrote.

Bolton was similarly unsparing about Trump's approach to Gaza and Greenland. In the latter case, he said that the plan to manage Gaza via a "Board of Peace" that Trump has near-complete control over would have made "19th-century imperialists blush." In Greenland's case, he dismissed Trump's "ploy" to take control of the island as "stillborn," the only accomplishment being to strain key alliances with Europe.

"His play at regime change against a treaty ally caused deep distress in Europe and undoubtedly weakened NATO significantly," Bolton wrote. "It also delighted the Kremlin, which goes to show how badly mistaken the entire episode was from the get-go."

He concluded: "Around the world, and in America, wonderment at Trump’s infinite variety of 'policy' choices is giving way to the realization that Trump doesn’t do 'policy.' Or philosophy. Or grand strategy. He does Donald Trump. Among regular Republicans still holding to a Reaganite (or Reagan-Bush) national-security paradigm, vocal dissent — long overdue — is emerging. It needs to grow quickly before Trump’s self-absorption causes even more damage. His incoherence on regime change is only one piece of evidence in the larger picture of his unfitness to be president."

With immigration issues losing their "sting," Texas Republicans are ramping up efforts to target an "old enemy" in an effort to keep voters motivated: Islam.

According to a report from The New York Times on Tuesday, "Republican officials and candidates in Texas have shifted their rhetorical attack lines" in recent months. While the party had put a heavy focus on issues surrounding the border with Mexico and immigration, it is now delving into Islamophobic rhetoric and targeting the state's increasing Muslim population, with language and rhetoric that "echoes" the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

"Ads for Senator John Cornyn of Texas have touted his fight against 'radical Islam.' Texas Republican lawmakers created a 'Sharia-Free America Caucus' in Congress. Gov. Greg Abbott has labeled one of the nation’s largest Muslim rights groups a terror organization," the Times' J. David Goodman wrote in the report.

He continued: "A 'Save Texas from Radical Islam' dinner north of Dallas last month featured Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Trump, the conservative commentator Glenn Beck and the Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders — and attracted party activists and Texas House members... Just on Monday, the state’s hard-right attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced he would investigate a proposed real estate development in Kaufman County, east of Dallas," which he dubbed a "potentially illegal 'Sharia City.'"

Gov. Abbott has also pledged to pass a "total ban" on "Sharia Law" in the state, though as Goodman noted, "he has not said what that would mean in practice." Brooks McKenzie, a Republican activist in Tarrant County, made similar proclamations that seem to run afoul of the constitutional right to freedom of religion, arguing that Texas should "ban the burqa, the hijab, the abaya, the niqab... No to halal meat. No to celebrating Ramadan. No, no, no.”

The state party's rhetoric had, for many recent election cycles, been dominated by fearmongering over alleged "migrant caravans" and characterizing border crossings as an "invasion," in an effort to keep its voter base motivated. Now, amid the perception that Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has "halted" border crossings, those old tactics have seemingly lost their efficacy. Trump's mass deportation agenda is also growing increasingly unpopular across the political spectrum.

Muslim residents and leaders in the state, meanwhile, have called this rhetoric disturbing and expressed fear for their own safety.

“I’m shocked and I’m offended by my own elected leaders,” Democratic Texas State Representative Salman Bhojani said.

Mujeeb Kazi, a Pakistani immigrant and president of the North Texas Islamic Council, told Goodman that past anti-Muslim flare-ups were "never this bad," noting that his own face had been used on an anti-Islam flier and that he now fears for his children's safety.

Democrats remain bullish about the chances for major gains in the 2026 midterms, and according to a report from NOTUS, two seats in deep-red states are now viewed as vulnerable due to "weak fundraising and scandals."

Cory Mills is a Republican congressman representing Florida's 7th District, where he won reelection in 2024 by 13 points, and Donald Trump bested Kamala Harris by the same margin. Despite that showing, Democrats are emboldened about their chances to unseat him this year due to "allegations of stolen valor, domestic violence and shady business dealings this campaign cycle."

Mills' 2003 receipt of a Bronze Star for delivering "life-saving" aid to fellow soldiers under fire in Iraq has been brought into question, as five individuals who served with him said that they did not remember him being on the scene. Last February, officials with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., confirmed to NOTUS that Mills was under investigation for simple assault, though the congressman denied any wrongdoing.

According NOTUS's new report, "those issues appear to have deteriorated his campaign’s ability to bring in cash."

"Last fall, between October and December, Mills raised a mere $61,000 — incredibly low numbers from a candidate who had never struggled to raise well over $100,000, often more than $200,000, every quarter since his election in 2022," the outlet detailed. "In that same time period, Bale Dalton, his Democratic challenger, a Navy veteran and former NASA chief of staff, raised more than $343,000."

Dalton is campaigning against Mills on a platform based on affordability, a message that led Democrats to resounding successes in elections elsewhere last year.

“My message is: Life is too expensive, and Cory Mills is too corrupt to fix it,” Dalton told the outlet in a prior interview.

Though not dogged by scandal like Mills, Democrats see a similar opening against. Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican representing Tennessee's 5th District. Ogles was reelected in 2024 by a margin of 17 points in 2024, while Trump carried the district over Harris by 18. Despite that, he has suffered a severe fundraising deficit against his Democratic challenger, Chaz Molder, the mayor of Columbia, Tennessee.

"Although the district also historically votes Republican, Molder raised well over $1 million in the last two quarters of 2025, compared to Ogles’ $209,000 in that same period, as the congressman attempts to fend off an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations," NOTUS reported.

Mills and Ogles are still generally favored to win reelection later this year, but these issues led the Cook Political Report to downgrade their odds from "solid" to "likely."

An Irish immigrant has been stuck in an ICE camp for months despite having a valid permit and no criminal record, per an interview he gave to The Irish Times, likening his surroundings to a "concentration camp" while his wife called the predicament "traumatizing."

Seamus Culleton is a resident of Massachusetts, originally hailing from the town of Glenmore in Ireland's County Kilkenny. He is married to a U.S. citizen and operates a plastering business, and has been in the final stages of obtaining a green card.

"My whole life is here [in the US]. I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here," he explained to the outlet.

Despite having a valid Massachusetts driver's license and work permit, he was detained by ICE agents in September following a traffic stop. While at a holding facility in Buffalo, New York, Culleton refused to sign off on his own deportation, opting instead to tick a box indicating that he wished to contest his arrest. Culleton insisted that his permit to live and work in the U.S. is valid, and that he has no criminal record, "not even a parking ticket."

Following this, he was taken to an ICE facility in El Paso, where he has remained for months. Speaking with The Irish Times, Culleton said that he has "been locked in the same large, cold and damp room" for months now, along with roughly 70 other men, most of whom do not speak English. Most of the detainees spend their days starving, he explained, as food is only served to them in "child-sized" portions.

Culleton was unsparing in his description of his detention, calling it, "like a concentration camp, absolute hell."

"To know he was just taken, and he or I had no idea where they were taking him, was traumatizing," Culleton's wife, Tiffaniy Smyth, said.

In a November ruling, a judge approved Culleton's release on a $4,000 bond, which Smyth paid. Despite that, nothing happened, with the couple later finding out that the government had denied his bond without explanation. During an appeal process, his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, said that ICE officers claimed that he had signed documents agreeing to be deported, a claim that Culleton "adamantly" denied.

A judge ultimately sided with ICE over the deportation documents, leaving Culleton without recourse under U.S. law. He is, however, pressing for the alleged signatures to be examined by a handwriting expert.