President Donald Trump's latest headline-dominating gaffe about affordability is, from a political perspective, "the worst thing he's said by far" as president, according to the Washington, D.C., insiders at Pod Save America, and it all comes down to one simple factor: he was telling the truth.

During a press scrum on Tuesday, Trump was asked by reporters if the financial hardships that Americans are enduring are a factor that he considers when negotiating with Iranian leaders for an end to the war. As voters are consistently saying that they are most concerned about affordability and upset about his handling of the economy, Trump said that he did not think about it, "not even a little bit," insisting that he only cared about ensuring that Iran did not obtain a nuclear weapon.

The fallout from the comment was swift, as it crystallized not just the economic hardships taking place under Trump's watch, but also his evident indifference to the issues, even as his own policies and actions cause them. Reports indicate that GOP lawmakers were left extremely frustrated by the remark, as it made their already imperiled effort to craft a viable midterms message even more difficult.

On the latest episode of Pod Save America, Dan Pfieffer, the former White House communications director and senior adviser to Barack Obama, went a step further and argued why this comment from Trump was the worst thing he had ever said as president, even among a career full of "offensive and morally odious" statements.

"Donald Trump has said many offensive and morally odious things over the years, but from a political perspective, this is the worst thing he has said, by far, hands down, not even close," Pfeiffer said.

When pressed about the claim by co-host and former lead Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, Pfeiffer went deeper on his reasoning.

"It absolutely has to be [up there with his worst statements], and here's why," he continued. "Because a lot of... the terrible things he's said ... all those things, which are really, really bad things for a president to say on every level, are afield from the thing that Americans care most about. ... The worst kind of gaffes are when you say the truth out loud, and that's what this is."

He continued: "Because what he said was the exact thing that the people who voted for Trump, who have grown disillusioned with him and are thinking of voting for Democrats, fear most: that he does not give a s—— about them."

Pfeiffer even suggested that Trump's exact words could be something that Democratic super PACs use as a unifying theme for midterm attack ads, and know they have him on camera saying it out loud.

A crisis in the U.S. bond market was once enough to spook President Donald Trump away from his tariff policies, but now, the market is once again "collapsing" and reaching levels even worse than before, according to experts.

On Friday, the official X account for market analysis outlet, The Kobeissi Letter, posted another "warning" about the "intensifying" crisis taking place in the bond market, as it reaches rates not seen since a month after Trump's Liberation Day announcement. It also warned that the "euphoria" seen elsewhere in the market in the face of the administration's chaotic policies was coming to an end as reality sinks in.

Due to these circumstances, they predicted that inflation would be here to stay, and that mortgage rates would also begin to climb.

"Our 5th warning: The bond market crisis is intensifying," the outlet posted. "The US 10Y Note Yield is now officially above 4.55 percent for the first time since May 2025. After weeks of euphoria, the market is beginning to react today."

The post continued: "As we have been stating for the last few weeks, the current situation in the bond market is unsustainable. We are now above levels seen when President Trump implemented a '90-day tariff pause' in April 2025 due to a collapsing bond market. Furthermore, the market now sees a 60 percent-plus chance that the Fed's next move is an interest rate HIKE, with rate cuts entirely priced-out. We expect to see 7 percent-plus mortgages next, all as auto loan delinquencies have reached 32-year highs. Inflation is back and higher rates are coming."

The situation could pose a major initial test for Trump's newly confirmed Federal Reserve chairman, Kevin Warsh, whom the president once claimed he was nominating explicitly to cut interest rates to levels favorable to his business allies.

In a recent report on the bond market situation, Seeking Alpha argued that the changing rates are the result of the markets pricing in an impending rate hike from the Fed, despite Trump's past demands.

"The message is clear," the report stated. "The short-term rates are starting to price a Fed hike—that's what happens during an inflationary shock... The 30Y yields are starting to price an unsustainable US fiscal situation. Thus, overall, the bond market is sending a serious warning."

The report further argued that the strong stock market is the result of a "melt-up" situation, driven by delusional hopes about the Iran war coming to a close, rather than any of the real facts at hand.

President Donald Trump's latest posting binges on Truth Social reveal how much he is "out of control, bizarre, unhinged [and] irrational," according to his one-time biographer, who said that his behavior under most other circumstances would warrant an "intervention."

Extended posting sprees have become a hallmark of Trump's second term in the White House, with many raising alarms about his sleep schedule, as they come during the dead of night. These instances can see Trump sharing dozens of Truth Social posts at a time, many with alarming messages to be seen coming from a sitting president. In a recent posting binge from Monday, for example, Trump shared a post calling former President Barack Obama a "traitor" and calling for his arrest.

Michael Wolff is a longtime reporter and author who has had extensive access to Trump in the past, famously writing a series of tell-all books about the chaos of his first term in office. In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff was unsparing in his take on Trump's posting habit, and what it says about his mental stability.

“Right now, you can look this up and find the president of the United States saying things—regularly saying things, continuously saying things — that are out of control, bizarre, unhinged, irrational, that have in every possible way departed reality,” Wolff said. “How do you react to that? Nobody actually has quite reacted to this. There are no headlines in The New York Times that say, ‘The president of the United States has flipped his lid,’ which in any reasonable, fair-minded reading of what he posts on social media... that’s the conclusion that you would come to.”

He continued later: "If this were a family member of literally anybody, anybody who stayed up all night and posted — sometimes in a night, a hundred posts — this kind of wingnut stuff, that would be a mental health crisis."

The Daily Beast noted, after having "extensively chronicled Trump’s social media posts," an alarming statistic about his recent habits. According to their findings, throughout the entire month of April, there were only five nights in which he posted nothing on Truth Social between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., with the rest of the nights seeing him sharing things like "a since-removed depiction of himself as Jesus Christ, more election denialism, and AI slop of a lunar Trump Tower."

“What do you do with a situation in which you have the president of the United States who is openly — without any kind of inhibition whatsoever, in print, in black and white, in his own hand — delivering these statements, which are off the beam constantly?” Wolff continued. “What do you do with the clear evidence that the President of the United States is behaving in a way that for anyone else — your own family members, CEOs of other companies — would beg for an intervention?"

Farmers and ranchers are not happy with President Donald Trump's impact on their business, giving him a brutal new disapproval rating, but according to the same poll, they are still likely to stick by the Republican Party, prompting one reporter to say they deserve "no sympathy."

Agricultural workers and leaders have long aligned with the GOP and broke for Trump in a big way in 2024. Ever since his return, however, his policies have wreaked havoc on the U.S. farming industry, with tariffs causing key overseas markets to dry up, while also causing the costs of things like equipment and fertilizer to explode. Trump's trade war with China, specifically, caused catastrophic damage to the ability of U.S. farmers to sell their soybeans.

Things became so dire at one point that Trump was in talks to provide a $12 billion bailout to struggling farmers.

On Friday, Amato Advisors released a new poll surveying farmers and ranchers about the effect of Trump's policies on their operations and livelihoods, with 55 percent saying that they have been negatively impacted. Only 19 percent said that they have been positively impacted, with 26 percent saying that they were either unsure or saw no effect.

"A new poll commissioned by Amato Advisors and conducted by Farm Journal finds that American farmers — an overwhelmingly Republican-leaning constituency — are sending Washington a clear distress signal on the cost of farming, tariff damage, Iran War and a federal government they say does not understand the realities of life on a farm," Amato's report on the poll explained. "The Farmer & Rancher Policy Sentiment Survey, fielded in April 2026, surveyed 974 farmers and ranchers across 44 states. The findings reveal a producer base in deep economic strain and high political motivation heading into the 2026 midterm election."

Despite that brutal sentiment, as the Politics & Poll Tracker X account highlighted, the respondents said that they trusted Republicans on trade policy over Democrats by a 22-point margin.

"They deserve no sympathy," Daily Kos reporter Emily C. Singer wrote about the poll in a post to X. "They get what they vote for."

However, the report also noted a considerable number of respondents were considering crossing the political divide in the upcoming midterm elections. While 15 percent of respondents said that they "always" vote Republican and 35 percent said that they "usually" do, Amato noted that 4 in 10 of them said that they are "they are either considering voting for a different party or are unsure who they will vote for."

"Farmers overwhelmingly point to input costs (i.e. fertilizer, fuel, seed, chemicals, etc.) as the biggest challenge for their operations, the report detailed. "Almost all farmers – 94 percent – say the Iran War will impact their business by raising fertilizer costs, fuel costs, or both."

It added later: "Many farmers have a pessimistic view of politics and politicians, seeing elected officials as out of touch and the major parties as unable to effectively address agricultural issues."

President Donald Trump and his allies almost reflexively blame any of his own administration's failures on his predecessor, Joe Biden, but according to a new report from MS NOW, that argument might be harder to make than ever as his approval rating craters past a milestone he was desperate to avoid.

"The president’s poll numbers are in the toilet. He is struggling to stay alert during key events. An overseas conflict is dampening enthusiasm among his base. Voters are furious about rising inflation," MS NOW's James Downie wrote in a Friday piece. "That was the narrative around former President Joe Biden when he exited the presidential race in mid-2024. And every sentence applies now to President Donald Trump, whose recent polling is as bad as Biden’s was when he threw in the towel — or in some cases worse. But the two presidents’ reactions — and that of their parties — could not be more different."

As Downie explained, a YouGov/Economist poll from this week found that Trump had a 36 percent approval rating compared to a 58 percent disapproval rating. Even worse, however, was the consistency with which his rating has been cratering over the last several weeks.

“In the past, bad numbers one week often have been offset by less-bad numbers in the next poll,” YouGov’s David Montgomery explained. “Now, the share of Americans who approve of Trump’s job handling has been under 40% for two straight months, and his net approval has been -22 for three straight weeks.”

This number is notable, as it means that Trump has fallen below the worst three-week average recorded by YouGov for Biden. His predecessor, whom Trump cannot stop blaming for all of the country's ills, bottomed out at a -21.8 average.

The story was the same coming from the New York Times, which recently gave Trump an average approval rating that was 20 points underwater, and polling guru Nate Silver, whose average had him 19.6 points under. Both numbers are below the averages each source recorded for Biden by the time he exited the 2024 presidential race, and the lowest they have recorded for Trump in his second term.

As their numbers begin to overlap, Downie argued further that the reasons for Trump and Biden's tanking approval ratings are remarkably similar, with each man dogged by worries about their age and crippling consumer inflation.

"Both learned in real time that the presidency is an even more difficult job when you’re entering your ninth decade on earth," Downie explained. "Biden mixed up names; Trump appears to nod off during meetings."

He added later: "And both, most simply, have been crushed by inflation. As I wrote last month, voter anger over the pandemic-era inflation spike persisted because even as the rate of inflation came down in 2023, prices were still (and are still) going up. It doomed Democrats in 2024, just as it doomed incumbents on the left and right around the world."

The impending 2026 midterms are certain to be dramatic, with the potential to bring about seismic political shifts, but according to a former GOP operative writing for The Hill, there is also reason to expect that they will be the most "dangerous" midterms of all time.

Myra Adams is an opinion contributor for The Hill who previously did creative work for GOP presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008. On Friday morning, she published a piece expanding on her past assertions that the 2026 midterms will be "the most dramatic ever," adding that the increasing signs of volatility mean that they could also become the most dangerous, and outline seven reasons why.

The first reason, she explained, is also the "overarching" one, hanging over the entire cycle: President Donald Trump fears that Republicans might lose both of their majorities in the House and Senate, meaning that Democrats will be empowered to hold his administration to account, and almost certainly impeach him once again. Trump is also reportedly aware that history is aligned against him, as the party in the White House tends to suffer notable losses in the midterm races.

The second reason Adams gave was the GOP's expanding push to gerrymander red states in their favor to help maintain their House majority. She cited her previous warning that the party retaining the House in November could lead to a major "revolt" from voters, who have soured against the party under Trump's leadership. The massive redistricting push to rig the map in their favor, she argued, will only make such a scenario more likely.

For the third reason, Adams argued that this year is likely to be the country's first "authoritarian" election, with Trump and his allies threatening to deploy the government's vast resources towards intimidating voters and casting doubt on the results. Officials have floated sending ICE patrols to key polling precincts, while Trump also recently announced the creation of an "Election Integrity Army in every single State to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote."

"Fourth, early signs point to 2026 being among the highest voter turnout in midterm history," Adams continued. "Therefore, count on intimidation in Democratic areas as discussed above. The fifth reason for midterm drama and danger is the dour mood among American consumers, in which worries about affordability are a staple of daily life. Trump’s sinking job approval is mirrored in gas prices, grocery receipts, health insurance premiums, and soaring utility bills. Yet he appears extremely cavalier, seemingly incapable of feeling the people’s pain."

The sixth reason she gave warned of the widespread use of artificial intelligence to spread misinformation and fake smears about candidates, meaning that voters will now have to discern what information they are receiving is real, on top of everything else.

"'Seventh, voters feel powerless," Adams concluded. "Few trust the government to improve their economic circumstances or curb inflation, as Trump promised to do in 2024. Moreover, Americans are paying billions for an unpopular war in Iran which, in March, the president called an “excursion” to be over “very soon.” Furthermore, Trump is obsessed with getting even, engaging billionaires, enriching his family and building a gilded ballroom, all while renaming and remaking Washington as if it were Mar-a-Lago."

Prominent right-wing or right-leaning media operations are hemorrhaging money and viewers, but according to a breakdown of the situation from The New Republic, the billionaires keeping the lights on at these companies still do not care.

In a piece published Friday morning, veteran media reporter Parker Molloy gave an overview of the woes currently besetting these more high-profile media operations. CBS News, recently taken over by conservative columnist Bari Weiss and reshaped into a much more MAGA-friendly mold, is bleeding viewers at a rapid rate and taking hits over the sloppiness of its operations. Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire, meanwhile, has seen its YouTube traffic "collapse" by 70 percent since the end of 2024, and recently cut about 13 percent of its staff. This came after the tepid launch of its expensive high-fantasy TV series, The Pendragon Cycle, as part of its abortive attempt at being a mainstream production studio.

Molloy's piece was mainly inspired, however, by the Washington Post, which has garnered attention — if not views — for its new podcast. The video series, "Make It Make Sense," is fronted by the paper's opinion section, which has been foregrounded after owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos slashed the outlet's newsroom to the bone. The series is 20 episodes and 186 YouTube videos deep, and boasted only a meager 515 subscribers at the time Molloy published the piece. (It is currently up to just 527, even after its flagging viewership went viral on BlueSky.)

The series — which includes videos claiming to debunk the claim that the rich do not pay enough taxes and that colleges are giving away top grades too easily — has numerous posts on YouTube that have failed to crack 100 views and does not seem to be doing much better on dedicated podcast platforms, boasting just four scathing reviews on Apple Podcasts.

"The new opinion section’s video push is failing publicly, and so are the other billionaire-funded prestige-media operations that share its model," Molloy explained. "The content is dull. The numbers are microscopic. And the men paying for it have been telling us all along that they don’t care. For all the talk of 'the marketplace of ideas,' 'Make It Make Sense' looks like yet another right-wing influence operation that exists solely because a billionaire is willing to subsidize it."

The Post has seen a notable shift under Bezos that has seen its once solid subscription base fizzle. The outlet lost 250,000 after it broke with years of tradition and declined to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024, with a report indicating that an endorsement of Kamala Harris had already been prepared. A month after Trump returned to office, Bezos announced that the opinion section would take on a new focus on "personal liberties and free markets," which prompted 75,000 more subscribers to bail.

When pressed about potential concerns that this shift would alienate paying readers, Bezos is reported to have told opinion editor David Shipley: "I don't care."

"The Post is down 24 percent. The Daily Wire is down 50 percent. CBS Evening News just posted its worst-ever April in the 25–54 demographic," Molloy observed. "The men funding all of it could read the numbers if they wanted to."

She concluded: "What’s on the screen, meanwhile, is what they think doesn’t need to work. Four mid-tier opinion writers on a couch under wood paneling and a framed cowboy. Recent topics: hantavirus, pension padding, the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. The trailer view count and the channel subscriber count that you have to do the math to believe. Nobody is watching. Bezos doesn’t care."

President Donald Trump has many people he perceives as enemies in Washington, D.C., and few of them have resisted his pressures as successfully as outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Now, a former Obama-era economic adviser argued that he has left behind a "genius" playbook for those looking to beat back the president's threats.

Jason Furman is an economist and scholar, best known for chairing the Council of Economic Advisers during former President Barack Obama's second term. On Thursday, he published a new piece for the New York Times, hailing him as a good Fed chair, but an even better opponent to Trump.

Powell drew significant ire from Trump over his repeated refusal to cut interest rates enough, something that would have been beneficial to the president's many business allies, but not necessarily good for the economy and inflation rates overall. Early into his second term, Trump began putting immense pressure on Powell and the Fed, threatening to fire him — something he lacked the authority to do — and later launching a criminal investigation into him, which was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled intimidation play.

Powell's reaction, Furman argued, saw him create a whole new playbook for hitting back at Trump.

"In economics departments, they teach you how to handle the situations central banks are likely to find themselves in: excessive inflation, financial crises, runs on the banks. But no one teaches you how to handle a situation like this," he explained. "Mr. Powell wrote his own playbook. He posted a plain-spoken two-minute video addressing the American public. 'No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law,' he said. But the president’s 'unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.' He vowed to continue performing his duties 'without political fear or favor.'"

In the wake of Powell's sober address, former Fed chairs across the political spectrum spoke out against Trump's investigation, followed by members of Congress. GOP Sen. Thom Tillis threatened to use his committee authority to block Trump's nomination to replace Powell if the investigation was not called off, a threat largely credited with ultimately sinking the case. Powell also opted to buck decades of tradition and remain on the Fed board of governors after his term as chair ends, to better allow him to combat Trump's pressure.

"Mr. Trump’s gambit had completely backfired," Furman explained.

He continued: "President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, to replace Mr. Powell. Mr. Warsh is well above the bar in terms of both knowledge and experience. His most immediate task will be to finish the job Mr. Powell was doing, bringing inflation down to the Fed’s 2 percent target. He will succeed only if he follows through on the promise he made in his confirmation hearing to maintain the Fed’s operational independence. Mr. Powell has shown him — and the rest of us — how that is done."

President Donald Trump has left the U.S. backed into a corner, according to a new breakdown from The Hill, as the Gulf states see increasingly little value in the country as an ally and move to end the era of "blank-check cooperation" that made them into "immovable pillars of American power in the Middle East."

Brahma Chellaney is an Indian geostrategist, author and a one-time member of India's National Security Advisory Board. On Thursday, he published a new column for The Hill explaining the major "shift" underway in the American power dynamic in the Middle East, as the powerful Gulf petro-states are starting to reassess their longstanding relationship with the U.S. This change was already underway, he noted that "Trump’s Iran war has accelerated this reassessment dramatically," as the partnership made them a target for Iran's retaliatory strikes.

"The Gulf states discovered that supporting American military operations carried potentially catastrophic costs for them, as their energy facilities and desalination plants became targets of Iranian reprisals," Chellaney wrote. "Gulf rulers watched as the U.S. deployed enormous military resources (including Aegis-equipped destroyers and advanced interceptors) to shield Israel from Iranian retaliation while Gulf states absorbed the payback for enabling American strikes."

He concluded: "That experience appears to have fundamentally altered their calculations."

The breakdown in this relationship could be seen in the swift collapse of "Project Freedom," the initiative in which the U.S. meant to safely escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf states saw this plan as a "potential disaster," leading Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to deny the U.S. access to their "airspace and bases to support the operation."

"Without Gulf cooperation, the mission quickly became logistically and politically unsustainable. Trump abruptly suspended it after just two escorted U.S.-flagged vessels passed through the strait," Chellaney explained. "In effect, Gulf states vetoed a major American military initiative — something that would have been almost unthinkable only a year ago. Only after Trump paused the operation did Gulf governments restore U.S. access to basing and overflight rights, underscoring that such cooperation is no longer automatic but conditional."

The Gulf states now increasingly believe that they are being treated as "platforms for American power, not equal partners in American protection," bringing an end to the era when the U.S. believed that their resources were "essentially available on demand during crises in return for American military protection." In essence, Chellaney argued, they are meeting Trump's "America First" agenda with a new "Gulf First" mindset.

"The Gulf monarchies are not abandoning the U.S., but they are redefining the relationship on narrower terms," Chellaney surmised. "The age of blank-check cooperation is over. Gulf allies are no longer willing to be the lightning rods for U.S. military campaigns while relying on uncertain protection when retaliation arrives. And once allies learn they can say 'no' to Washington, they rarely return to automatic obedience."

The FBI has been "hemorrhaging" some of its most experienced and valuable agents amid President Donald Trump's chaotic and messy return to the White House, with an MS NOW report revealing the development as the bureau's director has been caught inflating arrest numbers.

On Thursday, MS NOW's Ana Cabrera hosted a segment delving into the outlet's recent revelations about FBI Director Kash Patel using sneaky methods to inflate the data pertaining to the bureau's success. Ken Dilanian, the reporter who broke the story, explained that Patel's recent boast about the FBI arresting twice as many violent felons in 2025 compared to when Joe Biden was president in 2024 was the result of a change in policy about what sorts of arrests are included in the statistics.

"What that doesn't explain is that Kash Patel changed the policy so that the FBI began, in 2025, counting arrests where FBI agents were present," Dilanian explained. "But other agencies made the arrests and led the investigation, whether other federal agencies or state and local agencies, including the immigration raids that Patel has been requiring FBI agents to go on. So these stats do not reflect additional suspects being taken off the streets, is what our sources are telling us."

Dilanian also deflated Patel's claims about the FBI getting better at arresting targets on its most wanted list, explaining that he has essentially been "gaming the system" by having fugitives added to the list when it is understood that they are soon to be captured anyway.

Amid this leadership mess, Dilanian revealed that the bureau saw its attrition rate skyrocket in 2025, losing some of its most valuable agents to the private sector. He also noted that this is an issue that cannot be resolved quickly, leaving the FBI in an prolonged quagmire of its own making.

"There's been a hemorrhaging of experienced agents," Dilanian said. "So there are around 13,000 special agents out of the FBI workforce of around 38,000. And generally, there's been around a 5 percent attrition rate, so around 700 agents a year. But in 2025, the bureau lost 2800 agents, according to internal FBI statistics. "

He added later: "And that may actually understate the extent of the damage here, because they are some of the most experienced agents and some of the most senior agents who have left. And it's continuing to happen. And it's a huge problem that is not fixable in a few years or with the next presidency, because those people are gone. They're in the private sector, and it takes many, many years to train people as good as... [these] special agents who have left the FBI."

Congress' issue with missing lawmakers has gotten worse, according to a New Republic report, as voting records indicate that an 83-year-old Democratic congresswoman has been missing in action for the last month, and has yet to give a reason why.

Prior to this new report, alarms had been raised over Rep. Tom Kean Jr., a New Jersey Republican, who has been absent from Congress since early March, and just announced that he would be missing another week, citing a vague "personal health matter." He has, so far, missed upwards of 65 votes in the House, and raised alarms about his potential standing in the upcoming midterm election, given his vulnerable seat.

Now, eagle-eyed observers have found another notable absence in the House, this time on the other side of the aisle. On Thursday, the New Republic detailed the situation surrounding Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, who has missed votes for the last four weeks without explanation. The absence once again raises the issue of elderly members of Congress, as Wilson is 83 and still seeking reelection after 15 years in office.

Wilson is a member of both the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the House Committee on Education and Workforce. In videos from committee meetings held since April 17, when she was last recorded voting, Wilson has been notably missing.

Amid this absence, Wilson's social media presence appears to be trying to paper over the issue with continued posts.

"She has so far failed to address her nearly four-week absence, though her team has been busy keeping her social media active and curated," the New Republic explained. "Some of the account’s posts seem designed to trick people into thinking that Wilson is still out and about. In one bizarre post circulated earlier this week and flagged on X by Capitol Hill correspondent Jamie Dupree, Wilson’s team reused photographs of her from an October event, in an attempt to suggest that the lawmaker was still mingling with her constituents."

Wilson's seat is considered to be a solidly Democratic one, but the New Republic noted that her absence could still endanger her tenure in Congress due to the primary threat she is facing from within her own party.

"Christine Sanon-Jules Olivo, a small-business owner with ties to the NAACP, is running to unseat her in the district’s Democratic primary, scheduled for August 18," the report detailed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is supposed to be barred from entering China due to past sanctions, prompting him to use a "translation loophole" to accompany President Donald Trump to Beijing, per NOTUS, with one expert calling the situation "hilarious."

In 2020, Rubio, then a sitting senator from Florida, was caught up in a wave of sanctions from China, which NOTUS described as a "mostly symbolic move" retaliating against various U.S. citizens in response to "several disagreements, including China’s treatment of its minority Uyghur population and a controversial national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong at the time." A number of other Republican lawmakers were also targeted in the move, including Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Pat Toomey.

While this predicament could have potentially blocked him from entering China, as the sanctions have not technically been lifted, he was able to join Trump this week, seemingly because of an odd loophole. Since he joined the Trump administration last year, the Chinese government began translating "the first syllable of his surname differently, replacing it with another character for 'lu' as a workaround," NOTUS explained.

"Two diplomats told AFP they believe Rubio was previously sanctioned under another spelling of his surname, and the change constituted a loophole to allow China to bypass those limitations," the outlet explained in a Thursday report. "When asked last year about the linguistic change, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told Chinese state media that she 'had not noticed it but would look into it,' The Guardian reported. Mao said that Rubio’s English name was more important."

On X, a Chinese user shared a clip of Trump and Rubio at a recent event in Beijing, where the secretary's nameplate was visible.

"Judging from the on-site Chinese nameplate that reads 'From Rubio' rather than 'Rubio,' Rubio indeed is not Rubio," the user explained, as automatically translated by X.

Luke de Pulford is a human rights activist focused on abuses committed by China. Responding to the user's original post, he called the situation "hilarious."

"This is hilarious. They have literally changed Rubio’s name to get around the fact that he remains sanctioned (and therefore barred from) China," de Pulford wrote.

In another post later on, de Pulford explained the significance of this move from China.

"This might seem like a trite detail, but it reveals a lot: 1. We all know China’s sanctions are arbitrary, in the main," he explained. "The politics comes first, the law second. Many international sanctions have no obvious legal basis. 2. Beijing cares SO MUCH about the principle of the “sanctions” imposed on [Rubio] that they’d rather have this wacky charade than lose face. They could have just left it. 3. Someone came up with this Schrödinger’s sanctions idea thinking it would protect the Party’s unchallengeable authority, and project strength. Shows you how skewed the lens is."

President Donald Trump has one sneaky trick to make his hugely unpopular Washington D.C., renovation plans move along quickly, but according to a new report from MS NOW, it also makes them "more corrupt" than most people realize.

Writing for the network on Thursday morning, reporter Hayes Brown explained how the Trump administration has used numerous no-bid contracts to "emphasize speed over cost reductions" as it aimed to have certain projects ready in time for the country's 250th anniversary this summer. One of the most prominent new projects using this method is Trump's plan to redo the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial, changing the water to a color he claimed to be "American Flag Blue."

"At any given time, his attention will drift back to the construction of his White House ballroom or any number of other side projects that would be more fittingly found on HGTV than C-Span," Brown observed. "Unlike reality TV, where corporate sponsorships are the norm and cash prizes come with plenty of strings, Trump’s current beautification kick only keeps growing more corrupt as he acts as though the White House — and Washington more broadly — is his personal fiefdom to do with as he pleases."

No-bid contracts refer to a situation in which the government opts to directly award a project to a certain company or contractor without any sort of competitive bidding process, as has been standard practice over the years. As Brown noted, these types of contracts "are only meant to be deployed in instances where taking the time to go through the normal process would provide a serious injury to the government."

Besides simply speeding up the contracting process, critics have also accused the administration of using no-bids to give corrupt preferential treatment to friendly companies, while also potentially overspending taxpayer dollars to a major degree.

When grilled about this by Congress, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued that no-bid contracts had secured "a record amount of deferred maintenance” for “19 fountains across the city that didn’t work.” Brown noted that he appeared to be "getting his wires crossed," as those fountains were part of "a different sketchy no-bid contract" situation than the Reflecting Pool, though he argued that both situations presented no sign of potential "injury" to the government if a speedier process was not used, only to Trump;s ego.

"In both cases, however, the only 'injury' in question was apparently the risk of hurting Trump’s feelings that the projects wouldn’t be done in time for the 250th birthday bash he wants to throw the country," Brown wrote. "The casual dismissal of federal contracting rules foreshadows a future reckoning with how much taxpayer money is being spent — and potentially wasted — on these vanity projects."

Republicans in Congress are frustrated following a new gaffe from President Donald Trump, telling The Hill that the comment landed one of the most "inconvenient" times possible as they try to craft a winning economic message for the midterms.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Trump was asked whether the financial strain Americans are dealing with was something he thought about while navigating his ongoing conflict with Iran. At a time when voters are the most concerned about affordability and upset about the president's handling of the economy, he said that he did not think about it, "not even a little bit," and insisted that he only cared about making sure Iran could not produce a nuclear weapon.

"The comments could not come at a more politically inconvenient time for Trump," The Hill noted in a Thursday morning report. "The Labor Department reported Wednesday that wholesale inflation spiked to 6 percent in April, up from 4 percent in March, as a result of the Iran war. That data came after the department reported Tuesday that the consumer price index increased 3.8 percent over the past 12 months."

The Hill further explained that these factors are "forcing Republicans battling to hold on to their House and Senate majorities to answer for the Trump economy," while also contending with such comments from Trump that are making it increasingly difficult, verging on outright impossible, to pin the blame for the economy on Joe Biden and other things out of their control.

While acknowledging a respect that Trump was not letting "the political situation dictate how he operates overseas military conflicts," a GOP strategist nonetheless told The Hill that he needs to do a better job of addressing economic pains ahead of the midterms.

"People are hurting back at home, and they’re paying the price for it and they’re sacrificing for it,” the anonymous strategist said. “I think that somewhat tacit hat tip to an understanding of the environment and what’s actually happening out here, I think people would generally get that. But by ignoring them or essentially saying ‘no that’s not the case, the economy is great because the stock market is doing great,’ that’s not meeting where voters are at.”

They added: "Until and unless people feel heard and at least appreciated and acknowledged for that, I think there will be negative political fallout for Republicans as a result."

Democrats, meanwhile, are already pouncing on the comment for maximum political advantage, with Andrew Mamo, a Democratic campaign adviser, marveling at its attack ad potential.

“The clip is just really nice and clean,” Mamo said. “It’s a clippable world these days, and a few seconds of Donald Trump saying ‘I think everything’s fine,’ and then you just pan to everything that is not fine is a pretty compelling message for a 30-second digital ad at this point, which is basically the currency of the moment.”

A top spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services is the latest Trump official to quit the administration in response to a new policy push that is poised to expose children to higher risks of lung disease and cancer.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Rich Danker, the chief spokesman for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had submitted a letter to President Donald Trump announcing his resignation. He specifically cited the administration's recent pivot to supporting new rules that would "allow major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes that appeal to children." Danker is the second high-profile departure this decision has caused, coming just one day after the resignation of Food and Drug Administration head Marty Makary.

In the letter, which the Times obtained a copy of, Danker took pains to stress that he was not directly blaming the president for this new vape policy, and praised him for supposedly having "twice restored our prosperity and national security against all odds," and citing various unnamed "senior HHS officials" as being behind it. Nevertheless, he "warned" Trump about the dangers to children that this new policy would create.

"Senior H.H.S. officials in the immediate office of the secretary have in recent months sought U.S. Food and Drug Administration marketing approval of e-cigarette flavors that would appeal to children and expose them to nicotine addiction, lung damage and higher risk of cancer," Danker wrote.

The new policy from HHS, posted last week, claimed that it will aim to "remove illicit e-cigarettes from the market," while allowing those that "already crossed hurdles toward agency approval" to be sold. Makary reportedly resigned after his attempts to overrule the flavored vapes policy were overruled. Despite Danker opting not to pin any blame on Trump, the Times reported that he "was personally involved advancing it."

"Mr. Danker’s resignation comes at a particularly fraught time for the Department of Health and Human Services," the Times explained. "With Dr. Makary’s resignation on Tuesday, the department now has three major vacancies. The positions of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled. As the assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Danker was responsible for coordinating the department’s outward communications. He was in Los Angeles on Wednesday, where Mr. Kennedy is speaking at a conference on the possible link between diet and cancer."

The resignation is also the latest sign of the deteriorating relationship between Trump and Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" movement, which has been credited with helping him get reelected in 2024. Since returning to the White House, Trump has disappointed MAHA adherents with his lack of progress on implementing anti-vaccine policies that they favor, as well as his support for loosening regulations on pesticides. Sources within the administration are reportedly unconcerned about losing MAHA support, viewing their influence as insignificant.

Donald Trump's presidency and the broader MAGA coalition are being tenuously held together by one thing, and according to a new breakdown from MS NOW, it is something that is already primed to collapse.

Writing for the network on Wednesday, reporter Hayes Brown argued that gerrymandering, the practice of designing congressional maps for partisan advantage, is "the glue holding Trump's fracturing MAGA coalition together." After it seemed like Democrats' counteroffensive might offset Trump's effort to use redistricting to rig the 2026 midterms, decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Virginia Supreme Court swung things back in the GOP's favor.

Notably, this plan is still not guaranteed to work. Trump's approval ratings are at such toxically low levels, that Democrats still have a clear path to the House majority, even if their margin ends up being less than it could have been. As Brown noted, if Republicans manage to gerrymander their way to keeping the House, the problems they are currently dealing with would still persist.

"If they manage to retain the House in the face of the growing backlash, then they likely won’t have enough new seats to move past the infighting and backbiting that’s currently denying them legislative momentum," Brown argued.

The new congressional maps being created in red states also carry the risk of backfiring, leading to unexpected Democratic wins, a situation sometimes referred to as a "dummymander."

"Meanwhile, the Democratic voters being deprived of districts don’t vanish into the ether," Brown explained. "Some new districts Republicans are creating will inevitably be less red than they were. In what was already shaping up to be a wave election, those Democrats tucked into newly GOP-leaning districts may find themselves more inclined to turn out to vote and negate the GOP’s plans with massive turnout."

He further noted that the onslaught of gerrymandering by Republicans has energized Democratic lawmakers, meaning there are already plans in blue states to aggressively pursue their own redistricting ahead of the 2028 elections.

"In following Trump’s lead, the Republican Party has chosen short-term gratification over long-term growth and stability," Brown concluded. "By seeking to silence all but their most fervent supporters, they have essentially told the rest of their voters that their priorities don’t matter. It’s hard to see that message drawing huge turnout this fall or convincing voters to hold their nose and support their incumbent. The fault lines that gerrymandering have temporarily fused together are still there, and still vulnerable to cracking apart."

Neil Gorsuch has carved out a niche for himself on the Supreme Court as one of the more reasonable conservatives on the Supreme Court. While some of these softer stances might have him in hot water with MAGA die-hards, an extensive new breakdown from Slate shows how the past exposes his "nice-guy act."

Writing for the outlet on Wednesday, Susan Matthews explained how Gorsuch convinced even her experienced, anti-Trump colleagues during his 2017 confirmation hearings that he was a "thoughtful jurist," and not a "rank partisan" despite being staunchly conservative. In the years that followed, however, he has emerged as "one of the most consistently conservative justices on a very conservative court," and signed on to numerous destructive rulings.

"A decade later, this is a guy who has gutted the Voting Rights Act, ended affirmative action, and dismantled the constitutional right to reproductive care," Matthews detailed. "He has written opinions that embrace outright falsehoods in the interest of letting a high school football coach force prayer in a public school. He has cleared the way for people to legally put up signs saying they will not serve gay people."

"How does Gorsuch manage to do all of this without provoking the ire that some of his fellow right-wing justices receive?" she added. "I think it’s mostly because no one knows who he is. He’s arguably the most anonymous member of the bench."

Polling suggests that only around 6 percent of Americans even know who Gorsuch is by name.

Speaking with past colleagues, Matthews found that Gorsuch was once considered the "dweeb everyone tried to avoid in the college dorm," lest he insist on debating anyone, "so he could make a right-wing argument based on his own highly technical notion of what the rules are, no matter how ridiculous the result."

"Gorsuch would engage on any topic, but his favorite was abortion," Matthews revealed. "According to his college freshman floormate Liz Pleshette, he was the guy who would argue that a pregnant 12-year-old who had been raped needed to carry the pregnancy to term, without any consideration for the reality of the situation, because 'abortion is murder, Liz.'”

She continued: "There’s a certain kind of guy who loves to debate abortion with liberal women, and Gorsuch fit the mold perfectly. When I spoke to her, Pleshette remembered that she would get upset from these interactions but he wouldn’t."

“Even if he was vehemently arguing with you, it was laced with such civility and tight manners and politeness that you could be fooled into thinking that this is someone who is coming to the venture with loads of respect,” Pleshette said.

Matthews also relayed the story of the "frozen trucker" case, which Gorsuch heard arguments for during his time as an appeals court judge. The case, from 2009, involved a trucker named Alphonse Maddin who was fired for leaving a loaded trailer unattended after getting caught in life-threatening cold weather with broken heating. As a succession of courts ruled in Maddin's favor after he filed a complaint against the company, the case eventually reached Gorsuch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, "one step below the Supreme Court." While the other judges on that court sided with the trucker, Gorsuch dissented.

"Here’s why he ruled against Maddin: Gorsuch looked at that statute that protects workers when they are in conditions they deem dangerous. And he found that the statute says that if they feel they are in danger, they can 'refuse to operate' their vehicle," Matthews explained. "And this was Gorsuch’s problem — Maddin hadn’t refused to operate his vehicle; he had in fact operated it, driving it to the gas station to warm up. And so Maddin shouldn’t receive the protection of this law, Gorsuch wrote. He was the only one of seven judges to come to this shocking conclusion."

A one-time biographer for President Donald Trump has predicted a shock Cabinet firing in the near future, and all for a surprising reason, which he said was "absolutely fatal": actually being competent at his job.

Michael Wolff is a reporter and author known for his extensive coverage of Trump over the years, including several books about the chaos of his first administration, based on his contacts within the administration. He maintains these connections now, for the second administration, and in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he argued that his long-term exposure to the president has given him a good sense of how things will proceed in the near future.

This included a prediction about the next firing to come from the Trump administration, a top official Wolff said is making the president look bad by comparison.

"I have watched Trump operate now for way, way too long—10 years in which... Donald Trump has dominated my life, and... because he does the same thing over and over and over again, [I have become] pretty good at being able to chart the Donald Trump course," Wolff explained.

He continued: "I think he’s going to fire Marco Rubio. I mean, Rubio has now become the standout figure in this administration."

Rubio, the Secretary of State, has cleared the low bar among Trump officials for competency, and according to Wolff, is "the only guy who seems to show up for work every day and to sit down at a desk and to be capable of addressing what’s on his desk at any given time." The competency and prominence within the administration have led to increasingly loud chatter about Rubio potentially securing the 2028 GOP presidential nomination, over Vice President JD Vance, making him the de facto successor at the head of the MAGA movement.

While Wolff did not write off the possibility of Rubio running in 2028, potentially with Trump's support, he still argued that the secretary will not be in his role much longer, because of the president's fear that somebody else looks like they are in charge behind the scenes.

"In Trumpworld, this is absolutely fatal. When you become the contrast gainer against Donald Trump, you’re finished," Wolff said. "When it begins to look like you are the person who is really in charge, you’re done."

Wolff likened the situation to the one in 20217, when former adviser Steve Bannon got the axe shortly after a Time Magazine cover proclaimed him to be the "Great Manipulator" in Trump's White House.

“You cannot do this around Donald Trump,” Wolff continued. “He just won’t let you. He’ll kill you — just chop off your head.”

He further predicted that Rubio's ouster will come prior to the midterms, as part of an effort from Trump to "change the subject."

President Donald Trump has a "fatal" obsession with easy "short-term" wins, according to one foreign policy expert, and it is about to be exposed by China, which has committed heavily to long-term strategies that could help it win the coming century.

James Rogers is a co-founder of the British think tank, the Council on Geostrategy, and on Wednesday, he published a new breakdown of Trump's impending visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping for The i Paper. Despite his efforts to "project an aura of U.S. power" at the meeting, with a military motorcade and entourage of leading tech moguls, Rogers argued that these efforts will only "mask the major challenges" that the country is grappling with in the face of China.

"Trump arrives in a China that has spent years making itself more resilient to US influence and pressure, leaving Trump attempting to secure rapid, transactional victories with a weakened hand," Rogers wrote.

He continued: "One challenge for the White House is its diminishing economic leverage. For the past year, Trump’s administration has pushed its sweeping tariff measures, including global duties and triple-digit levies on Chinese goods. These were seen as the ultimate tool to force Beijing’s co-operation. Yet this strategy is unraveling at home. A string of US court rulings... has dismantled the legal architecture of Trump’s approach, striking down his unprecedented use of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The US delegation arrives in Beijing with its primary economic weapon heavily restricted."

China, meanwhile, has retained its own economic leverages, particularly its "near-monopoly" on rare earth minerals that are critical for many modern technologies. In the face of American pressures, it has not hesitated to use the flow of these minerals to the U.S., creating a tough situation for military hardware at a time when the military is in dire need of it.

"This raises a critical question for Washington: who is hurting more?" Rogers continued. "While China has undoubtedly felt the sting of restrictions placed on US semiconductor exports, America’s defence industry and technology sector are feeling the squeeze of China’s mineral chokehold. Those materials are critical to modern munitions and advanced manufacturing."

This meeting, he argued, will be defined by "playing the long game," something which Trump is notably weak on. While Trump heavily favors "quick victories" that can be used "to boost his domestic position," China is making long-term plans to exert "control over the supply chains, minerals and diplomatic relationships that will define the mid-21st century."

"If the White House trades long-term economic statecraft for short-term political gains, it will validate the exact narrative that China is attempting to project around the world: that US leverage is quietly but steadily waning, as its own grows," Rogers concluded.

Why does President Donald Trump need the "staggering" sum of $1.5 trillion in military funding? According to a new piece from the New York Times, it is to fund his "weirdly retro" military fantasies — and also to avoid having to make "difficult choices" and turn defense spending into an "endless casino buffet."

Writing for the Times on Wednesday, veteran national security reporter Noah Shachtman wrote that this latest funding request from the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase from the one it made last year, which was already "incomprehensible," and is roughly the same as "the annual revenues of Amazon, Google’s parent company and Apple combined."

Shachtman also explained why the request was not even really a "budget" request, in the traditional sense, as it essentially provides the Defense Department with enough money that it would not have to make strategic spending decisions.

"The word 'budget' ordinarily implies picking among options, living within your means," Shachtman explained. "Earlier military budgets, even the most gigantic ones, made trade-offs — canceled weapons programs, deferred maintenance, smaller fighting forces, to name a few. [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s plan avoids those choices almost entirely."

He continued: "It would funnel more money to the traditional military contractors that Mr. Hegseth previously called out for feasting on a wasteful, bloated system. It would bankroll President Trump’s weirdly retro military wish list. On top of all that, Mr. Hegseth has asked Congress for $350 billion that would come with far less oversight or accountability than the rest of the sum. And that’s before the bill for the Iran war comes due; the Pentagon estimates it has cost $29 billion so far, up from an estimate of $25 billion a few weeks ago."

Todd Harrison is a military budget specialist for the center-right American Enterprise Institute, and he offered further insight into the rationale behind the ludicrously high funding request.

"They’re just doing an all-of-the-above approach," Harrison told the Times, adding that this strategy would mean they "don’t have to make difficult choices" when it comes to funding allocations.

This funding request, which would effectively turn the DOD into an "endless casino buffet" of military spending, "was more like a dare" than a real and carefully crafted budget proposal, attempting to "reframe the debate on his own maximalist terms." Shachtman noted that the Pentagon reportedly "scrambled" to find ways to even begin spending such a large sum of money.

In a piece published Wednesday morning, the New York Times editorial board reserved particular criticism for the GOP-led Congress as it tracked President Donald Trump's efforts to poison American democracy, ripping the lawmakers for backing off when they could be doing things to stop it.

In the new piece, the board explained that the war with Iran is "the most significant military action in American history that a president has undertaken without any form of congressional authorization," marking a significant acceleration of Trump's "erosion" of democracy and disregard for Congress.

"Mr. Trump has received no approval whatsoever from Congress, the only branch of government with the constitutional authority to declare war," the board explained.

The piece included a chart with 12 metrics measuring Trump's damage to Democracy, graded on a scale of zero to 10, and based on the current state of the Iran war, the board confirmed that it was increasing the grade for bypassing the legislative branch by one notch, up to five.

"When a democracy slides toward autocracy, the leader often finds ways to neuter the legislature," the board explained. "Mr. Trump has done so in many ways: by usurping Congress’s power of the purse and imposing widespread tariffs (which courts have often deemed illegal; gutting congressionally authorized agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development; withholding approved funds for schools, libraries and scientific research; using private donations to pay for his White House ballroom during a government shutdown; attacking boats in the Caribbean and invading Venezuela; and more."

The board added: "Over the past two and half months, Mr. Trump has ordered thousands of strikes against another country and killed its leader. The war has roiled global energy markets and drained American munitions stockpiles. Yet despite its scope and stakes, the president continues to show disdain for members of Congress who ask questions about the war and has not even provided a coherent rationale for it."

In making this determination, the board added that Congress, which Trump's Republican Party controls both chambers of, bears considerable blame for the president's conduct, given its refusal to step up and rein him in.

"Congressional Republicans deserve significant responsibility for the situation," the board explained. "They could and should do much more to constrain him. Congress could pass a resolution expressing its disapproval of the war and hold hearings investigating it, raising the political pressure on the White House. It could refuse to confirm nominees or fund Mr. Trump’s military priorities until he adheres to his constitutional duty to work with the legislature. Otherwise, members of Congress are participating in America's slide from democracy."

President Donald Trump had big plans for outspoken MAGA ally Kari Lake, but with those plans having thoroughly imploded, a new MS NOW analysis explained how she has been given a familiar "consolation prize."

Lake first emerged as a news anchor in Phoenix, Arizona, before making the jump to politics as an avowed supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement. Despite high hopes for her as a future star for the Republican Party, the transition largely flopped, as she lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race to Democrat Katie Hobbs and the 2024 Senate race to Democrat Ruben Gallego.

With no actual electoral success to her name, Trump attempted to install her as the next director for Voice of America, the international broadcaster funded by the U.S. government, amid plans to gut the institution and reshape it into a more right-wing form with the help of One America News. This effort, too, fell flat after a judge ruled that she was ineligible to serve at the head of VOA, invalidating her tenure and reversing the mass layoffs she had overseen.

In the wake of all that failure, Trump on Monday nominated Lake to serve as the new ambassador to Jamaica, echoing an emerging pattern of the president placing close allies in key diplomatic roles.

"President Trump on Monday appointed Kari Lake, a fierce ally of the president who had led the administration’s efforts to shutter Voice of America and other federally funded news groups, as the next ambassador to Jamaica," the New York Times reported this week. "Her appointment, if confirmed by the Senate, would end her tumultuous time at the parent agency for federally funded news groups that broadcast to countries with limited press freedom, such as China, Russia and Iran."

Writing about the development on Tuesday, Steve Benen, a longtime contributor and producer for MS NOW, wrote that the appointment of Lake fit a growing pattern from the administration and its handling of MAGA allies with failed political ambitions.

"Lake’s nomination coincided with the president also tapping Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano — another prominent Republican election denier who launched a gubernatorial campaign that failed — to serve as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia," Benen wrote. "The far-right state senator will also need to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate. Time will tell when and whether Lake and Mastriano receive the support they’ll need on Capitol Hill, but their nominations are emblematic of a larger pattern: The White House sure does like to hand out ambassadorships to those whose earlier political plans didn’t quite work out."

Benen further detailed the various names who received a similar parachute from Trump: Mike Waltz was named U.N. ambassador after being ousted as White House national security adviser; former GOP Rep. Billy Long went from an "incredibly short tenure" leading the IRS to serving as ambassador to Iceland; and, John Giordano went from a failed interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey to serving as the ambassador to Namibia.

"Even Kristi Noem, after her many failures as the head of the Department of Homeland Security, made the transition to a diplomatic role as 'special envoy' to the Shield of the Americas, a poorly defined security initiative for the Western Hemisphere," Benen concluded. "As an Associated Press report summarized last year, 'Diplomacy may be soft power, but in President Donald Trump’s administration, it’s also lately a soft landing.'"

A Texas Republican was criticized on Tuesday for a "desperate act" of pandering to President Donald Trump after failing to secure his midterm endorsement, leading some to suspect his campaign is about to crash and burn.

Sen. John Cornyn has been running for reelection to his seat in Texas, and has faced stiff primary competition from the state's scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has come after the senator from the right and positioned himself as the more heavily MAGA-aligned candidate. Paxton has also been seen as the candidate that Democrats would have an easier time beating in the general election, creating a notably tense primary standoff that will go to a runoff on May 26.

So far, Trump has declined to endorse either candidate, with some in the MAGA sphere urging him to back an ally like Paxton, while others have pushed him to back the safer choice in Cornyn. With polling and momentum slipping away from the senator, Cornyn on Tuesday announced a proposal that seemed tailor-made to curry Trump's favor: naming a highway in Texas after him.

"I am proud to introduce legislation to rename US Highway 287 as Interstate 47 in honor of our 47th President [Donald Trump]," Cornyn posted to his official X account. "My bill will upgrade one of our nation’s longest highways to a future interstate and save more than $5 BILLION in travel costs, all while honoring the most effective and influential president of our lifetime. Texas is Trump Country & this bill cements [Trump's] legacy by designating nearly 1,800 miles of open road to forever be known as the Trump Interstate."

The move was swiftly roasted as one of obvious desperation by numerous other X users.

"The internal polling must be real ugly to pull out this desperate act," Daily Kos writer Emily C. Singer wrote in a post to X.

"Things are getting desperate in the Texas primary runoff, it seems," VoteBeat editorial director Jessica Huseman added in her own post.

"Cornyn is increasingly desperate for an endorsement that seems out of reach," writer Drew Savicki posted.

Rolando Garcia, a state-level Texas Republican, roasted Cornyn's proposal by sharing a popular meme featuring actor Steve Buscemi, alongside the text, "How do you do, fellow MAGA?"

Reporter Gabe Fleisher cited overwhelming polling statistics to dismantle Cornyn's attempt at pandering to the president.

"Per Pew, only 9 percent (!) of Americans support naming things for Trump while he’s in office," Fleisher wrote. "But, of course, all that matters to Cornyn right now are the opinions of Texas GOP primary voters — or, more specifically, that of Trump himself, whose endorsement could seal Cornyn’s fate."

President Donald Trump recently threatened to hit countries that sold weapons to Iran with a 50 percent tariff. As the Financial Times noted in a new report, this threat "was quickly brushed aside," where once it might have given other nations reason to pause.

As the Financial Times explained, this is just the latest example of how Trump is still reeling from the loss of his favorite "trade superpower" after the Supreme Court shot down the broad tariff authority he had been claiming throughout his first year in office. Using a dubious emergency declaration, Trump has claimed the ability to level and remove tariffs at will, using this as a way to intimidate or retaliate against nations that ran afoul of his desires.

In a ruling from earlier this year, however, the Supreme Court found that Trump's claimed authority was illegitimate, as only Congress had the ability to create new taxes, leaving him with tariff powers much, much more limited than before. With congressional Republicans wary of new taxes ahead of the midterms, it remains highly unlikely that they would go along with his desire for massive, wide-ranging duties against most imports.

That was not the end of Trump's tariff "misery" in court, as last week, another court ruled against the blanket 10 percent tariff that he had imposed after the Supreme Court loss, using a different authority. For now, the administration is stuck trying to appeal that ruling.

“The president has lost something important to him, which is the ability to threaten tariffs on a Friday and impose them on a Monday,” Michael Smart, the managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisors, told the Financial Times.

Myron Brilliant, of the Albright Stonebridge Group, added that "other countries are already treating Washington with less deference after the Supreme Court ruling," and are "rethinking, recalibrating, revising" their prior trade deals with Trump now that his biggest threat has been neutralized.

"Now, as he prepares to meet China’s President Xi Jinping in a long-awaited summit, Trump and his administration are trying to rebuild his power to impose tariffs on imports from around the globe," the Financial Times continued. "The problem for the U.S. president is that resistance is building in Congress, the tariffs are unpopular ahead of already challenging midterm elections and replacement measures may fall far short of providing him with the room for maneuver he seeks on the world stage."

President Donald Trump's tireless campaign to stamp his name on buildings and mount disruptive construction projects stems from his view that the nation's capital is his "personal property," according to a new analysis from The Hill, which he opts to abuse whenever he gets bored with the rest of his agenda.

Bill Press is a veteran Democratic pundit and author who previously served as the chair of the California Democratic Party in the 1990s. On Tuesday, he published a new piece for The Hill, breaking down Trump's fixation on remaking Washington, D.C., in his own image, surmising that the city has become his personal "sandbox" and a way to revert to his days as a real estate developer.

"Starting on Day One of his second term, Trump has treated Washington as his personal property, where he has the power to change or destroy anything he doesn’t like," Press wrote. "For him, Washington is nothing but a sandbox which he can retreat to whenever he’s bored with deporting immigrants or waging war, and play 'Donnie the Developer.'"

Nearly a year and a half into Trump's second term, Press argued that D.C. is no longer the same city it was before he returned. He has infamously mandated that his name be added to buildings like the Kennedy Center and the Institute for Peace. He has also been pushing for his name to be added to Dulles Airport and the under-construction football arena for the Washington Commanders.

He has also adorned various buildings, like the departments of Agriculture and Labor, with massive banners featuring his face, which some critics have likened to the tendencies of authoritarian leaders. His face will soon be featured on coins and passports as well.

In other areas, Press argued that Trump has fallen back on his past country club habits to renovate the city.

"Meanwhile, he’s plowed across Washington like it’s just another of his country clubs. He tore up the Rose Garden and replaced it with a Mar-a-Lago patio," he detailed. "He planted two giant flag poles and a statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds. He turned the Oval Office into a gilded, bordello-like cocktail lounge. He tore down the entire East Wing of the White House to fulfill his dream of building a massive, 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom — for which clueless Republican senators are now asking taxpayers to cough up $1 billion."

He continued: "And he’s just getting started. Trump has also announced plans to paint the historic Old Executive Building white; replace columns on the North face of the White House; destroy the popular, affordable Hains Point golf course and replace it with a high-price championship course; build a giant Sculpture Garden in West Potomac Park; and — in a move that would make Napoleon Bonaparte blush — erect a giant, 19-stories–high arch to himself at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery."

All of these changes combined, Press concluded, have created one of the best possible arguments for granting Washington, D.C., statehood, as has been debated for decades.

"For years, a compelling case has been made to grant the District of Columbia statehood," he wrote. "Now, proponents of statehood have the strongest argument possible: to prevent any temporary occupant of the White House from rebranding the nation’s capital in his honor. Hands off, Trump — we liked Washington just the way it was."

As President Donald Trump continues to flub his handling of the main issue currently motivating voters, CNN reported that "cracks are starting to show" in his own base, per the findings of their new poll, which found a notable decline in his support from Republicans.

During the Tuesday morning broadcast of CNN's News Central, host Katie Bolduan shared the findings from the network's latest poll on voter sentiments pertaining to the economy. The findings, she explained, reinforced the "deep anxiety" over the cost of living that voters have been venting about for months, much to Trump's annoyance, marking another blow to what was once considered his issue, the one many believe got him reelected in the first place.

"The numbers revealing a deep anxiety about affordability," Bolduan said. "That word and growing warning signs for President Trump. Seventy-three percent describing economic conditions right now, today, as poor in the country. That's not a good outlook on what was once considered, of course, President Trump's strongest issue. His approval rating on the economy has fallen to a new career low [of 30 percent]. Americans are worried, full stop are worried, full stop, worried about paying their bills, especially surprise ones."

Roughly two-thirds of the poll respondents said that they could not "comfortably afford" an emergency expense of $1,000.

"On this most central issue of just being able to pay for everyday life, cracks are starting to show among the president's base," she added.

"Me and my husband work 12-hour days, 5 to 6 days a week, and we have to decide if we're going to buy groceries or pay for gas," one respondent, a Republican woman in her 20s living in Ohio, told CNN.

"I don't know how anyone from my generation will ever do anything except rent," another respondent, a Republican man in his 20s living in Georgia, added.

CNN's Washington bureau chief, David Chalian, said that this "bleak" and "pessimistic" outlook for the economy has been holding steady for "five years running now," ever since the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"And even while some structural things of the economy are strong, people are not feeling it in terms of what they're paying and in terms of their feeling secure in their personal economy," Chalian explained. "You noted that a top-line approval number for Trump's handling of the economy, 30 percent approve. That is a record low across his entire time in public life. As you suggested, this used to be one of his strong suits. He used to outperform his approval rating on the issue of the economy.

He continued: "That is a low. And why this matters, economy and cost of living, 55 percent of respondents in our poll say that is the most important issue facing the country. Do you see here? Nothing else comes even close to it. This is where the majority of Americans are in terms of importance of issues in their mind."

Chalian showed a ranking of issues along with the percentage of respondent who called it their top issue. The economy topped the list at 55 percent, trailed distantly by concerns about the health of democracy at 19 percent. Other issues like immigration, healthcare and crime did not top two digits.

Chalian also noted that Trump had fallen below 50 percent approval in his own party for his handling of gas prices, something he was not able to recall ever happening before.

A Republican lawmaker has been caught on tape agreeing to a racist remark directed at House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in which he was referred to as having "cotton-picking hands."

Jeffries, the House Minority Leader since taking over from Nancy Pelosi, has been outspoken in response to the Virginia Supreme Court's latest ruling, shooting down a new congressional map designed to create four new Democratic seats. The effort, approved by the state's voters in a special ballot measure, was undertaken in order to counteract gerrymandering campaigns done in red states at the behest of President Donald Trump, with the aim of rigging the 2026 midterms in their favor.

Jen Kiggans is a Republican representative for Virginia, who on Monday appeared on the latest episode of the "Richmond Morning News" podcast with host Rich Herrera. During the interview, Herrera made a comment about Jeffries, a New York representative and a black man, staying out of Virginia politics, and included a phrase with racist origins.

"If Hakeem Jeffries wants to be involved in Virginia politics, then I suggest he does what a bunch of New Yorkers are doing," Herrera said. "Leave New York, move down here to Virginia, run for office down here. You could represent us. If not, get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia."

"That's right, ditto," Kiggans said. "Yes, yes to that."

Virginia Democrats, opting against a nuclear option, have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to have the new map reinstated. The court previously allowed California's pro-Democratic new district map, also passed by voters via ballot measure, to proceed against a GOP lawsuit, though that suit's reasoning alleged that the map was an unlawful racial gerrymander. The lawsuit that tanked the Virginia map, meanwhile, argued that proper procedures were not followed.

Despite the setback in Virginia, Jeffries this week remained confident that Democrats will retake the House in the midterms, albeit by a slimmer margin than they had hoped. Other election experts and observers have reached a similar conclusion, while also noting that the Senate majority is also increasingly in play.

"We remain undeterred," Jeffries wrote in a letter to his Democratic colleagues. "The cost of living is out of control, grocery bills are skyrocketing, gas prices are surging, healthcare has been ripped away from millions and a reckless war of choice is raging in the Middle East. Donald Trump is deeply unpopular and Republicans have failed to make life better for the American people. Instead of changing direction, GOP extremists are scheming to change the electoral composition of districts throughout the country.

He continued: "Republicans only hold a three-seat majority in the House of Representatives. This is the narrowest margin of any party since 1930. During Donald Trump’s first midterm election in 2018, House Democrats flipped 40 seats. To take control this Fall, we only need to flip a fraction of that total. That is why right-wing extremists have been in full panic mode since they passed their historically unpopular One Big Ugly Bill last July. Our effort to forcefully push back against the Republican redistricting scheme will not slow down. We are just getting started."

Scott Jennings, the resident MAGA Republican pundit at CNN, was backed into a corner during a Monday panel discussion, getting pressed about the Department of Defense's latest attack against a Democratic senator while attempting to attack said lawmaker as publicity-seeking.

Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called for a renewed investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, for allegedly disclosing classified information during a televised interview with CBS News's Face the Nation, where he said it was "shocking" how deeply the U.S. military has depleted its munitions amid the ongoing war with Iran. This marks the second time the Pentagon has attempted to investigate Kelly, a leading candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, with the last effort getting shot down in court.

"We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you," Kelly wrote in a social media post responding to Hegseth.

During a Wednesday broadcast of CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt, Alex Thompson, a national political reporter for Axios, noted how Hegseth's highly publicized attacks on Kelly have done wonders for the senator's fundraising efforts.

"Pete Hegseth has been the best political fundraiser of Kark Kelly's entire career," Thompson said. "Mark Kelly, as of the end of last quarter, had $22 million cash on hand. He's not up for reelection... until 2028. And of all the people thinking about running for president in 2028, he has the most cash on hand by a long shot. He has more cash on hand than [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or any of these other people.... Mark Kelly's political team has made the most of it."

"Every single day that the Trump administration takes on Mark Kelly is a good day for the Kelly potential presidential campaign," Jamal Simmons, the former communication advisor for Kamala Harris, added. "He goes up in stock not just in money, but also people paying attention to this. They'll sort out what happened with the, you know, who said what and which briefing. But the political problem that the trump administration has is Mark Kelly, fighter pilot, astronaut, husband of Gabby Giffords is a very tough political opponent for them."

In response to those comments from Thompson and Simmons, Jennings chimed in, arguing that the fundraising angle gave Kelly "partisan interests" for seemingly picking a fight with the Trump administration.

"This man is a United States senator. He's getting classified briefings from the Pentagon. And then he goes on television and tells our enemies around the world in great specificity which weapon systems are depleted, which need to be restocked," Jennings said. "Did he ever stop to ask himself what is in the best interest of the United States of America, and not just my own political future? Because it's obvious that he did not. A sitting senator going on television and telegraphing to our enemies and our threats around the world what we may or may not have. It's extraordinarily irresponsible, but let's not let that get in the way of a presidential campaign."

In response, host Kasie Hunt asked, if the information about the depleted munitions was so important, why Hegseth opted to state publicly that the information was classified and important, instead of quietly pushing for an investigation into Kelly. Jennings, in return, appeared flustered by the pushback.

"Look, look, right. I mean, look, Mark Kelly went on television and said, I got a classified briefing and here's what I was told," Jennings said.

"I'm just saying, it sounds like they're both doing the same thing, right?" Hunt responded. "Everyone's playing politics here... if you're going to buy into your argument that, hey, this is a senator, right? Who's running for president, and that's what we're acknowledging he's doing. Like, is Hegseth not doing the same thing?"