News & Politics

Ohio voter Annette Dombrowski is one of many swing state voters who picked President Donald Trump three times in a row, but now she’s about to lose her job in a Trump economy where everything is only getting more expensive.

“I actually have panic attacks,” Dombrowski told MS NOW reporter Alex Hebit. “I've had a couple this past week and I get very emotional over it. I don't want to work anymore, but I can't afford to retire.”

Dombrowski works as a janitor at the Conn Selmer plant in Ohio, but MS NOW anchor Jen Psaki says the plant's billionaire owner, John Paulson — a close Trump ally — offshored the plant’s jobs to China, despite Trump purporting to be an “America First” president. Now Dombrowski is about to be unemployed.

When the reporter asked Dombrowski if she believed the wealthy President Trump can understand her predicament she answered flatly, “No.”

“No, he hasn't lived it to understand it. He sees it. He has not lived it. He needs to live it,” said Dombrowski. “Wear the clothes. Wear the shoes. Wear the Walmart clothes. Wear your Walmart shoes. Do your thrift store shopping. Don't eat steaks. I don't get to go out to dinner. … It's not an overnight thing, but it's been two years now. You said you'd bring down the grocery prices. I must be the most angry person when I grocery shop, because I buy the same things every week, and I see it jump every week.”

But she wasn’t the only Trump voter furious in a state that supported Trump in 2008 and 2024. MS NOW also spoke with Ohio truck driver Chris Tackett.

“He said he was going to fight for [us]. This time around. I haven't seen it,” said Tackett. “He's literally backtracked on every single pitch point he had during his election. All we heard was ‘drill, drill, drill’ during the election. And now all we're getting is drilled into the dirt with these prices. So, I'm not a fan of them. I voted for Trump all three terms, to be honest with you. I'm not a big supporter of him at this point.”

One time Trump voter Rob Couch had a more livid response when asked what his message wass to Trump, despite voting for him.

“F—— you,” Couch barked into the microphone. “I don't mean to be disrespectful to any leader, but he's disrespectful to us and he doesn't care.”

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President Donald Trump’s DOJ is racking up not only bad decisions, but slapdowns this week.

Judges across the nation have been tearing their hair out over the Department of Justice’s childish behavior and freshmen-grade antics, and now Politico Senior Affairs Reporter Kyle Cheney is adding US District Judge Kyle Dudek, representing the middle district of Florida, to that list.

Immigrant petitioner Dmitrii Iastrebov is a noncitizen currently sitting in immigration detention, but the judge accuses Trump’s federal attorneys are juggling what should be a simple case like amateurs.

Dudek recently ordered the Government to provide Lastrebov with an individualized bond hearing under U.S. law. Even Trump’s government admitted he was entitled to such relief

“What happened next borders on the surreal,” complained the judge. “Five days later, an immigration judge refused to hold the ordered hearing, claiming Lastrebov was not covered by [law] and thus ineligible for bond.”

Instead of defending this court’s mandate, the government’s counsel “acquiesced in that refusal and waived any administrative appeal,” said the judge.

“[But] now, faced with a renewed habeas petition,” the judge snapped that “the Government casually announces that its previous concession ‘was in error,’” and it asked the court to reverse itself and hold that Lastrebov “is instead subject to mandatory detention” under the same law Dudek cited in the first place.

This, according to Judge Dudek, was the last straw.

“The Government was right the first time,” Dudek raged. “And its request for a do-over here is not just legally unsupportable, it is a masterclass in litigation cynicism. A federal court is not a testing lab where the Executive branch can pilot a concession to get a case closed, stand by silently while its own administrative process flouts the resulting mandate, and then stroll back in demanding a clean slate. Give me a break.”

Dudek insists he had already made himself clear on Lastrebov’s legal entitlement to a bond hearing — an explanation that “should not have required a sequel,” the judge said.

Then — possibly in a spite of fury — Dudek ordered Lastrebov immediately released “because the Government has shown that it cannot follow this Court’s explicit directions and offers zero assurance that it will comply with the statutory process it previously championed.”

President Donald Trump’s DOJ is hemorrhaging experienced attorneys, after his move to politicize the federal body, and snafus, foul-ups and legal gaffes appear to be increasingly par for the course in Trump’s second term.

Art of the Deal Co-author Tony Schwartz predicts Trump is destined to make history — just not the side of it he probably wants.

MS NOW anchor Ari Melber asked Schwartz to comment on Trump’s most recent slate of gaffes, particularly his devastating claim that he “loves” the inflation currently racking voters and threatening to destroy his own Republican Party in the November midterms.

“It's demented. I mean, it's so self-destructive,” said Schwartz, who described Trump as an addict who acts as a kind of “black hole.”

“And you pour stuff into it. And he poured it in and maxed out when he was reelected president. And it looked fantastic. But it seeped out incredibly quickly. And then he has to keep upping the ante and chasing the high. And so now where he's at is there's no high to chase. So that's just that's just a piece of self-destructiveness. He's going to go down as the worst president in the history of this country,” said Schwartz, the founder of consulting firm the Energy Project.

The worst of Trump’s crisis will hit when Democrats re-take Congress as a result of Trump’s self-imposed crises with the war in Iran, rampant inflation and other Trump-sources plagues, said MS NOW host Ari Melbar, citing a claim be Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that Trump was hurting his own party with self-serving decisions and his insistence on a kind of slavish loyalty, ultimately setting himself up for a midterm disaster.

Cornyn added that Trump’s following two years of powerlessness will be “the most miserable two years of his life.”

Schwartz said Trump’s “got something going on pretty significant physically, given the number of visits to the hospital,” and his debilitating health problems will likely merge with his post-midterm powerlessness to drive Trump into the permanent doldrums.

“He would not step down or bow out,” said Schwartz, predicting the second half of Trump’s impotent second term to be “a tortuous time” for him. “I think he's going to quit in his own mind. It's like you're playing a basketball game. You're playing a basketball game, you're down by 29 [points] and you say, ‘you know what? I've had it.’ And that's where we go if they lose the midterms. … He is going to quietly quit, even if he just loses the House.”

But Shwartz predicted Trump’s time of torture is unavoidable.

“I think people really — maybe this is my hope — are underestimating how big this [blue] wave is going to be. I think it’s going to be bigger.”

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Politico Senior Legal Affairs Reporter Josh Gerstein reports yet another judge is slapping President Donald Trump’s DOJ around for grade-school behavior.

The slap-down came after the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro crawled, hat-in-hand, requesting the extension of a deadline to complete research to make its case in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Shorelight, LLC against the U.S. government over student visa refusal rates.

“The Department represents that the remaining searches for records responsive to Parts 1-3o f Plaintiff’s FOIA request are currently ongoing, but that, due to an oversight, the Department did not realize that the Court’s Minute Order also required these searches to be completed by this same date,” wrote Assistant United States Attorney Fithawi Berhane, representing Pirro’s office. “Defendant sincerely apologizes for this oversight, and assures the Court that it is taking steps to ensure that it does not reoccur.

But Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, of the U.S. District Court for The District of Columbia, had no patience for Berhane’s request, considering how many such rookie moves her department apparently has already made.

“… This is not the first nor even the second mistake made by the defendant in this case the defendant previously committed to making efforts to ensure that this case,” grumbled Sooknanan. “… The defendants previously committed to making efforts to ensure that this case can move forward expeditiously and in a manner that avoids unnecessary burdening the Court.”

Sooknanan then said she agreed with plaintiff Shorelight, LLC “that despite that commitment the defendant's conduct is developing into a concerning pattern that has recurred throughout this litigation.”

“Nevertheless to ensure this case proceeds in an orderly fashion the court grants the defendants motion nunc pro tunc. The Defendant shall complete its searches by June 24th 2026 and the parties shall file the previously ordered joint status report by July 1 2026,” the judge said.

However, she cautioned that “the court will not tolerate further delays caused by the defendant and it expects that the defendant will comport itself with the level of care expected of a United States agency in Federal Court.”

The rebuke amounts to an embarrassing verbal beatdown for a department that used to be occupied by vetted professionals and legal veterans before President Donald Trump razed the department of experts and replaced them with recent graduates and right-wing ideologues.

Now, experts and insiders report DOJ lawyers are few, overworked and inexperienced — to the point where the department is now trying to coax recruits with a $25k signing bonus.

Emergency workers swarmed the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to investigate massive numbers etched into the grass that appeared to spell out an “86 47” message.

U.S. Park Police, the Washington, D.C. Fire Department, and the National Guard responded to the appearance of the numbers, which could only be read from a distant height, such as the top of the Washington Monument, according to The Washington Post. A large “8” can distinctly be seen from an Earth Cam atop the structure.

“The numerals 8, 6 and 7 were visible, but the 4 wasn’t clearly etched into the grass,” the Post reported. “It remains unclear how the markings were made. The term ’86’ is restaurant industry slang that generally refers to the unavailability of an item or a customer’s removal. Trump allies have argued it can also mean to kill someone.”

Trump is the 47th president.

In its indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, the Trump Justice Department suggested that the term “86 47” could be interpreted as intent to harm President Trump.

On the ground, the numbers only appeared as brownish patches in the grass, possibly made with weed-killer or physical damage.

“Multiple emergency vehicles could be seen encircling the grass around 1 p.m. A team of officers stood over brown patches in the grass, wearing gloves, and appeared to be testing the grass with materials from a yellow case,” the Post reported. “Pedestrians were not permitted to walk on the grass, and a Park Service helicopter circled overhead.”

A White House spokesperson in an email to the Post said, “Anyone who engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible.”

They added: “They should also immediately seek psychiatric help to treat their severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has warped their brains and made them sick in the head.

CBS News reported that an Interior Department spokesperson called it “deranged vandalism” that “will not be tolerated.”

“Any threat against the President is taken very seriously by the Department, and our U.S. Park Police will investigate this incident and hold those responsible accountable,” they added.

Charlie Sykes, former editor of the conservative Bulwark, says a convergence of problems are descending on President Donald Trump, and the aging, frustrated president is clearly showing his anger.

When Trump brazenly admitted that “I love the inflation” it was not the low point of his day, said Sykes.

“As we are seeing, an increasingly frustrated Trump is realizing that he cannot escape either the Epstein Files or the Iran War he launched on a whim. … inflation is surging, his poll numbers continue to fall, his big Freedom 250 concert imploded, his slush fund is on hold, he doesn’t have his ballroom yet, (some) Republicans are defying him, and on Monday he was roundly and raucously booed in his old hometown,” said Sykes.

“It’s not your imagination,” added Sykes. “It’s taking a toll. We saw an angry, red-faced Trump crash out in an interview on “Meet the Press,” and now reports suggest that the brooding. sulking president is increasingly isolated and prone to (even more) erratic decisions. He’s standing by his bizarre appointment of Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence and lashing out at fellow Republicans who are telling him that the appointment is crazy with hair on it. His response? More middle fingers to Republicans in Congress.”

The president’s mood got no better on Wednesday, after the New York Times published an excerpt from the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan revealing a divided White House, as well as “panicking and backbiting over the Epstein cover-up.”

“Then there is Iran, the war that he said was won on the first day,” said Sykes. “The war that would be quick and easy. The war he said would be settled any day now. Iran’s military was obliterated. Peace, he assured us, was just a couple of days away. By CNN’s latest count, he has said that an Iran deal is around the corner 38 times since March.”

But then came Trump’s gaffe that launched “a thousand” videos and Democrat ads.

“On Wednesday, as he held court in his gilded Oval Office, the man who promised to be the voice of the forgotten American was asked if he was concerned about new data that showed the annual inflation rate at 4.2 percent, a three-year high. He replied: 'The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over … when the war is over, it’s coming down, it’s going to come down like a rock,'” recounted Sykes.

“What stopped me was the ease. The complete absence of any visible awareness that the people who would see that clip are the same people paying $4.81 for a gallon of gas on the way to work,” said Sykes. “The same people who have watched their grocery bills climb every month for four months. The same people who were told, over and over again in 2024, that Donald Trump would end inflation starting on day one and make America affordable again.

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale is scorching President Donald Trump for employing a “time-tested conspiracist tactic,” namely, altering his conspiracy theory when the facts disprove it.

Dale reminds readers that when then-President Barack Obama in 2011 had to publish his long-form birth certificate, which proved decisively that he was, in fact, born in the U.S., Trump didn’t cease and desist — instead, he changed tactics and suggested that the birth certificate itself was fake.

“It’s a time-tested conspiracist tactic,” Dale writes. “And he’s now using it again when trying to explain why Steve Hilton succeeded in the California primary elections Trump had baselessly declared were a fraud and were being rigged against Hilton.”

“If you’re pushing the baseless conspiracy theory that the results of last week’s California primary elections were rigged against Republicans like gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, it would seem highly inconvenient that Hilton has succeeded in qualifying for the November runoffs,” Dale argues. “But if you’re a seasoned conspiracy theorist, as President Donald Trump is, you don’t just stop telling a fantastical tale when it is contradicted by new facts. Rather, you simply adjust the conspiracy theory so that the new facts now fit within it.”

Trump is now alleging that “he had jawboned the riggers into submission,” says Dale, “but only in Hilton’s case, not the case of unsuccessful Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.”

For his part, Hilton hasn’t alleged any fraud, and, in fact, “he has said he has ‘seen nothing’ to justify any legal intervention.”

But Trump warned that California authorities had “approved” of Hilton advancing to the top tier for November.

“And then I hit them hard on that (Pratt’s defeat), but I started talking about Steve Hilton, who’s a fantastic guy,” Trump said, as Dale noted. “And I saw them say it was going to be two weeks before they knew, and I started hitting them. ‘It’s going to happen to Steve Hilton, too.’ It’s – ‘Watch, you gotta watch’ – and they approved Steve Hilton very quickly. They didn’t want, there was too much heat on them. The only reason he got approved – he had all the votes he needed, probably to be first place – but the only reason they approved Steve Hilton, it was going to be two weeks, they said, and then they approved him that night. Because the heat was on them, because they’re cheatin’ dogs.”

Dale calls Trump’s allegations “complete hogwash” and a “new round of foolishness.”

Republicans who have lost their primary races are blaming everyone but themselves, NOTUS found on Thursday.

Reporters Daniella Diaz and Reese Gorman spoke to some of the GOP House members who have fallen in primaries for other offices about what they think is going wrong.

"In just the last few weeks, Rep. Dusty Johnson didn’t make the runoff to be South Dakota’s GOP nominee for governor, Rep. Randy Feenstra lost his bid to be Iowa’s GOP nominee for governor and Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace both didn’t make a runoff Tuesday night to win the GOP nomination to compete to be South Carolina’s next governor," the report said.

Johnson complained about "the service," though it's unclear if he's complaining about the cell phone service or something else.

“The reality is there’s a reason House members are losing with a greater frequency than people expect,” he said when speaking to NOTUS. “And that’s because the service in the House is not a particularly big asset right now.”

He only got 23.4 percent in the governor's race.

He also blamed the GOP leadership for forcing them to take a number of tough votes that ended up in attack ads against them from GOP opponents.

“There was just a deluge of negative advertising around the whole RINO [Republican In Name Only] and career politician attack,” Johnson complained. “That’s a really potent argument to make with the base and so we didn’t do enough to inoculate ourselves against those D.C. related issues.”

Some of those issues are so difficult that there's no easy way to get a soundbite that explains those votes.

“These are really, really complicated issues, and I just don’t know that the normals are doing as good a job of messaging that nuance as maybe the extremist influencers,” Johnson said.

In the past, experience with government has been positive, but not this year. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) stepped out of his seat to run for state attorney general, only to lose in the GOP runoff. Rep. Wesley Hunt came in third. Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter (R) is another one who didn't make it through the primary for the state's Senate race. They all left safe Republican seats to seek higher office, only to lose to other Republicans.

Norman and Mace both finished with low numbers in South Carolina's gubernatorial primary. Mace went so far as to pretend she always meant to leave her congressional seat.

On X she posted, “Headed back to the private sector at the end of this term, as the Founders intended. When I ran in 2020 I said I’d only serve 3 terms and my time is up. It’s truly been an immense honor and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”

Both Norman and Mace were among those who missed important funding votes to stay back and lose the primaries.

One Republican strategist told NOTUS that the common thread is anti-establishment sentiment against GOP candidates. For lawmakers who have been in Congress for years, the demand for "new blood" can be convincing to voters.

“Members of Congress are so easy to paint as these D.C. swamp career politicians, especially on the Republican side because our base already hates that,” the senior Republican strategist told NOTUS.

Wichita Eagle columnist Dion Lefler does not suffer idiots easily. He also has no patience for Kansas senators who blow lies on “propaganda network” Newsmax, blaming a long-gone president for President Donald Trump’s bad choices.

“Faced with a threat to the U.S. beef industry, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall has leapt into action to do what he does best — blame Joe Biden and Hispanics,” writes Lefler. “Never mind that his heroes, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, probably bear more responsibility because they defunded an animal-health program that was preventing the threat.

Lefler said Marshall, who is a member of the Senate Agricultural Committee, got invited to Newsmax “to spout some Republican party-line rhetoric” about the screwworm fly, which has recently resurfaced in Texas cattle 60 years after other U.S. presidents had eradicated it from the U.S. border.

“I don’t have time to write a column every time Roger Marshall goes on right-wing TV and says something dumb, but his appearance this week on the propaganda network Newsmax pretty much demands response,” said Lefleur.

But Marshall could not wait to blame somebody — anybody — other than Trump for the nasty little maggot’s reappearance under his watch.

“We eradicated the screwworm in 1966 and we’ll talk about this, but this is another thing we can thank Joe Biden for, that when millions of people came out of Central America, they brought this screwworm with them, it was on their pets, maybe on their flesh as well,” Marshall told the Newsmax audience.

“The probability that this problem was caused by migrants trekking northward from Central America is somewhere between vanishingly small and nonexistent,” said Lefleur, who points out that scientists attribute the re-introduction of the screwworm primarily to organized crime and the smuggling of illicit cattle from Central America.

The screw worm is a live maggot that burrows into living flesh like a little monster. It most definitely would not be tolerated on a living, mobile human healthy enough to travel. We’re humans. We pick at spots, itchy patches and wounds. A wriggling, gnawing maggot would not stand a chance over the course of its 5-to-7-day cycle in a human’s arm or leg.

Perhaps Marshal was thinking about migrant dogs or cats traveling alongside their migrant owners, but that’s stupid, too, said Lefleur.

But if you want to seriously consider the root of the screwworm resurgence, look no further, says Lefluer, than the opinion of Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.): “Trump and Elon Musk got rid of the USAID program that helped contain screwworms to Central America. Now, thanks to them, our beef is being infected with parasites. We’re all paying the price for this insane, far-right radical extremism.”

Or consider the opinion of Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.): “This screwworm epidemic may have been avoided if DOGE folks actually communicated with our ranchers. Instead, a team of wholly unqualified interns recklessly cut the screwworm prevention program. Now ranchers will suffer and beef prices will continue to rise.”

[Of course,] confirming exactly how much DOGE cut from screwworm protection is practically impossible at this point,” added Lefluer. “While Trump administration officials struggle at eradicating screwflies, they’re experts at eradicating records of their mistakes. The website www.doge.gov, where the administration once proudly ballyhooed the supposed savings by Musk and his musketeers, is now a blank page.”

The Republican-run Pima County Attorney's Office issued a report that Sheriff Mark Lamb got special treatment when it came to sexual misconduct and other allegations.

Lamb, who is running for Congress in Arizona's Fifth District, was never investigated for the 2020 allegations under the previous county leadership and the Board of Supervisors, but GOP County Attorney Brad Miller's office did, the Arizona Republic said.

"The former county attorney also failed to document Lamb's own request to investigate and possibly charge two women who were posting sexual images and messages they say the sheriff sent them," the report said, citing a report filed on June 5.

According to Miller's office, there were "no written reports, investigative summaries, witness interviews, case referrals or documented findings" by the previous office.

"Public officials are not entitled to a different standard of review because they are politically connected, personally popular, or institutionally protected," Miller's spokesperson, Christy Kelly, said in a statement to the Republic. "Allegations involving elected leadership demand greater scrutiny — not less."

The Arizona Republic did its own investigation into Lamb, who has a "year-long habit of sexting" and allegations that he "preyed on women."

The investigation came after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was told about Lamb when a woman came forward to church elders with allegations, the report said.

A report at the end of May exposed the LDS church for promising the accuser that they'd "take care of this." It never happened.

Jillian Stannard alleged that Lamb upended her marriage and that of another woman who worked for the county both before and after he was elected to the sheriff's office. Among the allegations against Lamb are those involving wife-swapping.

"One of the women said the sheriff told her he would send state police after her if she didn't stop posting about their relationship. She supported those claims with screenshots of texts and social media messages," the Republic reported last month.

After Stannard reported Lamb to the church, she said he "got in her face" to bully her into silence.

"He approached me, pointed in my face and firmly said, 'I have a bone to pick with you,'" Stannard said of Lamb.

Stannard refused to engage and he allegedly followed up via text message.

In a 2018 email to the elders, Stannard alleged, "He messed up my life so badly. I no longer trust anyone. My faith has been unmovable until recently. I'm reaching out to you for help."

The Republic published screen captures of Stannard's text messages at the time.

The new report indicates the sexual harassment allegations as well as claims that Lamb made racist comments, claiming Black people were lazy, when a border extremist used the N-word in a message, the records show.

The report noted that it's a very different person that Lamb has been in public and he's still on track to win the Republican Primary with President Donald Trump's endorsement.

"Lamb and his wife cultivated the image of a churchgoing power couple and touted family values while engaged in explicit photo exchanges, secret liaisons, sexting and casual affairs," the report said, citing Stannard.

She said that the evidence of it was all over her husband's phone and computer.

The ordeal began in 2017 when Stannard sdaid Lamb was at a farmers market and was showing off photos of his genitals. A friend told her what it was as Lamb worked the crowd for votes. "I thought she was kidding. I asked Mark if it really was and he said it was. I thought he was kidding, too, until he turned his phone and showed me."

Lamb denies all of the allegations.

"The campaign is aware that various false, misleading, and potentially defamatory allegations have circulated online for years," said Andrew Gould, a Phoenix lawyer and former Arizona Supreme Court justice, in a letter to The Arizona Republic. "They are repeated without verification and often to only cause great reputational and political harm."

Arizona's 12 News reported this week that Lamb has seemingly disappeared from the congressional campaign.

"Where is Mark Lamb?" the anchors asked. Lamb "has been under fire over allegations of sexting and wife swapping."

The other anchor alleged, "Lamb has been literally invisible on the campaign trail, but 12 News journalist Bram Resnick tells us he's been very busy at his new ranch in Tennessee." He also referred to Lamb as an "absentee candidate." The funding for the new Tennessee ranch is also raising questions, Resnick said.

The GOP primary in Arizona is set for July 21.

Lamb has become an online influencer by uploading videos of encounters on the job. Frank Sloup, a content creator and deputy sheriff, uploads police videos and does body camera breakdowns, and has done "ride-alongs" with Lamb, whom he praises for his police work and his ability to speak Spanish.

Inflation is primed to become catastrophically worse in one of the most important sectors, and according to The Washington Post, executives are still "doing everything they can" to get that fact across to President Donald Trump before it is too late.

As the Post laid out in a Thursday report, executives in the oil industry are sounding the alarm about prices at the pump shooting up to a degree even higher than they already have, and are working to make sure Trump hears those warnings as he attempts to negotiate a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

"Oil and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge in the coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled American consumers," the report detailed.

It continued: "Industry officials say they are doing everything they can to sound an alarm that prices are about to soar as the commercial and government inventories that have mitigated price rises so far are rapidly depleting, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration. Some inventories could be wiped out within weeks, the executives have warned, coinciding with the peak summer travel season."

While the dwindling shipments out of the Gulf States has so far caused gas prices to increase well over $1 on average across the U.S., if the key shipping route remains closed or unsafe for much longer, it will quickly reach the point where stockpiles begin to reach critical levels. At that point, prices will potentially increase to astronomical levels, and gas rationing might also have to be implemented.

For the time being, some of the sources that the Post spoke to are trying to remain optimistic.

“I have absolutely no doubt the White House — from the president on down — is fully aware of the nearly universal alarm among oil companies and analysts about the direction of travel for oil prices this summer,” Bob McNally, a former energy adviser under George W. Bush and founder of the research firm, Rapidan Energy Group, said in a statement to the outlet.

“We’re sounding the alarm on these inventories going to record lows,” American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said during an appearance on a Fox Business show that Trump is known to watch. “We should be concerned about what prices we’re going to see over the next few weeks. We have to solve this problem in the Strait of Hormuz.”

President Donald Trump let slip another disastrous gaffe during an Oval Office event this week, with The Hill reporting that strategists within the GOP are calling it "a doozy" and "extremely unhelpful" for the party's midterms strategy.

During a Wednesday event at the White House, Trump was pressed for a reaction to the newly released inflation report, showing that the rate had reached a three-year-high, despite the president's repeated insistence that he had "tamed" inflation after his return to power. In response, Trump said, "I love it, the numbers were great, I love the inflation," before going on a seeming tangent about oil barrels purportedly seized from Iranian ships, but the initial quote spread like wildfire online.

Given how much affordability is set to define the midterms for voters, and given how little empathy Trump has shown about the issue, many argued that he had let slip the perfect line for Democrats to run in attack ads for November.

Sources within the party are also echoing that feeling, from the opposite perspective, worrying that the president has once again made their lives more difficult heading into a make-or-break election season.

"Republican strategists tell Morning Report that Trump’s message runs counter to GOP efforts to communicate their focus on the economy to voters ahead of the midterms and puts members in the difficult position of having to defend the president’s comments," The Hill reported on Thursday morning, adding later, "Trump has on several occasions brushed off the economic and political fallout of the Iran war. He said last month that he wasn’t thinking 'even a little bit' about Americans’ cost of living in negotiating with Iran and doesn’t care about the midterms."

“It’s extremely unhelpful to any Republican who’s on the ballot,” former Republican National Committee communications director Doug Heye told the outlet. “If you wanted to proactively get messaging wrong, this is how you would do it.”

He also noted: “It’s hard to see any argument where this could be spun favorably.”

Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist, told The Hill that it was vital for the Trump administration to "clarify very quickly that Trump thought the inflation number would be much higher and that he is confident the number will come down once hostilities end with Iran.”

“GOP members will need this air cover almost immediately so they can point to what Trump meant by this,” Bonjean said, citing the spin Trump himself gave in a New York Post interview shortly after the initial gaffe.

“Republicans have learned to shimmy and shake around the more colorful comments the President makes, and this one, admittedly, is a doozy. But his point is correct: A nuclear Iran is much worse than four percent inflation,” ex-Fox News host GOP political consultant Bill O’Reilly said. “If inflation is reasonable and trending downward in September and October, this quip will be forgotten. If it’s rising, we’ll be seeing about a billion ads on it before Election Day.”

When Donald Trump won Nevada's six electoral votes in the 2024 presidential race, Democratic strategists were quick to express their frustration — as the western swing state had gone to Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. But according to conservative Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada), who isn't seeking reelection, Nevada is shaping up to be a problem for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

Amodei is serving in the U.S. House of Representatives via Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, where, in a GOP congressional primary on Tuesday night, June 9, the Trump-backed David Flippo (a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel) defeated former Nevada State Sen. James Settelmeyer (who Amodei endorsed). Now, Flippo goes up against Democratic nominee Teresa F. Benitez-Thompson in the general election.

Amodei praised Settelmeyer in a Thursday morning post on X, writing, "James Settelmeyer ran a campaign rooted in integrity, energized on the issues, and fueled by a deep passion for the place he calls home. That is something I hope he is proud of. The candidate I supported did not prevail Tuesday night."

Before the primary, the Cook Political Report said that Republicans had a clear advantage in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District. But Amodei believes that the seat is very much in play for Democrats in November.

"Well, here we are," Amodei wrote. "While this primary election wasn't a big turnout, and no Republican in CD-2 received a majority of the vote, the Republican candidate advancing to the general election faces a well-positioned Democrat opponent. It will be an interesting summer and fall, but I believe it's fair to say that CD-2, for the first time in its history, isn't a Republican guarantee. What was once a safe prediction may quickly become an expensive one. Why? The fact that the largest block of registered Republican voters in CD-2 is 35.5 percent."

Amodei's tweet is drawing strong reactions on X.

Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston tweeted, "Whoa. This is news on Nevada's only GOP congressional district."

Nevada Independent reporter Mini Racker, formerly of Time and the Los Angeles Times, observed, "Amodei is out with his first statement on the results in #NV02, saying he believes the Democrats have a chance to win the seat. I was just in his office talking to him about what happened and if he might make an endorsement in the general. Stay tuned."

The Nevada Politics account on X, meanwhile, lashed out at Amodei — angrily tweeting, "[Settelmeyer] lost because of you. Why did you disparage Trump, causing him to endorse Flippo? Why didn't you spend any of your $400k supporting him? You caused this, coward."

House Republicans are growing increasingly furious as fellow lawmakers miss work during the campaign season.

In a NOTUS report on Thursday, Paul Kane wrote that things have reached "a boiling point" because so many Republican lawmakers are missing in action. The result has been that the narrow Republican majority is in danger and at times there are more Democrats than GOP lawmakers.

"On Tuesday, a few hours before a vote on a critical border security bill, Republicans expressed anger over how their ability to pass legislation would be made more difficult by the absence of GOP lawmakers who were back home campaigning," NOTUS reported.

There's also the matter of Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has been missing votes on Capitol Hill for 98 days as of Thursday. Kean has missed more than 100 votes. He has an illness he refuses to talk about, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has promised that the problem isn't anything "untoward." For two months, he's been saying he will return "soon."

“Look, I had a pretty darn competitive primary. During the thick of it, it was competitive, and I was missing valuable campaign time back home. But I did my job,” said a miffed Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), speaking to his colleagues. He's running for the U.S. Senate to replace retiring Mitch McConnell.

In a late Tuesday vote, the bill nearly failed with a 213-to-213 vote until Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) changed his vote.

Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, each from South Carolina, were running for governor. They stayed in the state to watch as numbers came in, showing them both losing.

Rep. Barr complained about the absences, calling them inexcusable, but didn't name Mace and Norman.

Johnson controls the votes and the calendar and could have held the vote until Wednesday to ensure it passed without forcing members to cast difficult votes.

In private, NOTUS said that GOP leadership is telling members that they need to focus more on doing their job rather than trying to get a new one. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) "initially denied" that he made such a point to the members, the report said.

“Everybody should be here,” Emmer said, according to the report.

After the Nov. 2024 elections, Republicans were to hold a 220 -215 majority over Democrats. But recently, that number has been shrinking. It now stands at 217, with "independent" Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calf.) after Kiley changed parties during California's redistricting push. He's still caucusing with Republicans, however.

NOTUS looked through the congressional record, showing that there were at least four times when roll call votes showed more Democrats were present than Republicans. There were three instances in which there was a tie vote, counting Kiley as a member who caucuses with the GOP.

NOTUS said that "by and large, Democrats have had a higher percentage of members attending and voting each week, with most of their absences coming from lawmakers who are sick or have pressing family matters."

“I don’t miss votes,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.). She's only missed one vote, and it was while she was present but off the floor in a conversation, and the roll call vote was closed in two minutes.

Several Texas Republicans have missed votes during their primary elections.

Johnson's office is working with Emmer to chart when it can and can't hold votes.

In a closed-door meeting with Republicans, Rep. Barr told them to rearrange their schedules.

“That’s what I expect of my colleagues as well. You know, I understand they have primaries, but you were elected for this job. My first obligation always has been as the congressman for the Sixth District [of Kentucky], not as a candidate for Senate,” he said.