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The Dispatch‘s national correspondent, Kevin D. Williamson, wants to ask Republicans a question.

He points to the $270 it takes to fill up the tank of a Ford Super Duty truck in his neighborhood — 48 gallons at $5.60 a gallon for diesel — and asks, “Do you feel smart?”

Citing a column by The New York Times’ Bret Stephens, Williamson weighs the pros and cons of voters electing candidates to achieve results over voters choosing “paragons of moral rectitude.”

“There is something to be said for that approach,” writes Williamson. “One of the problems with our politics is that politicians—especially presidents—are treated as embodiments of the nation, the people, and our values, to such an extent that members of a party feel alienated and humiliated when the other party’s leader occupies the White House.”

He concludes that for partisans, “inconvenient facts necessitate a kind of rhetorical two-step.”

“There are proud Trump cultists and there are embarrassed Trump cultists, and, if you press one of the latter on Trump’s viciousness—his dishonesty, his infidelity, his venality, his susceptibility to flattery, his inconstancy—he often will retreat into comfortable pragmatism,” Williamson writes.

They will say they like Trump’s “policies,” which, Williamson charges, “mainly indicates the economic conditions coincident with Trump’s first term in office, pre-COVID, which were only to a very minor degree the result of any Trump policy.”

But press the embarrassed Trump cultist further — like on the $270 tank fill-up — and they will “retreat into moralism, albeit a negative kind of moralism based in the perceived deficiencies of the Democrats rather than in any of Trump’s particular moral virtues, which, it is plain, simply do not exist.”

When Republicans insist Americans “think of the policies,” Williamson says he wonders “what those beneficial policies are.”

“The illegally initiated and incompetently executed war in Iran that is the proximate cause of that $270 diesel bill? The obviously criminal massacres of civilians on the high seas? The gross self-dealing and corruption? The elevation of wildly unqualified yes-men such as Bill Pulte to high office? The deepening debt? The rising inflation?”

Williamson says that they like the policies, “Except for the inflation, and the trade chaos, and the war, and the corruption, and the enshrinement of utter incompetence.”

He says that you “can two-step around reality any way you like, but the fact is that right now Republicans are offering both Ken Paxton and $5.60 diesel. And so I repeat the question to my Republican friends: ‘Do you feel smart?'”

Wonkette writer Robyn Pennacchia blew her top after Fox News entertainer Greg Gutfeld shared his fantasy of a woman being brutally assaulted by "male detainees." His fantasy victim: beloved children’s entertainer and YouTuber “Ms. Rachel.”

To be clear, Ms. Rachael makes videos helping kids learn their first words and sing along to “The Wheels on the Bus” and other kids’ songs.

But Pennacchia said Ms. Rachel committed the unforgivable MAGA sin of asking for tolerance. Firstly, the musical entertainer has partnered with the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, advocated for war-torn children, and she “sang a song with a three-year-old double amputee from Gaza. You know, because it’s just so rude to bring it up when children are maimed or killed in war.”

Pennacchia said America’s conservatives have generally had it in for children’s programming for decades because most kids’ shows “run in direct opposition to everything they stand for," primarily because they "teach children about sharing, about caring, about being kind to others (especially people who are different), they’re usually quite ethnically diverse, and, perhaps worst of all, they are very frequently Canadian hippies."

But Ms. Rachel called down Gutfeld’s fury by advocating on behalf of immigrant children in the U.S., visiting immigrant detention centers and singing songs to the child detainees. She also traveled to Washington, DC with more than 500 letters from children being detained in federal facilities, said Pennacchia.

“So, naturally, Gutfeld was irate, because all he wants is to live in a world in which children’s performers are a little more chill about child abuse,” she explained.

On the Thursday edition of Fox News’ “The Five,” Gutfeld called Ms. Rachel “a Trojan horse that exploits the benign innocent nature of a kid’s show host” to make critics “look like the bad guy.”

“Here’s where it gets extra creepy, though,” warned Pennacchia.

“I would love for her to do a sing-a-long with a handful of male detainees unsupervised and watch the suicidal empathy take hold as she defends, as the typical misguided leftist does, this innocent trapped man who is a refugee, who might be a felon, but I don’t know,” said Gutfeld. “… These naive virtue signalers will help a felon that will lead to their own death. She can operate in her stupidity as long as the felons are behind a wall. But she should have them come live -- take two of the guys, have them move in with you, Ms. Rachel. People have done that, and have you read what happens? It’s pretty interesting. I wouldn’t advise it.

But Pennacchia says women seeking assault should look anyplace other than a federal immigration pen, because the Trump administration detains “elementary school students and asylum-seeking makeup artists,” not criminals.

“That being said, it’s pretty g—— gross to insinuate that all undocumented immigrants are evil sexual predators — though it probably makes it easier for people like Greg Gutfeld to justify incarcerating children,” argued Pennacchia. “It’s also quite gross to openly fantasize about anyone being assaulted or killed as a result of not sharing your beliefs about something like this.”

She added that Gutfeld should remember that Fox News itself was “a pretty dangerous place to be a woman, so far as sexual harassment and assault were concerned.”

“Do you see me fantasizing about women who work there now, who also do not share my ideas, being violently assaulted by whoever wants to be the next Roger Ailes or Pete Hegseth? No, I do not. Because I am not a psychopath,” ranted Pennacchia.

President Donald Trump putting his face and name on coins and buildings is drawing comparisons to Saddam Hussein, all the way up to the painful, brutal end.

In a panel discussion on Friday, host Antonia Hylton asked political strategist Basil Smikle if he thought Trump was embarrassed by his name coming down.

Smikle remarked, "Talk about embarrassed in an era of no shame."

But MS NOW commenter, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said recent events carried undeniable echoes of another regime that ended very badly. Kamarck commented that Trump's name coming off of the Kennedy Center is "like the Statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down during the Iraq War." Not merely the removal of it, but the moment of significance that it marked for the people of Iraq.

Hylton was a little surprised by the comment.

"To bring up Saddam Hussein and the all that that represents — that is a major statement. I'm not even saying I disagree with it, but I do think that there are probably millions of people who are waiting for that image today of his name — you can see it right there on your screen, come down from this historic building."

She asked Charlie Sykes why the arts are such a huge thing for Trump, who has never been respected by the performing arts community.

"This really is the audacity of Donald Trump's ego and his and his vanity," explained Sykes. "But also, he does fashion himself as kind of a cultural czar, you know. But here's the guy who is about to hold a UFC cage match at the White House. But he also, you know, has these pretensions to be a culture warrior to, you know, slap his name on this cultural icon."

He said that he wasn't certain whether it would be a great turning point, but he confessed he'd be among those watching the name come down on a loop.

"I have to say that I didn't have this on my bingo card. I thought we'd have to wait until, you know, after he left office to see all the things torn down and taken down and the names removed and all of that. So this is going to be a deeply satisfying thing. And, you know, a hell of a pre-birthday present for Donald Trump if, in fact, this gets taken down as per the law. I mean, the reality is, of course, there are appeals, but the black letter of the law is very, very clear," he closed.

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A judge ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund was blocked from moving forward, but when the judge's formal ruling was published, it went deeper than ending the fund.

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema wrote: "ORDERED that, to avoid any further litigation in this civil action, defendants Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Jr., and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent FILE a declaration under the penalty of perjury that they will not take any action to create or operate the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and that the Anti-Weaponization Fund will not proceed in any manner, or under any name. If such a declaration is not filed by June 19, 2026, the Court will issue a Scheduling Order and require defendants to file a responsive pleading by June 17, 2026..."

“You’re a brave man, Mr. Block,” Judge Brinkema told Justice Department attorney Andrew Block at the start of the hearing.

“You think this is lawful business?” the U.S. District Judge asked in the explosive 30-minute hearing, as reported by Adam Klasfeld's "All Rise News."

Just last week, Blanche testified to the House and Senate, promising that the fund wasn't moving forward, but Judge Brinkema took things beyond a simple ruling.

However, The Atlantic reported Thursday evening that " administration is quietly assuring allies that payout plans remain on track."

Legal analysts mocked the text and the judge's effort to add assurances that they'd risk their careers if they ignored the ruling.

"DOJ has one week to put its abandonment of the fund in writing, under oath," pointed out Norm Eisen, whose group Democracy Defenders Action has been regularly suing the administration.

"Judge Brinkema hasn't explained which plaintiff(s) has standing nor on which of their various claims they're likely to succeed. Perhaps an opinion will follow or maybe she's saving that for later, figuring DOJ won't appeal for now," wrote Lawfare's senior editor, Eric Columbus.

Last week, in an interview with News Nation, Blanche said that he is trying to put up "roadblocks" to block Democrats from successfully prosecuting Trump and his administration officials if they win the House and Senate in November.

One of Trump's top officials is so desperate to establish himself as his 2028 MAGA successor that he is making a fool of himself, with a scathing new piece from The i Paper lambasting him as "no longer a serious person."

On Friday, journalist James Ball published a breakdown of Rubio's dignity-shredding participation in a recent UFC announcement, arguing that it is part of his broader attempt to remake himself in a more Trumpian mold as part of a desire to run for president again in 2028, which could make him the de facto leader of both the GOP and the MAGA movement. In doing so, however, Ball also argued that Rubio, once viewed as the default "grown-up in the room" in the Trump White House, is torching his credibility.

Noting that his Senate confirmation vote, 99-0, was a throwback to a pre-Trump era of largely uneventful confirmation, Ball said that Rubio was set up to be "a rare heavyweight in a cabinet full of non-entities," but now, "To say he has failed at that task would be a spectacular understatement."

"Few think Rubio was the man making any of [Trump's worst second term] decisions, but they are all happening directly under his watch – he is not only the US’s chief diplomat at a time when its relations are at an all-time low, but he was also the acting administrator of the United States Agency for International Development," Ball wrote. "As the USA prepares for its 250th birthday, Rubio has a strong case for being one of the worst-ever Secretaries of State in its entire history. But he is not letting any of the many, many stresses of his day job distract him. Instead, he’s commenting on the UFC cage fight due to happen this weekend on the White House lawn."

Ball further highlighted recent comments Rubio made while taking part in the announcement of a new partnership between the White House and UFC ahead of the promotion's fight card on the White House grounds this weekend. The "sports diplomacy" partnership purports to be using UFC to help promote American interests globally, though as Truthout noted in a report, it has also renewed "concerns about possible conflicts of interest between the franchise and President Donald Trump, who purchased up to $50,000 in stocks in UFC’s parent company, TKO Holdings, in May."

Ball was particularly critical of Rubio's comparison of the deal to the moon landing.

“When President Kennedy announced that we were going to put a man on the moon and return them safely to the Earth, no one thought that was possible, and we did it,” Rubio said. “We are a nation founded on doing what no one else dared to do, and no one else aspired to do… and at some level, that’s what this whole company, what UFC has been.”

"Perhaps Rubio really thinks organising a fighting franchise is on a par with one of humanity’s greatest scientific achievements," Ball wrote. "But the truth is, he probably doesn’t: Rubio is playing the clown because that’s what his boss wants him to do, and it’s what he believes Republican voters want to hear."

Port Charlotte, Florida, is part of Charlotte County — which voted for President Donald Trump by a solid two-to-one margin in 2024. It was named one of the top ten places to retire in 2012.

Still seen as a deeply red state, Democrats are making inroads into the Sunshine State. Ahead of the August primary, in the race for governor, Republican Byron Donalds often polls ahead of Democrat David Jolly but only by single digits, according to data from The New York Times. Donald Trump won the state by 13 points in 2024.

A letter to the editor highly critical of President Donald Trump and his MAGA base in a Port Charlotte news outlet could be seen as surprising.

“MAGA crowd, Trump are all about winning,” reads the headline.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have turned American politics into a fan-based team sport,” writes its author, Gayle Yarnall.

“Governing has become an us versus them rivalry regardless of the consequences. It is all about winning,” she laments.

“The 2024 election is long over. Yet, there are Trump signs, banners, and flags still posted around. It is akin to displaying the flag of your favorite teams like the Patriots or the Buckeyes. What is the purpose except to express that, ‘I’m on a winning team’?” Yarnall asks.

“No one will be persuaded to vote for Trump. The election is done and he won. Is there any memory of Reagan, Biden, Bush, Obama, or Clinton flags or signs posted months or years after the election? Of course not.”

Yarnall calls the still-flying banners and flags “visual reminders” for “those with low self-esteem, feeling left out and unheard.”

“They scream, ‘look at me, we won, I’m on a winning team,'” she says.

“Even when gas prices spike, the cost of tariffs are passed on, a war continues, inflation is rising in all sectors it matters not because my team won.”

In a last-ditch plea, Yarnall asks her neighbors, “Please remember to vote!

Prominent conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson has a new label for President Donald Trump: “clown.”

On his Substack newsletter, Erickson slams the president over his approach to the Iran war, for which, he notes, Trump has at least 39 times in the last 65 days “declared the United States and Iran were close to a deal only to have the Iranians openly mock him and deny it.”

He notes too that Trump on Thursday morning told “Fox & Friends” that the bombing of Iran would resume. That changed quickly.

“By the afternoon, he declared bombings would cease because a deal was close,” Erickson writes. “He claimed buy-in from the Egyptians, the Emirates, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Israelis, the Iranians, and more.”

Both Egypt and Israel said they had no knowledge of a deal.

“The President, the other days, said Iran was playing us,” says Erickson. “The only one being played is President Trump. A state of war exists between Iran and its neighbors. The ceasefire is a farce. The President has turned into a clown.”

Erickson is no moderate — he was once the editor-in-chief of the right-wing website RedState and was a Fox News contributor. His bio on Spotify says his podcast “cuts through the chaos with bold clarity and biblical conviction.”

Erickson goes on to call it “Obamaesque” to think that any negotiation with a “terrorist regime that is premised on bringing about the apocalypse” is possible.

He says Trump chose to “engage” Iran and criticizes him for dealing “a serious blow” but not a “knockout” one. And he criticizes Trump for ordering Israel “to pull its punches.”

“We have now harmed our relationships with our Middle Eastern allies who depend on us for protection,” writes Erickson. “The situation is now more unstable than before the war began and it is all because of a single person who swears he’ll get a deal any day now.”

“The President should be embarrassed,” Erickson charges. “Instead, he’ll be mad at everyone except the man in his mirror.”

Although the United States has been at war with Iran since late February, U.S. President Donald Trump has so far favored airstrikes and avoided a ground war. But early Friday afternoon, CNN's Zachary Cohen reported that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had "made a secret, rushed visit to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida" in late May "to be briefed in person on plans for the military to send ground troops into Iran to forcibly seize its highly enriched uranium."

On X, Cohen reported that according to CNN sources, "Trump hit pause after being warned it would likely prompt severe Iranian retaliation, extending the war and plunging the global economy into further turmoil, the sources said. But the high-level and pressing nature of the briefings underscores how close the Trump administration came to greenlighting the high-risk ground operation, sources said."

Reporting for CNN, Cohen and his colleague Natasha Bertrand explained, "The briefings were so urgent and sensitive that they required Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to rush from a meeting of senior NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) officials in Brussels back across the Atlantic to Tampa, Florida, on May 19, the sources said. The high-level and pressing nature of the briefings underscores how close the administration came to greenlighting the high-risk ground operation, sources said."

According to Bertrand and Cohen, a Joint Staff spokesperson "declined to comment about the preparations for a potential operation."

Trump has not explicitly or publicly expressed interest in putting American "boots on the ground" in Iran, saying, at times, that he didn't think it would be necessary. But he hasn't totally ruled out the possibility either. And the CNN reporters stress that "the discussions around sending ground troops into Iran just last month show how close the U.S. has come to massive escalation of the conflict."

"Tehran has also been plotting an economic 'nuclear option' if negotiations with the U.S. fail and the war resumes, three people familiar with the matter told CNN: getting the Houthis, the Iranians' chief proxy force in Yemen, to close the Bab-al-Mandab strait — a key waterway and global trade chokepoint that has served as a shipping lifeline as the entrance to the Red Sea amid Iran's months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz," Bertrand and Cohen report. "A senior administration official responded to a request for comment from CNN on Friday with a list of terms that Iran had allegedly agreed to as part of negotiations, including that its nuclear material be destroyed and removed, its nuclear program dismantled, the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a halt to Iran's funding of terrorist proxy groups — and only afterward would it get sanctions relief."

President Donald Trump has lost the Iran War, and not only can he not face it, but Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng also warns that things could get even worse as the mess grows.

Suebsaeng's morning newsletter cautions that Trump's "war has devolved into such a muddled Orwellian mess." His refusal to concede or accept a deal continues to make things worse.

Meanwhile, Trump has flip-flopped all over the place when it comes to the war. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that a deal was "two or three days" away. On Wednesday, the U.S. hit targets after an Iranian drone took down a U.S. helicopter. Trump threatened that night he would "bomb the sh—— out of them" and would be taking Kharg Island. Then, suddenly, Trump claimed that the U.S. has "ended the war with Iran."

CNN's Anderson Cooper mocked Trump on Thursday night for saying for the 39th time that there was a "deal with Iran."

Austrian economics scholar Murray Rothbard mocked, "The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began. The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start."

The president simply refuses to concede that he lost, Suebsaeng lamented. He recalled the Pentagon Papers scandal, which at its heart, was about administrations from both sides knowing full well that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam. They just couldn't tell Americans. So, they continued to throw away money and American lives.

"President Trump is refusing to admit what most of his compatriots know: He lost, and there’s no sugar-coating it (but, boy, will Team Trump try)," explains Suebsaeng. The whiplash of deal or no deal in the war is "a perfect example of what happens when the world’s most chronically dunderheaded warmonger can’t just admit he got wrecked by a much smaller adversary."

“The chances of it change by the week,” one official tells Suebsaeng. “We think he’s going to, but then he doesn’t.”

By the time he backed off on Thursday, Trump still wasn't willing to acknowledge that he was being destroyed domestically and dragging his party down with him.

Suebsaeng compared the ordeal to Trump's host of NBC’s "Celebrity Apprentice," which made it clear that the president must "have his ego spared from two of the simplest words in the English language: 'I lost.'"

Right-wing journalist Ben Domenech isn’t aligned with GOP wisdom that the Republican Party should do well in the November midterm elections. In a lengthy written conversation with The New York Times, Domenech says he is “skeptical.”

“Republicans still seem to think that, thanks to redistricting and their advantages in fund-raising, they could buck historical trends and hold on, perhaps even in the House,” Domenech told the Times’ John Guida. “They’re just scared about gas prices. Personally, I’m skeptical.”

Looking specifically at Maine, which Republicans see as the “linchpin” to holding the Senate majority, according to Guida, Domenech also sends a warning. The race will be between U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic insurgent newcomer Graham Platner, who has already faced numerous scandals.

“The interesting thing about this whole focus on Maine is that if you talk to Senate Republican staff and consultants, they’re actually less worried about it than other states,” says Domenech. “This is partially because of Platner’s shall we say unique collection of scandals and challenges, but it’s also because of enormous faith in Collins as a survivor.”

Collins, 73, is running for her sixth term after being first elected in 1996.

Guida points to a Politico report on a memo that states: “the political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win.”

“I think that’s correct,” says Domenech, “and top Republicans should actually be more concerned.”

“Platner clearly has energy behind him. He speaks to a desire on the left for a strong message, and he’s shown no signs of bowing to pressure to get out for a more centrist-coded candidate,” he adds. “Collins is absolutely capable of winning, but national assumptions are taking over based on her last election, in 2020, when she came back from what seemed like a deep hole by keeping her campaign hyperlocal.”

Domenech says that Republicans do have some concerns, specifically about three states Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024: Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

In Ohio, former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown is seeking to return to the Senate, and is running against “an appointee who has never won a Senate election, Jon Husted.”

In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola is running against Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent who “has the advantage there, but again, we’re talking about a unique state, and Peltola is an Alaska Native,” says Domenech. That race is now considered a “toss up” by The Center for Politics’ “Crystal Ball,” which also now rates the Ohio race as a “toss up.”

Iowa could become a difficult race for Republicans as well. Domenech warns it “could turn out to be a real test for Trump’s tariff policies, which have been a decidedly mixed bag in many of the states that backed him. The president will probably have to take that argument to the people of Iowa himself.”

Overall, says Domenech, Republicans’ confidence “comes from a belief that Democratic radicalism, particularly the various examples of what they view as a renewed cultural leftism in opposition to Trump during his first term, will play in their favor.”

This Sunday, June 14, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump will turn 80. Some of Trump's critics find it ironic that he is about to become an octogenarian in light of how badly he mocked former President Joe Biden as "Sleepy Joe," but according to medical experts interviewed by The Independent, Trump's age isn't a problem in itself. Those experts, however, laid out the things about Trump's health that do worry them.

Independent reporter Rhian Lubin notes that Trump is "exhibiting visible symptoms typical for an octogenarian, including bruising on his hands, swollen ankles and legs and appearing to nod off during meetings and high-profile events."

"Medical experts warn, though, that it's not so much these obvious symptoms and his age that Americans should be most concerned about, but the conduct and behavior on display during his second presidency," according to Lubin.

One of the medical experts the UK-based Independent interviewed was Dr. Henry Abraham, a psychiatry professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.

Abraham told The Independent, "It's not that he's 80, but let's not ignore the red flags on the field. ... If you just look at everything that he's said and done, and has been observed doing over, really, decades, certain signs and symptoms emerge which are warning flags regarding the conduct of his presidency going forward. Poor impulse control, poor control over his rage, sleeplessness at night, unrelenting aggression toward his perceived enemies. Well, put all that together and give him the nuclear football, and you can see why we're worried."

Dr. Rosanne Leipzig of New York City's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai told The Independent that she is "not overly concerned" about things like bruising on Trump's hands.

Leipzig said of the bruising, "He's taking too much aspirin, and older people's skin gets thinner. You lose the fat underneath the skin, so you're much more likely to bruise."

Leipzig, however, laid out the things about Trump that she is concerned about.

The Icahn School of Medicine told The Independent, "His medical evaluation is a somewhat superficial way of looking at whether he is competent to hold an office. I would guess that the questions people would want answered from something like this are: Is he likely to be able to live out his term? Or is he likely to have some sort of a debilitating medical problem, a major stroke, or something like that."

Leipzig continued, "I think it's pretty clear from the test that they did that physically he appears to be — if you believe everything that's in here — in reasonable shape. The stuff that I most worry about here is the mental status exam."

The Supreme Court has left a trail of legal "wreckage" over the course of its last few terms, but according to one legal scholar writing for The Hill, a "fundamental" fix to get them back in line will be making them "fear" again.

Paul M. Collins Jr. is a professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written extensively about the Supreme Court and the issues pervading it. On Friday, The Hill published his latest piece, digging into the current situation surrounding it, with accusations of rampant political bias and disregard for clear legal precedents in order to aid President Donald Trump.

"In a few weeks, the Supreme Court will end its term, leaving behind a trail of legal wreckage that has become all too familiar since the emergence of its conservative supermajority in 2020," Collins wrote. "Although the headlines will focus on the specific casualties — most notably a crushing blow to the Voting Rights Act — the real story of this term is not what the court did, but why it felt so comfortable doing it. We are witnessing the solidification of a sovereign court: an institution that has effectively decoupled itself from the traditional gravity of American checks and balances."

It was not always like this, he noted, explaining that the court once operated with a "healthy, if unspoken, anxiety," which he dubbed, "the fear of reversal."

"This fear once acted as a structural brake, reminding the justices that if they strayed too far from the constitutional mainstream, the system would push back," he wrote. "For instance, the 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th and 26th Amendments to the Constitution were passed to overturn Supreme Court decisions. Congress has reversed several decisions by passing statutes as well, as exemplified in the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009. And the Supreme Court occasionally overrules itself, including overturning Bowers v. Hardwick, which allowed states to criminalize same-sex sexual relations, in 2003."

Now, however, the "era of hyper polarization" has created a status quo where Congress is barely ever able to pass anything due to the radically different priorities on each side of the aisle. In this environment, the odds are vanishingly slim that Congress would be able to pass a bill rebuking the Supreme Court, let alone a new constitutional amendment, and as Collins noted, the court itself is expected to retain a conservative majority for decades if it is not expanded, meaning that future iterations of it also will not be likely to reverse past decisions.

"To restore the court’s legitimacy, we must do more than simply add seats; we must change the fundamental math of judicial power," Collins argued. "The goal should be to reintroduce the very thing the conservative supermajority has lost: the possibility of being corrected. The most effective way to achieve this is a two-pronged structural reset. First, Congress should exercise its clear constitutional authority to expand the size of the court. Second, and more crucially, the justices should no longer sit as a permanent, monolithic body of nine. Instead, they should be required to hear cases in randomly assigned three-judge panels with final decision-making authority."

He concluded: "Ultimately, instilling a fear of reversal is an act of institutional humility. With public confidence at a historic low, we can no longer afford a court that is always right simply because it is final. We need a court that is final only when it is right."

President Donald Trump exploded during a recent televised interview and stormed off after being hit with tough questions, but as the reporter asking those questions revealed, he seemed to do an about-face after blowing at her.

Trump sat for an interview for NBC News's Meet the Press on Sunday, during a visit to Wisconsin. During the sit-down, reporter Kristin Welker, among other things, pressed him hard about his recent claims about elections in the U.S. being rigged, especially after recent results in California. Having grown increasingly agitated in the face of these questions, Trump eventually called the interview off early, saying that Welker was either "crooked" or "stupid."

Speaking to Vanity Fair a few days later, Welker revealed that she spoke with Trump after the incident, and said he was much more level-headed, even apologetic.

"I spoke to him the morning after the interview, and without getting into an exact verbatim of what was said, he effectively said, ‘Look, the rain was disruptive. We’re going to do this again in Washington,'" Welker explained. "I’ve covered President Trump since 2015 when he was a candidate, and it doesn’t faze me at all. It’s part of the conversation. I anticipate it to some extent."

Welker further revealed how she approaches interviews with Trump, given his penchant for volatility towards the press.

"I try to stay focused on the content of my questions and on getting answers," she said. "Because that’s my goal, particularly in a presidential interview — to have that amount of time with a president. My goal is to get answers on behalf of the American people."

Trump's visit to Wisconsin came during a period of extended rain, which can be heard during the interview, getting more intense outside of the barn where it was taking place. His claim that the rain was getting to him echoes the explanation put forward by many for his agitated behavior, including speech-language pathologist Hilary Shae. In a video posted to YouTube, she further suggested that the gloomy weather might have been disorienting for him if, as she has long suspected, he is dealing with some degree of dementia.

"For people who have dementia, changes in weather, specifically rain, can actually be really problematic for them," she explained. "When it is raining all day long, the typical lighting of the day is very disrupted. So, it is difficult to know just by looking outside, is it daytime or is it nighttime, late afternoon, that type of thing."

She continued: "With somebody who already has sundowning behaviors, as the president demonstrates he does, that can make it even worse, because the entire morning has not had the typical sunlight, his circadian rhythm is already off due to the deterioration of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and it is very difficult when it is just gloomy, cloudy and raining all day to have any environmental supports for that."

Melissa Hortman often told me things she probably shouldn’t have.

One time when I was a Capitol reporter with the Star Tribune, she expressed displeasure with a profile I’d written about a Republican operative.

“The journalistic equivalent of a b---job,” she told me with that grin of hers, which shone through her eyes.

The late speaker was a practicing Catholic who carried in her wallet a prayer of St. Frances — “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace….” — but she was raised around a junkyard and loved a saucy joke.

Another time, after I’d written that she’d been badly underestimated, she told me, “Whew, I needed a cigarette after reading that one.”

After the remarkable 2025 legislative session — when her Democratic caucus shared power with Republicans — I was hoping for some of that candor so my Reformer colleague Michelle Griffith and I agreed to an off-the-record interview.

She was mostly satisfied with her final legislative session, which ended with a two-year budget and no government shutdown despite Republicans’ shared control of the House, thereby saving jobs and stability for government workers and the people who rely on them. She had also preserved key accomplishments from the Democrats’ 2023-24 trifecta, including a paid leave program that would give new parents a chance to bond with their babies and other Minnesotans the ability to care for their sick loved ones.

The deal was not without cost, however: Hortman had to cast the deciding vote to end public health insurance for undocumented immigrants. It was not an easy vote, and she shed rare public tears when discussing it at a press conference. She was willing to do it, however, because like all great legislative leaders, she’d fall on the grenade for her members, and because she knew that the Trump administration would probably come at the program with knives out anyway.

(As we now know all too well, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security came to Minnesota with guns, and left with American blood on their hands.)

Parts of the Democratic base savaged her regardless. When Michelle and I informed her that our Bluesky account mentions were filled with harsh condemnations of her, she seemed oblivious, saying her feed only seemed to show images of her favorite breed of dog, golden retrievers.

(She fostered her golden Gilbert while he trained to be a service dog, but he failed, so the Hortmans got to keep him. For a time I thought the whole thing was a bit, but she was obsessed with that dog. He ended up being killed in the same political attack that took her life.)

I wrote a column defending her decision on the budget deal, and she texted me that the episode newly motivated her to get into 2024 election data and start prepping for the midterms: “There are some very significant differences in the 2025 environment, compared to the 2017 environment. A Democratic wave is not a forgone conclusion in the 2026 election and will have to be created.”

We shared an affinity for certain political truisms: You cannot do anything without winning, and self-deception is dangerous.

Which meant they’d be more focused on vetting candidates, she said. Former Rep. John Thompson, who had some previously unknown horrifying domestic violence allegations, had dragged down the Democratic caucus even before his 2020 election. Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson had cost them dearly in 2024-25 because he didn’t live in his district.

She said the era of community organizers like Barack Obama winning office had “run its course.” Democrats should find candidates who are “real people” with experience outside of politics, she said.

(Spicy, right?)

Hortman also acknowledged that Democrats’ messaging has gone stale and faced polling headwinds on many issues, including immigration and LGBTQ rights. She said that President Donald Trump’s infamous anti-trans campaign ad — “Kamala Harris is for they/them; President Trump is for you” — was successful and hurt Democrats, not because people are anti-trans, but because it cemented an already latent idea that Democrats are not in the corner of most people.

Don’t let her clear-eyed assessment of polling fool you into thinking she would have caved on Operation Metro Surge or to anti-trans bigotry.

She hated bullies, which, on my best days, is my entire reason for being.

If you went into a lab to create a politician for me to like, you’d come out with Hortman: Principled but willing to compromise; competitive while ethically grounded; a team player but not blind to her own side’s faults; smart but not showy; ambitious but not gross about it; funny and authentic and real as all get out.

Despite these affinities — and her willingness against the advice of her communications staff to text me back — I rarely used our relationship to journalistic advantage. I felt I needed to respect her time and her workload.

I’m also wary of growing too close or enamored with politicians, both because we need distance to judge them, and because they will invariably let you down.

The politicians come and go, but the work for a more just state, nation and world must be more enduring.

I know she would agree, and so we get up and do the work.

But I also know that when we come across people we respect and admire in this lonely world, we should embrace and hold on to them tightly.

One of President Donald Trump's top administration allies has been "thrown in front of the bus," according to his longtime biographer, with a bombshell new report making them look like a "dope" acting counter to the president's interests.

The New York Times this week released a major new report, culled from an upcoming book two of its reporters wrote about the second Trump administration, revealing the panicked reactions that top figures in the Trump administration had to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, once it was clear to them that the president appeared in the files related to his crimes numerous times, and in damaging ways.

Among those figures was Vice President JD Vance, who is depicted in the report as wanting to go the route of full transparency, believing that Trump would be fine with certain salacious allegations coming to light, despite how testy he had been with staffers about the subject. He also offered to do interviews about the situation, as part of an effort to be open about the files. These suggestions from Vance were largely dismissed by the rest of the administration, who strained for ways to protect Trump at all costs while feeding the MAGA base's demand for Epstein disclosure.

Michael Wolff, a longtime reporter and author who had extensive access to Trump and his inner circle throughout his political career, said during the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," that Vance was obviously being set up as some sort of scapegoat, given how poorly he came off in the report.

“More interesting, probably than what it says about Epstein, is JD Vance, who is really dumped... thrown in front of the bus here,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. “I mean, he looks like a dope. He’s described as panicking. Every adjective connected to him makes him seem like... he is, A,... not on the president’s side, and B, that he has no idea what he’s doing.”

Coles countered that the report seemed to make Vance look better, like he "understood the enormity of the Epstein files,” and that he was “trying to get the Epstein files out there to pretend that the government was transparent.” Wolff further argued that the insiders who talked with reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan were more so attempting to make the vice president look out of step with Trump's plans.

“JD Vance was not on Donald Trump’s side here,” Wolff said, adding that “this is all an audience-of-one thing.”

He continued: “And remember, Donald Trump’s side is very clearly, ‘There is nothing her ... Why is anyone talking about Epstein? I don’t want to hear it. If you’re talking about it, you’re my enemy, not my friend. So the White House is throwing JD Vance over the side, that’s what’s going on here.”

Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper is now considered the favorite by top election forecasters to win North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, a result that would make him the first Democrat to represent the state in the Senate in more than a decade.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecast by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, changed North Carolina’s Senate race from “Toss-up” status to “Leans Democratic” Thursday. In April, Cook Political Report, another widely cited forecaster, also removed the state from its toss-up list and put Cooper in the lead.

Republican Michael Whatley, the former NCGOP and RNC chairman, has struggled to break 40% support in recent polls, while Cooper has often led him by double digits, garnering around 50% support.

The forecast changes reflect a growing sense that Whatley has thus far been unable to define himself to voters, many of whom still report having no opinion about him.

“We expect the race to tighten as Election Day draws nearer. Whatley is simply less familiar to voters, so it’s easy to see conservatives ‘coming home’ to some degree,” wrote Crystal Ball analysts Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman. “This may end up as a razor-thin race by Election Day. But it also doesn’t have to become that, and Cooper may just ride out the race and win by a clearer margin.”

Lack of name recognition has proven particularly challenging for Whatley’s campaign in the face of President Donald Trump’s unpopularity due to the war in Iran and rising cost of living, especially pitted against the well-funded, well-known and well-liked two-term governor.

The president, said Catawba College history and politics professor Michael Bitzer, has become an “anchor” that is dragging GOP candidates down.

“We know that midterm elections tend to be referendums on the president, and especially when the president’s party controls Congress,” Bitzer said. “I think the unhappiness, shall we say, of the American electorate at this point really sends a very clear signal: Republicans are going to have some substantial headwinds come the fall.”

Kondik and Coleman made a similar observation, noting that while GOP candidates in close races have increasingly distanced themselves from the president’s more controversial stances, Whatley has declined to break with the president.

While Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) derided Trump’s unpopular “anti-weaponization” fund as a “payout pot for punks,” Whatley gave the measure his full support, they wrote.

“In fact, the three Republican incumbents we now list in Toss-up — Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio, and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — joined with Democrats on an ultimately unsuccessful vote to block the fund,” Kondik and Coleman noted.

Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper said Whatley is a “steady Eddie candidate” who generates few headlines, an approach that works well when voters lean toward the GOP, but may not be enough when voters are upset with the party.

“It’s not so much that Whatley’s making mistakes,” he said. “It’s just that this is a good environment for the Democrats nationally, and Whatley isn’t doing a lot to combat that.”

A spokesman for Whatley did not respond to a request for comment on the change in rating.

Roy Cooper campaign manager Jeff Allen said he still sees a long road ahead.

“This race will be very close, which is why we are building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them in the Senate,” he said in a statement.