Political analysts have joked for the last few weeks that members of the Republican Party who have lost their primaries but still have until the end of the year to govern have become part of the informal "YOLO Caucus," meaning "you only live once." According to an exclusive Semafor interview with outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), he has started flexing his voting power to get what he wants before leaving.

In one incident, Cornyn extorted the White House out of funds that his state had been owed for over a year. In 2025, Congress allocated more than $10 billion in funds for border security, but until Cornyn acted, Texas hadn't seen a dime of it.

“Basically, I told Senator Barrasso and Senator [John] Thune: ‘There’s a price for my vote, and it is to get the administration to release the money,’” Cornyn said in his interview with Semafor.

White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russel Vought quickly called, promising "we’ll put a notice of funding."

Cornyn, who has been a loyal supporter of Trump's initiatives, voting with him 99.2 percent of the time, but Trump never returned the loyalty, endorsing Cornyn's scandal-plagued opponent, Ken Paxton.

“That’s one example I think of what you can do when you have some cards to play," said Cornyn of his newly discovered powers.

Cornyn is also ready to be a thorn in Trump's side over his appointment of Todd Blanche for the attorney general spot. He said he's not a solid supporter, but he's willing to "listen."

The four-term senator also isn't going to help his opponent. Instead, he's opting to help his friends and allies in tough races in Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire.

“The president picked Paxton, and he’s got $350 million dollars. I think he can spend his money,” Cornyn said of Texas and Trump. “I’m going to try to help in other places.”

Cornyn isn't the first Senator to the mock caucus. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his primary in May after a Trump-supported Republican ousted him. The founder could easily be considered Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who announced he was retiring after a number of public battles with Trump. He has become less fearful of the president's wrath in the past several months.

Cassidy told Semafor that he and Cornyn were "like-minded in the sense that we’re both not returning, and that gives a certain focus. And he’s conveyed he’s got no illusions about the president."

That said, he added, they're not scheming "in a smoke-filled room."

Cornyn frequently spoke to the president while serving as the Majority Whip, but doing so wasn't “particularly useful,” he said. Trump "can and will change his mind depending on the next person he talks to on the phone. The president seems to revel in chaos, which is so different from any other leader that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know about you, but I like to minimize the chaos in my life. He just seems to revel in it. We’ve seen even recent evidence of it on the DNI."

Cornyn went on to mock colleague Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who thinks “somehow we’re going to beat the opponents into submission." By opponents, he means the Democrats. The Texas lawmaker explained to the younger Lee, “I’ve worked here a long time. It doesn’t work that way."

The GOP lawmaker promises he's not a member of the "YOLO caucus"; rather, “I am free to disagree." Before was another matter.

Other than helping fund GOP candidates outside of Texas, he's thinking about possible contenders for the 2028 presidential election. While Cornyn is trying to decide between Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he joked he didn't want to "jinx either one of them."

“But don’t tell Ted Cruz that, because Ted wants to be the next president," he added.

Cruz ran for president in 2016, during which he was outspoken in his opposition to Trump.

President Donald Trump has so thoroughly intimidated House Speaker Mike Johnson, he practically comes across as lazy, at least if one conservative commentator is to be believed.

“Each House speakership ends up having its own unique character—forged through a combination of successes and failures,” wrote The Bulwark's Joe Perticone on Thursday. After reviewing the problems that afflicted past House Speakers like Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, he described Johnson as unique in his lack of productivity.

“Mike Johnson’s speakership is somewhat different from all these,” Perticone wrote. “His overriding project has been to cede whatever power and decision-making he can to the White House, and this has, in turn, given shape to an unusual legacy, one defined by impotence.”

He added, “In recent months there has been a strange spirit of bipartisanship among frustrated House members, who have relied on the previously rare tactic of discharge petitions to circumvent Johnson. The latest such bill directly pushes back on the Donald Trump administration in a policy area the MAGA movement finds particularly divisive: aid to Ukraine.”

Democrats were able to convince their Republican House colleagues to sign on to a proposal to force a floor vote on a new Ukraine aid package, but this had to happen while Johnson assumed a passive role.

“The Ukraine bill will now get a vote on the House floor,” Perticone observed. “If it passes and heads to the Senate, a much larger percentage of lawmakers should be willing to back it. But whether it receives a floor vote there is up in the air.”

He added, “It’s a remarkable moment, nonetheless. The second most powerful lawmaker in the land being reduced to the role of legislative bystander in his own chamber.”

Two Democrats confirmed these impressions to Perticone.

“I think when you’ve got a very weak speaker in Mike Johnson and a majority that he can’t govern, it’s no surprise that we’re having more discharge petitions,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) told Perticone. “We don’t have the same kind tools the majority has, but we’re still gonna force votes where we can. And the fact that Mike Johnson continues to lose some Republicans who are willing to stand with us for votes that are important—it tells me he’s weak, and frankly, it tells me that Republicans in competitive, tough districts, they see the writing on the wall.”

A different Pennsylvanian echoed those views.

“I really wish these bills would just come to the floor on their own,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told Perticone in December. “It shouldn’t take a discharge petition. Leadership should be putting these bills on the floor when there’s that much support for it. A discharge is really forcing rank-and-file members to take matters into their own hands.”

On some occasions, Johnson has shown a willingness to stand up to Trump. Earlier this week, he delivered what Punchbowl described as “an explicit rebuke” to the president demanding that the House pass a housing bill that recently went through the Senate.

President Donald Trump is furious over the details in the new book published by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan that paint him as a slob.

Last week, before the book was released, a section was leaked by The Daily Mail that described the president lying in bed, eating and throwing wrappers and containers onto the floor or piling in an overflowing trash can near him.

“A nighttime snacker, the president would frequently leave an array of empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers and ice cream cartons in the trash, or on the floor,” the book says.

It added that, “The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils.”

First lady Melania Trump doesn't sleep in the same room with him, when she's in Washington D.C.

Zeteo reported in its morning newsletter from Asawin Suebsaeng that the president is furious about how it makes him appear to the public.

“It makes him look so f—— gross,” a senior Trump appointee told Zeteo. “The president sees everything, and he knows about the —trash and bathroom sections, and thinks it’s complete bulls—— that it got published.”

The bathroom incident the appointee referenced is a story about the president loving carpet in his bathroom, something generally considered to be unsanitary, Southern Hospitality explained in 2011. The preference prompted White House staff to fear that mold might grow under the carpet.

So, they fashioned a way to hide a "bath mat" for Trump to drip on after showering.

“The portion nearest the shower would often be soaked through; the staff was never quite sure why, but they worried about mold growing underneath,” Haberman and Swan reported.

Trump is reportedly so furious that he's going around telling people, “I don’t do that!” He then alleged it was "libel" and attacked the leaks he said are false as an invasion of his privacy.

Suebsaeng wrote that some of the aides "have sat there and thought to themselves: Uh… yeah, you do."

He also reported that there is a blanket ban on talking about the book because Trump doesn't want to acknowledge the book exists.

The Trump White House is attacking one of its loyal media figures after she berated Vice President JD Vance over President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.

“The problem is, that it’s an absolutely disastrous deal that has brought us to our knees, weeks before our 250th birthday,” NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon said in a clip she posted to social media, which Mediaite reported.

“This is an utter humiliation of the United States, and everybody knows it,” she continued. “Everybody knows it, but especially Iran knows it. They are celebrating this. They are still calling us the enemy.”

“And while Iran celebrates this and sneers at us for totally capitulating when we had complete military superiority over them,” she said, “JD Vance is out there criticizing Israel, making up fantasies about how it is Israel’s fault, and Israel wants Iran to be a failed state. And if only Israel would lay down its arms and allow Hezbollah to keep attacking it, there would be peace in the Middle East.”

Ungar-Sargon called Vance’s remarks “disgusting,” “utterly deplorable,” and a “complete Tucker Carlsonification of the Vice President of the United States.”

She warned, “if this was a dry run for Vance 2028,” for president, “we sure learned a lot.”

On social media, Ungar-Sargon added: “VP JD Vance just brought the US to its knees with a humiliating deal weeks before our 250th birthday and he has the audacity to blame … Israel! … for the terrible situation we’re in.”

The White House’s Rapid Response team blasted Ungar-Sargon.

“The only humiliation here is Batya desperately begging for an additional brain cell because her failing TV … show is even more irrelevant than the likes of Kaitlan Collins and Fake Tapper,” the White House declared. “Only a moron of her caliber could still doubt President Trump’s leadership.”

In 2024, Ungar-Sargon wrote, “American Jews should vote for Trump because he is the candidate who stands most clearly for the things that have defined us for centuries.”

The UFC Freedom 250 fight night, which will be held on June 14 is being presented as a patriotic celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. But in actual fact, the date doesn’t coincide with the birth of the nation, it falls on the President’s birthday.

Reese Gorman's new report for NOTUS centers discusses Speaker Mike Johnson ceding his job to President Donald Trump.

According to the piece, posted Monday, Johnson relies so much on Trump that the president is the one who actually runs the House. Trump is in on the joke, too.

“I have two jobs: being president and being speaker,” Trump once teased Johnson in front of other members of Congress. Trump's mockery stems from Johnson's failure to control his caucus and his desperate search for help from the president.

The House is narrowly divided between the two parties, but Johnson has also faced members who are further to the right than the president and those with a more libertarian slant. Instead of working with Democrats for legislation, Johnson has called on Trump to twist arms. It usually involves Trump berating them. Typically, the House whip is responsible for that job. The job is currently held by Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).

Last year, Trump on one of his calls with Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who was in the cloakroom. Spartz was crying on the phone and as she walked away, two sources told NOTUS. Trump was on speakerphone, evidently still talking to other Republicans.

“I have no f—— idea what she just said," Trump said to the other members.

Puck News reported on the incident in February 2025, saying that Trump was screaming that Spartz was a "fake Republican." But Spartz said that Trump had promised to "save healthcare." Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) also got a call from the president after indicating he was a "no" vote.

In the end, legislation passed by the GOP in the past year hasn't garnered much public support, according to Pew Research.

The report cited two sources who said they were told to check with the White House before proposing legislation.

One House Republican blasted it when speaking to NOTUS as "a total shirking of responsibilities to the White House. Everything has to be preordained and pre-blessed, and there’s very little that we’re able to have our own will on. We should be empowered to pass our own priorities, not just follow what the mandate of the day is.”

One GOP aide thinks it's fine to rely on Trump.

“Given that the president has to sign the bills that Congress passes for them to become law, it stands to reason that the White House would have input into and help pass the legislative agenda that Republican House Members and the President ran on and that 77.3 million Americans voted for,” the aide said.

The 119th Congress is coming close to setting a record for the most "do-nothing Congress" in over 150 years. While previous congresses have been mocked as "do-nothing Congress," under a unified GOP government, legislation has come to a crawl. In the 118th Congress, which had Republicans in Congress and Democrats in the U.S. Senate and the White House, they only passed 158 bills in two years. Typically, there are 300 to 600. To find less, one would have to go back 150 years, according to reports.

The 119th Congress has enacted 95 public laws and two private laws.

The White House told NOTUS that its overly-involved influence has ensured things stay on the right track. This as a record number of incumbents announced their retirement.

“Speaker Johnson is proud to have a strong and productive working relationship with the President that has delivered countless positive legislative results for the American people, in spite of the razor-thin margin of the House majority — including lower taxes, secure borders, reduced crime, a return to American energy dominance, massive reductions in burdensome regulations, fraud, waste and abuse, and so much more,” Johnson's spokesperson said.

When Johnson or the White House tried to block bills from the floor that were unflattering to the president, GOP members joined with Democrats to force a vote.

“The speaker has felt like, since they’re from the same party, there’s not a need for checks and balances. I disagree,” complained Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon (R), who is leaving Congress at the end of the year. “I think we could have provided more feedback on tariffs, Ukraine and other things, like the ballroom.”

Other members told NOTUS don't know of anyone else who could do much better than Johnson.

The White House is gradually being converted into something of a bunker for President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis from The Atlantic, as incidents of political violence seemingly targeting him have "gone exponential" compared to years past.

On Monday, Atlantic staff writer Matt Viser published the piece, arguing that Trump's White House was becoming a new "green zone," a military term referring to an area kept safe amidst a war zone with heavy fortification and security measures.

"Three times in four weeks, gunfire has broken out as federal agents were protecting the president and vice president in the vicinity of the White House," Viser detailed. "Three months ago, a man was shot and killed after entering the Mar-a-Lago security perimeter with a shotgun and fuel can. Three months before that, two National Guard members were shot just blocks from the White House. The Secret Service, which says it has protections all around the building — some visible, some not — has a division that over the past year has been studying the rise in violent rhetoric and action to get at the question: What is driving the attacks — and can they be headed off in advance?"

Viser further cited alarming new statistics from the Secret Service that reveal the scale of this uptick in violence: the security force has already investigated 40 percent more cases this year compared to the same timeframe in 2025. Among those cases, there have been seven times the number of cases involving suspects with "mental-health issues" compared to last year. The agency told Viser that this trend is creating "an unprecedented threat environment."

“In the past, there have been some peak periods where we had maybe a really large uptick for a month or two,” Matthew Quinn, the deputy director of the Secret Service, said. “But for us right now, it’s not a linear increase anymore. It’s really gone exponential.”

In response to this surge, the White House is becoming ever more fortified with security measures, and becoming more and more closed off from the public.

"The 18-acre site is laced with fencing, sensors, jammers, cameras, armed guards, bunkers, drone interceptors, and surface-to-air missiles — all of which speak to how we now protect, and isolate, our leaders. Tourists can no longer approach the 13-foot fence that rings the compound," Viser explained. "Additional fencing went up in January around Lafayette Square, which remains under construction, and prevents access from the north. The perimeter to the south extends near Independence Avenue; the area around the Ellipse was closed last month. It’s impossible to enter from the east, through the barriers and construction where the East Wing once stood. And a battery of security vehicles, police on bikes, and Secret Service agents stand guard from the west."

Trump himself seems increasingly paranoid about the threat of violence, reflected in his obsession with the security precautions of his wildly unpopular ballroom project. The structure is reportedly set to include a new bunker deep beneath the main area, complete with a full medical facility. In a recent post to Truth Social, Trump also claimed that it will include a drone port on the roof.

President Donald Trump, without prior congressional approval, has demolished the East Wing of the White House to construct a multimillion-dollar ballroom, remade the Rose Garden (twice), constructed an ultimate fighting cage, installed a Presidential Walk of Fame mocking his Democratic predecessors, changed the walkway to granite, refurbished the Oval Office with gold decorations, renovated the Lincoln bathroom, and now is constructing a helipad on the White House South Lawn.

The president has often boasted that his renovations will cost the taxpayers nothing — while their true cost, such as the security enhancements of his ballroom project, will reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly $1 billion.

His latest project, the “unannounced” helipad, is being funded in part by a $5 million donation from top defense contractor Lockheed Martin, according to a report by The Washington Post. It is “intended to resolve a years-long problem with the new Marine One helicopters: They run the risk of scorching the White House’s grass.”

The total cost of the project was not disclosed, nor was the construction before it began.

“Construction crews worked into the night Monday on the White House’s South Lawn, with the project blocked off by a large fence,” the Post reported. “The helipad will be located near the South Portico, the traditional landing site for Marine One, the call sign for whichever helicopter is transporting the president, the people said.”

Retired Marine Corps Colonel Ray L’Heureux “said it appears the installation of the White House helipad was determined to be operationally necessary.”

“The new [Marine One] program is a costly one and not using the capability is bad optics all around for many reasons,” he added.

He hopes that altering the aesthetics of the White House grounds can be mitigated by painting the helipad green.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump was “secretly breaking ground on the latest desecration at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Trump’s many construction and renovation projects have drawn a loud, unrelenting backlash.

“Conservationists, lawmakers, government watchdogs, transparency advocates, and much of the public at large have balked as he charges ahead with building a glitzy new ballroom at the site where the building’s historic East Wing once stood,” The Daily Beast added.