revenge

President Donald Trump is using Pentagon funds that Congress never appropriated, crafting its own memo to skirt the law.

Normally, the Pentagon buys things from companies: weapons, equipment, supplies and services. Semafor reported on Monday that now, the Department of Defense is investing taxpayer money in companies and receiving a piece of ownership in return. It's similar to how a private investor might buy stock in a business.

What's more, the White House is helping them figure out the legal barriers.

"The White House budget office responded with a previously unreported legal opinion, reviewed by Semafor, that provides a crucial look at how the Trump administration justified one of its most controversial deployments of taxpayer money in the private sector," said the report.

For example, the Pentagon made a deal involving rare-earth-minerals company MP Materials. It would ensure that the military had a $400 million equity ownership investment in the company. They also gave the company a $150 million loan along with other forms of support.

Congress appropriates funds. Their one job, as outlined in the Constitution, is to hold the purse strings, and Congress is fairly specific about what the money will fund. The law is meant to block presidents from spending taxpayer dollars on whatever they want, such as a ballroom or a large triumphal arch.

The White House thinks it found wiggle room around that. Prior to the minerals deal, the Pentagon asked the White House for help, and the budget office issued its memo saying that the Pentagon is allowed to spend the funds because it's addressing a "national security threat." It's the same demand Trump is making about the ballroom and now the triumphal arch.

The memo, penned by OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta, uses the Defense Production Act, a 2017 law, and the president’s constitutional powers to justify it's control.

Famously, Trump told an audience in July 2019, "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president."

According to the Trump administration, the United States relies too heavily on China for critical minerals used in chips and other technology. So the administration is seeking to quickly establish its own U.S. supply chains propped up by the government.

A spokesperson for Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Semafor that he wants Congress to pass a law approving spending from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital however it sees fit.

Wicker “believes that an appropriately scoped equity investment authority is important for continued positive work in restoring a free market for critical minerals,” the spokesperson said. “But he also believes the department must regularize the process surrounding equity-based deals and increase its transparency with the Congress to render this approach sustainable over the long term.”

A former Pentagon official cited the Antideficiency Act as “one of the hurdles we thought was going to be insurmountable,” specifically regarding the MP Materials deal.

Another official who specifically worked for the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital warned that “laws can be elastic, but elasticity snaps at some point." They were "surprised that the current team has discovered the authority to do this under the Defense Production Act."

“I think this pushes the boundaries,” the official continued.

After World War II, the U.S. shifted away from overseeing the production of its own military equipment and began outsourcing production to military contractors. In his 1961 parting address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that these companies were becoming too powerful and costing too much.

During Joe Biden's four years in the White House, Donald Trump and MAGA allies relentlessly mocked Biden for his age. But now, 20 months into Trump's second presidency, it is Trump who is being mocked for his age and mental fitness. And according to Daily Beast reporter Leigh Kimmins, White House insiders are privately worried about Trump showing his age and signs of deterioration — both physically and politically.

"President Donald Trump is rapidly turning into a cranky old man, according to White House insiders," Kimmins explains in the Daily Beast. "Issues are mounting for the 80-year-old. His handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, raised the benchmark interest rate, despite Trump's demands for rates of 1 percent or lower, while the Supreme Court blocked the president's attempt to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots, and a federal judge again barred the Kennedy Center from putting his name on the building."

Kimmins adds, "Meanwhile, Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar turned on him and warned that Trump's immigration enforcement has gone 'too far,' saying Hispanic voters who helped elect him 'feel betrayed,' while gasoline has climbed to about $4.48 a gallon — roughly $1.24 higher than a year ago, and diesel has hit a record high amid the energy squeeze."

Worries about Trump's age among White House insiders, Kimmins notes, are coming "as the midterms are less than 43 days away."

"Some advisers say Trump can still be in a good mood, according to Axios," Kimmins reports. "However, others describe a tendency to grow irate quickly. They also say that Trump is beginning to look and act like an octogenarian. In July, Trump's aides described him as even more 'erratic' than usual, according to The New York Times. His struggle to find a 'face-saving' exit from the Iran conflict has reportedly left him increasingly frustrated and, in turn, more prone to abruptly switching up his positions."

Kimmins continues, "In August, aides admitted that their boss had little interest in traveling across the country to prop up weak GOP candidates for the midterms, according to CNN. In early September, Trump hosted an unprecedented midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, expecting candidates to come to him. At the end of the last month, White House insiders told The Wall Street Journal that Trump is more interested in his own legacy than in improving the economy or ending his war with Iran … Aides say Trump fears his presidency will be remembered similarly to 'past occupants of the White House he views as weak, such as Jimmy Carter.'"

President Donald Trump's decoration projects rely heavily on congressional approval for funding, but that appears to be coming to an end.

While Trump claimed he would fully fund his ballroom project through donations, he has failed to secure the financing and has begged Congress for the cash, saying the ballroom is now a military center. The next move is to do the same with an arch, and Politico reported that at least one Republican isn't buying it.

The 25-story arch with a flame atop it will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, blocking the view of the soldiers buried there.

While the arch was once supposed to have an "observation deck," it will now become a "military complex" with "snipers and drones," the president said over the weekend.

The White House ballroom that Trump claims will also be a military complex with a drone pad atop the room is less than four miles from where the arch will be built. The Pentagon and Fort Myer are even closer, and both are protected by a multi-layered air defense network covering the National Capital region. The network involves a national advanced surface-to-air missile system, quick-response helicopters and jets and even short-range mobile air defense systems, according to a 2002 press release about the new defenses in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn't keen on the idea.

“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for — in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters while at the Capitol on Monday.

“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Simpson said.

When he was asked whether Pentagon funds should be funneled into the project, he said it's "something that needs to be debated." However, he added, there are other DoD projects that should take priority.

“I hope if they decide to do it, that they would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it if they’re going to use appropriated dollars to do it,” Simpson said.

Trump has come up with a way to spend funds at the Pentagon that were not allocated by Congress through a special memo from the general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. The memo claims that, thanks to the "Defense Production Act and annual defense legislation from 2017," and Article II of the Constitution, Trump, not Congress, has the ultimate authority on all military spending.

First Lady Melania Trump is rebuffing her husband's war with the media and paving her own path.

In a panel discussion with CNN's Manu Raju, senior reporter Betsy Klein revealed that she's been approved to cover the First Lady in her effort to promote her Fostering the Future Together initiative, which aims to empower children through education and technology, USA Today reported.

Klein, along with others, was ousted from the White House on Saturday when Trump decided to remove CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the press room.

"This is also a very big week for foreign policy," Klein said Monday. "And right now there's not going to be a pool camera traveling with the president. And that is very notable. Now interestingly, we do have one new data point, which is that my credential to cover an event with the First Lady on the sidelines of the United Nations tomorrow has been approved. So, that's sort of an interesting space to watch."

Mrs. Trump will be joined by the first spouses of 57 nations, during which she intends to highlight a new private-sector partnership with tech companies. It will include female company leaders and other C-suite executives whom the first lady hopes can harness their collective power for good. She'll then launch her "Davos for Women" effort, in which she seeks to bring together 3,000 "global leaders, including heads of state and corporate chief executive officers," the report said.

Davos, the invitation-only economic forum held in Switzerland each year, does not ban women, but in past years it hasn't included many women. Roughly 2 percent of attendees at the Davos conference 25 years ago were women. It has increased recently, with 28 percent of attendees being women in 2026, according to APCO.

Raju said he found it notable that Trump posted on Truth Social Monday morning that his justification for the media blackout comes from so-called "fake news." He said that it "is a threat to our national security and must be stopped NOW!"

"But the national security thing he's been citing now on the White House building, the White House ballroom, the arch, this triumphal arch that he wants to build by the Arlington Cemetery — it's national security, he's saying," Raju noticed.

Wall Street Journal politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez referred to the phrase "national security" as a "tagline" the administration is using to justify its demands.

"I think the question is really how convincing is this to the American public as they hear these attacks?" she questioned. "I think, you know, attacks get old over a certain amount of time. And I think there's a lot of questions around how effective that is going to be when people are questioning, why are you doing this in the first."

On Monday, September 14, President Donald Trump suffered a major disappointment when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his push to impose new restrictions on voting by mail. Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), were quick to applaud the ruling. But according to Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the September 14 decision in USPS v. California left important questions unanswered. And the battle over voting rights, she emphasizes in an op-ed for The Guardian, will continue.

"Last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the district court's restraining order on USPS' (the United States' Postal Service) mail-in ballot restrictions is being hailed as a victory for electoral integrity by politicians, political commentators and voting rights advocates alike," Finkelstein writes in The Guardian. "The senator Chuck Schumer, for example, called the decision 'one of the most important cases to protect voting rights before the Supreme Court.' But the unsigned, three-sentence opinion, with only a brief concurrence and a lengthy dissent, is no such thing. The Court based its brief opinion entirely on the timing of the rollout of the new rules, which became effective on 21 August, just weeks away from the midterm elections and only days before several states were scheduled to begin mailing out their ballots."

Finkelstein continues, "California's submission to the Court, joined by 22 states and the District of Columbia, asking the Court to leave the injunction against the rule change in place, made clear that compliance with the rules in advance of the midterms would not only be difficult — it would be impossible without disenfranchising thousands of voters. And that, of course, is the point."

According to Finkelstein, the "court fight" over voting "does not address whether USPS has a right to burden mail-in voting to this degree in the first place." And the Penn law professor notes that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito "increasingly divide up the landscape as a struggle between presidential power on the one hand versus anything that might infringe on that power on the other."

Finkelstein writes, "Whether the issue is the president's right to regulate the mail; his right to remove heads of agencies, including supposedly independent agencies; his right to claim executive privilege over communications with advisers; or even his right to commit crimes with impunity through the vehicle of his official duties, Alito and Thomas, joined frequently by other members of the Court's conservative majority, have increasingly allowed their jurisprudence to be held prisoner by the drive to expand presidential authority … Defenders of voting rights must not relax. While USPS v. California is a temporary political setback for the president and his fellow Republicans, it is not yet a home run for democracy."

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) — who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Joni Ernst — has a history of voting with President Donald Trump more often than not, including signing off on his Big, Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. But Hinson, with the 2026 midterms roughly one and a half months away, is trying to show some independence from Trump. And now, the conservative congresswoman is calling an "immediate" end to Trump's war with Iran.

In a Monday morning post on X, Hinson wrote, "Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices. That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs. While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don't suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now."

Hinson continued, "These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end. I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately."

More than six and a half months ago, in late February, Trump launched a war against Iran. Trump promised a quick, brief military operation, but the conflict is showing no signs of wrapping up. And Trump's war is leading to higher fuel prices at a time when inflation is a major source of frustration for voters.

Although Trump won Iowa in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Democratic strategists believe they have a shot at flipping the U.S. Senate seat Ernst presently holds and are feeling optimistic about their nominee Josh Turek.

In order to regain control of the U.S. Senate, Democrats will need to flip at least four GOP-held seats while holding all of the seats they are defending. And they believe that Iowa's U.S. Senate race is in play for them. An Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll released earlier this month showed Hinson with a 5 percent lead over Turek, but in a recent YouGov poll, Turek had a 2 percent lead over Hinson.

A new theme is emerging in midterm campaigns: they're talking about rampant corruption in Washington.

The Washington Sun (formerly NOTUS) noticed that campaign ads are starting to pop up on both sides of the aisle, though predominantly among Democratic candidates attacking other lawmakers and the president for corruption.

A few weeks ago, a Gallup poll indicated that while economic issues continue to be top of mind for voters — whether it's the economy, inflation, gas prices, housing affordability or grocery costs — behind those is the concern that the government has become pay-to-play.

In New Hampshire, former Sen. John Sununu (R) is being forced to defend allegations that he's "cashing in" on his Senate seat after he went to work for a lobbying firm as a "senior policy advisor" following his loss in 2008. His opponent alleges that he has been “helping big pharma and big oil make billions, while we pay the price.”

The pro-Sununu crowd then attacked Rep. Chris Pappas, who is married to a former policy lawyer for Amazon. Pappas' husband also registered as a lobbyist 11 years ago and worked for Amazon for four years, until 2019.

It's just one example out of "dozens," the Sun reported.

“We’re seeing more of these kinds of ads than ever before,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “It’s across every age group, income level, a feeling that they’re getting screwed but the stock market is somehow high, so the frustration with politics-as-usual, the assumed corruption that goes along with that, is at a fever pitch.”

It comes amid reports that President Donald Trump is cashing in on his presidency, making 28,700 stock trades from his inauguration until June 2026. Trump is also raking in cash from his cryptocurrency venture. His sons are buying into companies that are then given lucrative government contracts.

Still, it isn't only Trump that is name-checked in the ads. The ads follow the theme of a politician taking donations from special interest groups and making policies that hurt voters because they're being paid to do so. Meanwhile, all other politicians or watchdogs refuse to call them out.

“Trump, and his corruption, is baked in on everything, which is why the corruption piece is so good,” a one Democratic consultant working with congressional races said. “You can link it directly to the candidates, and not make our ads just be about being anti-Trump.”

A Democratic pollster explained, “They pushed it too far and pushed it past where normal voters are willing to put up with it.”

Strategists are seeing an opening on the issue for the first time because voters are frustrated seeing a corrupt system while they're struggling to get by.

Democratic pollster Angie Kuefler has conducted her own corruption-related research, finding that voters don't merely want Democrats to pledge to stop GOP corruption; they want it across the board.

“As the candidate, you have to make clear that you’re going to take on corruption in both parties, including your own, and then you have to tie that corruption to costs going up for the voter, because what changes voting behavior is demonstrating the impact on them,” she told the Sun. “Tying a bad, corrupt politician to rising costs is a double whammy, one-two punch, that connects to both the problem in politics and to their pain.”

The Sun obtained a research memo on the matter for a Democratic super PAC saying that 52 percent of voters indicate the “most harmful” corruption likely involves “special interests, billionaires … acting within the law” to elect politicians who then owe them.

"A third of those polled said criminal acts by individual politicians were more harmful than the influence of special interests," the report said.