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President Donald Trump may be boosting Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vice President JD Vance because Vance, unlike Rubio, told the truth about the Iran war.

“It’s clear that Trump is displeased with JD Vance,” wrote The Bulwark’s conservative commentator Jonathan V. Last on Wednesday. “Early on, when Trump thought he was winning in Iran, there were leaks about Vance not being onboard with the war. Daddy Trump sent Vance to negotiate with the Iranians when they clearly had all the cards, setting him up for failure—and at the same time took Rubio with him on vacation to fight night. There was a huge dump of leaks designed to show that Trump doesn’t think Vance has the juice.”

Citing Rubio’s recent congressional testimony, in which he parroted Trump’s incorrect claims that "the war is over now” and "[w]e’re going to continue to systematically clear this passageway through the straits to restore freedom of navigation,” Last concluded that Vance fell out of favor with Trump because of his reported reservations about America invading Iran.

“In a rational world, you might expect Trump to see Vance’s correct assessment of Iran as a positive and Rubio’s mistaken assessment as a negative,” Last wrote. “But that’s not how humans work.” Quoting the fictional character Albus Dumbledore from the famous “Harry Potter” literary series, Last observed that “people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.” He then speculated that “the worse Iran gets, the worse it will be for Vance. Trump will become even more resentful—even if Vance never says told you so. Trump will remember that Vance was the one who told him not to do it.”

Last also mused that if Vance had been incorrect about the Iran war, his standing with Trump would potentially be more secure.

“In a funny way, I suspect Vance’s position inside Trump’s court would be stronger if the war had been successful and he’d been wrong,” Last explained. “In that case, Trump could magnanimously forgive him and chide him for being a worrywart.”

In contrast to Last, ex-GOP presidential aide Steve Schmidt argued on Wednesday that Vance might actually be better positioned to inherit the Republican Party’s presidential leadership than Rubio.

“Marco Rubio will never, ever be the President of the United States, but because of the terribleness of [Vice President] JD Vance, he has become sort of a flavor of the month,” Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, said on his Substack. “And because of the corruption of the corporate media, Marco Rubio is taken and treated seriously. He's treated like a statesman.”

Even though Rubio supporters praise his handling of foreign policy, Schmidt pointed out that Trump still seems to invest greater power in Vance.

“At the end of the day, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is not leading the negotiations in Pakistan — JD Vance is,” Schmidt argued. “And he's accompanied by the President's son-in-law, who may be one ... of the most corrupt individuals in the history of the country. ... These men are raking in billions in corrupt acts around the globe and they're leading the negotiations. The man who the Saudis deposited $2 billion of cash into his investment fund despite him having no investment experience.”

New Fox News polling is showing a top red state may be lost to Republicans.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is eight points above the appointed incumbent Republican senator, Jon Husted. This is a new bent for a state that has remained reliably Republican, with voters there overwhelmingly choosing President Donald Trump in 2024 by about 11 points.

Andrew Desiderio from Punchbowl News said on Thursday that he spoke to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who was initially fearful that the year would be a disaster for Democrats because of the seats up for election. Now he believes Democrats can win the majority.

"And I was like, okay, yeah, okay, buddy, we'll see," said Desiderio. "We'll see about that. And now, a year later, we are a few months out from the election, and Trump's poll numbers have plummeted. Ohio is seemingly in play."

Trump's approval in Ohio has dropped ten points from Nov 2024 to June 2026.

Overcoming that 11-point advantage Trump had in 2024 was "unthinkable" last year. Voters, Desiderio said, don't merely blame Trump for all their problems; they also believe that Republicans should be fighting for their best interests, particularly on affordability issues.

Jamie Gangel, CNN special correspondent, agreed, it's clear Trump has been a huge benefit to Democrats, but the popularity of Brown can't be overstated.

"He has repeatedly done in Ohio what other Democrats haven't been able to do. I spoke to a Democratic leader this morning, though, who was very happy to talk about Ohio, but did not want to talk about Maine, where they really see a disaster," she noted.

Husted was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine after JD Vance won the vice presidency on Trump's ticket. In the two years he's been in office, Husted hasn't established himself to the degree that Brown has in public office for nearly 50 years during his combined terms in the U.S. House and Senate.

Voters consistently indicate that economic issues are top of mind, with the affordability crisis at the forefront. The second issue is the Iran War, which has driven up gas prices in Ohio from $3.06 last year to $4.18 on Thursday, the AAA gas prices site says.

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A mixed martial artist and UFC talent once known as a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump tore apart his planned UFC event on the White House grounds, saying that the event is "desecrating" a government and opening the door for it to become more "corrupted,' per a report from The New Republic.

Bryce Mitchell currently competes in UFC's male bantamweight division and boasts an 18-3 professional win-loss record. He was also an outspoken Trump supporter in the past, once claiming that he would take a bullet for the president. But more recently, he has become harshly critical as his second term has played out.

As the New Republic reported on Thursday, Mitchell once again ripped into Trump, this time as his administration is set to cross over fully with the world of MMA. UFC's Freedom 250 is an upcoming card set to take place on June 14 to mark Trump's 80th birthday, at a venue currently being built on the White House grounds. The promotion's CEO, Dana White, has been a longtime friend and supporter of Trump, and a booster of Republican politics overall. The event has drawn widespread criticism and condemnation as a borderline dystopian corruption of the presidency, even as it has also become a hot ticket among MAGA acolytes.

In a post to X, Mitchell warned that the event was opening up the Trump administration to even more grift, and "desecrating" the purpose of the government in American society.

“What I think, personally, is that our government is desecrating its role in society by entertaining sports,” Mitchell said. “Our government is to protect and serve the people, and really should be as minimal as possible."

He also added: “When you’re doing all of this stuff, hosting sporting events, it’s really outside of the goal of what the government was intended to be because our tax dollars and resources are funding this operation... The government is supposed to protect us, not entertain us"

While admitting the show was a no-brainer for the UFC business-wise, he nonetheless stressed that the federal government should not be getting involved in sporting events.

Another ex-Trump supporting MMA fighter, Sean Strickland, the current UFC middleweight champion, has also been speaking out against the Freedom 250 event. Previously claiming that he would not be participating in a show to entertain the "Epstein list," he also alleged more recently that he was blocked from the event over his critical statements against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also claims to be the only male champion banned from the event due to his Israel comments.

“UFC at the White House with [Netanyahu] in the audience," Strickland wrote about the event on Instagram. "Straight [Israel] slop.”

He added later: “The only male American champ banned at the White House because I said Trump is owned by [Netanyahu]. That’s not public opinion it’s fact.”

On Monday, June 1, Axios' Marc Caputo reported that the Trump administration "plans to drop its controversial" $1.7 billion "anti-weaponization fund," and a White House source told Axios, "It's dead for now." Countless Democrats have condemned the fund, but criticism is coming from the right as well. In a blistering editorial, the conservative National Review applauds the fund's apparent demise and hopes there are no efforts to revive it.

The Donald Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said the fund was being created to help people it claims were unfairly targeted for criminal charges by the Biden administration and former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. But the fund's critics on both the left and the right denounced it as a "slush fund" that would force taxpayers to give money to rioters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

In the editorial — headlined "The Anti-Weaponization Fund Is Dead. Long Live Its Death" — the National Review editorial board argues, "Well, that didn't take very long. Two weeks after we editorialized against the Trump administration's $1.776 billion 'anti-weaponization fund,' Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House subcommittee hearing that the administration is not going forward with the fund. That's good news. It's a sign that Senate Republicans in particular have remembered that they run an independent branch of the federal government, with its own responsibility to voters and its own duty to uphold the Constitution and the laws it writes."

The Review board adds, "They should go two steps further: bar Trump from reviving the idea, and ensure that future presidents are no longer empowered to engage in similar mischief."

The conservative board notes that Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially GOP senators, "had concerns from the start about the fund."

"Its huge and transparently symbolic price tag was obviously not calibrated to any realistic assessment of the government's actual liability for legal wrongs allegedly committed by the Biden administration," the National Review board writes. "Its December 1, 2028 end date was obviously designed to ensure that it served the politics of this administration and not its successors. There were real worries that it would be used not only as a corrupt slush fund to reward political allies, but specifically to pay off January 6 rioters in ways that would be both morally wrong and politically embarrassing to Republicans."

The board continues, "To the extent that there's an argument for creating new rights of compensation for government misconduct beyond those already on the books, that's the job of Congress…. It is also heartening to see that the power of the purse still works…. The fund was publicly indefensible, and election years have a way of putting a stop to indefensible things."

Former Trump Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor is warning that President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an order that roughly “triples” the number of federal employees the president can dismiss at will, for any reason, or none.

“The White House quietly issued an order turning 8,000 top ‘civil service’ jobs into roles that serve at the pleasure of the president,” Taylor explained, noting that these are the federal government’s “top lieutenants,” the “most senior career officials.”

These “are the people serving right under Trump’s political appointees (the ones he assigns to run federal departments and agencies). Presidents get ‘their people’ to reshape policy priorities.” The list of political appointees in any administration ordinarily runs about 4,000 people.

By making the next level down essentially political appointees, Trump “just tripled the size of his personal army inside government,” says Taylor, calling it “a breathtaking takeover of the machinery of state.”

“These aren’t rando’s,” Taylor added on social media. “They’re the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees. Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.”

The federal civil service exists to carry out the wishes of the administration, but its duty, as he said, is to the law, not to any one president. That’s how a new administration can enter the White House while the government continues to run.

As Taylor noted, as DHS chief of staff, he too was a political appointee — someone who could be fired at any time.

“I wasn’t protected by anything other than the president’s favor,” Taylor says. “That’s why — when you make a decision to speak out about wrongdoing — you’ve got to be prepared to quit or be fired. You have no protections if you fall out of favor with the president. Unfortunately, that’s why you see so many Pam Bondis and Todd Blanches, eagerly doing whatever Trump wants. They know how easy it is to lose their job.”

That’s why the “top lieutenants” should not be political appointees, Taylor argues.

“Everyone underneath those positions, some two million civil servants, has historically been insulated from political whim by removal protections dating to the reforms that ended the spoils system back in the 1800s,” he writes. “What just happened is almost certainly illegal. A coalition of federal employees unions are, I hope, prepared to fight hard.”

President Donald Trump's war with Iran seems to be causing a seismic change in the Middle East, but according to a new break down from The i Paper, it is happening in just about the exact opposite way he intended.

Writing for the outlet on Thursday, foreign affairs reporter Kieron Monks relayed the news of the recent address given by Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. There, he claimed that the country's war with the U.S. and Israel was bringing about a change in the region that the Iranian government has long been working towards.

"The nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases,” Khamenei said. “America will no longer have a secure foothold for its mischief or military presence in the region.”

"For decades, Iran’s clerical regime has made the expulsion of US forces from the Middle East a central aim," Monks explained. "Tehran believes that Trump’s war is bringing that vision closer to reality."

The U.S. has so far balked at peace demands from Iran requiring it to withdraw military forces from the region. Now, however, with Iran targeting numerous U.S. military bases in the region, Monks said that Middle Eastern nations "are wondering if they have become liabilities rather than assets."

Dina Esfandiary, an Iran specialist and Middle East lead for Bloomberg Economics, told The i Paper that the nation "100 percent" sees an opening with this war to try and force the U.S. out. Andreas Krieg, a Gulf security expert at King’s College London, added that the current political dynamics in the U.S. might actually bear out in Iran's favor.

“As a lot of people in the MAGA world are saying do we actually need to be there, a lot of voices in the Gulf are saying, why are we paying for the Americans to be here?” Krieg observed.

“I think it’s obvious that the war in Iran has not gone well,” Kristian Ulrichsen, a Middle East scholar with a focus on the Persian Gulf at Baker University’s Rice Institute, told the outlet, concurring with Krieg's observations. “The objectives were not achieved and it has created a situation where the US cannot force a decisive breakthrough. That may give talking points to the groups in D.C. who make the argument that actually we should leave the region.”

"It is extremely unlikely that the US military would pull out entirely," Monks explained. "But the Trump administration is under increasing domestic and international pressure over its role in the region."

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include new reporting disputing RadarOnline's report.

In addition to his work on CNN since the early 2000s, broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper spent more than two decades on CBS' News' "60 Minutes" — an association that ended with his farewell broadcast on May 17. CBS News is looking for a replacement for Cooper on "60 Minutes," and according to the Austin American-Statesman and RadarOnline, execs may be considering a prominent figure in the Manosphere: podcaster Joe Rogan.

But according to Senafor's Max Tani, CBS News is disputing that report.

On X, Tani posted a link to the American-Statemen's reporting and wrote, "A CBS News spokesperson tells me this is false."

The American-Statesman's Faith Bugenhagen explains, "RadarOnline, a celebrity and entertainment news site, reported that CBS considering Rogan, who boasts 20.9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, 'PowerfulJRE,' and millions of viewers of his podcast, 'The Joe Rogan Experience,' would be 'strategy,' not 'stunt casting.' Rogan would bring 'a core connection to over 50 percent of the country,' an unnamed media executive told RadarOnline, saying the 58-year-old media mogul speaks to 'viewers who feel ignored or mocked by legacy media' — a viewership that, if reengaged, would solve the network's ratings and credibility problems."

During the United States' 2024 presidential election, Rogan's endorsement of Trump underscored the gains he was making with the Manosphere, independents and swing voters.

Although the 58-year-old Rogan leans to the right politically, he isn't ultra-MAGA in his views. Rogan has often been described as libertarian, and he considers himself socially liberal — supporting same-sex marriage and the legalization of recreational drug use. Rogan, however, is critical of liberals and progressives on gun control.

Rogan, as a broadcaster, is sometimes compared to others in the "hot talk" genre, including Howard Stern and Tom Leykis (who also appeal to a largely male audience). However, Stern and Leykis opposed Trump in the 2024 election, while Rogan supported him.

Trump appeared on Rogan's show during the 2024 race — an appearance that, Bugenhagen points out, is credited with helping increase Trump's appeal to young Generation Z men and the Manosphere. The Austin, Texas-based Rogan, however, has recently criticized some of Trump's policies, including mass deportations, the Iran war, and his campaign against late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

"Austin-based actor Matthew McConaughey, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Texas native country star Miranda Lambert and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin) are among those who have been featured on the podcast," Bugenhagen notes.

Cooper, now 59, announced his retirement from "60 Minutes" in February. Post-CBS News, Cooper is still hosting the long-running "Anderson Cooper 360°" on CNN.

"60 Minutes" has been on even longer, debuting on CBS in 1968.